NSW CID present Plenary at ASID 2021

 

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 can be read independently or with support as an interactive tool by workers or family and friends

·      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.

Rachel and Cathy

Cathy Basterfield
Owner Access Easy English
Consultant – Speech Pathologist
Telephone: 0466 579 855
Email: cathy@accesseasyenglish.com.au

Email: rachel@accesseasyenglish.com.au 

Website: https://accesseasyenglish.com.au/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/accesseasyenglish

Twitter: @accesseasyengli
LinkedIn Cathy Basterfield

Burning the midnight oil with Access Easy English: Our experience at the Switzerland virtual Easy-to-Read Conference. Part 2.

 

Our team headed into Day 2 of the 2021 virtual KLAARA (Easy-to-Read) Conference feeling somewhat jet lagged by the time difference despite our feet staying firmly on Australian soil. The “jet-lag” was well worth it as we came away from the conference with fresh perspectives.

 

Day 2 talks explored:

 

·      The increased understanding of adults with ID when presented with concrete information rather than abstract.

·      The receptive language abilities of a group of primary school students with ID using the TROG-H test.

·      The problem of using negative sentences in Easy-to-Read.

·      Whether simplifying German text can inadvertently increase the complexity of the text.

·      Syntax of Easy-to-Read Polish using one idea per sentence and adjusting length of sentence to reduce complexity. What extent does this approach impact the understanding between simple and complex sentences?

·      The disconnect between experience of those who require Easy-to-Read content and those who don’t. How Easy-to-Read can lack the anticipated tact dealing with sensitive issues such as suicide.

·      The lack of Easy-to-Read sources on mental health in Australia for people with ID. Use of plain language can tick an accessibility box for organisation but not increase participation of those who have limited literacy.

·      The role of interlingual translation in providing Easy-to-Read resources for other languages where Easy-to-Read is not widely incorporated.

·      The issue of accessible websites assuming digital literacy.

·      Case studies on consumer testing and degree of supported mediation of the information.

·      Important components of Easy-to-Read and the role of knowing your reader.

  

Overall, the talks brought home the need to develop a more consistent and cohesive approach to accessible information. There is a need for society to begin to understand accessible text as a right, not a favour, and for accessible text to be backed with higher government and community expectations and standards. Not only for those with higher literacy at Plain Language level, the preferred accessible text approach by the Australian Government, but also those who require Easy English. 

 Look out for notices about the next conference in 2 years. Hopefully it will be face to face.

 Cass, Cathy and Rachel

Cathy Basterfield

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

Blog: http://accesseasyenglish.blogspot.com.au
Twitter: @accesseasyengli

LinkedIn Cathy Basterfield

ASID Conference 2021 and Easy Read. Part 2

More on Deborah Chinn's presentation at ASID 2021. Read the previous blog for more information. 

Deborah referred to some agreed ideas such as 

- use of images

- positioning images to the left

- using easier language. 

Deborah's research from the UK pointed out the texts varied significantly and the target audience also varied. See our blog on Deborah's paper Developers perspectives.  In the UK, Easy Read is developed and presented as content for people with intellectual disability only. 

Note:Scandinavian countries focus more on the literacy needs of people who are not native speakers of the language. Many European countries also focus their Easy Read as being for people with intellectual disabilities. 

In contrast Easy English is targeted at anyone who needs content written in a simple and clear manner. We choose language and images based on the target audience of each document. 

Deborah advocated there is a need for more for research into the value of Easy Read for the target audiences.

This is an important point. There are many examples of Easy Read in Australia and they also vary widely in their design and readability, which is the same issue in the UK. This makes it hard for the reader to know what to expect of a document labelled Easy Read. These are some Australian Easy Read examples. Mental Health and 3rd interim report on the Disability Royal Commission

We know Easy Read is not as accessible as Easy English for more people with low literacy. We have consumer reviews of our documents and positive feedback from users of Easy English. However research of outcomes for consumers is welcome. These are some Easy English examples which have been consumer reviewed. NSW Ombudsman How to make a complaint  and the Women with Disabilities Australia Our report to the Disability Royal Commission. About group homes part 1 (scroll to the Safety from Violence section) 

It would be great to see some specific research that compares Easy Read and Easy English from the consumer perspective. It will important to measure not only the readability of documents but the outcomes for readers. This may provide clearer evidence and guidance for developing standards to produce simplified documents. It will be important to research this with different audiences – non English speakers, people with cognitive disabilities and those whose literacy skill do not allow them to access the information they want or need.

It also needs to be with naive readers of both Easy English and Easy Read.

Rachel Tozer 

Access Easy English

Telephone: 0466 579 855

Email: rachel@accesseasyenglish.com.au
Website: https://accesseasyenglish.com.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/accesseasyenglish

Blog: http://accesseasyenglish.blogspot.com.au
Twitter: @accesseasyengli

LinkedIn Cathy Basterfield

 

ASID 2021 and Easy Read. Choice and power. Part 1

Day 2 of the ASID conference offered 2 presentations in the keynote session about Easy Read. 

First up Dr Deborah Chinn presented her findings and thoughts about Easy Read in the UK.

The presentation identified that some of the Easy Read documents reviewed in the health topics in the UK were very directive and often did not offer choice and power to the reader. This was identified as an issue and raised the question about the purpose of the Easy Read documents. Deborah observed that some documents may have been designed to make the experience easier for staff, rather than assist the reader to make decisions.

This is an important point. Human rights legislation upholds the right of people with disabilities to plan and make decisions about their own lives. There is an emphasis on supported decision making rather than substitute decision making (where others make a considered decision on behalf of another person).

I reflected on this point and our use of Easy English in Australia. Easy English (and Easy Read) can be used to give information, but can it also used to describe choices and options. 

Easy English can be designed for any type of document.

One obvious application is an Easy English version of a goal planning document. This should be all about choice – choose what you want to do, choose what help you want, choose who, when and where.

Contracts and agreements may offer choices of who to share information with, how a person would like to receive information. When we do consent for research in Easy English, it is important to include statements about

- why the research is being done

- where the information will go

- who gets to see your personal information 

- can you stop being part of the research. 

There are yes/no questions about each of these key statements. Is this providing choice and power to the reader? 

Look at these examples of Easy English to see how choice is included and described:

Establishment and your choices – this describes part of the court process in Child Protection. It offers and explains choices available to parents. 

(Note: Establishment is a Court word that had to be part of this title)

You are pregnant. What can you do? – a WWDA fact sheet. Explains all choices available to women who are pregnant.

Rachel Tozer 

Access Easy English

Telephone: 0466 579 855

Email: rachel@accesseasyenglish.com.au
Website: https://accesseasyenglish.com.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/accesseasyenglish

Blog: http://accesseasyenglish.blogspot.com.au
Twitter: @accesseasyengli

LinkedIn Cathy Basterfield

Competing factors in Easy Read: producer perspectives.

 

Deborah Chinn's paper, "Talking to producers of Easy Read health information for people with intellectual disability: Production practices, textual features, and imagined audiences," (2019) was recognised with an Australasian Study of Intellectual Disability award at the 2020 AGM. The paper discusses the development of accessible information from the creators point of view by looking at

·      what influences the priorities of those creating Easy Read health information;

·      how the creators saw the Easy Read health information being used in real-world settings;

·      the role Easy Read Health Information plays in providing people with Intellectual Disability with accurate medical information;

·      how people with Intellectual Disability see Easy Read health information.

Being from the UK, the paper is specifically discussing Easy Read only. You can read more about on the similarities and differences with Easy English here. Chinn specifically investigates Easy Read in the context of health information and the study also looks at how the medical staff and others used the Easy Read materials.

 The paper touches on the lack of standard practice in the creation of Easy Read and how it can mean a lack of consistency from different creators. This means that end users may benefit from the content produced by one creator but not another. 

Chinn also considers how health staff may influence the outcomes for the end user by their engagement with this health information. For example, health staff may not want to provide the end user with options they do not consider to be in the patient’s best interest. The paper raises the need to remedy biases concerning public institutions by enabling the independent participation of those with low English literacy within these institutions  This highlights the need to ensure Easy Read health information supports the independent participation and decision making of people with Intellectual Disability.

Chinn recognises need for collaboration between the creators and the end-users. People with Intellectual Disability have diverse ranges of capabilities and needs and they cannot be treated as a homogenous audience. However, the detached 'on demand' nature of commissioned Easy Read content magnifies the risk of presumption relating to the end-user.

 Creators share the concern that a lack of collaboration can push the creator to produce for imagined audiences rather than the real-world end user. This limits the ability of the accessible communication to reach those whose needs do not conform.

 The research shows that while progress is being made, there is still work to be done.

 What do you think?

Do you see the same issues with Easy English?

Are we providing only positive options?

What competing needs have you found to be involved in Easy English?

Do you think there is a difference when creators work with different people who are the intended readers?

We would love to know your thoughts.

Cass

 

Bibliography

Chinn, D. 2019. "Talking to producers of Easy Read health information for people with intellectual disability: Production practices, textual features, and imagined audiences." Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability 44 (4): 410-420. 

        https://doi.org/10.3109/13668250.2019.1577640.

Posters. Accessible written content

In the last blog I talked about the importance of the first impression.

Your first impression is the visual impression.

Irrespective of whether you creating a poster or document or brochure some other things are just as important.

• Consistency - where are the images consistently?
• Predictability - where do I go next/what do I read next?
• What is the topic? Should this content be in more than 1 poster or brochure or document. Mostly for Easy English this is a definite yes.

Let's look at 2 posters created for COVID19 recently.

1) Developed by Australian Easy English Writer 

2) UK developed Easy Read for an Australian audience.

Australian Easy English 

Australian Easy English 

UK developed Australian content Easy Read  

Element	Australian Easy English	UK developed Australian Easy Read
Title	With image	Multiple images left and right of image
Placement of images	Title on left of text. Body, consistently on top of text	Title – left and right of text.  Body of text - Most on left, but also on Right and above text
Use of white (empty) space	Yes	No
Double line space throughout	Yes	No
Images per page	6	12
Space for each image	Yes	No. Often overlap
Selection of images	Symbols. Used by people with disability	Photos. Of people with disability. UK models
Use of columns	Yes – minimum text and image	Yes – columns filled with text and images. One or two words per column width.
Use of -       Bold -       Sentence case -       Italics	Yes – heading Yes No	Yes - heading and body of text No. eg: DO NOT; CALL Yes eg: CALL
Repetition	No	Yes – telephone number
Standard format for phone numbers	N/A	No
Topic	1 per poster	Multiple topics

Even with this small comparison there are significant differences in the 2 types of posters. This has an impact for our readers with more limited literacy. Visually the reader needs to ask where do I start: where do I go: which bit is important: what is the green triangle for?

Formatting such as sentence case only and no italics has been identified as 2 elements which all readers need. Why then should a document that has an intended audience of people with lower literary have these elements in their document?

Some language differences.

Although only a small sample, the differences in these posters reflect what I discovered in the larger language analysis completed using 5 documents in Easy English and 5 documents in Easy Read, rather than single page posters. 

Element	Australian Easy English  Poster L        Poster R	UK developed Australian Easy Read
Number of words	13                       26	58
Use of grammatical markers, eg ing, ly, plural	1 -plural            2 - plural	6 – ing – 2 -       ly – 1 -       ed – 1 -       plural - 3
Sentence length	1 sentence;        1 sentence; Of 4 words        Of 4 words	7 sentences; Ave 8.2 words long
Phrases	4 phrases.         6 phrases Ave 2 word        Ave 3.5 long                   words long	0
If …then statements	0                         0	1
Use of conjunctions Eg: ‘and‘  ‘or’	0                        0	3
Use of contractions eg: won’t	0                        0	2
Everyday word use COVID-19 or Coronavirus	COVID-19 (1)    COVID-19 (1)	Coronavirus (2)

 There are other areas for word analysis.

One is to look at the number of words with more than 1 syllable.

Element	Australian Easy English Poster L       Poster R	UK developed Australian Easy Read
Words with more than 1 syllable	2                          5 2 syll – 1              2 syll - 5 3 syll - 1	11 2 syll – 8 3 syll – 4 syll –1 5 syll - 2
Percent of total words	15%                17%	18%
Number of words with more than 3 syllables	0                        0	3 = 5%

 These findings are typical for all the comparative data I have collected between Easy English and Easy Read content. Keeping in mind that if someone has difficulty saying a word, they are less likely to understand the word and use it themselves. Additionally they are less able to make the connection with that word written down. In my typical consumer reviews, consumers have difficulty saying most words over 2 syllables in length. They rarely use them, and rarely know what they mean. 

All this analysis is critical to know about and be aware of as you construct your accessible content to provide best practice accessible, functional and meaningful information for everyone.

Let's agree that Easy English and Easy Read are different. Individually you may have a consumer who can manage more complex information. However, if that is all you develop for everyone you are leaving a substantial and very vulnerable cohort of people out of the circle of information.

Happy to talk with you about other data I have collected, and the impact on developing effective Easy English or book into my training. Learn more about how you can write effective and best practice Easy English. Details on my home page  

Easy English resources

Poster. Look for the signs https://bit.ly/3944NrJ

Poster. Look after your self.  https://bit.ly/2WxSl0L

Visit https://accesseasyenglish.com.au/covid-19-resources/ for all the Easy English resources

Stay safe, Cathy

Cathy Basterfield
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
Blog: http://accesseasyenglish.blogspot.com.au
Twitter: @accesseasyengli