Home  ›  2025 | Perspectives on making written information accessible to people with intellectual disabilities

2025 | Perspectives on making written information accessible to people with intellectual disabilities

Thursday, 10 July 2025
2pm – 3:30pm (AEST)
4pm – 5:30pm (NZST – New Zealand time)
Webinar: via Zoom

 

Speakers and Program

 

 

 


Cathy Basterfield is a speech pathologist with 37 years experience working with people with intellectual disability and complex communication needs. For the last 20 years Cathy has lead the development of Easy English. She leads a small team at Access Easy English advocating for evidence based best practice accessible information for anyone with low literacy, with national and international awards (2022), including the ‘most effective communicator in the NDIS sector,’ and ‘the most effective communicator for people with disability in the world.’

Cathy will talk about access to effective written information is a right for all people with intellectual disability. It should mean many more people with intellectual disability can read, understand and apply the new information to their own life. The labels most often used in Australia are Easy Read and Easy English.

The development in Australia is now 20 years old and has been developed for longer than 20 years in the UK.

There is now a body of published literature on different aspects of accessible information development. And there are many more questions to investigate. But, how are current research findings being incorporated into today’s accessible information?

 

 

 

 


Dr Ariella Meltzer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact UNSW, working in inclusive and accessible disability research. Much of Ariella’s research focuses on accessible information for people with disability, including how to support organisations who make this type of information.

Ariella will talk about her research with 12 Australian organisations who make ‘easy’ information (accessible written information) for people with intellectual disability and/or low literacy.

She will cover:

  • The different features they choose for their ‘easy’ information products.
  • What they say about why they choose the features they do.
  • What their perspectives mean for understanding the different types of ‘easy’ information made in Australia.
  • Why there are multiple different types of ‘easy’ information that work for different people and why it is important for ‘easy’ information products to list upfront who they are written for.

 

Accessibility

The event is a webinar.  Some people might like support to get on-line and to make the technology work.

The webinar will be recorded.  Some people might like to watch the webinar again later.  This can help with understanding the information.

This webinar is designed for researchers, co-design researchers, advocates and self advocates, peer leaders, managers & case managers, therapists, procurement and comms teams, businesses and agencies building their access and inclusion knowledge, govt depts, disability and community services, families.

The PPT slides will be in Easy English.