Season 01 | Episode 04: The Business of Integration
In this episode: David and Sandi discuss the business of integration. Our guest is Karen McCall, a document accessibility specialist.
Transcript
David: Hello, I’m David Best, and this is Practical Accessibility Insights. With me is my co host, Sandi Gauder. Hi Sandi.
Sandi: Hi David.
David: The intent of this podcast is to raise awareness for practical advice and strategies for making digital and physical environments more accessible to everyone. This is the third episode in a series of four podcasts discussing the four core human rights principles.
The topic for this episode is integration. Integration is inclusive when the barriers between passive and active participation are removed. We have a guest with us who’s going to share what inclusive experiences should really look like. So Sandi, why don’t you go ahead and introduce our guest for today?
Sandi: I would love to. So our guest today is Karen McCall. Karen is the owner of Karlen Communications. She and I work together with the AccessibilityConsulting. ca collective, and she is a treat to chat with. So welcome, Karen. Thanks for joining us.
Karen: Well, thanks for inviting me.
Sandi: Can you just give us your elevator pitch, who you are, what you do?
Karen: As long as you know that the building the elevator is in is about 100 floors, then I think we’re good. I started working in the field of digital accessibility before it was recognized as a field. So way back in 1997, 98. And I had a visual disability since I was 14, but only discovered adaptive technology back in 94, 95.
So I had been working on computers since 1984. without adaptive technology. Because I have a visual disability, I’m able to use magnifying glasses, but I find screen readers make life a lot easier. So I am a screen reader user. I started working with WCAG 1. 0. And when we had the ability to make tagged PDF, because I was encountering a lot of PDF that were unreadable, I switched over to document accessibility.
I still sort of keep track with the web accessibility because I look at digital inclusion, so even though I specialize in Microsoft Office content, uh, and PDF content, I look at everything in the broader sense. Because I use a screen reader, I don’t just look at those of us who are using screen readers.
I make sure that I understand the needs of other people with disabilities. I try to be as inclusive as I can in terms of the work that I do and the advocacy that I do, because that, for me, is the other part of my job, is to be a disability rights advocate. So, I have been in this field doing training, consulting, educating, I write books, I create tutorials for over 24 years.
I also sit on standards development committees, the ISO committee for PDF and PDF accessibility. And lately the Technical Standards Committee for the Accessible Canada Act for Plain Language.
Sandi: So when David started the podcast, he talked about the topic being integration. What does that mean to you? So, is there a difference between integration and inclusion? Is one term more appropriate than another? Can you just, give us your thoughts on all that.
Karen: For me, there are three terms that are typically used when we’re talking about the CRPD, the Conventions on the Rights of People with Disability, or any other kind of implementation of accessibility.
There’s mainstreaming, which is offensive to those of us with disabilities who experienced the failed educational mainstreaming experiments of the 1980s. Mainstreaming basically threw us into classrooms with no support. So it was a dismal failure all around. Integration was a little bit better because we were supposed to have supports.
They didn’t always work, but we were somehow being integrated into our own community, which seems sort of contradictive. Inclusion is the current phase of things, and we talk about inclusive design, inclusive rights, those kinds of things. And I’m not convinced that inclusion is going to be the end solution for those of us with disabilities, but inclusion means that we are accepted into the classroom, into our community, and there are supports so that we can participate seamlessly.
So integration, we have to have the supports in order to participate. Inclusion means that everything is going on behind the scenes and we don’t have to ask for accommodation. For example, in digital context, content is accessible.
The learning management system is accessible. The building is accessible. We just have to show up and participate as equals. And part of the problem is that we still don’t consider inclusive design in everything we create. So that if someone does need an accommodation, they are sort of the one off, not the default.
And the one issue I have with the CRPD in terms of talking about education is that it focuses on accommodation, which is where we still go to as our default position. Where accommodation should be sort of, as I said, a one off. Most of us with disabilities should be able to just show up and participate in whatever we’re doing.
Having said that, I recognize that because the CRPD affects us globally, that there are countries for whom accommodation may still be a new concept, and a concept that people are still fighting for. For those of us who have had the accommodation structure for decades, we tend to rest on the laurels and say, well, we have accommodation, so like tick that box, and, and we don’t have to go any further.
So, inclusion for me is just being able to show up and participate without having to ask for help, for the majority of us, and having all of the things that should work for other people work for me.
David: Karen, if you look at the definition of inclusion, it says that inclusion is about accommodating special individual needs for individuals, which sort of reflects the medical model of disability.
Whereas the definition of integration says that it’s about assimilation, which is what you had mentioned where I should just show up and I fit right into the system. So do you think that integration where we’re talking about assimilation represents more the social model of disability and inclusion where it talks about accommodation represents the medical model of disability, or do you disagree with that concept?
Karen: For the past 15 years, I’ve been working with the human rights model of disability. And I know that in countries like the UK, they’re still using the social model. A lot of places in North America were using the human rights model. And the CRPD, the Conventions on the Rights of People with Disabilities, is based on the human rights model.
And I have been told in, in council meetings and other places that if I start talking about disability in terms of human rights that nothing’s going to happen because it gets everybody’s back up, which I don’t understand, but there it is. The Canadian government on their website about education in Canada says that they have an integrated education system in Canada, and they’re striving for an inclusive one.
And one of the things I’ve been advocating since 2009 in terms of education is that we need a global inclusive education standard. Now, my part of it in terms of advocacy is for disability. There are other components to an inclusive education standard, but we all need to be talking about the same thing.
We can’t be talking around each other and using different terms when we’re trying to advance the involvement of those of us with disabilities in our own communities and in our own lives as active participants. So there is this big sort of confluence of terminology that people tend to sort out.
The problem is that they focus on the labels and not solving the problems. We can spend hours talking about inclusion versus integration, but we haven’t moved forward in terms of actually doing anything to improve the ability of those of us with disabilities to show up and participate. It’s one of my big frustrations.
David: So what are the barriers then, whether you use inclusion or integration, that keep us from reaching the inclusive levels that we want?
Karen: One barrier is funding. Even with the CRPD, and I’m talking globally, but this is all, this is also happening locally and federally. When we have projects for anything, 20 percent of the funding of projects should be dedicated to accessibility and making sure that those of us with disabilities have equal access to whatever it is.
Going back to education, there are a lot of programs that are being developed to educate, uh, girls, and the UN focuses on girls and women and education. None of those funding programs include girls with disabilities. I have yet to come across one unless it’s specifically aimed at educating girls with accessibility.
So schools are being built and programs are being developed, curriculums being developed, and those of us with disabilities are not included as part of the base funding. If we look at even our own educational system, we should be baking in accessibility from the time that someone touches a computer or a digital device, whether that’s in kindergarten, grade one, or grade two.
We should be creating things that are inclusive and consider all kinds of people who would be accessing them instead of the shortest design to get it to market. In terms of technology, we often hear, those of us with disabilities, is that, yes, there are barriers, but they’re unintentional barriers.
They’re not unintentional barriers. We created, and I’m using the global we, we created technology. We discarded those of us with disabilities as we advanced technology. So the barriers that exist now, whether it be the fact that I can’t access the digital display on a coffee maker or a fridge, whether it be applications or mobile devices.
I don’t care what technology you’re talking about. The barriers that exist now are intentional barriers. We tend to use an old fallback of cost. Well, it costs too much to make things accessible. The other barrier is legislation. We have the European Accessibility Act, we have EN 301549, we have the AODA, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, in the states there’s the Section 508 and the ADA, and everybody is saying here’s the legislation that things have to be accessible by 2025, yet we’re not teaching students how to do that.
And businesses are having to take that load on. So businesses are spending a lot of money reinventing the wheel within their own organization to try and train graduates who should be graduating with the skills to make things accessible.
And it’s not going to be a workable model moving forward if we’re not graduating people with the skills that they need to compete in our local, federal, and global economies. So the biggest barrier are the same old attitudes we’ve been fighting since technology was invented. People think that it costs too much to make things accessible.
When I get challenged with that, I remind people that when they first learned how to use a computer and they saved the file to where they wanted it to go, that was a learning experience, but now they do it as part of creating a document. When they needed to learn how to spellcheck, they did it. They don’t consider the cost of spell checking every document and say, Oh, that costs too much. I can’t spell check my document. It’s just going to have to go out the door as is.
So everything that we do with technology, we have learned. And somehow when it comes to creating accessible, well structured content and content that more people can use, we put up our hands and say, well, it costs too much and, and we’re going to have to retrofit it and, oh, we can’t consider and how are we going to do this?
Who are we going to talk to? It’s a self fulfilling prophecy that things are not going to be accessible because they cost too much because you keep telling people it’s going to cost too much and you don’t do anything about it. You don’t learn.
Sandi: Our first guest on the podcast was Julie Sawchuck. And Julie had, has a spinal cord injury.
She used to be a high school teacher prior to her injury. When she was ready to re-enter the workforce, she said, I don’t know if I can be a teacher anymore. There were no role models. There was nobody who she recognized as having a disability in the school system. So she didn’t really consider that as an option because of that.
Do you think some of it comes back to the fact that there aren’t role models out there that we don’t have enough people with disabilities in the workforce, people that we can work with, understand more about what the different kinds of disabilities might be? Do you think that is the fundamental piece that’s missing?
Karen: I’m smiling because this is one of my pet peeves and has been since I graduated from the Faculty of Education in Windsor in 1984 with an Ontario Teacher Certificate. And I went through every hoop that every other hoop student at the faculty went to. And I would go on job interviews and principals would say to me, I can’t hire you because you’re blind.
How am I going to explain to the parents that a blind person is teaching their student? My reply was, well, how do you explain to them that someone with blue eyes is teaching? How do you explain to them that someone who’s blonde or brunette is teaching? I jumped through the same hoops as they did. I controlled my classes and my practice teaching was downtown Windsor.
So my students were not coming from posh neighborhoods. I passed every hurdle that everybody else did. And yet I would have principals tell me that they couldn’t hire me or that you people with disabilities are bringing down my school rating in terms of funding or some silly thing. When there were a lot of layoffs in the 1980s, the first round of layoffs were mostly teachers with disabilities.
So, even within the educational system, teachers with disabilities are not valued. And it’s not just Ontario. It’s in North America in general, if I talk in terms of North America. Because teachers in the United States are facing the same thing. We are not valued as professionals. It is difficult for the educational system to switch us from students with, I’m using air quotes, special needs, to equals in the profession.
It’s one of the reasons I ended up teaching at, um, community colleges and universities. They didn’t care. They were looking at my skills so I could still be a teacher. I just couldn’t be a teacher in the grades that I had initially wanted to be. And it’s a problem that we have in terms of role models in general.
David: So I would guess then that our failure is in achieving cultural assimilation?
Karen: Yeah.
Sandi: So how do you get there though?
David: I think it’s the nature of democracy because democracy is the principle of the individual. We do have some liberal social ideas in Canada, but I believe the polarization has grown so much in recent years that disability is sort of pushed off to the side because it’s not really a diverse group.
You know, people talk about DEI, which is a whole other conversation, diversity, equality, and inclusion. We have a group of people who have disabilities, but they belong to every segment of society: race, religion, color, uh, wealth, age. So I find that disability tends to be put in the background and it’s the polarization of all these different things that overlooks the need for people to be inclusive.
Sandi: Is this an unsolvable problem?
Karen: No, it’s not an unsolvable problem. That’s why I keep, you know, sort of hitting my head against the, the seemingly immovable brick wall. Those of us with disabilities have to be more vocal. We have to organize. We have to accept a human rights model of disability and demand the same rights that everyone else has.
We need to demand that technology be accessible and usable for those of us with disabilities. We need to demand that when you create buildings, they’re accessible. And it comes back to those of us being able to move within our own communities. When Sandi talked about employment opportunities, I can’t go and answer any for hire sign in a store because the cash registers aren’t accessible.
Often the stock reader things aren’t accessible. Public transit is another barrier, and going back to education and the expectation that we can simply participate, a big part of that is advocacy and learning how to advocate and how to, how to participate once we are invited to the table and once we do have a voice.
Or when we see a problem, how to then approach the people who can change the problem in a way that starts a conversation instead of ending it. And I find humour, humour is much better to use than abrasiveness. So I ask them, if you went to a bookstore, and you found a book on a shelf, you took it to the cash register, and the clerk took the book and then handed you a plastic bag that had two covers and a bunch of pages in a pile and said, here’s your book, figure it out.
You have access to the book, but even for someone without a disability, that’s not an accessible book. So if you expect those of us with disabilities to accept access versus accessibility, then you have to be willing to accept it as well. And I find it troubling because then it’s, it goes back to the medical model of we’re giving you this gift, you know, you should be grateful.
It’s not a gift if we create a mess and then try to pass it off as something that is useful for people with disabilities. So the accessibility consultants, it’s a growing field. People don’t have the education. It goes back to education. People don’t have the education to participate as a consultant in the field of digital accessibility or inclusion, unless they understand those of us with disabilities.
Sandi: At the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests the same question. Is there one simple thing our listeners can do today that would help remove barriers and promote social integration? So when I say simple, I mean something that doesn’t cost a lot of money, maybe doesn’t require a lot of effort on their part, but actually moves things forward.
Karen: No, there’s no easy button. There’s no easy button for digital accessibility. There’s no easy button for hiring us because the structures have to be in place so that we can walk into a classroom, we can walk into a retail environment, we can walk into an office or use our mobility aids to get into the office, and sit down and start working.
Everybody wants an easy button. If you want to dwell on an easy button, I suggest you read Jakob Nielsen’s article on how AI is going to be the panacea for everything that ails those of us with disabilities in terms of digital access and information. But no, there’s never been an easy button.
There’s never been a simple solution. It requires those of us with disabilities being recognized as equals. And that is a hard shift for a lot of people to make.
David: Well, for small businesses, quite often they struggle with lack of resources. And quite often, as you know, procurement is a big problem. So if a small business is sold an idea that accessibility AI overlays is great for their business. How would you respond to that?
Karen: It goes back to education. If the cash registers they buy were accessible, they wouldn’t have to think about it. They would just buy a cash register. They would just have a website developed and it would be accessible.
And we wouldn’t have to worry about all this nonsense and all of these band aids that claim to be simple solutions and that aren’t really solutions. They’re, oh, I feel good now because I have an overlay or I feel good now because I put a ramp into the store, but I can’t employ anybody with a disability.
If we could just buy things that were inherently accessible and usable by people with disabilities, we wouldn’t have these questions. To me, if you want the simple solution, educate everybody to create accessible stuff and to understand disability. To me, that’s a simple solution to everybody else that doesn’t seem to be a simple solution, which is why I say there’s no simple solution.
Sandi: Well, Karen, that was great. Thank you so much for your insight. It’s fascinating always to listen to you. Certainly some engaging things for us to think about, and hopefully we will start down that road of educating everybody so that people understand that accessibility is not something, or disability is not something to be afraid of.
So thank you very much for joining us.
David: Thank you Karen, and thank you for sharing your views on inclusive principles, and I encourage you to keep up the great work that you’re doing.
Karen: Thank you for having me.
David: The views, thoughts, and opinions on this podcast are the speakers own and do not necessarily represent those of the podcast team and partners. This podcast is for information and learning purposes only. The Practical Accessibility Insights podcast is hosted by CMS web. org. Solutions. The intent of this podcast is to raise awareness for practical advice and strategies for making digital and physical environments more accessible to everyone.
Thank you for joining us in this time of discovery and sharing for a more inclusive society. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at Info, I N F O at David. Best or Sandi, S A N D I at CMSWebSolutions. com For more information and resources, go to www.cmswebsolutions.com or www.bestaccessibility.consulting.

Guest Speaker
Karen McCall
Karen McCall is the owner of Karlen Communications. With over 22 years experience, Karen provides strategic planning, consulting and education on accessible content design/creation and inclusive education. Karen has been an advocate for a global inclusive education standard since 2009.
Her experience as an international leader in accessible content design includes participation in the following committees: ISO 32000 (PDF), ISO 14289 (PDF/Universal Access), International Association for Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) Accessible Document Specialist (ADS) Credential, Technical Standards Committee for Plain Language and Technical Standards Committee for ICT, both part of the Accessible Canada Act.
Her book “Accessible and Usable PDF: Techniques for Document Authors” was first published in 2005, with the fourth edition published in 2017. She has written books on accessible Word and PowerPoint content, and how to use Microsoft Office applications from the keyboard. She has been a Microsoft MVP for Office Apps and Services since 2009, and a Microsoft Accessibility MVP since the category was created in 2014. Karen conducts research on how those with disabilities access digital content.