Yasmin

These student stories were produced as part of the "Access and Assistance for All" campaign by the British Youth Council, which aims to increase awareness and access to assistive technology within further education. See the main Access and Assistance for All student stories page to learn more about our campaign.

Yasmin

Could you tell us a little bit about your background?

I’m Yasmin, I’m a 3rd year medical student at Imperial College London. I’m originally from the North-west of England. I’m the Academic Officer for Early years, soon Academic Chair 23/24, of the Imperial College School of Medicine. I have been active in engaging with learning, accessibility and digital development to improve accessibility for those with neurodivergence and extra learning needs.

Have you used any assistive technology and faced barriers?

I am neurodivergent, diagnosed with Dyslexia, Auditory processing disorder and visual stress (Irlen’s syndrome). This means I have to take more time to process visual and auditory information I receive,

I didn’t receive the help I required straightaway due to a lack of education around access arrangements and assistive technology. It was only until I applied for university and DAS when I was told I should’ve had access to this technology during secondary school. This meant prior to university, I was disadvantaged compared to my peers in class.

Now, after receiving the support I need, I feel much more confident in my abilities and overcoming challenges. The main assistive technology I use daily Read&Write and Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Why have you joined AAA?

I joined AAA as I want to help raise awareness of assistive technology and the importance of it to help support students in achieving their goals.

Share on:

Site preferences

Please feel free to display our site, your way by finding the preferences that work best for you. We do not track any data or preferences at all, should you select any options in the groups below, we store a small non-identifiable token to your browser's Local Storage, this is required for your preferencesto persist across pages accordion be present on repeat visits. You can remove those tokens if you wish, by simply selecting Unset, from each preference group.

Theming

Theme
Code block theme

Code theme help

Code block themes can be changed independent of the site theme.

  • Default: (Unset) Code blocks will have the same theme as the site theme.
  • Light 1: will be default for users viewing the light theme, this maintains the minimum 7:1 (WCAG Level AAA) contrast ratio we have used throughout the site, it can be quite difficult to identify the differences in colour between various syntax types, due to the similarities in colour at that contrast ratio
  • Light 2: drops the contrast for syntax highlighting down to WCAG Level AA standards (greater than 4.5:1)
  • Dark: Syntax highlighting has a minimum contrast of 7:1 and due to the dark background differences in colour may appear much more perceivable

Motion

Motion & animation

Motion & animation help

  • Default (Unset): Obeys device settings, if present. If no preference is set, there are subtle animations on this site which will be shown. If you have opted for reduce motion, smooth scrolling as well as expanding and collapsing animations will no longer be present, fading transtitions and micro animations will still be still present.
  • None: All animations and transitions are completely removed, including fade transitions.

Links

Underline all links

Underline all links help

  • Default (Unset): Most links are underlined, with a few exceptions such as: the top level links in the main navigation (on large screens), cards, tags and icon links.
  • Yes: Will add underlines to the exceptions outlined above, resulting in every link being underlined

Text and paragraphs

Font size (main content)

Font size help

This setting does not apply to the site's header or footer regions

  • Default (Unset): Font sizes are set to site defaults
  • Selecting Large or Largest will increase the font size of the main content, the size of the increase depends on various factors such as your display size and/or zoom level. The easiest way to determine which option suits you best would be to view this text after clicking either size's button
Letter spacing

Letter spacing help

  • Default (Unset): Default letter spacing applies
  • Increased: Multiplies the font size by 0.12 and adds the sum as spacing between each character
Line height

Line height help

  • Default (Unset): all text has a minimum line height of 1.5 times the size of the text
  • Increased: all text has a line height of twice the size of the text
Line width

Line width help

  • Default (Unset): all text has a maximum line width of 80 REM units (this averages around 110 characters per line)
  • Decreased: all text has a maximum line width of 55 CH units (this averages around 80 characters per line)
Paragraph spacing

Paragraph spacing help

  • Default (Unset): The space between paragraphs is equivalent to 1.5 times the height of the paragraph's text
  • Increased: The space between paragraphs is equivalent to 2.25 times the height of the paragraph's text
Word spacing preference

Word spacing help

  • Default (Unset): No modifications to word spacing are present
  • Increased: Spaces between words are equivalent to 0.16 times the font size