Plain Language

By Milan Šveřepa and Soufiane El Amrani

The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities says that it is important for people with intellectual disability to have information that is as clear and as easy to understand as possible. They have a right to good information.

More than 20 years ago, Inclusion Europe and our partners wrote Information for All: European Standards for Making Information Easy to Read and Understand.

Soufiane El Amrani (right) speaks at a meeting, with support from Ebba Olsson.

The sentiment and reasoning behind that document are still relevant today: Good information helps people find out what they need to know, and it helps them make their own choices and decisions.

The two decades that have passed have seen big developments in the accessibility of information for people with intellectual disability (ID).

Easy to read, in its different versions and applications, serves audiences in many different countries and languages. The European standards alone were translated into 19 languages, most recently into Romani and Greek. (bit.ly/4arjAi4)

Governments, organisations, and businesses use easy-to-read formats to inform people about laws and elections, events and reports, or about their products. There are easy-to-read textbooks and versions of popular and classical literature.

Easy to read has also created employment opportunities for people with ID. They work as editors of easy-to-read texts, or use easy-to-read texts in their job.

At Inclusion Europe, we view and use it as a specific accessibility tool for accessibility, with its own rules and applications. We produce easy-to-read versions of our articles and reports. We create the Europe for Us easy-to-read magazine, informing people with ID about different topics that are relevant to them and to disability rights. The magazine is published four times a year, in eight languages. (www.inclusion.eu/europe-for-us-magazine)

Editing easy-to-read texts and the Europe for Us magazine is what I (Soufiane), have been doing here for more than 15 years. It’s just one example of what we said earlier about the role easy to read has for job opportunities and professional development for people with ID. The experience and knowledge gained from editing easy to read helps me develop skills and experiences I can take into new roles and contexts, such as public speaking or serving on boards of different organisations.

We don’t rely only on easy to read to make information accessible. We also use plain language. For us, this is language that uses common, everyday words to talk about the things that we do at Inclusion Europe to advocate for Europe to finally end the segregation of people with ID and the isolation of their families.

As we work at the European Union level, our daily agenda is filled with big-word policies and complex documents. We use plain language to try to explain their relevance.

We also use plain language to communicate the issues that matter to people with ID, and to get our message across on different platforms and formats.

Similar to the point we made earlier about easy to read, the value of plain language goes beyond just that particular message. A combination of plain language and some techniques from easy to read (short sentences, short paragraphs) helps me (Milan) in my writing and public speaking as the chief executive of Inclusion Europe.

Inclusion Europe also uses plain language for board meetings and other events, like the signature Hear Our Voices! self-advocacy conferences. It means using plain language not only in writing, but also when speaking.

It’s important to mention the ways some organisations misuse plain language, to the detriment of people with ID. There are, unfortunately, too many cases of that, such as when organisations label as “easy to read” a text that is anything but.

We’ll notice it quite often, a text labeled and promoted as easy to read, when it barely follows any of the rules and recommendations. It usually looks like easy to read (there are the typical short lines of text), but this is about it. Sometimes, these texts also have the Inclusion Europe logo for easy to read, which makes it even more problematic. A lot of people are now used to the logo and it helps them to identify easy-to-read texts. (www.inclusion.eu/easy-to-read-logo)

When we can, we reach out to the authors to request changes. In some cases, the only change they make is to remove the logo - showing their lack of interest in providing actually accessible information.

Another frequent misuse of easy to read is when organisations provide an easy-to-read version of a document, but the text only says that there is a document, not what the document says. This happens quite often with documents about and for people with disabilities. For example, when there are some consultations or reports about issues that affect them directly. What good is it to tell people that someone published a document, without explaining its contents or why it is important?

Another problematic practice is providing the easy-to-read version later than the original. This is especially problematic when there are deadlines involved, and this practice robs people with ID of the time others have to respond to the document (for example, a policy consultation).

We also notice there are many people who do research about accessible information and who write books or organise conferences about easy to read and plain language without involving people with ID, and without providing an easy-to-read or plain-language version of their texts. Just recently, we saw a call for contributions on texts in “easy language,” which used a lot of complicated words and sentences.

The last misuse of easy to read or plain language relates to events. A conference or other event involving people with ID will sometimes have an agenda written in an easy-to-read format. But that is all. No explanation of the topics that will be discussed. No attention to the language spoken during the event. No other considerations to make the event’s proceedings accessible.

Sometimes, it feels as if some organisations use easy to read as an easy way out: We’ve done the document, what else do you want?

But let us go back to the very positive effect easy to read and plain language have had on the lives of a lot of people with ID. Being able to understand and use the relevant information and empowering them to do many different things is invaluable. Creating jobs and developing professional careers is another benefit. Having access to information that informs them about their rights changes lives. Tibi Chitoiu, a self-advocate from Romania, told us his story recently. Growing up in institutions, he was not allowed to eat what or how much he wanted. He experienced violence and was stripped of his right to choose on a daily basis. Chitoiu started doing some research and found out about the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That was the first time he realised that he had any rights at all. He contacted our member organisation Ceva de spus and, with their support, left the institution. He now lives in the community, independently and in his own home.

This is why accessible, easily understandable information matters.

A.I. (artificial intelligence) is making big changes to how people work. This includes how easy to read or plain language is being done. Computers have had easy-to-read versions of texts for many years, with results of varying quality. They will get better at it.

This could mean fewer job opportunities for people with ID who create easy-to-read texts. On the other hand, this means more text being turned into easy to read and needing reviewing. It is important to keep involving people with ID in the development of texts that are relevant to them so they can say what works or doesn’t. So they can learn new skills and ideas. So they can develop in their jobs.

It is important to continue developing and improving the accessibility of information. There are so many ways this can be done. The world around us is very complex. Being able to understand it and to use this information is very important, and not only for people with ID.

It’s also important to invest energy not only in providing accessible information, but in supporting people to understand and to use it. To be able to make the choices and contributions they want. To be able to navigate public services (as a service, or as the buildings and environments they are in) and to make good use of them.

“We want to understand the world we live in. Information should be easy to understand and available to all,” said European self-advocates in their 2023 manifesto (www.inclusion.eu/make-it-real). The manifesto, a statement that explains the beliefs of an organisation, was created during the Hear Our Voices! Self-advocacy conference in Estonia.

We don’t think that’s something only people with ID want. The work being done by them and for them to make information accessible benefits everyone.