Someone with a print disability is defined as a person without sight, a person whose sight is severely impaired, a person unable to hold or manipulate books or to focus or move his or her eyes, or a person with a perceptual disability, such as dyslexia.
Organisations with speakers at the conference include Vision Australia, the Australian law Reform Commission, Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. Media Access Australia has two speakers: CEO, Alex Varley, and project manager, Dr Scott Hollier.
Varley will explain why government support and regulation are essential to ensuring a lasting and effective audio description service on Australian television. This is within the context of Australia’s progress towards implementing audio description on ABC1 following the 2012 technical trial.
Dr Hollier will present on the significance of age-related vision loss and the importance of people getting and staying online as they age.The presentation will highlight a resource created in partnership with Media Access Australia the Council on the Ageing Western Australia (COTA WA) designed to help seniors get online. The resource features step-by-step guides to using computers, tablets and smartphones with freely-available assistive technology. This is being used in workshops throughout Western Australia.
The Roundtable on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities Conference will be held in Sydney on 26 – 27 May. We will bring you all the news from the conference via our website and Twitter.
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