People with disabilities are those who have various physical impairments. Such people face different problems depending on the level of their disability. With the recent advent in technology, people with disabilities have been enabled to access different things just like their friends without disabilities. The recent technology has lowered many of the barriers that people with disabilities have always encountered. The main idea of this project will be to discuss the computer based technologies that assist people with disabilities.
According to Sheryl B. (2010), there are various computer based technologies that have been put in place to help people with disabilities. People with disabilities can now use computing technologies for reading and writing documents, conversing with others, browsing to get information and having a wider access of computer applications. With the recent computer-based technologies, blind people can have access to information through scanners with optical character recognition that can be printed and stored in computers and can be read using Braille. For those with low vision, the standard size of letters on computer screens can be enlarged for their reading. Computer technology also provides advanced speech synthesizers which act as substitute voices for people with verbal communication problems. More over, word processing helps people with hearing problems. For the people with mobility problems, computer technology allows the use of keyboard emulation which enables the use of muscles which a person has voluntary control of.
To work on this paper, I will carry out research on various topics about the disabled people and how they use computers. I will also conduct interviews to people of different kinds of disabilities to know how the current computer technologies help them to overcome different barriers. I will read several books about people with disabilities to get enough information about how computer based technologies help them. Some of the works I will seek information from are Sheryl B. (2010) and Stephen H. (2004).
