Services to Ohio School Personnel
Serving Students with Print Disabilities
Center for Instructional Supports and Accessible Materials (CISAM)
Paula Mauro, CISAM Project Director
Nicole Morris, NIMAS Coordinator
pmauro@cisamoh.org
CISAM is a statewide project funded by the
Ohio Department of Education Office for Exceptional Children (ODE-OEC), under the Ohio State
School for the Blind Outreach Department.
CISAM serves students with print disabilities, including students with reading disabilities, physical
limitations, and blindness and visual impairments.
Our mission is to provide students with print disabilities and their families access to quality accessible instructional materials, professional development/learning opportunities, and technical assistance.
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Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM)
The Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) requires school districts to provide
AIM to students with print disabilities in a timely
manner. Ohio's definition of timely manner is "at
the same time as their peers receive their materials." What are AIM? AIM are print instructional
materials transformed into specialized formats.
The National Instructional Materials Accessibility
Standard (NIMAS), mandated in IDEA, is a technical standard publishers use to produce source
files in multiple specialized formats for students
with print disabilities (http://cisam.ossb.oh.gov/
docs/NIMAS/NIMASBrochureOnline.pdf).
CISAM's goal is to assist school personnel in
locating AIM in a timely manner in the specialized
formats of braille, large print, audio, and digital
text.
