AccessComputing

A speech-to-text service is an accommodation that can be used by a student who is deaf or hard-of-hearing as a way to gain access to spoken or auditory content. With speech-to-text services, a provider listens to a speaker and then produces text for the person who is deaf or hard-of-hearing to read on a computer screen, TV monitor, or projection screen. Speech-to-text service is often called real-time captioning, and the providers are often referred to as captionists or transcribers.

The Workforce Recruitment Program (WRP), which is co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment and the US Department of Defense, is a recruitment and referral program for college students and recent college graduates with disabilities. Through the program, students are matched with summer internships or permanent jobs in the federal government. Since 1995, over seven thousand students or recent graduates have been placed in internships or jobs in a wide variety of fields and locations through the WRP.

The Summer Academy for Advancing Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Computing was an academically challenging program designed for deaf and hard of hearing students with skills in math or science who may be considering careers in computing. The program introduced students to computers and computer programming with the goal of encouraging them to consider college majors and careers in computing fields. The Summer Academy occurred annually at the University of Washington (UW) between 2007 and 2013.

To expose high school students with disabilities to computer sciences and related careers, the North Central Florida High School High Tech program undertook the Computer Science Exploration Project. The Project offered a series of nine hands-on events. An event was held once a month and included visits to:

The Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) is the world's largest organization dedicated to the study of how humans interact with interactive technologies. In 2011, the SIGCHI Executive Committee began discussing ways to become more inclusive of researchers and practitioners with disabilities.

Some individuals with disabilities require assistive technology (AT) in order to access computers. Although Apple has been criticized for the accessibility shortcomings of its Mac OS operating system, it made significant progress in improving accessibility with the release of Mac OS X, and has taken it upon itself to develop and provide AT that supports and ships with its OS, without additional cost to the consumer.

XML is short for Extensible Markup Language and is a specification from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is a meta-syntax, used to define new markup languages. XML's key benefits are its extensibility (XML-based languages can be extended with new custom tags) and its portability (XML-based languages can be used across different platforms and devices).

Vince Cerf, a computer scientist who is recognized as one of the founders of the internet, and other individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing have been very successful in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, as a group, individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields.

Some web browsers are more accessible than others for users with disabilities. In order to be accessible, a web browser, like any other software product, must have an interface that is accessible. For example, the browser must be operable by keyboard only (for people who are unable to use the mouse), and it must be compatible with assistive technologies such as screen readers. In addition to having an accessible interface, web browsers must be capable of presenting web content in an accessible way, provided that the web author practiced accessible web design techniques.

The short 13-minute video Returning from Service: College and IT Careers for Veterans and the related publication provide an overview of some of the opportunities and challenges faced by veterans with disabilities as they transition to the postsecondary classroom and pursue degrees in computing and information technology fields.