Tips
for Equal Access Presentations
Suggestions
for making your presentation accessible
- Allow access to
front row seats for persons with disabilities.
- If possible, adjust
the lighting for persons with visual disabilities. Ask what works best
for them.
- Make aisles accessible
so participants using wheelchairs/scooters do not have to sit in the
back of the room.
- Clear the aisles
of obstacles for persons with visual and mobility disabilities.
- Control background
noise to the greatest possible extent.
- Speak in well-paced,
well-modulated tones. Monitor rate and volume.
- Avoid turning your
back to the audience while speaking. People may be depending on lip-reading.
- Repeat questions
aloud before answering them.
- Accompany overhead
transparencies, posters, Power Point presentations, etc. with verbal
description. Be sure to read what is on the screen.
- Avoid relying solely
on oral presentations and gestures to illustrate a point, or using visual
points of reference (e.g., "this" and "that" or
"here" and "there"). Read or describe what you are
pointing to.
- Having your handouts
available on disk and/or having a large-print version of your handouts
available will be helpful to persons with low vision (enlarging font
to 18 point bold or enlarging each page 130-150% on 14" X 17"
sheets of paper would be ideal).
- Have transparencies
available in hard copy for close examination.
- Use clear, vivid,
legible, sharp high-contrast handouts. Avoid using dark ink on dark
paper, fancy fonts, or extremely small print.
Excerpted from "On the Road to Access"
by Nancy L. Badger, Ph.D. and Karen A. Meyers, Ph.D., published in the
American College Personnel
Association's Developments, June 1998.
source: Mary
McGhee
http://www.casagordita.com/
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Page last updated August 2, 2003