Recently, I had the honour of being the guest speaker at an Adult ADHD Support meeting for the London Chapter of the LDAO.  I was asked to share anything with them which they might find useful. As an IT Professional with learning disabilities and ADHD, I believe very strongly in the advocacy of informational accessibility.  I decided that “My Best Tips for Staying Focused,” and an overview of the technologies I use to thrive, would be the best way to achieve my goal.

I was launching into the part about how we used to scan our books into an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program, such as Kurzweil 3000 ($1000 CDN), textHelp Read and Write ($675), or even OmniPage 17 ($199). Unfortunately, with OCR technology, graphics can be interrupted as letters, throwing the reader’s attention and ending all comprehension that may have been taking place.   However, instead of wasting time with scanning and correcting recognition errors, it is possible to obtain electronic copies of textbooks through the Disability Office at Conestoga College.

With this tidbit, the hands shot into the air! A couple of London college students were wondering when and how electronic books became available, as they don’t have access to this service.   I had to think back to my days of working in the Adaptive Technology Lab at Conestoga which ended 3 years ago when I left to go to start my own business. At this point, Conestoga was tweaking the process between student, technician, disability office and over 300 publishers. For every book that is requested, documentation is taken to record all the details of every transaction. The student has to promise not only to not share the files they are given, but also to delete them after they are done with the course. The process for the most part works extremely well, and the student benefits from being able to get the original book in pdf format with perfect playback. Sometimes the books take a long time to become available, or simply aren’t available in which case the book still needs to be scanned. The bottom line is the textbook is still not going directly to the consumer.

It is up to consumers who require accessible formats to tell the publishers they need this, as the Disability Office at Conestoga was able to do. If we look to our neighbours in the US they have BookShare (www.bookshare.com) for readers with print disabilities where you can access over 60,000 electronic books for readers of all levels and backgrounds. However this is just for US citizens. One day maybe Canada can manage to make the same kind of partnerships between publishers and their customers as well.

While I was preparing my presentation, I was cognizant of providing as much useful information as possible.  I found it very refreshing and rewarding that the audience was able to identify their greatest need, and to advocate for the information they needed most – text book conversion.  Being able to have timely access to electronic textbooks and knowing how to study with them is critical to success for a student with a reading disability. However, it isn’t enough just to be able to obtain textbooks files.  For a person to be truly independent, they need to be able to quickly create their own files whenever the need arises without relying on others to do the conversion for them.    After all, independence and self-advocacy are essential skills, which we all need, in our journey to reach our potential.

Leslie Holtman is Owner/Operator of Adaptive Ability, a Guelph based technology training business that focuses on helping individuals with invisible disabilities.