Technology & Learning Connections
AEM
Accessible Educational Materials
Accessible instructional materials (or accessible educational materials) are instructional materials that have been formatted or adapted to meet the individual needs of students with disabilities. The definition of instructional materials in Florida includes hardbacked or softbacked textbooks, electronic content, consumables, learning laboratories, manipulatives, electronic media, and computer courseware or software that serve as the basis for instruction for each student in the core courses of mathematics, language arts, social studies, science, reading, and literature.
There are three areas of personalization that should be considered.
- Content
- information
- language
- reading level
- Structure
- flow of information
- layout
- amount of information (chunking)
- Presentation
- print/digital print
- braille and use with a refreshable braille display
- audio
- graphics/symbolated text
- manipulatives
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends four principles of accessibility as guidelines for ensure that all materials, and particularly digital materials are usable by individuals with disabilities. These principles are:
- Content must be perceivable
by each user.
- User interface components in the content must be operable
by each user.
- Content and controls must be understandable
to each user.
- Content must be robust enough to work with current and future technologies
(including assistive technologies).
IDEA 2004 established the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) and requires LEAs to provide accessible materials to students who qualify as being print disabled due to a visual, physical, or organic based reading disability. Through this system core curriculum textbooks are available in specialized formats (Braille, audio, digital etext, large print). For more information in Florida visit NIMAS/Florida at http://www.fimcvi.org/
Please contact any of the following individuals for assistance in meeting the instructional material needs of students with disabilities.
Karrie Musgrove
Program Specialist
Specific Learning Disability
Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services
Florida Department of Education
850-245-0475
Kay Ratzlaff
Supervisor
Florida Instructional Materials Center/Visually Impaired
NIMAS/Florida
Hillsborough County Public Schools
4210 West Bay Villa Avenue
Tampa, FL 33611
(813) 837-7826 office
(813) 837-7979 fax
(800) 282-9193
Carmelina Hollingsworth
Coordinator of District Outreach Programs
Resource Materials and Technology Center: D/HH and
Outreach Services: B/VI AND D/HH
Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind
207 San Marco Avenue
St. Augustine, FL 32084
904-827-2660
800-356-6731
Janet Good
Coordinator
PS/RtI Technology & Learning Connections Project
4558 S. Clyde Morris Blvd. Suite 2
Port Orange, FL 32129
1-844-848-8936
Resources
Florida Department of Education Guidelines
- FLDOE Technical Assistance Paper (TAP) - Accessible Instructional Materials
- FLDOE Technical Assistance Paper (TAP) - Assistive Technology
- FLDOE Florida Accommodations Manual
- FLDOE Publishers UDL Rubric Self-Assessment Tool
- NIMAS/Florida - http://www.fimcvi.org/nimas-florida/
- Florida Instructional Materials Center/Visually Impaired - http://www.fimcvi.org
- Resource Materials and Technology Center: D/HH - http://rmtcosbd.org/
- PS/RtI Technology & Learning Connections - https://www.tlc-mtss.com
- AT & UDL Loan Library - https://www.at-udl.net/