[Menvi-discuss] Music Therapy Certification Exam and Braille Music/Tactile Graphics

[cdrobles693 at gmail.com]

Hello I do not know if you are part of the Aira community, but, it is worth asking if they will Accommodate you and using that service since it is essentially a human being looking at the test with you. Innoway it is using a human proctor even though they’re technically not with you in person. Just a thought. I also know that APH has tactile graphics regarding music and music theory and musical instruments and staves and such, it might be something to look into.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 26, 2018, at 4:33 PM, Kaiti Shelton via Menvi-discuss <menvi-discuss at menvi.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi all, 
> 
> I recently completed my bachelors degree in Music Therapy from the University of Dayton, as well as my required 900 hour internship at The Music Settlement in Cleveland, Ohio. I have my first full-time job lined up and am set to start on July 9th, but the problem is that I am having difficulty getting the appropriate accommodations for my certification exam. Currently, the testing company, Applied Measurement Professionals, is saying that I can have either Jaws or a human reader for my computerized test, but not both, and they will not provide any braille music or tactile graphics. This is problematic because there may be some questions on the test that use pictures or print notation if the practice tests were any indication. I was unable to attempt answering those questions on the practice exams because of additional issues and a lack of basic awareness of accessibility with screen readers for the self-assessment exam. I've explained to multiple people that with jaws alone I can't attempt to answer any picture or notation questions because Jaws will not read me that information, but I also want to have agency and independence in my test and want to be mindful of my time frame I have to take it. I could use a reader in theory, but I have a friend who took the exam by reader a few years ago and got someone who couldn't read music notation, so for that reason and the time issues I would like to avoid using a reader if at all possible. Today when I told all of this to the testing people again, I asked point blank why they wouldn't provide me with braille music and tactile graphics, and I told them I was taking notes. That switched them from we won't give them to you full stop to we'll look into it, but they have me temporarily scheduled for July 6th. I told them clearly that if accommodations are not in place properly we will have to reschedule, and it will need to be done all over again at a different test site because I am moving to start my new job. 
> 
> To clarify, some of the questions requiring notation knowledge might ask questions about accompaniment styles, basic theory questions, etc. The most I've seen on a practice test was a question about identifying a jazz accompaniment pattern in a few bars, and there were A, B, C, and D multiple choice examples. Tactile images might show things like a guitar fret board or a piano keyboard and ask the examinee to recognize by sight what particular chords are, also with the potential for separate A, B, C, and D answers. I've been told some weirdly conflicting information about the tactile stuff, such as their work around for not providing a guitar neck tactile image in the past has been to tell blind examinees they can bring their own guitars into the exam room. This seems fishy to me since you can't even bring your own calculator into the SAT or the GRE, and when I asked to have access to a Perkins brailler and braille paper instead of a piece of blank paper and a pencil like everyone else gets I was told I couldn't do that. It also seems to me that holding a guitar and being able to identify what a chord is like without manipulating the hand position are 2 different skills, and if one hammers on just slightly too hard or bumps the strings that could give the examinee audible cues for what a chord might be, how something sounds, etc. I don't want to even run the risk of being accused of cheating because of poor testing accommodation procedures, but I'm also not clear if they'll let me bring in a guitar neck tactile graphic that I've made myself based on how wishy-washy they are on what I can and can't bring in, and what they will and will not provide to me. I'm more nervous about getting what I need to take the test than I actually am about taking it with the knowledge I have and my studying. How can I go about pushing for braille music and tactile graphics in a more directed way than I have been doing so far? 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Kaiti Shelton
> 
> 
> ---------
> 
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