Functional Equivalency

The principle that accommodations and alternative formats should provide people with disabilities an experience that is comparable in quality, timeliness, and completeness to that of non-disabled users. In the context of communication access, functional equivalency means that a deaf or hard of hearing person receiving captions or sign language interpretation should be able to participate with the same cognitive demands, turn-taking opportunities, and information access as hearing participants. Simply providing an accommodation does not guarantee functional equivalency — for example, captions that lack speaker identification or that disappear too quickly impose additional cognitive burdens not experienced by hearing participants.