Non-dyslexic answer: The conference organisers who have got their act together will present attendees with the printed conference papers on registration the day before the conference starts. Anyone who wishes to can read up beforehand, and at least decide which sessions to attend.

Otherwise, the first time the conference attendees get to the message is when the speaker opens his/her mouth and begins to speak. If an attendee is dyslexic, surely he/her can concentrate on the spoken message, and ignore the text in the PowerPoint?

Posters are always manned (or womanned!) by the author, who takes you through the highlights orally on a one-to-one basis.

I was hoping to have some more responses before replying to your comment.

I wouldn't expect students to read through lots of materials that was only given to them the night before, I would give it to them at least a couple of days in advance if not a week when possible.

Equally, I don't think we would tell students to just ignore the slides in a lecture, which is a similar situation to an academic attending a conference. However, I have seen many presentations where people read off the slides, which is usually considered to be poor use of slides rather than accessible practice!

Seeing as Ian mentioned posters, these can number in their 100's each day & delegates (dyslexic or otherwise) often are faced with too much choice for the allocated time, a choice between food/coffee & prowling the poster hall, or simply the lure of relaxation & networking between main sessions.  Providing these abstracts (+/- poster image) on-line in advance of the session would help delegates & presenters make the most of their session.  Posters are (almost) always accompanied by their author, but levels of engagement are widely reported as being unsatisfactory.

I can see the advantages of providing main papers in advance to dyslexic delegates & it would not pose a threat to attendance, so I think it would be a good move.

outs, but the principle applies here as well.  Choosing sessions can be challenging for people with any kind of print disability (e.g., people who are blind or have low vision, or whose first language is sign).  But for all attendees, the sheer size of some conferences can be a barrier.  As Nicholas points out, online access in advance to presentations of any type would make managing time so much easier, and help to raise the level of discussion.  Advance access to everyone who has registered, not only people with disabilities, would increase participation for all.  Whether organizers and presenters could provide advance access is an entirely different question.

I am not dyslexic and this obviously affects my answer but.... I find that the real benefit of conference is the discussion that takes place inside and outside the auditoriums. Without the discussion we might as well just read papers in journals - so a conference has to be different. I am happy for all attendees to have a copy of the materials pre-conference but I think these need to be prepared so as to facilitate debate rather than just as psuedo-papers. Perhaps all participants can be given an abstract ahead of the conference that also has a brief list of 'points for discussion'. But I agree with Ian's point that this might depend on the organisers - not all organisers were created equal!

Erik:  I am guessing what you mean by 'pseudo-papers'?  I personally dislike the way people claim to have delivered a 'conference paper' or a 'poster paper'. The give an oral presentation or they present a poster - any ancillary material (i.e. supporting papers for delegates interest) do not count as papers & merely support the presentation.  I personally think that all presentations should have these available on-line anyhow, although for oral presentations, many would prefer to keep the content as a surprise (not sure if that is the right word).  If in the rare instance, a presenter placed a full paper or article in proceedings, then it is a conference paper.

The idea of abstract + points for discussion is a good one, both for the organizers & delegates - it shows along what lines the presenter is thinking & may stimulate thought (& interest) amongst delegates. It would also add more to those (in my opinion) useless abstracts that are published in journals by the thousand - as you say, if there is no 'dialogue', there is no 'conference'.  Conferences could add value by providing more base information at the onset (to paid delegates) & focusing on facilitating discussion.  After the conference, all content & supporting content should be made available to the wider field.

I'm also liking the idea of abstracts which include points for discussion - I'm sure I'm not the only one who has attended a session and discovered it was something different to what I had expected - points for discussion might make the abstract clearer in some cases.

Agree that a conference is about the discussion, so I guess my question is really about how we could make sure that all delegates are able to discuss effectively. As already said, access in advance would help everyone manage their time more effectively. People put a lot of time and effort into preparing posters for conferences and sadly I fear that they don't get the attention they deserve. Having them available beforehand could offer a much better opportunity for discussion and improve things for everyone.   

As a dyslexic, I would find having the conference information/papers printed on yellow paper (as that is the colour I work from with the best results) more helpful than having the information given to me early.

Being able to discuss points is a preference too.

I have never let dyslexia stop me from attending a conference or from completing academic work, however, saying that it would be the small things that would make a huge difference to my ability to retain information (dyslexia friendly font, slides not too busy, coloured paper...)

The issue that could be for further discussion is that dyslexics require a variety of different colours of paper to work from, the different forms of dyslexia will also impact on the method that information is retained for the future - this is probably not a practical solution to ask delegates which colour paper and font they prefer as this becomes costly and time consuming.

Linda, I think the fact that you are considering this for individuals with a learning difficulty is fantastic - Thanks.