Reasonable accommodation and information accessibility for students with disabilities in Japanese higher education

Abstract

This chapter considers the essential meaning of “information accessibility” in higher education institutions (HEIs). Students need cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) more than basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) to understand academic content in higher education, and the difference between CALP and BICS may have a strong influence on information accessibility. The “critical reading” demanded as one of the features of learning in higher education deeply depends on the subject's interpretations. The chapter discusses the differences between two forms of transmission—Braille and sign language—through the initiative called the Reading Accessibility of Reasonable Accommodations (RARA) project. RARA was designed as a longitudinal postal study; the target participants were persons with visual disabilities, hearing disabilities, and a control group. Japanese Sign Language (JSL) is a special language with an independent linguistic system and is not the same as signed Japanese language, which uses Japanese grammar and vocabulary.