Accessibility should not begin with a diagnosis, a software product, an accommodation, or an institutional procedure. It should begin with the participation that matters.

In Participation-Centred Accessibility, Ronald G. Leblanc introduces the Participation–Barrier–Pathway Framework, a practical and ethical approach to assistive technology practice in higher education. The framework begins with three deceptively simple questions:

What is the person trying to accomplish?

What is getting in the way?

What pathway could improve participation?

These questions shift accessibility practice away from automatic diagnosis-to-product matching and toward a fuller understanding of the person, activity, environment, technology, educational purpose, and institutional system.

Drawing on decades of professional experience, Leblanc examines why technically successful interventions are sometimes abandoned, why accommodations alone cannot resolve recurring systemic barriers, and why completing a task does not always represent equitable participation. He explores the hidden costs of inaccessible systems, including fatigue, cognitive load, disclosure, self-advocacy, technical troubleshooting, and the additional effort routinely placed on disabled students.

The book expands the PBP Framework through ethical review, implementation, evaluation, and iteration. It demonstrates how the framework can guide individual assistive technology appointments, course and assessment design, technology selection, procurement, policy development, and institutional accessibility planning.

Particular attention is given to artificial intelligence as an emerging accessibility pathway. Leblanc offers a participation-centred method for distinguishing between AI that provides meaningful access and AI that replaces the learning, reasoning, communication, or authorship an educational activity is intended to develop.

Written for assistive technologists, accessibility professionals, educators, librarians, instructional designers, disability-service practitioners, administrators, and higher education leaders, Participation-Centred Accessibility presents a broader vision of accessibility practice—one in which technology serves participation, barriers become opportunities for institutional learning, and the assistive technologist becomes not only a technical specialist, but a participation designer.

Participation is the purpose. Barriers are the inquiry. Pathways are the work.