At the Start of the Semester: Show That You’re Open to Communication.

Make it clear from the start that you are approachable and that counseling services are available at your university. A proven way to do this is to hand out a flyer at the start of the semester or display a slide that addresses disability and chronic illness and highlights available support services.  In just a few minutes, you can demonstrate your openness toward students with disabilities and let them know who they can turn to. For many affected students, taking this step becomes significantly easier after receiving such an invitation.

Set an example and let your students know that you’re approachable. 

You can incorporate our prepared slides (under “Downloads”) into your PowerPoint presentation, use them as a PDF, or print them out as handouts to distribute in your class.
Treat others with respect: Communicate on an equal footing.
Language conveys and reflects values—both on the part of the speaker and on the part of the listener. And it influences how we think about people with and without disabilities. Inclusive language means addressing people with disabilities without judgment and is an expression of respectful communication.

Phrases  and their  Alternatives
Person XY suffers from...    Person XY has/lives with...
Person XY is confined to a wheelchair.    Person XY sits in/uses/rides a wheelchair.
Handicap/handicapped Impairment/impaired
mentally disabled    cognitively impaired
deaf-mute    deaf
despite his/her disability...    with his/her disability/impairment...
healthy/normal versus sick    non-disabled/non-impaired versus disabled/impaired, without versus with an impairment
 

Rooms
Not all lecture and seminar rooms are equally well-suited for students with disabilities. Stairs, cluttered hallways, doorways that are too narrow, tables that are too low or not wheelchair-accessible, or those with fixed chairs, lack of space for assistive devices, blackboards and projection screens that are not visible from all seats, darkness,  glare from the sun, a lack of microphones, background noise, and construction and street noise all pose barriers. They prevent students from accessing the room, understanding the instructors, seeing what’s on the board, following discussions, and taking notes. If you include a corresponding note in your course description, you can respond early and change the room assignment: “Please let me know if you have any assistance needs or special requirements via email or phone.”

Accessible Rooms: 

Detailed room descriptions can be found on the online portal for teaching, studies, and research.
Diverse Teaching Methods and Well-Structured Content.
Students with and without disabilities benefit from the use of diverse teaching methods. Combining different learning formats—such as discussions in plenary sessions and small groups—not only appeals to different learning styles but also allows students who, due to a disability, cannot benefit from specific learning formats to compensate for this through other formats. The same applies to the presentation of information.

Speaking Style: 

Speak clearly, not too quickly, and face the students; do not explain what is on the board while standing with your back to the audience.

Volume: 

Use a microphone for your presentation and, if necessary, repeat comments from the floor—this will help everyone hear you better; if someone is using a hearing aid or a cochlear implant, your remarks will be transmitted directly to them via the induction loop.

Clarity:

Speak standard German, avoid unnecessary foreign words and filler words, and explain technical terms; this is particularly helpful for deaf individuals who are learning German as a foreign language.

Pace:  

Take   breaks  —  students  with  mobility,  visual,  and  hearing  impairments,  as  well  as  those  with  concentration  difficulties,  cannot  simultaneously  follow  a  lecture,  read  the  board,  and  take  notes.

Two-Senses Principe:

Verbalize visual information such as photographs, drawings, graphics,  sketches,  and  tables;  Document  the  results  of  discussions  in  writing—including  digitally;  when showing videos, provide subtitles and audio descriptions, or explain the content being shown.

Lighting conditions: 

Make  sure  you’re  not  standing  with  your  back  to  a  light  source—such  as  a  window  or  lamp—but  that  your  face  is  clearly  visible;  also,  turn  the  lights  back  on  when  you  pause  or  end  an  overhead  projector  or  projector  presentation.  Students with hearing impairments, in particular, derive a great deal of information from your gestures and facial expressions.
 

Visibility: 

Chalkboards and whiteboards should be clean and well-lit;  minimize light reflections by using ceiling lights and blinds appropriately, and avoid animations, background images, and patterns on PowerPoint and overhead transparencies; avoid Roman numerals whenever possible, as text-to-speech software reads them as letters.

Content:  

Highlight the most important points; slides with significantly more than six points appear cluttered and are difficult to comprehend for people with visual impairments or concentration difficulties.

Font: 

Sans-serif fonts such as Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Tahoma, or Times New Roman are easier to read; use left-aligned text instead of justified text; for slides, a font size of 20 to 24 points and ample line spacing are recommended; use no more than two font types and colors.

Color scheme: 

Use only one background color and a limited number of colors overall; avoid combinations of red, orange, and green entirely; eight percent of all people have color vision deficiency and cannot distinguish color markings in the text; use formatting for emphasis, with bold type being more suitable than italics.

Contrast: 

The bigger the contrast between the text and the background, the easier the text is to read; for PowerPoint presentations, dark text on a light background works best in bright rooms, while light text on a dark background works best in dimly lit rooms.

Designing Word, PowerPoint, and PDF Documents:

Making instructional materials accessible means designing them so that users can flexibly adapt them to their needs. This is particularly essential for students with visual impairments, as they use special screen-reading software.   These so-called screen readers read text aloud from the top left to the bottom right. To ensure that content is reproduced correctly and in a logical order, the following points must be observed:

Structure  using  style  sheets:  

Structure  your  document  by  using  style  sheets  to  appropriately  label  titles,  headings,    lists,    highlighted  text,    quotations,    footnotes,    etc.;  Headings marked in this way are converted into bookmarks (tags) during the conversion to PDF documents; screen readers recognize these text elements in the respective file formats and read them aloud correctly.

Images and Graphics: 

Screen readers are text-based and cannot read scanned content, images, photographs, or graphics; describe their content and purpose using alternative text; anchor these objects; avoid using graphic watermarks.

Tables: 

Design table structures to be as simple and clear as possible, with a linear text flow and without nesting, so that the text-to-speech output reproduces the correct order; avoid empty cells; for multi-page tables, mark the headers that repeat on each printed page.

Voice output:  

To ensure that screen readers output speech phonetically correctly, the respective standard language must be defined for each paragraph—especially for foreign-language text sections—and language changes must be marked;  for example, reading German texts according to English pronunciation rules would be incomprehensible. 

Zoom Option: 

Enable the “Wrap Text” option so that, when the text is zoomed in significantly, line breaks can be adjusted, thereby avoiding the need for cumbersome right-to-left scrolling.

Document Check: 

Use the built-in document check feature in Microsoft and Adobe under File > Check for Issues > Check for Accessibility. The more accessible your source file is—for example, in Word and PowerPoint—the less effort it will take to edit PDF files. You can check websites online using the W3C Markup Validation Service.

Make your materials available:

Lecture notes and handouts provided in advance or sent via email allow students to prepare better. This is beneficial for all students, but essential for some. In particular, students with mobility or sensory impairments need teaching materials early on—preferably in digital form—so they can adapt them to their personal needs. Take advantage of e-learning resources and online platforms such as ILIAS and Moodle. Meeting minutes and lecture notes also help with follow-up work. Keep in mind: When printing, matte paper increases contrast, while glossy paper reflects light.