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Cognitive Accessibility Resources

There are about 5 million adults with cognitive disabilities in Canada, and millions more around the world.

Please use these resources to help make your products, services, workplaces and built environments more inclusive of people of all cognitive abilities.

White Papers, Primers & Policy Briefs

The Case for a Common Functional Definition and Understanding of Cognitive Disability

Towards a Functional Definition of Cognitive Disability

Financial Security and Financial Abuse Prevention Among Persons with Cognitive Disabilities

Digital Payments: A Framework for Inclusive Design (PDF)

Policy Brief: Disability Funding & Support Programs

Accessibility Brief: Authentication Methods for Voice User Interfaces

Research Articles

Journal of Intellectual Disabilities: Canadian parents with intellectual disabilities in child protection

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities: Needs of Canadian Child Protection Workers and Parents With Intellectual Disabilities

Perspective & Thought Leadership

Construction’s Labour Crisis and the Overlooked Workforce That Could Fix It

Media & Editorial Coverage

Collabzium | Professor Virginie Cobigo’s Award-Winning Research

Collabzium | Towards a more inclusive world: Open puts neuro-inclusion into action

Adrenaline Magazine | Tips for Creating Neuroinclusive Spaces

uOttawa Gazette | University of Ottawa Pioneering Cognitive Accessibility in Digital Payments

Guides & Videos

How to Stop or Prevent Financial Abuse: A Guide for Persons With Cognitive Disabilities

How to Stop or Prevent Financial Abuse: A Guide for Caregivers

Financial abuse prevention

Cognitive accessibility in the workplace

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Testimonials

We have been working with Open for over a year and it has been a pleasure; Open offers a professional, fast, efficient, detailed, and conscientious path to engaging neurodiverse communities as advisors for corporate related accessibility projects.

Nadia Hamilton, CEO, Magnusmode

We work with Open in order to develop a cognitively accessible medication management application. They provided us with a wealth of expertise regarding cognitive disabilities and accessibility while ensuring we received input directly from persons with cognitive disabilities.

Dinis Cabral, CEO, JLG Health Solutions

It is always a pleasure to work with you and your students! They were quite remarkable throughout the process. They were available, accessible and certainly their report today was spot on.

Caroline Granger, Director, Valor & Solutions

Our work with Open has led to meaningful improvements in accessibility. Their process identified unintentional barriers in our materials, and the revisions have made our resources more effective for individuals with diverse cognitive needs.

Lynn Martin, PhD, Professor, Department of Health Sciences, Lakehead University

Thank you for helping make SCERN a success! Based on your feedback, we have made a number of improvements.

Christopher Macdonald Hewitt, Ph.D.