Innovative Apps for People with Disabilities
Technology continues to improve the day-to-day lives of users by creating apps that assist with many daily tasks. While a portion of the world’s population faces accessibility challenges, technology doesn’t stand on the sidelines. App developers are providing a number of mobile apps to improve the lives of people with disabilities; autistic, dyslexic, blind or visually impaired, deaf or have hearing impairments, and many others. In this article, we’re going to examine innovative apps for people with disabilities.
A mobile app that connects people with visual impairments to a large community of sighted volunteers who can help them with their daily tasks. The app works through live video chat, allowing disabled persons to receive assistance from others in need of visual assistance. Be My Eyes provides instant assistance to its users when they are in need, such as navigating their surroundings, checking the expiration date of a product, or ensuring their clothes match. All they need to do is take a photo of the image and send it to any of their contacts to ask questions. They can also utilize live video by pointing the camera at whatever they want the other person to describe, asking questions via the phone’s audio. Be My Eyes has more than 60,000 blind and low-vision users and over 876,000 volunteers. It is available for iOS and Android free of charge.
Barton Tiles is an innovative app from Bright Solutions Dyslexia, Inc. – an expert in the field of dyslexia that aims to improve the education of dyslexic children. The app consists of ten levels, each with tutor training DVDs, complete lesson plans, and color-coded tiles. Barton Tiles works with two user groups: tutors and students. Each of the lessons is pre-loaded with letter tiles with which the student interacts. The student tracking functionality in this app helps the tutor to store contact information of students, notes, current level and lesson, photos in addition to communication and coordination tools. Barton Tiles is a free app available for both Android and iOS devices.
Avaz is an award-winning AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) app developed for children with speech disabilities, autism, and the other related conditions. Avaz is a child-oriented app that uses picture symbols and voice synthesis to create messages for a variety of situations, allowing educators and speech therapists to tailor their lessons in the most effective way. The app was developed in collaboration with 25 schools and 500 children. The app is available to download on Apple and Android app stores.
