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Voiceover 1: You're listening to IOE Insights, the UCL Institute of Education podcast at University College London.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Welcome to the third episode of Inclusive Voices, a series on the IOE Insights podcast created through the project Collaborative Knowledge Exchange in Sensory Needs Education, funded by UK Research and Innovations Higher Education Innovation Fund. I am your host, Leda Kamenopoulou, associate professor and expert on deafblindness and sensory accessibility, and programme lead for UCL's MA in Special and Inclusive Education. Through this series, we aim to create a truly collaborative space where research, professional practice and lived experience share insights, challenge assumptions and co-construct knowledge that can really support inclusive educational practice. In today's episode, we focus on deafblindness and accessibility, exploring how everyday environments, technologies and systems can both enable and restrict participation. We will be discussing the realities of navigating the world with combined sensory loss, the role and limitations of assistive technology and what it truly means to design for inclusion from the outset.
I am delighted to be joined by two exceptional guests who bring both professional expertise and powerful perspectives shaped by lived experience and design practice. Hannah McPierzie, disability consultant from Australia, international speaker and advocate whose work draws on her lived experience of deafblindness to strengthen advocacy and promote inclusive systems. And Laura Wissiak, Chief Research Officer at Hopetech Plus Austria and User Experience Designer, who leads the Ally News newsletter and focuses on accessibility as a driver of societal inclusion. Welcome both.
Hannah McPierzie: Thank you for having us.
Laura Wissiak: Thank you so much for inviting us.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you for being here. So drawing on your lived experience, what are some of the everyday barriers you encounter, whether in health appointments, doing exercise, using communication tools like speech to text, or attending social events such as concerts? And where does assistive technology support you well, and where does it still fall short? Hannah?
Hannah McPierzie: Thanks for that, Leda. I think to begin with, traveling. So I'm from Australia and I'm over here in London. And the biggest barrier for me right now is the fact that you're always at the mercy of other people coming to get you in a hotel to let you know that there's an evacuation or there's a fire alarm or something going on because they're not they're not built for people with a sensory loss. So I think that's quite relevant to my current context as a traveller is that the travelling world isn't designed for people with disabilities essentially.
But I think mainly when I'm thinking of health appointments and everyday barriers back home would be that dual or multisensory losses are never considered. So as someone who is a regular patient within the health care system back in Australia, I go to audiology clinics and they never consider that I might also have a vision loss. And then I go to ophthalmology clinics. They never consider that I have a hearing loss. So you have this really siloed approach in these appointments and you constantly haveLeda Kamenopoulou: That's so true. Yes. So true.
Hannah McPierzie: Yes. You're constantly having to advocate or educate. And then I think another part of this with my own lived experiences, vestibular problems, even within audiology, they just look at the hearing loss and the implant, but then the balance issues that come from that and the high risk of falls. And yes, it's important to exercise, but how do you do that safely? And then I think just to finish with your, you touched on concerts, haptic vests, the ones that you put on and they link with the speakers and you get that feeling of music.
They're fantastic, but back home in Australia, they're really rare. So you might get one event a year that comes through. Speech to text is definitely my go to, but it does take a lot of cognitive load by the user to ascertain when there's been a miscommunication and having to use the context to fill in what that word might have meant. And it also does require a very strong WiFi connection, which often isn't possible. So, yeah, I think the biggest thing would be having time to set up your assistive tech in a meeting or an appointment.
Just, you know, thirty seconds to get out your Otter or your Live Transcribe, get out your little microphones, make sure you're sitting in a way that you're not against a window and then start the meeting or start the health appointment so that you're informed.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you. Thank you, Hannah. Laura?
Laura Wissiak: Yes. On the topic of assistive technology, I think one thing I noticed in on the other side of designing for assistive technology and developing for it is the assumption that this tool would somehow level out disability. But this kind of ignores the fact that people don't exist in a vacuum and we don't use this technology or any type of technology within a vacuum. There is still this translation gap that Hannah described that you have to wait for the live transcription to finish. You have to make sure it is actually correct.
And these tools, while they can do great work, are not entirely reliable these days. So, for example, what I notice when I talk to my colleagues a lot and we have a transcription feature running in the background for the captions compared to my colleagues who are native English speakers, my words get mistranscribed so often because I talk with an accent.
Leda Kamenopoulou: You know, I often say that it is racist. It doesn't pick up other accents because it happens to me as well.
Laura Wissiak: Yes, to me as well. And then it takes a lot of mental load. As Anna said that you have to level it out in your head and be able to figure out, Okay, this is what the tool said, but this is what the person actually meant. And that is kind of the mental factor that we don't really factor in when we design for assistive technology. That is something that on the human side we have to just still make up for.
So those tools alone don't really level out the playing field. They give you a buffer. They help you, but they don't, they don't even it out.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you. And that's so interesting. You're both saying that, this year, recently, a team of colleagues from my department and myself conducted a series of rapid evidence reviews for the Department of Education here in England, and I coled the one focusing on supporting sensory and physical needs. And we did, in our findings, we saw that the assistive technologies have been found to be something that supports learners with sensory needs, but we still need a lot more research evidence about exactly the issues you're talking about, some of the barriers, what can go wrong, how can we improve this. So the assumption that they exist and they resolve all the problems is wrong.
Right?
Laura Wissiak: Yes, absolutely.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Brilliant. Now, something that Hannah touched on a bit and that I really want to ask you about is I'm sure you both have experienced accessibility often being treated as an add on or an afterthought, but in reality it can shape whether people can participate at all. So from your perspective, what does meaningful accessibility look like in practice, for example, in conferences, teaching or public events and what small changes can make the biggest difference? Hannah, would you like to lead on this?
Hannah McPierzie: Yeah, absolutely. And this is very relevant because I'm travelling for a few conferences at the moment and they are audiology conferences, the most of them. But the experts are in the room, not the patients or the people with that lived experience. And I think it's not just for an audiology conference, but in a broader sense, conferences or events, they'll list themselves as accessible. It's an accessible event.
But when you actually click and you look closer, what it's really saying is it's wheelchair friendly, which is great. You know, it's important to get into the building. But again, it's that binary view that all people who have a disability are wheelchair users and that's where their needs are met and, and end. So yeah, great. The building that you've chosen to run the event meets basic building codes and a wheelchair can enter the building.
But what happens when you're in the building and you're there? How do you access information? That's what true accessibility should be about. And let's not forget that someone in a wheelchair can also be deafblind or can also have a hearing loss. You can have comorbidities.
So I think it's really important to to not, like I said, silo those needs. But then I know back home in Australia, people see deafness say as, okay, we'll get an Auslan interpreter or a BSL interpreter and we'll put them on the stage and then that'll that'll tick that box for accessibility. But it doesn't address that spectrum of people with a hearing loss who, you know, perhaps went deaf later in life or or have been deaf for a very long time and and don't engage in in sign language and that's absolutely fine. So, think when you're looking at a truly inclusive experience, what I've found is on an event or a conference, have, you know, an advisory group helping them with accessibility. You know, it's not just an events coordination team who are all healthy, able-bodied people.
It's, know, how do we how do we make sure that whoever wants to come is able to come and access the information? So having a stage that's a little bit raised and then having the speakers all using microphones and using them correctly, you know, not holding them in their hand and and, you know, a meter from their face. It's not going to do anything.
Leda Kamenopoulou: That's a big one. Right? I've come across many speakers who say it's all right. I speak loudly. I can project.
And it's not about that.
Hannah McPierzie: No, I hate that when people say that. They go, oh, you know, I went to drama school so I can project my voice. And I think, oh, this is so ignorant. They're blessed with their ignorance because they haven't had to deal with a communication disability. And especially when there's a hearing loop, when they check that it's working and there's someone on hand to to help, that's fantastic.
But then if you're not using the microphone, the hearing loop is null and void because you're only able to hear whatever that microphone is picking up. So I find it inclusive events, you know, that they have proper microphone etiquette. They might they'll say their name before they speak. So you know who to look at. There's live captioning done by someone in the room.
It's not just auto transcribed, which leaves all those difficulties that Laura was mentioning before. And then I think a huge thing is when there's a panel with lived experience that then there's accessibility on the stage. I've been on a few events and when I'm up there, I can't, you know, I can't see my transcribing app. I don't have my personal microphones, yet I'm standing there in front of the audience and I'm being asked questions. My accessibility has been removed.
So I did go to an event last year for World Hearing Day at Macquarie University in Sydney, and they had the iPad stands next to the panel members' seats with live transcribing going on. So that was just so meaningful and inclusive because they understood that you're, you still need accessibility when you're on stage. It doesn't stop at the stage.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you. That's great. Laura, do you want to add anything?
Laura Wissiak: Yes. To come in on event accessibility specifically, I noticed that in my experience for events, the more effort you put in, the more you get out of it. And if you are really conscious of your efforts, your participants will benefit from this. So as a speaker, for example, I noticed that sometimes conference will send out a speaker briefing on proper microphone etiquette that there will be sign language interpreters available, that there will be live subscribers available and that you are asked to hand in your slides or your speaker notes beforehand so that they can prepare accordingly, especially if we're talking about very, very niche themes. You will need to prepare in advance the vocabulary or anything you can just save as a shorthand on a live transcription.
And one thing I found useful in particular is to not just assume that that will be dealt with by someone by basically the black box. But if you are in doubt that you might be using very technical language in your speech, then just go to the live transcribers beforehand in a break and go through your presentation with them in chronological order. Because, for example, once I had a talk that combined code snippets and Pokemon, and my question was, I wonder what the sign language names of Pokemon actually are, if they have any, because the names are different in each language. So how would it work in sign language? And that question led me to go to the sign language interpreters and help you like, hey, I have I have some references to Pokemon in my presentation and I do have some pictures of them.
How is that handled in the translation? They said, well, do we have pictures? That's fine. We're just going to point at them. Perfect.
Then I go to the live transcribers and they were really, really glad that I said hi beforehand because they were not prepared to transcribe Pokemon names. They did not know any Pokemon. So we spent about fifteen minutes just spelling Pokemon, listing them in a chronological order that they will appear and making sure that they're transcribed right. And also for the technical terms used, that they are also written in the way that you would see them in the code so that you don't have the natural language spelling of them where you wouldn't use that in the code, for example, but actually how it's written in the technical elements so that people can recognise it faster. And also that it makes their job easier and they don't have to worry about it and go back in and correct this.
And number one, I think this is very fun to do if you have something very specific to talk about. But also, it teaches you a lot as a speaker on how to prepare for these types of events better. So now I know what they need to look out for in my speaker notes when I send them in that I need to send them in advance and that I also plan to check-in with the people because that makes a difference between having to figure out, Okay, what does, for example, the language element? It is written just lang in the code. And yes, you can figure that out.
But if I want to make a joke right after that, then I don't want the people to spend mental energy on figuring out what I'm saying beforehand so that they can laugh with us. This is something that really needs to be communicated from the event organiser side that you can actually prepare in advance that, you know, Okay, these are the options that I have. There will be sign language interpreters available. I can go to them and just ask them like those are people I could just talk to them if I'm curious, because most of the time people are very passionate about what they do. And if you show interest, they will be glad to answer to you.
And every time I do that, I learn something new about how to prepare better, how to make sure that, number one, what I'm saying is well digested, but also that my jokes land and that overall the event will just be more pleasant for everyone participating.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll move on to the next question. Deafblindness is a spectrum, right? However, it's not widely understood as a spectrum.
In my experience, when people hear that someone's deafblind, they have certain stereotypes, you know, they make assumptions about what that means. So designing something to be accessible for a deafblind person can seem complex if deafblindness is not understood as a spectrum. Right? Or not understood at all, which is also something I've come across a lot. You say, deafblind and people go, eh? They haven't heard about this term before.
So from a design and research perspective, how can we approach physical and digital spaces, events and products in ways that genuinely include people across that spectrum? Laura, do you want to lead?
Laura Wissiak: Yes, with pleasure. One thing I noticed about designing digital physical products, doesn't matter, is this misconception that you have one type of disability. And in the case of deafblindness, people tend to think about the most extreme possible version. So 0% sight, 0% hearing. And then they go like, heh? but how did you even interact with the world?
They don't really consider often that you have both these points of hearing loss and of blindness. You just have multiple options or you probably have endless options of combining them both together, which gives you very few possibilities of standardisation. But that is something that people tend to focus on. They want to see like, okay, what are like the standardised guidelines that I can go for? And if they don't exist, people just tend to run around like headless chickens and don't really consider the other options.
Leda Kamenopoulou: So true.
Laura Wissiak: Yeah. So what I think would be more feasible if this if we just think about different points across the spectrum. So for hearing loss, I think it is easier to imagine it as you have a very elaborate stereo system. Or if you are a DJ, think about all the options to mix together two songs. That's kind of how it works with your hearing as well.
All of these options can work independently from each other and all of them can be dialled down as well. The same goes for blindness. We have multiple options of just overall visual acuity being lower. We have options of you maybe be only blind in one eye and the other one is perfectly fine or anything in between. You have night blindness, stare blindness, colour blindness, and most of them actually come with various different comorbidities because they don't really exist independently.
But through simulations, we often think of, Okay, this is one use case. This is the second use case. And luckily these days simulations tend to be a bit more realistic, so you can actually get a pretty nice virtual simulation of it. But we still need to keep in mind that this is not the way it looks like. There's no one way that blindness looks like, and there's no one way that deafness or hard of hearing sounds like.
It will always be a combination of both. And the only way we find out is if we learn it from the community. So in my experience, the more people you talk to, the more people you interact with, the more you get a picture in your head of how deafblindness manifests and then the various tools that you can use to make your products more accessible. In general, I think accessibility is viewed in a narrow lens. So you kind of often see it as like one topic, which makes it somewhat harder than it should be because there's no one type of disability and there's no one type to do accessibility.
Right? Disabilities are a broad spectrum. It's a huge variety. You also have dynamic disabilities. Sometimes they change within the same person from day to day, depending on your fitness that day or on external circumstances that you cannot influence.
But as an event organiser, you might be able to influence them a bit. So in general, I would say we need to move away from having a fixed perspective of what accessibility should be and on to seeing accessibility as a communication with the people we are doing accessibility for, so that we get the feedback on, Okay, what do you need? So as Hannah said before, like, maybe don't write, you have an accessible event because you have a ramp, but list the concrete steps that you are providing like, yes, we do have live transcription available.
Yes, we do have sign language available. Or maybe you only have one of them. And then people can make an informed decision about if that fits their needs and bonus points, if you offer like an open text input field where you can just submit your own access requests and be like, hey, I would like to have this. Would be great if you could provide it because then I can attend or then I can participate in a meaningful way.
Because if you only have live transcription available, for example, people who use sign language as their primary means of communication might not be able to ask questions.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you. That's brilliant answer. Thank you. Hannah, would you like to add something?
Hannah McPierzie: Yeah, that was brilliant. I was just nodding along to everything Laura was saying. And I would simply just add that when I start my, a lot of my presentations at conferences or at events, I do by reiterating that deafblindness is a spectrum because oftentimes the people in the room are completely uninformed. And I refer to Helen Keller as how she's our GOAT, our greatest of all time. And everyone knows her name.
Most people do. And I, I say that I, I think that Helen would be a little bit miffed if she knew that people use her deafblindness as the definition of what deafblindness is and it's this binary static condition. And all the work that she did in that space and all the advocacy, you know, we're all standing on her shoulders. But there's, there's a spectrum here. I'm not gonna go over what Laura just said, but just to say that that is exactly what I have encountered.
And, you know, just one example is going to a disability summit in, in Melbourne in Australia last year. And they had the this just, you know, speaks to when accessible events aren't designed by people with lived experience, and they have the sign language interpreters on the left of stage. And then they had the hearing loop only on the right of stage. And then they only had the live captioning on one side of the stage. So you had to pick your access, I guess, rather than being able to sit there and go, oh, yep.
I can check the Auslan interpreter. Yep. Oh, I didn't quite catch that sign. So I'll look at the captioning. And meanwhile, while this is happening, I'll have the hearing loop going through my implant.
No, you have to choose. And again, that speaks to that misunderstanding that this is a spectrum and it's not static. You move back and forth and you might go, you might have quite a sharp decline and then suddenly you're in a new landscape. So, yeah, understanding that is, is key.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you very much. Now you both made me think about, something that I have thought about a lot. It's competing needs or people preferring different things. For example, my understanding in the way I do accessibility is that, for example, if you're organising a conference, you will provide the slides in editable versions so people can modify them according to their preferences because someone might prefer dark background and light font, or someone might prefer the opposite. So I struggle when someone approaches me as an event organiser and says, I prefer dark background and light font.
Can you please make sure all the slides are, whereas, you know, there might be other people who prefer other things. So my understanding is that the reason I'm providing editable versions is different people prefer different things. I'm not sending the slides as PDFs where, you know, people cannot change them. So this is something I struggle with a bit. I don't know if you have any views on this or perhaps I'm overthinking it.
Laura Wissiak: No, I think you have a good point. But in the design world, we do really like our rules and our guidelines so that we know we are doing good. I think a lot of the people working in design, they really, really have good intentions. And if you give them clear instructions, that's when most people thrive there, in my opinion. So it is seen as kind of a good practice to say, like, put it in this format because this is like our standardised form.
I really wanted it to be like very clean and very consistent, to have visual consistency for maybe branding purposes, maybe for perceived ease of use, I'm going to say, and maybe just because that is how they put it on their website. And again, that it is consistent across all their socials as well. But this is again where we come into this cookie cutter state of accessibility that we kind of have an idea of what we should do. But it's wrong because we never talk to people who actually access or want to access the materials.
And I learned that when you use access means or when you try to be as inclusive as possible, it will always be a struggle. And there is no one right way to do it. But you can always do your best and providing accessible versions in as in editable versions, as in you just do the basics, you run an accessibility check through your PowerPoint. That is something we can very much do, but people are still sometimes intimidated by doing the wrong thing. And this intimidation manifests as overwhelm and fear of doing it wrong and therefore, yeah, just being intimidated, wanting to do well and then being stuck in this kind of state of inertia.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Yeah, I always say with accessibility that once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. And so it's people who haven't caught up with what it means, why it's important, how to do the basics. Like you say, I actually had a, once I was organising a conference and an expert on vision impairment. So I sent instructions to the presenters, in terms of, you know, accessibility fundamentals for the PowerPoint. And, that person came back to me in full honesty, said, I don't know what you mean by adding alt text to pictures.
And I said, it's fine. There's always the first time. And I sent them, you know, clear instructions with screenshots of how to view alt text, add text, alt text description. And, I saw that as an opportunity for educating them despite the fact that they were fairly senior in this field and they had never, never used that alt text function. So my last question is about where we are at the moment in the field and the future of accessibility.
When I first started really focusing on accessibility in my work about four or five years back, people, many, the majority of the people I spoke to didn't even know what accessibility means. Right? From what I see now on social media, like LinkedIn, accessibility at the moment is very trendy. It's become currency, right? It's a thing many more people talk about and understand.
However, I have sadly been in meetings, for example, when people might be advocating for accessibility and the materials they use or the resources they share are completely inaccessible, you know, even to me as a person without a vision impairment. Example, it might be a slide on a PowerPoint far, far away on a board I can't see. So I have to make a picture and magnify on my phone. So I see this trend. You know, people have people have caught up with the accessibility discourse, but they're still falling short on the implementation – actually doing it. So I've seen progress, growing awareness, but I think there's still a lot more work for us. So from your perspective, what do you think are the most common mistakes organisations or designers make when trying to do accessibility and what practical first steps would you recommend for them to move from good intentions and talking about it to actually doing it? Laura, would you like to lead on this?
Laura Wissiak: It's a good question because, as you said, I completely agree. Accessibility is a hot topic at the moment, and in digital accessibility, in particular, thanks to the European Accessibility Act, we are seeing a lot of uptake in interest and also some progress there. I'm also quite optimistic this is sustainable progress and not just a trendy topic right now. But I really, really still struggle with how people view accessibility as a benchmark or accessibility as compliance work so that you just want to meet these criteria. And that's where you stop, because this is the legal minimum you need to meet.
And what people really tend to forget about this is that the legal minimum is also the usability minimum. Like this is a really bare bones minimum you need in order for people with assistive technology to be able to access your product, to interact with it in a meaningful way. And if you can provide this, then, Okay, that's something that's already something to be proud of, it's a good step, but you should not stop there. And this is where I see a lot of good intentions, but a huge gap to implementation of them.
Because in website testing in particular, we have usability tests as a regular occurrence. This is something that is very established. And also just I think every corporate at this point has some form of accessibility or not accessibility, but usability testing programme where they want to create a continuous feedback loop with their customers, their clients or just their users in order to improve the product. But when it comes to accessibility, this is somehow completely removed from that process. So maybe you might sneak in a few users with disabilities, but that is usually not intentional, but just happens because of those users that they decide to show up, that they can participate.
And that the audience participation part in this, I would say, is kind of limited by the access means of usability tests. So it is very unlikely that you actually have or no, let's say it is actually completely unlikely that you don't have customers with disabilities. Statistically speaking, it's just impossible. It is an inclusion gap. So if your let's say your screener survey that you send out to your clients for asking them who has time to participate in a feedback session in a usability testing programme.
If that feedback form, for example, is barely accessible, that's how you screen out everyone with a disability in advance or certain types of disabilities in advance and accessibility testing. If that is a conscious choice, that is usually also targeted at just answering the questions of what are access barriers. You do not really have an open mind to the feedback going into accessibility testing because the problem is already predefined. The problem are barriers. And we just want to know which ones particular.
And that's where we stop. We don't really design for joy of use when it comes to assistive technology, which is kind of sad because the more you look into it, the more you can actually do with assistive technology. There are really cool functions. I recently learned that screen readers have or some screeners have a setting where you can make an accordion when it expands sound like the instrument of an accordion, which I found fascinating cause that is joy of use when it comes to digital design. I didn't know that.
And I've been working in this field for like...
Leda Kamenopoulou: I didn't know that.
Laura Wissiak: yeah, it's really cool, right? And I think most people who use assistive technology don't know that because they are not really prompted to go that far. Like power users. Yes, they likely know that. But if you think about your everyday user, most of them will probably not care to go that deep into different configurations because it's just a tool to meet the ends.
And if using your tool is a barrier in itself or maybe not a barrier, but just a medium pleasant experience, then you don't really have an incentive of deep diving into it and seeing what you could do versus if you actually go to, Okay, I want to make this experience just as nice as possible for a screen reader user. Like, I really want to see what are the options and what can I do to provide a pleasant experience, not just a functional experience? I think that makes a difference in number one, motivating people in actually getting to know what the tools can be used for. And also on the design part and development part, it gives you a bit of a challenge to push your product to the best possible version, which again is, I think, what product people want to do. They want to make good work and deliver good work.
But they are often kind of stopped by the idea like, okay, this is the standard that would need to check, these checkboxes we need to tick. And that's all there is, which is just not true. We just don't ask people what else we can do to make their experience more pleasurable.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Absolutely. Hannah, would you like to add something to this?
Hannah McPierzie: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a similar thing in Australia that with the accessibility being more of a front view thing at the moment. So we have it's mandatory for big organisations in Australia to have an access and inclusion plan, which is fantastic. And that gets reviewed every few years. But again, that's almost in a way some places will, you know, okay, we've ticked that and then we've made this policy and then it goes in a drawer and then we'll update it in three years.
So yes, accessibility is being thought of, but is it being, is it being used? And when you think of accessibility and inclusion, because we use those terms so interchangeably, actually you have to look at them and go that that that they're two different things. And just because you might have a policy or you might have to to, to reach some sort of benchmark, doesn't mean that person or those people are actually included. So it's like that, accessibility are, if you have your your policy or your your checklist to say, that's the ingredients to a meal, but it's still just sitting in your kitchen.
Inclusion is when you use all those ingredients and you make a meal. And if you don't do that, then they're just still just gonna be sitting there unattended. So I think it's really important that your access and inclusion are kept as these pillars, but that lived experience needs to be in there. So when you're creating a, one of these policies, you've got lived experience guiding that and you're paying for their time. That's a big thing.
I'm not sure over here in in in England or in Europe, but in Australia, sadly, in the past, it's been, you know, we wanna hear from you, people in the disability community, but we're, I'm not gonna give you any money for it. And and I just think that that is really shocking. You wouldn't go and ask someone who's fixing your car at the end to go, well, I'm not gonna pay you. That would never happen. But if you're asking someone to use their skills and their expertise to show you how to make a conference of 2,000 people inclusive, that you're not gonna pay them for that knowledge, I think that's really poor.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Yep. I agree.
Hannah McPierzie: Yeah. That's the and guess it's, it's turning a corner back home, but it's still it's still this sort of awkward thing where you go, look, I really want to help as a person with a disability. I want to spread that awareness. I want to really champion inclusion, but at the same time, I have to make, you know, mortgage payments. And Yeah.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Of course.
Hannah McPierzie: I want to make this my role and and a career, you still need to be paid for that. So I think that is a huge part of the inclusion that doesn't get mentioned.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for this. As we have heard today, accessibility is not simply about adding adjustments. It is about fundamentally shaping whether people can participate, belong, and thrive. Deafblindness in particular reminds us that accessibility is not one size fits all, but challenges us to think more deeply, design more thoughtfully, and listen more carefully.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Hannah and Laura for sharing their insights, expertise, and experiences so generously. Your contributions highlight both the progress that has been made and the important work that still lies ahead in creating truly inclusive environments.
Hannah McPierzie: Thank you so much for that Leda. I really, really enjoyed being part of this and listening to Laura's amazing, amazing insights, especially into, into Pokemon and coding.
Laura Wissiak: Thank you so much. I can only return that compliment. It was a great conversation. I took so much from it and I really enjoyed it as well.
Leda Kamenopoulou: Thank you. And thank you, dear listener, for joining us to hear this important conversation. If you've enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend or a colleague. Search IOE Insights to also find more podcasts from the IOE. And a quick favour before you go, if you're listening on apple or Spotify, we'd really appreciate itif you could give the podcast a rating. Five stars would be nice if you're feeling generous, that will help us to reach more people who are interested in hearing about such important work. This podcast series is funded by UK Research and Innovations Higher Education Innovation Fund, and we look forward to continuing to share insights that strengthen inclusive practice for children and young people with sensory impairments and complex needs. I am Leda. Thank you.
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