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WHAT IS COGNITIVE ACCESSIBILITY?

In this course, we focus on how to improve the experience of students with sensory disabilities, especially visual disabilities. There is another area of accessibility that is worth addressing, though: cognitive accessibility.

Cognitive accessibility is a loose term for designing experiences that are accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities, including (but not limited to):

ADHD
Alzheimer's
Aphasia
Autism spectrum disorders
Dyslexia, dyscalculia, or disgraphia
Learning disabilities
Mental health conditions, such as anxiety or depression
Traumatic brain injury

Designing a course for users of screen readers is mostly a science: it requires following specific steps in order to create an accessible code foundation for these students. On the other hand, cognitive accessibility is much more of an art: there are few hard and fast rules, and it requires looking at your course content broadly. There is also a lot of overlap here with Universal Design for Learning, which is the topic of the next module, Beyond Digital Accessibility.

It's worth noting that the disabilities we're talking about here make up the vast majority of college students with disabilities. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, sensory disabilities account for 7% of students with disabilities, mobility disabilities account for 7%, chronic health conditions another 11%, and 3% unclassified. The remaining 72% of students with disabilities fall into categories relevant for cognitive disabilities, with learning disabilities like dyslexia being 31% and ADD/ADHD being 18%.

It's also worth returning to a concept we discussed earlier: Permanent, Temporary, and Situational disability. While permanent and temporary cognitive disabilities are common, so are situational ones. Designing your course with cognitive accessibility principles in mind benefits students with ADHD, dyslexia, or autism, but it also helps students experiencing brain fog due to a cold, students who stayed up late to cram for an exam, or students who are distracted by an important family matter. Accessibility benefits everyone, and this is even more clear when you design for cognitive accessibility.

In the next section, we'll cover some general principles for all cognitive accessibility. Then, we'll examine specific disabilities and how you can make your course more accessible for students with those disabilities.

PRINCIPLES OF COGNITIVE ACCESSIBILITY

Cognitive accessibility principles are designed to reduce the mental load necessary to engage with your course. This can include reducing the need for focus, memory, "common knowledge," or complex problem-solving.

Look at your course with this question in mind: "How can I make my course easier to process and understand?"

These principles are not "dumbing down" your course: they are intended to be applied where possible in your course, but not necessarily on all learning materials. For example, industry jargon may be necessary to your learning objectives, in which case it doesn't harm cognitive accessibility to use it in learning materials. On the other hand, using jargon should be minimized in places where the jargon isn't helping students work toward learning objectives.

To help with the question of where to apply these principles ask yourself, "Is this content directly working toward learning objectives?" If yes, you can more sparingly apply these principles. If no, that content is a great place to apply these principles. For example, you could choose to not apply these principles to the question prompt for a discussion board, but instead apply them to the instructions for completing the discussion board.

Use Simple, Easy-to-Understand Language

Where possible, use simple, easy-to-understand language. This includes short sentences and common words. Avoid idioms or figures of speech. Reduce or eliminate jargon, especially in instructions to students. In addition to discipline-specific jargon, be on the lookout for jargon related to the university, higher education, Canvas, or your course.

Simple language has many benefits, including reducing confusion and fatigue for students with cognitive disabilities.

Reduce the Need for Memory

Identify places where you are referencing something else, then find ways to remind students. Hyperlinks are a powerful tool to reduce the need for memory. For instance, if you say, "In Unit 2 we discussed X topic," you can hyperlink to the content in Unit 2 to refresh students' memory. Likewise, if you reference a syllabus policy or other instructions, linking to them helps students not have to remember where they are located.

Reducing the need for memory can minimize frustration and allow students to focus on the task at hand.

Provide Multiple Ways to Understand Content

For key content, do not rely on one form of understanding only, as this can harm students who do not learn well in that way. For example, instead of providing a text explanation only, include a graphic representation such as an infographic and an audio representation such as a podcast. Use graphs, charts, and tables to supplement ideas explained in text form.

Providing multiple ways to understand content ensures that students with cognitive disabilities can learn in the ways they learn best.

Break Up Content

Long content can be difficult for people with cognitive disabilities to understand. Avoid walls of text. Break up longer content using section headings, bullet lists, images, or multimedia. Create separate pages in Canvas to chunk content so that no one page has too much content.

Breaking up content helps reduce fatigue and increase comprehension and motivation.

Review Key Items

Provide recaps, reviews, or summaries for key items. Reviews help student learn and retain information, and they can are helpful for students looking for a particular piece of information. Mark recaps or reviews clearly so that students can easily find them.

Make It Easy to Get Help

Students with cognitive disabilities may need help in your course. Making it clear where they can get help is an important step to reducing barriers for these students. Make yourself available for students to give you feedback. Provide clear links to university resources and technical support, preferably in multiple places throughout your course.

Create a Predictable and Stable Course

Reduce the number of links in your course navigation. Avoid changing your course navigation or structure unless absolutely necessary. Don't use terms that are dramatically different from how most other university courses use them. Don't change assignments or due dates unless necessary. If you do change assignments or due dates, make sure to clearly mark this in multiple places. Don't assume students will see an Announcement and be able to know and remember changes to the course.

Creating a predictable and stable course helps reduce anxiety and ensure students don't have to spend important cognitive bandwidth interpreting the course.

MAKE YOUR COURSE ACCESSIBLE FOR SPECIFIC DISABILITIES

In this section, we'll discuss specific disabilities and how you can make your course more accessible for students with these disabilities.

You may have students with these disabilities who do not disclose them or provide an accommodation letter. Further, if a student does provide an accommodation letter, these accessible design approaches may not be included in those accommodations, yet they can have a profound impact on a student's experience of your course.

ADHD/ADD

For students with ADHD/ADD, your goal is minimize distractions. One of the main factors here is the layout of a webpage. Thankfully, with Canvas, the page layout is simple and easy to navigate. Be attentive when you are assigning materials from an external source. Sometimes, these materials use layouts that are visually complex or distracting. For readings, provide PDF links with any distracting elements removed, rather than a direct link to the reading. For example, a student with ADHD reading the following New York Times interview would benefit from a distraction-free PDF.

News article with distracting banner advertisement for The Bachelorette and Editor picks articles

Having longer paths to find information can be hard for users with ADHD. As much as possible, ensure key items are easy to access from your main navigation and/or course home page. See how many clicks it takes to find key items like your syllabus or contact information, then do what you can to reduce the number of clicks. For example, include a link to the course syllabus and your contact information right on your course home page. Placing key information in multiple places also helps make it easier for students to find what they need without getting lost or distracted.

Finally, reconsider any time limitations you place on students, such as through online quizzes or in-person activities. Students with ADHD often perform worse under time constraints and benefit from having no time restrictions at all.

Autism Spectrum

For students on the autism spectrum, simplicity is key. This includes using simple language (which we discussed earlier) and reducing visual complexity. If possible, reduce the complexity of informational visuals, such as graphs or charts. Break up walls of text using section headings, lists, images, or videos.

It's also important to provide clear directions for students on the autism spectrum. For example, instead of saying "finish your quiz" in the quiz instructions, tell students to "click Submit."

Dyslexia

For students with dyslexia, non-textual representations of course content are helpful. For instance, provide graphic, video, and audio representations alongside text.

Unless absolutely necessary, do not require specific spelling. If you use quiz questions like "Fill in the blank," make sure to provide as many possible spellings as you can.

Minimize the use of ALL CAPS or italics text, as these are less legible, especially for people with dyslexia. Use size or other elements for emphasis instead. Also use plenty of white space throughout your pages, making sure not to condense too much information into a smaller visual area.

While you may have heard of dyslexic-support fonts like OpenDyslexic, we do not recommend them as they are not easily available in Canvas and the scientific evidence for their effectiveness is minimal. If you make your Canvas site accessible using the advice in this self-paced course, individual students will be able to customize their own view of the content, such as changing fonts or magnifying content.

Anxiety

To reduce anxiety about the unknown, signpost what comes next in various ways throughout your course. For example, at the end of each page, include a brief "Up Next" statement, so that students know what to expect.

Make key information, such as due dates and assignment requirements, clear and prominent. This can help with students feeling like they're missing something important or need to go searching to make sure they are doing things right.

Reduce anxiety-provoking design elements, especially on your assessments. For example, unless necessary, quizzes should not make students answer questions in order without being able to go back and check answers. Like with ADHD, we encourage you to reconsider time limitations on quizzes, as they can also negatively impact performance for students with anxiety.

Quick Recap

The vast majority of students with disabilities have cognitive or learning disabilities. Following cognitive accessibility principles can help create a positive experience for these students.

Further Reading