Maine AIM: Accessible Instructional Materials

Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM)

"My name is Annie, and I use a lot of adaptive equipment. I have cerebral palsy and I use books on tape because I have a visual impairment. When I was in Sophomore English, I used books on CD to read the books so I didn't have a lot of eyestrain. My experience in class was better because instead of spending hours reading a book I could use CDs to help with the eyestrain."

Hear Annie in her own words

What are Accessible Instructional Materials?

Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) are specialized formats of curricular content that can be used by and with learners with print-disabilities. They include Braille, audio, digital text, and large print.

The Specialized Formats

Braille is "a series of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or whose eyesight is not sufficient for reading printed material. …. Braille is not a language. Rather, it is a code by which languages such as English or Spanish may be written and read." (Source:American Foundation for the Blind).

Audio refers to auditory alternatives to printed text. Examples of formats include CDs, audiotapes, MP3 files, and software programs that convert digital text-to-speech output, and other auditory alternatives to printed texts.

Digital text, also known as “electronic text” or “e-text,” is what appears in common word processing or text editing programs. Examples of file formats include Rich Text Format (.rtf), ASCII, HTML, Microsoft Word (.doc), and Digital Talking Books. Digital text is malleable and transformable (CAST) because it can be formatted (e.g., font, size, color) and converted to accessible form (e.g., read aloud by speech synthesis). Such files can be transformed into accessible form by the user by varying font size, using text-to-speech tools, etc. For more information on digital text, visit the Web site of the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)

Large print is generally defined by the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) as “print for text passages that is larger than the print used by that segment of the population with normal vision. APH takes the position that large print for use by the low vision population is print that is eighteen points in size or larger.” For more information about large print, please visit APH’s Web site.