Businesses in California must provide accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). One of them is effective communication accommodations. Businesses must ensure people with disabilities are as effectively communicated to as others.
Here is what you need to know:
Provide aid and services
A business should provide auxiliary aids to communicate to those with hearing, vision, or speech impairments or any other disability. It’s also vital to consider services, such as interpreters, notetakers or captions.
For example, a restaurant should have employees read menus to customers who are blind or offer braille menus. Additionally, it should have qualified sign language interpreters to facilitate effective communication with customers with hearing impairments.
A retail business should have notetakers who help customers with hearing and speech disabilities. The notetaker and the customer can write notes back and forth while pointing out products to ensure the customer has adequate information before making a purchase.
In the medical field, a doctor’s office should have a sign language interpreter to help patients with hearing or speech impairment. The interpreter will help the doctor obtain vital details, such as the patient’s medical history, symptoms and so on.
Further, a law firm should provide an accessible electronic copy of a legal document for a client who is blind so they can read it at home using a computer screen-reading program. For example, the document can be sent as an accessible PDF.
A business must offer solutions that meet the needs of individual customers. For example, while sign language interpreters can help those who use sign language, people who lose their hearing later in life and don’t use sign language need other solutions. A company needs to keep this in mind.
You need to ensure your business complies with ADA regulations regarding effective communication. If you are in legal trouble for this matter, get more information to protect your business.