Six Children, One Sentence: The Special Factors a Generator Cannot Write
Six Files After the Hearing The hearing officer’s decision in part six ordered Pine Lake to reconvene Nora’s IEP team and write her special factors from an evaluation...
Deaf-Led · Governance · Policy · Technology
Between the vendor’s claim and the institution’s signature.
Novara Consulting Group helps public agencies, universities, health systems, nonprofits, and technology buyers evaluate whether AI accessibility tools are trustworthy, governable, and fit for real-world use before they are purchased, deployed, or publicly endorsed.
Insights
Analysis & Briefings
Counting Is Not Closing: Why We Built the National Deaf Education Data Index
When a letter from notice@ndedi.org arrives at a state school for the deaf, it lands on the desk of someone who has spent a career keeping a fragile...
The Interpreter Is Off-Brand: A Bad Employee Case Study for State and Local Government
The line In early October, a Justice Department lawyer stood before the federal appeals court in Washington and defended the White House’s refusal to put an American Sign...
What we do
Trust Evaluation
Snapshots and full assessments of AI accessibility products: evidence-graded findings tied to a specified use.
Procurement & Governance
Specification language, evaluation criteria, contract terms, and acceptance testing for AI purchases.
Briefings & Monitoring
Executive briefings for boards and commissions, plus ongoing surveillance of vendors, claims, and policy.
Training & Licensing
Workshops, curricula, and licensed toolkits for procurement teams and accessibility offices.
The problem we exist to solve
Procurement Is Outrunning the Evidence
Institutions are buying AI-mediated accessibility (AI interpreting, signing avatars, automated captioning, language access tools) faster than their governance instruments can evaluate it. A conformance report describes whether an interface works with assistive technology. It says nothing about whether a Deaf user can understand the output, whether the system fails safely in an emergency room, or whether the training data was collected with consent.
That is the seat we occupy, and it takes three things to hold it: the linguistic competence to evaluate the output, the procurement competence to translate findings into contract terms, and the independence to say when the evidence is not there.
Deaf-led and community-accountable · Procurement-literate · Method-documented · We do not publish findings about organizations that pay us.
Start a consultationThree pillars
Governance & assurance
The SLAT Index™
Our published trust framework for sign language AI has grown into its own home. Five trust domains, 11 criteria, 54 indicators. Ratings computed from evidence, not negotiated from marketing.
Visit slatindex.org →
Policy & public data
NDEDI
The National Deaf Education Data Index: a 51-jurisdiction reference on deaf education in the United States, built state by state from primary sources. Sourced claims only; gaps documented as findings.
Explore NDEDI →
Accessible technology
Auxentia
Our accessible technology brand: apps for navigation, daily living, workplace accommodations, and play, plus the @learn self-teach platform, with enterprise and agency licensing beyond the App Store.
Visit auxentia.org →