The special senses are a major way in which our body interfaces with the outside environment. Unfortunately, when these special senses don’t work properly, this can lead to a disability. While the U.S. does a generally good job providing accessibility to the disabled, we are far from perfect. This discussion board will have you consider some ongoing issues related to disabilities, and will have you brainstorm ideas of how they could be addressed.

Directions

1. Read through each of these articles/pages:
1. Center for Disease Control Disability (Links to an external site.) page. Make sure to read the Overview and Disability Inclusion sections. The latter has multiple pages to it.
2. “Why accessibility is important” (Links to an external site.). Read all pages by clicking the links on the left-hand navigation bar.
3. “People with ‘invisible disabilities’ fight for understanding” (Links to an external site.). Listen to the audio or read the transcript.
2. Write up an initial post in your own words. This should be in paragraph form. Make sure to at least cover the following in your writing. This should be at least 250 words.
1. What are some key points from the reading? Provide a brief summary. What did you learn? What did you find interesting?
2. Considering your own life experiences, what are some examples where disability inclusion or accessibility might be an issue for someone disabled? Consider your job, places you visit regularly, forms of communication, etc.
3. How could “we” (i.e., yourself, your family, managers, leadership, the city/state, federal government, etc.) address the examples you provided in the previous question to help those who are disabled have equal access?
4. Optional bonus: You have learned about “invisible disabilities” as part of this reading. Especially in the context of online learning, you may not know your instructor is disabled unless they tell you (I am not disabled, but certainly your other instructors could be). Don’t forget, your classmates could also have disabilities, so if they are peer-reviewing your work they may have issues. Creating accessible documents is then not only something your instructors should be doing, but you as students as well. For 2 points of extra-credit, find an inaccessible piece of work (i.e., there should be accessibility issues with it) you created for one of your other classes, and make it accessible. There are guides available here for Google Docs (Links to an external site.) and Microsoft Word (Links to an external site.), and Microsoft PowerPoint (Links to an external site.). Microsoft products also have a builtin accessibility checker (Links to an external site.) to help you. Attach this fixed file along your initial discussion board post, and briefly mention what changes you made to make the document accessible. 
3. Make this initial post by the end of Friday, 4/29 at 11:59pm
4. By the end of Sunday, 5/1, write a reply to two peers. Consider the following in your reply. You can absolutely write beyond the topics below. This should be at least 75 words each.
1. What did you find interesting? Have you had any similar experiences in your own life?
2. Are there any alternative “solutions” to the examples that were provided?
3. Is there anything interesting or related that you can add to your reply?