Today is Audio Description Awareness Day. Take the Challenge and try AD. Tell us about it.

Here’s the challenge: If you are a blind or visually impaired person and know a sighted person who doesn’t know about audio description (AD) or if you are sighted and know a vision-impaired person who doesn’t know about AD, stream a TV show or film with AD and watch it together. Afterward tell us how the experience was for you. Post your story on social with the hashtag #ADADChallenge.

In case you don’t know, AD is basically a narration that mentions all the visual elements so a person with blindness or vision impairment can follow along. Most sighted people are aware of close captioning and how it helps people with hearing loss. Audio description performs a similar service only for people with blindness or vision loss. It’s how people with blindness watch television, film and other visual media.

Despite many of us not knowing what audio description (AD) or described video is, there’s nearly 4,000 movies and television shows that were audio described just last month alone.

Wondering where or how to find films or TV shows with AD?

There’s a great, detailed, website dedicated to AD where thousands of DVDs, television shows and other online AD resources are listed. Check out the Audio Description Project, a website initiative from the American Council of the Blind all about audio description.  

Audio Description Awareness Day was started to help raise awareness of audio description (AD). The idea to challenge people to think and talk about AD is from four long-time accessibility advocates: Chelsea Nguyen, Stephanae McCoy, the two founders of Captivating Magazine, AD narrator Roy Samuelson, and Juan Alaczar, a legally-blind filmmaker.

In this time of COVID-19, reaching out and sharing time is more important than ever. Social distancing doesn’t have to mean social isolation. Sharing online entertainment, information and time helps us all connect.

#ADADChallenge  #AudioDescription  YouTube: #ADADChallenge