Standards Development

Scope

This standard is for people with cognitive and learning disabilities who make or use digital resources. This includes, but is not limited to: cognitive disabilities, learning disabilities (LD), neurodiversity, intellectual disabilities, and specific learning disabilities.

The standard specifies a common, interoperable set of extensible properties for the description of resource content and potential users’ comprehension needs and preferences, to enable networksupported individualization of resources, services and environments to match the unique needs and preferences of the individual In particular, it defines properties for description of characteristics of content and representations that affect a person’s ability to comprehend the resource in whatever form (sound, image, text, touch, smell) they encounter it. The standard conforms to ISO 19788 and thus includes all relevant mechanisms for the publication of terminology for such descriptions, including publicly available registries of terms and related metadata resources such as application profiles.

The properties do not describe the form of the resource as distinct from its intellectual content but can include a description of the form that may affect content comprehension. Other standards provide terms for descriptions of sensory and other characteristics of resources (see for example, AfA Core Terms, ISO/IEC 4932 in development).

The AfA Cognition terms may also be used to indicate a user’s accessibility needs and preferences for resources. Thus, they may enable resources to be matched to a user’s unique needs and preferences. A set of core AfA Cognition terms can be used in a Digital Resource Description and equally in a Personal Needs and Preferences profile.

This standard takes an inclusive approach to individualization, since any user can experience a mismatch of their individual accessibility needs and preferences and the content or services delivered; it is not restricted to descriptions related to stereotypical medical notions of disability.

This standard aims to maximize conformance of AfA terms with the ISO/IEC 19788 series, Metadata for Learning Resources, and therefore the W3C Resource Description Framework (see https://www.w3. org/RDF/).

Purpose

The terms defined in this standard are for describing the cognition characteristics of a resource recognising different levels of comprehension. Many people have cognitive or learning disability: “Cognitive and learning disabilities impact how people process information. For example, they can affect people’s perception, memory, language, attention, problem solving, and comprehension. Terminology for categories and conditions varies, and includes intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, dementia, dyslexia, and more (https: //www.w3.org/WAI/cognitive/ accessed August 5, 2021).” This standard provides interoperable terms for description of the cognition characteristics of resource content.

Up to 10 percent of the population are affected by specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and autism, translating to 2 or 3 pupils in every classroom, according to a new review. (from B. Butterworth, Y. Kovas. Understanding Neurocognitive Developmental Disorders Can Improve Education for All. Science, 2013; 340 (6130): 300 DOI: 10.1126/science.1231022).

This standard enables interoperable description of cognition characteristics of resources so that users can find resources they can use, and services can match resources to their needs. It is fully compatible with the Metadata for Learning Resources (N 19788) horizontal standard and will increase the capacity of personalisation of resources, especially for people with disability.

The standard addresses two important principles: first, AccessForAll shows that while resource providers have an obligation in many pllces, moral or even legal, to make resources accessible to everyone, an individual user is only concerned with what they need for access; and second, while many of the things that fix problems for people with disability help them too, for a person with a cognitive of learning disability, being able to identify what they know will help them specifically is of concern in this standard.