It was great to hear Jemima
McDonald and Pamela Darling from the NSW Council for Intellectual Disability (NSWCID)
presenting their plenary at ASID2021.
They
made some important points about Easy Read documents. They said that
· It must be easy to read and understand,
but
understanding is the key
· There
are no Australian standards. They noted that there is a variety of styles
used in Easy Read in Australia
· NSWCID includes people with an intellectual disability both in co-design and peer
review of documents
· Users of Easy Read may be people with low literacy or those for whom English is not their first language
· Easy Read is not
for everyone.
Their key working principles
are similar to the European Easy Read. Some important elements are
· the
use of white space
· clear
easy words
· images
· reduced
number of key messages. No more than 10 in a document
· limit pages to 10 (or up to 20). Break information into separate documents rather than make too long.
Images
Comments
made during presentation were
· engagement
of readers can be enhanced by the use of seeing people you recognise in the
images. This may help people be connected to the content and feel represented.
This is relevant for cultural representations
· carefully
selected images allow you to use less words and sentences
· do not
make the images condescending to an adult audience. Images should be age
appropriate and look good.
How
does this differ from Easy English principles for the use of images?
Easy
English also aims to use images that are relevant to the audience.
Images
are chosen to provide the clearest representation of the text. As with the use
of commonly used and recognised words, Easy English will use a picture that is
most likely to make sense to the reader.
Easy English does not use photo images primarily but sometimes a photo is the best way to represent a familiar item to the audience. For example a photo of a diabetes test kit or a particular building, rather than a drawing type image.
We have regularly found the
use of photos of people and 'representative places' appears to be less valuable. Some consumer groups say
they prefer photos of people and others do not like photos of people as they
seem to represent only the person in the picture rather than ‘anybody’. The
exception is of course if the content is about a particular person or place. Then a photo is valuable. This would be the case for
· the
person to contact,
· the
mayor of your council
· the
place to meet for your meeting.
The
concept of age appropriate images is complex. It is not simply the case that
coloured pictures are childlike. Consumer feedback has told us that clear
simple images using colour make the image easier to understand. However images
for an adult audience should reflect real life experience. For example an image
of real money, a wallet or keycard are preferable to a piggy bank image.
At
Access Easy English our consumer reviews provide feedback about the images
chosen. We ask people who are likely to be the intended audience to review the
work with us. This helps us to match the images as closely as possible to the
content.
You
can read here and here for a discussion on the comparison of Easy Read and Easy English.
Talk to us about what this could look like for your organisation.
Owner Access Easy English
Consultant – Speech Pathologist
Telephone: 0466 579 855
Email: cathy@accesseasyenglish.com.au
Website: https://accesseasyenglish.com.au/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/accesseasyenglish
Twitter: @accesseasyengli
LinkedIn Cathy Basterfield
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