Comparing England's and USA's disability laws...

Ann Silver
Deaf & Dumb, 1903, Deaf, 1993
Mixed Media
1993

Through my research, I discovered that England has a similar law to the ADA in the United States called the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) – which was put into effect five years after the ADA – in 1995. The DDA is quite similar to the ADA even in wording. Nevertheless, museums in England have taken more steps than museums in the U.S. to provide accommodations for their Deaf audiences. Although there is no definitive research for why the DDA has been more effective in arts institutions than the ADA, I believe this difference could be due to the fact that the English government has taken a more proactive role in informing service providers of their duties under these laws. For instance, in a 2007 report by the U.S. National Council on Disability (NCD) called Implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act: Challenges, Best Practices, and New Opportunities for Success, the NCD conducted research about effective implementation of the ADA laws and what factors could be preventing such implementation. One of the implementation issues mentioned in this report is a “lack [of] information, education, and training on how the ADA applies to [Title III entities, which includes art museums] and how to take steps to comply”; to solve this issue the report recommends to send out information regarding the ADA and how to comply with these laws to various service providing associations such as the Council of Better Business Bureaus or in the case of art museums, national and statewide arts councils and arts organizations. Whatever the reasons for the differences in implementation of disability laws may be in England and the United States, art institutions in England have come up with some great solutions for involving the Deaf community in the arts, and I would like to share some of these methods with you.

References
National Council on Disability (NCD). (July 26, 2007). Implementation of the Americans with disabilities act: Challenges, best practices, and new opportunities for success. Retrieved April 2, 2009 from http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2007/implementation_07-26-07.htm#_Toc167075604.