Accessibility for Children

W3C Community Group�

�Functional Needs Meeting February 1st 2022

Welcome

The Chairs of the Community Group will present today’s session

• Suzanne Taylor, Founder at Things Entertainment

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• Maud Stiernet, Owner at alittleliningcomes.com

Member of Eurochild.org and IAAP

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Why accessibility for children?

• Different profiles than adults:
• rhythms (need instant/fast support or feedback)
• different exploration skills
• less predictable
• evolving competences
• Research gap on disabled children as online users

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• Children need age/ level appropriate accessibility features�

Examples:

- captioning without reading skills�- developping sensory literacy

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Methodology: evidence based, with users

• Define concepts/ emerging technologies with workgroup

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• Invite external researchers for discussion on research gap�‘Captioning and comprehensibility’ Maria Wünsche Hidelsheim (Germany)�
• Members work with children and design for children and families/ carers (communities)�
• Communicate about our work in international conferences (Unicef AI, CORE children online research & evidence)�

Methodology: evidence based, with users

• Accommodation sponsoring:

Sign Language Interpretation

Real-Time Live Captioning (CART)

Legal advice and accommodations designed to give children a voice in our community group

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• Next activity: how do children interact with chatbots?

Goals for 2021 and 2022

• Document functional user needs for children with disabilities
• Conduct literature review to see where enough research is already available to support accommodating these user needs
• Identify open research questions and advocate for further research where needed
• Document additional information to help inform implementation efforts
• Create list of considerations for children that those writing specifications can use as a checklist

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Invite to Participate

• First meeting was September 2, 2021
• We meet for one hour every other week on Thursday
• 13:30 UTC (GMT)
• 9:30 am Eastern Time (United States)
• 3:30 pm Central European Time
• You can also participate asynchronously
• You can join at the Community Group Home Page
• Next meeting is October 28th

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We’re Happy to Help

• We are hoping to help Children’s Accessibility Needs to be incorporated into other initiatives and documents.
• Let us know how we can help!
• Contact the Chairs:
• Suzanne.Taylor@ThingsEntertainment.net
• Maud.Stiernet@ALittleLiningComes.com

Active Participants

• David Boulton, Learning Stewards (USA)
• Emeline Brulé, University of Sussex (UK)
• Chiara Cielo L, De Agostini (Italy)
• Danielle Guzman-Orth, ETS (USA)
• Kris Anne Kinney, ETS (USA)
• Allison Johnson, Curriculum Associates (USA)
• Melissa Malzkuhn, Motion Light Lab at Gallaudet University (USA)
• AJ Polanco, ETS (USA)
• (Chair) Suzanne Taylor, Things Entertainment (USA)
• (Chair) Maud Stiernet, A Little Lining Comes (Belgium)

Scope

• Web and Software
• Problems and solutions from AI
• Problems and solutions from XR
• Assessments/ Learning Contexts
• Entertainment Context
• Healthcare Acquired (learned) Mental Health Concern
• Low Resource Environments
• Intersectionality

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