Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning

David H. Rose, Anne Meyer, Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1703 N. Beauregard St, Alexandria, VA 22311-1714, Product no. 101042, $22.95 ASCD members, $26.95 nonmembers, ISBN-0-87120-599-8

A brief history/some background

In the 1950s, the idea of "universal design" first emerged. At the time it was articulated as barrier-free design, an idea growing in concept in Europe, Japan and the US. It is best described in the early stages as a growing global awareness of the necessity for and benefits of building environments that were obstacle-free. The early emphasis was on removing obstacles for people with physical disabilities-when a building was designed for "universal" access, it would by design accommodate users with disabilities. By the 1970s, the idea had matured and gained political strength. During the '70s, US architect Michael Bednar described universal design as an awareness that everyone's functional capacity is enhanced when environmental barriers are removed. The best example to date remains the curb cut-a city planning feature designed to benefit individuals in wheelchairs, but that turned out to benefit many others such as joggers, parents pushing strollers, etc. That awareness would soon become a cornerstone for design practices in fields such as architecture, civil engineering, and human factors engineering. The political strength especially came from the disability rights movement, focusing on the rights of individuals with disabilities.

By the 1980s, this concept had gained strength in numbers (or critical mass; Rogers 1995). In 1987, the World Design Congress passed a resolution stating that designers should factor disability and aging into designs, adding professional strength to the approach (Adaptive Environments 2006). A number of professions adopted universal design as a core tenet of professional practice: when a supermarket or a building or a city infrastructure or an airplane is designed and built, it should be able to accommodate a wide range of users. This "wide range" was not simply a range of physical abilities, but a range of ages and life stages-what is called "lifespan design." Any person, regardless of age or physical limitations or stage of life would be able to access physical environments (Mace et al. 1991). In 1987, Ron Mace coined the term "universal design" to try to differentiate...