 A woman in dark glasses taps on a cell phone screen. Large print appears on a monitor. Words appear. How can we include students with disabilities in computing courses? We take our smartphones, computers, and gadgets for granted. But behind all this technology is a skilled workforce of software developers, systems administrators, web developers, and programmers. There's an increasing demand for individuals who have technical skills. An understanding of computing is important for these opportunities. We often talk about broadening the participation of females, as well as racial and ethnic minorities in computing courses. But what about including people with disabilities? Richard Ladner. A worldwide professor. There's one billion people. Computer science and engineering. About 15% of the international population have a disability. UW. According to the World Health Organization. So if you like, that's a lot of customers that they would like to get. And having a diverse workforce, they're more likely to have the kinds of products that will satisfy more people's needs and interests. Individuals with disabilities, including autism spectrum disorders, attention deficits, learning disabilities, hearing impairments, visual impairments, and mobility impairments, can succeed in computing education and computing careers. Cynthia Bennett. It is important for people with disabilities to pursue careers in science. Because we have really unique life experiences and skills that we can offer. And it's important that for us to be stakeholders in projects and for us to be represented on the market. Being a problem solver is definitely really important when you're a software developer. Michael Forzano. Software Development Engineer. If you're someone with a disability, that's something that you have to do pretty regularly since, you know, we're faced with challenges all the time. We have to find solutions to them. So that probably makes us better problem solvers. And, you know, that's definitely a good trait to have when you're working in this field. It's very important to attract students with disabilities into computing. Cheryl Burgstahler. Director. One reason is it's a matter of fairness. There are a lot of opportunities in those fields and they should have an equal opportunity to pursue those fields. But another important thing is that. Accessible technology services. Those fields can benefit from the perspectives of people with disabilities. UW. With proper assistive technology and accommodations, individuals with disabilities can successfully pursue education and careers in computing. I am a software development engineer at Amazon. I work on the trade-in team. So that's the program that allows customers to trade in their old items such as textbooks, electronics like iPhones, DVDs, video games. Here I am working for Amazon as a software developer. And now I've been here almost two years. There's been new challenges every day that I've had to face and had to find a solution for. My name is Jesse Shulman and I'm an operations program manager in the web services field and a graduate of the University of Washington. And I have a learning disability so I struggle with language to begin with. So learning computer syntax like Java. All the problems that I had, the struggles that I had with English came up again with Java. I am a first-year PhD student in the human-centered design and engineering department at the University of Washington. I became interested in a career in human-centered design and engineering because I worked as a research assistant in the computer science department at the University of Washington for two years. I was hired because I have a psychology background and experienced managing a research project. I'm dyslexic which means I have difficulty reading and student pretty bad handwriting. The accommodations that I used in school included books on tape. I used a note-taker for certain classes and I used dictation software for my writing tasks. I had all my textbooks in either electronic format or Braille depending on the situation. Like for the math courses I had them in Braille so I could see the diagrams and everything. They bought an embosser that was capable of borrowing diagrams so I had note-takers in my classes and they would copy down the notes and the diagrams and transcribe them into Braille which was great. I had access to everything that I needed. My main accommodations would be extended time-on tests having my books available as e-text format which means I can use a screen reader to read out the books to me so even though when I'm reading it myself and I may not be able to understand it the computer is telling me exactly what those words are. Is that slow enough or should I slow it down further? I use a typical computer like everyone else but it has an additional piece of software called a screen reader loaded onto it. The screen reader tells me what is on the screen. Don't feel too pressured. Teachers can play an important role in encouraging students with disabilities to study computing by giving this underrepresented group access to classes. If you don't start doing this at a young age you won't even know what's going on later even if you're not a computing major. You need to understand how computing works because everything you have has a computer in it. You watch your phone, your car has 25 different processes in it. For the most part the K-12 system were very accommodating, getting an IEP and different accommodations through them and specific classes to assist in teaching, reading and writing. I want to talk a little bit about planning and informative speech. Teachers can make their classes accessible to all students by applying universal design, designing their classes and lessons so all students have equal access to the information. Taking these steps proactively has the potential to benefit all students in a classroom, not just the students with disabilities. Teachers can use multi-modes of instruction and so they can speak the content to the class, they can have students discuss it in small groups, they can write things on the overhead projector, they might show a concept using a video and so that's the first thing, is just to recognize that the students in their class have many different learning styles and some of them actually have disabilities that affect their learning. You might provide alternative ways to look at a single concept in a science class, not just one way of looking at it. So there might be a visual way, a more auditory way, perhaps examples from different walks of life of a concept. So you're already doing that and so you just want to continue doing that and maybe add a little bit more. They should be willing to work with the student because every student has different needs. They should be willing to provide their materials in accessible format. A woman signs in a class. It's important for students with disabilities to feel welcome in the classes. In the high school setting, one good way to get the word out about classes that students might take, particularly in computer science, is to let the counselors know how open they are to having students with disabilities in their classes. Erica. I've had a lot of mentors and teachers who have helped me be more encouraged to go into computing. One of the professors, a well-known professor, Richard Wagner, has really helped me build towards computing. We can think of beginning computer science courses as gates to get into a field. And if those gates are just like impenetrable or really difficult or kind of don't meet the needs of a lot of students, then if you like, that gate is already closed and they're not getting it, they're not getting in. So, you know, why not have a course that is so inviting, so much fun, so interesting and is an inviting course? An example of universal design is Quorum. It's a programming language that's easy for everyone to use and understand, while also being accessible to students who are blind. Quorum isn't just a language for blind kids. It's a language for everyone. And it just happens to work really well with blind kids as well. So, if you like, it's universally designed. It's designed for easy learning by everyone, including blind kids. Although applying universal design minimizes the need for accommodations for students, it's also important to have a plan in place to respond to additional accommodation requests. There are a lot of people who take the time to leave the world a better place than it was when they entered it. And I feel that it's my responsibility to do the same, to thank all the people who have helped me and to ensure that more people with disabilities can pursue the career that I have and pursue it a little bit more easily. To learn more about how you can encourage and support students with disabilities in computing courses, engage with the Access CS10K project hosted by the University of Washington and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Described by audio eyes. Find resources at uw.edu slash access computing slash access CS10K. To get real-time support, email accesscs10k at uw.edu. Access CS10K is supported by the National Science Foundation, grant number CNS-1440843 and CNS-1440878. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Copyright 2015.