Category Archives: Disabilities

Improving access to education by making Braille textbooks cheaper and easier to produce

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Currently, textbooks are converted to Braille by trained people who manually re-type the printed version — a process that is time-consuming and expensive. It’s just one of many challenges visually-impaired students face. While text-to-speech technology can alleviate some pressure, many visually-impaired students need to “feel” a textbook to learn, not unlike non-impaired students who need to stare at a formula

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Australia: Hire and support minority astronomers or risk being left behind

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Photo credit: Pixabay/Comfreak Australia’s astronomy sector is investing in diversity and inclusion but so far, efforts have focused primarily on women. In a new paper published in Nature Astronomy Professor Lisa Kewley, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics says institutions must also look to hire more LGBTQ, indigenous, and disabled astronomers or risk falling behind the rest of the world.

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Number of medical students with disabilities on the rise

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File photo courtesy: Pixabay The number of U.S. medical students reporting a disability is on the rise, according to a new research letter in JAMA.  Part of the reason, according to researchers, could be due to medical schools’ efforts to create disability-friendly spaces. Nearly all of the students who participated in the research said their school made accommodations to support them. The

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