Durham Chronicle Volume XLIV, Issue 11

24 The Chronicle April 10 - 16, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus
Accessibility heading in right direction
Aly Beach
The Chronicle
Douglas Howard, a Durham College broadcast student.
“At Durham College, when they
say ‘success matters,’ I’d have to say
that is very true but there’s room for
improvement. Always,” says Durham
College (DC) student Douglas
Howard.
Howard, 39, is a second-year
student in the broadcast-radio and
contemporary media program.
Howard is legally blind and has
difficulties hearing. He cannot see
with his right eye, and has limited
vision in his left eye.
“I’m visually impaired but I also
have a hearing impairment… and
I have a bit of a learning disability
where I’m slower at learning so it
takes more time and things have to
be adjusted,” says Howard.
One in seven people, aged 15 or
older, has a disability in Canada.
Those numbers are reflected at
DC.
DC has an Access and Support
Centre (ASC) which offers a variety
of services to students with disabilities.
It is located next to Vendor’s
Alley in the Gordon Willey Building.
Services include accommodations,
extra test time, third-party
note takers, educational assistants
(EA), counselling services, assistive
technology and more.
In order for a student to use these
services, they must submit forms
related to their exceptionality such
as an Independent Education Plan
(IEP) from high school or medical
documentation. Then they have an
intake appointment with one of the
accessibility coaches. Some accessibility
coaches specialize in certain
areas such as working with the deaf
and hard-of-hearing.
Christine Gibson, an accessibility
coach at the ASC, says the
services students receive are based
on the student’s needs and concerns,
not just the paperwork.
“It’s certainly based on that
documentation provided but it’s
also based on that initial intake
appointment and the discussion
with the student and what concerns
they bring forward,” says Gibson.
“Often the documentation won’t
explicitly describe those concerns.”
Howard uses the ASC for a variety
of services, primarily for assistive
technology. He also has in-class
and out-of-class EAs to assist him.
He has used note takers provided
by the ASC in the past.
“I use the ASC a lot, for many
things like technology,” says Howard,
“I’m not bad at typing but I
use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but
I also use scripts that go along with
JAWS called J-Say.”
JAWS is a screen reading software
that reads digital text aloud,
while Dragon NaturallySpeaking
and J-Say are software that transcribe
spoken word into text. J-Say
also repeats back what was said.
He also uses a program called
Kurzweil, an assistive learning
technology.
Howard has recently found a
program called Gold Wave that
allows him to edit audio for his
classes, as Adobe Audition is not
accessible to him.
Software like these can be expensive,
but according to Gibson
the school can help.
“There’s no fee for the students.
These are services that are provided
to students by Durham College,”
says Gibson. She says that there are
occasionally costs, usually for assistive
devices and equipment, but
the ASC can help students find
funding.
Photograph by Aly Beach
“It was expensive, that’s why I’m
glad the college helped me cover it,
or rather, covered it for me under
the student grant for services and
equipment for persons with permanent
disabilities,” says Howard.
Howard says some classes he is
taking are very visual, and as he
has poor vision he feels like some
programs may have to change the
ways they are teaching.
He says most power points are
not accessible for screen readers.
Howard also says he would like
to see more descriptive audio on
video, as text-on-video is not accessible
for him. He says this would
be helpful in his classes and at Riot
Radio.
“I think, for a lot of the classes, if
there’s any video stuff, they should
have an option of… descriptive audio.
I also feel that power points
may need to be done away with,”
he says.
Howard says he occasionally
feels overwhelmed in his classes,
as he sometimes takes longer than
his classmates to learn things and
complete tasks.
“I sometimes get frustrated on
things like, ‘am I cut out for this?’
because there’s so much. Because at
certain times it’s hard,” says Howard,
“The team is doing this, this
and this, so sometimes I’m telling
them ‘hey guys, slow down, you
need to slow it down a bit so I can
catch up’.”
However, Howard took “A short
history of the world” in the Global
Classroom and had a positive experience
despite the visual nature
of the class. Professor Lon Appleby
allowed him to audio record the
classes.
“He [Appleby] worked with me,
he’s awesome…he tried to be as
open to being accessible as possible,”
says Howard.
As for how the school is doing
in terms of accessibility, Howard
is content.
“I do [think the school is doing
enough for students with disabilities]
but I think there is severe
room for improvement. There is
always room for improvement,”
says Howard.
Gibson agrees with Howard,
adding that things have improved
for people with disabilities with the
introduction of the Accessibility for
Ontarians with Disabilities Act in
2005.
“I think there is definitely an increased
awareness for the responsibility
of society as a whole to
provide accommodations and to
provide equal access to…people in
general,” says Gibson. “There’s always
room for improvement on that
but I think we’ve definitely taken a
step in the right direction."
MADD teaches
students about pot
Shana Fillatrau
The Chronicle
Both Sarah Harper and Trisha
Dosaj Makarov lost loved ones in
impaired driving crashes. Makarov
lost her sister and her niece, and
Harper lost her 19-year-old daughter.
The impact of these loses will
never be fully healed, so they want
to help make sure no one else feels
their pain.
Part of their tactic is to change
their wording.
With cannabis set to be legalized
later this year, it’s a big topic of discussion.
A question on the minds of Canadians
is, what about being high
and driving?
Harper, president of Mothers
Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
Durham, says the organization is
doing many things to combat this
issue.
MADD has commercials aimed
at deterring young people from being
impaired while driving.
“Youth tend to be the highest
users of cannabis, but they’re the
least likely to drive while impaired,
which is great,” says Harper.
Though, she says when young
people do drive, “they’re going to
get into crashes.”
Harper says many people feel
driving high is not dangerous.
Harper says many people think
driving high, specifically with cannabis,
makes them a better driver.
“It’s not true,” she says. “So, we
just need to continue educating
people about how driving impaired
by cannabis specifically affects
them.”
MADD educates young people
anywhere from Grade 4 to Grade
12.
The Durham chapter has its own
initiative called Project Safe Prom,
where upcoming-prom attendees
are shown a video on the importance
of not driving impaired that
night.
“I think that young people,
they don’t have the maturity to
understand that these things can
happen to them. They think that
they’re invincible. So, when they’re
drinking or doing drugs, they don’t
things anything will happen,” says
Harper.
In terms of the law, she says laws
may be changed to go along with
cannabis legalization, as well as
possible mandatory roadside testing
and oral fluid testing.
Right now, she says, police use
drug recognition experts to do
roadside sobriety tests.
She feels there are not enough
trained officers, and more will
help to keep impaired drivers off
the road.
Dosaj Makarov, MADD Durham’s
director of victim services,
says the organization has changed
its wording to keep up with the
times.
“Even though it’s Mothers
Against Drunk Driving, it’s impaired,”
she says. “So, the messaging
we’re putting out now is
specifically combatting impaired
driving. So, it’s going to take a lot.
It’s going to take a lot of that constant
messaging out there to recognize
that impaired means both
through drugs and alcohol.”
Harper says many people think
driving high, specifically with cannabis,
makes them a better driver.
Photograph by Shana Fillatrau
Sarah Harper and Trisha Dosaj Makarov from MADD.
“It’s not true,” she says. “So, we
just need to continue educating
people about how driving impaired
by cannabis specifically affects
them.”
If you can afford to consume
drugs and alcohol, Harper says
you can afford to take a taxi or an
Uber.
“When these crashes happen,
real people hurt. Real families
are affected. Our lives are forever
changed, and we miss the people
who have been taking from us,”
she says.