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Volume 16, No. 4 • Fall 2008

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Students’ Right to Printed Materials

Daniel Atkins
Legal Advocacy Director
Disabilities Law Program

The United States’ legacy of educating children with disabilities is a sordid one. Traditionally, children with disabilities were excluded from “regular” schools and were frequently institutionalized or segregated in “special” schools that suffered from inadequate funding, inferior educational curricula, and deplorable conditions. In 1975, Congress attempted to change that by passing the Education for all Handicapped Children Act, which became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1991. The IDEA endeavors to ensure that children with disabilities receive access to a free appropriate public education. More specifically, IDEA explicitly attempts among other things, first, to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living; and second, to ensure that educators and parents have the necessary tools to improve educational results for children with disabilities by supporting systemic change activities; coordinated research and personnel preparation; coordinated technical assistance, dissemination, and support; and technology development and media services.

IDEA

The IDEA does not reach all children with disabilities. IDEA defines the term “child with a disability” to mean a child—(i) with mental retardation, hearing impairments, speech and language impairments, visual impairments, serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairments, autism, other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities; and (ii) who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services.

A state is eligible for federal financial assistance if it meets a number of conditions, including, but not limited to, the following: (1) a free appropriate public education which includes special education and related services is available to all children with disabilities in the state between the ages of 3 and 21, including students who have been suspended or expelled from school; (2) an individualized education program (IEP) is developed, reviewed, and revised for each child with a disability at least on an annual basis; and, (3) to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities are educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular education environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

NIMAS

When the federal government reauthorized the IDEA in 2004, the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) was created. NIMAS is the standard established by the federal Department of Education which is to be used in the preparation of electronic files to facilitate conversion of instructional materials into accessible formats. NIMAS is a file set that includes all information customarily prepared for publishing instructional materials for students who are blind or visually impaired as well as students with print disabilities. It includes metadata, images, and text. NIMAS file sets are source files and are designed to be converted by software into specialized formats—Braille, audio text, digital format or large print. When textbooks and classroom materials are produced using NIMAS, they will be in a standard electronic format that can be adapted to produce Braille versions or on screen displays of text and graphics. Ironically, NIMAS files are required only for “print instructional materials” and not on-line material. So, only textbooks and related printed core materials are required to be convertible.

All State educational agencies must now adopt NIMAS. IDEA requires that NIMAS applies to printed textbooks and related printed core materials that are written and published primarily for use in elementary and secondary school instruction and are required by the school to be used in the classroom.

Students who are eligible to receive the benefit of NIMAS are “blind or other persons with print disabilities” which means children who, pursuant to IDEA, qualify to receive books and other publications in specialized formats.

A student’s IEP team determines whether a student needs accessible instructional materials, and then tailors the instructional program, modifications, and accommodations accordingly. However, for students who are blind, or visually impaired, a “competent authority” (medical professionals and school officials such as social workers and counselors should be included in this team) must certify that the student is unable to read normal printed material and is thus eligible for access to NIMAS files.

Just ten years ago, transcription into Braille of a typical science textbook would take about a year at a cost of close to $20,000. The availability of NIMAS-formatted files should facilitate the transformation of print into other forms. As a result, students who are blind or visually impaired and those with print disabilities may actually realize the promise of the IDEA and enjoy the benefits of the same classroom materials as their non-disabled peers.

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