Plain Language

By Helen Rottier, Danielle Gerber, and Gail Chodron

Plain language is an essential skill and practice for professionals and advocates who work with people with disabilities. Training for these professionals increasingly includes topics in plain language, and disability advocacy organizations have created webinars, writing guides, and other resources to educate audiences. More exposure to plain language is positive progress, but we noticed that most programs and resources offer an introduction to plain language with little sustained exploration and skill-building.

Our team created the Plain Language Community Placement (PLPC), a new offering for 2025-26 academic year that allows trainees to explore and experiment with plain language. This is intended to build their skills in plain language and their capacity as interdisciplinary leaders. We are excited to share our team’s early reflections.

Trainees meet informally after a WI LEND session.

Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) is a federally funded training program for interdisciplinary professionals working with children with developmental disabilities and their families. There are 60 LEND programs across the United States. In Wisconsin, the LEND program is located in the Waisman Center in Madison and includes trainees from Madison, Milwaukee, and surrounding areas. The WI LEND curriculum includes instruction-through-learning modules and case-based learning; experiential learning, including lived-experience education; mentorship and leadership development; and applied practice.

Applied practice is a long-term placement in a clinical, research, or community setting, often with a specific focus. Clinical placements for clinical discipline trainees allow them to observe and participate in an interdisciplinary clinic at the Waisman Center. For example, a physical therapy trainee may work in the Down syndrome or neuromotor clinics under the guidance of their mentor as a preceptor. Community placements provide an opportunity for trainees to gain experience working on community training and outreach projects, usually associated with Waisman Center University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) projects. Several trainees participate in a knowledge translation group as their community placement. This group is interdisciplinary, including families, self-advocates, and students in psychology, nursing, occupational therapy, and other disciplines. It is led by one of our social work faculty members who specializes in knowledge translation for all skill levels and disciplines. This placement has adopted an "all teach, all learn" approach, where trainees practice their skills on subject matter relevant to them and their interests.

The PLCP provides trainees with an opportunity to learn and practice writing skills, join contemporary conversations on plain language and disability, and develop resources. Trainees complete a minimum of 40 hours on placement activities to promote deep engagement and exploration. There are six trainees in the inaugural cohort from disability advocacy, family advocacy, social work, and nursing disciplines. Throughout the year, they will participate in cohort learning, lead projects, and practice engaging audiences and incorporating feedback to strengthen their materials. We developed the PLCP as part of WI LEND’s ongoing commitment to improving plain language across program resources and learning outcomes. The PLCP is highly interactive, going beyond introductory content to build leadership in plain language among the next generation of interdisciplinary professionals.

Activities

Cohort learning invites trainees to learn together about the history, goals, and features of plain language. They discuss its effectiveness and use across settings, and apply plain language in disability contexts, including their own disciplines. Cohort participants meet online for interactive activities and group discussion. The curriculum introduces trainees to plain language and brings them into more complex topics. In a session on ethical and legal considerations, trainees will learn about copyright law, the Chafee amendment, and the opportunities and risks of using generative AI to create plain language materials (bit.ly/4acj6gI).

Another session will consider Sarah Cavar’s Access Fictions (bit.ly/3MAxari) to discuss how calls for accessibility can be weaponized. This happens when non-disabled audiences demand that disabled people make themselves legible to majority group audiences. By centering plain language in the applied practice placement, WI LEND faculty and trainees have a chance to dive deeper into the nuances and contemporary debates surrounding plain language.

Trainees apply what they have learned through a long-term project to create a resource in plain language that can be shared with the WI LEND community, including future trainees, colleagues, and families. Projects are flexible, with ample opportunity for trainees to incorporate discipline-specific knowledge, lived experience, interests, and needs they have identified in the field of neurodevelopmental disability. While planning their projects, trainees consider the potential topic, audience, and format for their resource. Current trainees are creating guides on barriers for disabled professionals* working in education and healthcare, a list of questions that families can ask throughout the diagnostic process, and a one-pager describing fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

While working on their projects, trainees will practice iterative processes in writing and design. They will learn how to engage target audiences for feedback and product testing, incorporating the audience experience to revise the resources. Asking questions about how the audience navigates the resource and what they will do with the information, rather than asking yes-or-no questions about what they understand, is important. Trainees will also review one another’s materials and offer feedback. Small-group writing, review, and audience-engagement sessions will give each trainee the chance to plan and facilitate activities and build their confidence as plain-language leaders.

The PLCP cohort will also lead WI LEND trainees in Jargon Madness, a bracket-style tournament to identify confusing words and phrases commonly used in disability services. In May, trainees will crown the most confusing word as Jargon Champion and provide recommended alternatives. A blog post on digital.gov explains how similar tournaments have been used to promote plain language within organizations such as the Veterans Health Administration (bit.ly/4cs6mUy). In the WI LEND Jargon Madness tournament, all trainees and staff could submit jargon words and phrases used in disability-related work, including “phenomenological, malingering, and didactic.” Acknowledging less common or confusing words invites trainees to ask questions freely and promotes interdisciplinary communication. Together, the activities invite cohort members into substantive engagement with plain language and position them as leaders and experts in the larger fellowship class.

Opportunities & Reflections

The PLCP curriculum and activities are flexible, allowing staff to address trainees' interests and key questions about plain language. In our first year, we are eager to learn what works, what needs refinement, and what other opportunities exist to build plain language leadership in WI LEND and beyond. For Impact, trainees in the PLCP offered their early reflections:

Trainees situated plain language in neurodevelopmental disability topics.

• Multiple trainees expressed that plain language is important for disability access.
• Disability advocacy trainees have specifically shared examples of communication barriers and the role of plain language in their own lives.

Trainees noted how plain language was relevant to their disciplines and career goals.

• A family advocacy trainee said learning about plain language helped her consider how to speak with others, including extended family, friends, and teachers, about her child’s disability.
• A trainee working towards a career in primary care connected learning content on plain language and health literacy to how he communicates with patients

Trainees identified the broader value of plain language and clear communication.

• Trainees have elevated plain language as:
  • an important part of inclusive language
  • a tool to support cognitive access
  • an intervention toward epistemic justice, or equitable knowledge translation
• One trainee said plain language helped her to “look at how we communicate with others.”
• Another trainee said that plain language is a reminder to “not have an ego in disability-related work.”

Next Steps

As we conclude the first year of the program, we envision several future directions for this work in Wisconsin and across the LEND Network. First, we want to develop and share tools and resources to help others become leaders in the use of plain language. We will create a curriculum guide and activity instructions that can be easily adapted by LEND programs in other states. We also continue to use plain language to make program resources more accessible. We adapted the WI LEND application and orientation materials to use plain language for all prospective trainees, and we plan to write plain-language summaries for learning content across the modules. Finally, we want to evaluate the effect of the PLCP on trainees’ knowledge and self-efficacy in plain language. We hope that deep engagement with plain language will increase trainees' confidence in using and discussing plain language, building leaders in plain language for the future of developmental disability work.