The ADA National Network provides informal guidance on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability-related laws. The ten regional Centers that comprise the ADA National Network staff a toll-free information line and respond to inquiries submitted online via email or regional Center websites.

Business owners, architects and designers, representatives of state and local government agencies, employers, people with disabilities and their family members, service providers, educational entities, and others interested in the ADA can receive individualized responses - Find Your Region/ADA Center.

Our ADA Specialists can answer most questions immediately and, if necessary, will research complex questions to provide you the most thorough guidance possible. Referrals to local and state/territory resources for disability issues, which are not addressed by the ADA, can also be provided.

The ADA National Network offers a variety of training opportunities to increase your knowledge of the ADA. We provide training on all ADA topics and on all levels from basic to advanced. Trainings are available in-person, webcast, and online.

AIM or AEM?
Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) are materials designed or converted in a way that makes them usable across the widest range of student variability regardless of format. In relation to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the term AIM refers to print instructional materials that have been transformed into four specialized formats (audio, braille, digital, and large print text). Sometimes students with disabilities have difficulty accessing print in the same way as their peers. To succeed in school, these students need learning materials presented in a way that works for them. In 2014, the term "accessible educational materials" or "AEM" was expanded to include both print- and technology-based educational materials including electronic textbooks, and related core materials. Practically speaking the terms AIM and AEM are often used interchangeably.

In the following video learn from AEM users, educators, parents, and state and national leaders about how AEM can be a game changer for those with print disabilities.

This practice brief outlines a series of recommendations for improving the timely provision and use of high-quality braille – both embossed and electronic – and tactile graphics for state-mandated assessment. The primary target audience for these recommendations is State Education Agency (SEA) assessment leaders and others at the State-and national level who are responsible for ensuring that braille readers are full participants in their state assessment, whether general or alternate. Most desirable is that these recommendations will initiate conversations between and among states, districts, braille service providers, and test developers.

The purpose of the National AEM Center’s Quality Indicators with Critical Components for K-12 is to assist state and local education agencies with planning, implementing, and evaluating systems for providing accessible materials and technologies for all students who need them. States and local school districts will find the Quality Indicators useful for implementing statutory requirements that mandate equitable access to learning opportunities for students with disabilities, including equal access to printed materials, digital materials, and technologies.

AEM Pilot Home
Welcome to the AEM Pilot*, an interactive web-based tool that guides states and K-12 school districts to create more inclusive learning environments for students with disabilities. Building background knowledge about accessible educational materials (AEM), conducting self-assessments, and monitoring continuous progress are all facilitated by the AEM Pilot. If your state or district has work to do to improve the accessibility of the materials and technologies provided to learners with disabilities, take off with the AEM Pilot!

Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) help students with disabilities access print- and technology-based materials in school. But what about accessing educational materials in the community? Learn about AEM in the community: where you might find it, what it can look like, what to do if community materials are not accessible, and how to equip and advocate for yourself or those you support. In addition, hear what Community Vision is doing to help make businesses, organizations, and public spaces more accessible. They also share a few resources they have created around accessibility.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.

About the AEM Center at CAST
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National Center on Accessible Educational Materials logo
Based at CAST, the AEM Center is funded by the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education. We work with states and districts to build capacity for developing and sustaining robust systems for providing accessible materials and technologies for all learners who need them. To us, accessibility means that individuals with disabilities—from early childhood through the workforce—have equal access to materials and technologies for reaching educational outcomes and advancing in employment.

We provide three levels of technical assistance:

Universal technical assistance is available to everyone. You’ll find products and services throughout our website and collected on our resources page. Webinars and conference presentations are listed on our events page.
Targeted technical assistance describes the Center's strategic collaborations to address problems of practice in early childhood programs, higher education, and workforce development. Supports for families are also a part of our targeted technical assistance.
Intensive technical assistance describes the Center's capacity-building activities with a small cohort of states. This partnership is designed to produce practices that can be scaled nationally.

The goal of this resource is to support scholarly communication librarians wanting to implement accessibility measures in their open access, open education, and open data initiatives.

The Accessibility Course for Education is designed to provide you with a basic introduction to digital accessibility and provide practical guidelines for complying with accessibility guidelines in your own educational content. This course was developed by the Arthur Lakes Library at the Colorado School of Mines using an Open Educational Resources grant from the Colorado Department of Higher Education. While the initial intention was to provide training to faculty participating in Mines' OER program, the course is now open to all to help foster inclusive and accessible educational resources. Course content is geared toward instructors, but other accessibility advocates will also benefit from the course.

These materials are intended to be used both in graduate courses related to copyright or accessibility and by practitioners interested in learning more on the topic. Topics covered include the Chafee Amendment and how it has changed post-Marrakesh Treaty, the role of accessibility in the Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust decision, the importance of the Marrakesh Treaty for international efforts to make materials accessible across borders, and how licensing provisions can impact these various rights. The resources include videos explaining the key points of each topic, along with editable slide decks for those who wish to build on the existing materials, activities and options for assignments, recommended pre-class readings, discussion prompts, and related resources for those who want to learn more on the topics introduced in this OER module. There are also teaching notes for those interested in using the module in a class they are teaching.

This activity guides students through the evaluation of a website that they have created to see if it is accessible for users with disabilities. Students will simulate a number of different disabilities (e.g. visual impairments, color blindness, auditory impairments, motor impairments) to see if their website is accessible; they will also use automated W3 and WAVE tools to evaluate their sites. Students will consider the needs of users with disabilities by creating a persona and scenario of a user with disabilities interacting with their site. Finally, students will write up recommendations to change their site and implement the changes.

Comments
Although this activity can be used in isolation, it is intended to be part of a series guiding students towards the creation of a front-end of a website. The series (all published as OER) consist of:

a) Needfinding
b) Personas, Scenarios and Storyboards
c) Front-end Website Design and Development
d) Accessibility Evaluation

Join Aujalee Moore (ODE), Debra Fitzgibbons (OTAP), Linda Brown (ODE), and Michael Cantino (BVIS) for shared learning about accessibility and instructional materials in Oregon K-12 schools.

This animation seeks to lead students to a deeper understanding of the challenges that come with online learning for those with disabilities, and a newfound or renewed sense of empathy towards others.

Music by VYEN.

This guide articulates University Writing's practices for accessibility and inclusivity. We use this guide for internal training within our program.

This resource contains all of links and materials for the Accessibility in OER Webinar One that is co-facilitated by CAST and ISKME.

This resource contains all of links and materials for the Accessibility in OER Webinar Two that is co-facilitated by CAST and ISKME.

This resource contains all of links and materials for the Accessibility in OER Webinar Three that is co-facilitated by CAST and ISKME.

This resource contains all of links and materials for the Accessibility in OER Webinar Four that is co-facilitated by CAST and ISKME.