Monitoring eAccessibility in Europe: 2011 Annual Report
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- Figure . Status of the assistive technologies accessibility policy in EU and non-EU countries
- Table . Status of the assistive technologies accessibility policy
- TOTAL EU COUNTRIES
- Total Assistive technologies 64 65
Assistive technologiesThis section deals with prevalence of laws, policies or programmes to provide mainstream ICT and ICT assistive technology for persons with specific needs in the countries covered by the study. ICT assistive technology refers both to assistive technology hardware (e.g. hearing aids, Braille displays and communication devices) and assistive technology software (e.g. screen readers, screen magnifiers, voice recognition and augmentative and alternative communication systems). In this field, EU countries get better results than the non-EU reference countries. While EU countries show similar efforts in the three categories analised (policies and programs to facilitate access, public assistance to mainstream ICT and public assistance to ICT assistive technology), non-EU countries appear to put more efforts on public assistance to ICT assistive technology. Figure . Status of the assistive technologies accessibility policy in EU and non-EU countries Source: Own elaboration, 2011. Unit: Percentages Figure . Status of the assistive technologies accessibility policy, by country Source: Own elaboration, 2011. Unit: Percentages A number of countries score the same high level on policies in this regard: Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. The USA scores surprisingly high compared to what is known about existing programmes in the USA (Blanck et al. 2009, Myhil 2010). Scoring for policies and programmes to facilitate access - general features is based on the following question:
Many countries score high on the general question. Arguably the question might be too general to differentiate between Western countries. Nevertheless France, Greece, Hungary, Canada, USA and Australia score lower than the other countries in the study. Ireland and Italy have not reported on this policy measure, however this should improve shortly because of the implementation of the Convention on disability. Scoring for public assistance to mainstream ICT is based on the following two questions:
The possible answers to both questions were: No / Yes, programmes are narrowly defined / Yes, programmes cover broad population groups. Fewer countries have programmes and policies in place to ensure availability of mainstream ICT (e.g. computers with non-accommodated user interface to students with disabilities). Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Canada score the highest on programmes and policies to ensure availability of mainstream ICT having programmes that cover broad population groups. Scoring for public assistance to hardware and software ICT assistive technology is based on the following two questions:
The possible answers to both questions were: No / Yes, programmes are narrowly defined / Yes, programmes cover broad population groups. We find more or less the same pattern for programmes to ensure availability of ICT assistive technology as for mainstream ICT. Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Canada and USA scored the highest. Norway scores higher on this assistive technology measure than on the previous mainstream measure, while the Netherlands scores lower on public assistance to ICT assistive technology than on mainstream ICT. Table . Status of the assistive technologies accessibility policy
Source: Own elaboration, 2011. Unit: Percentages
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