Opportunities for the Disabled
Advanced technologies aid the disabled. The computer opens up channels of communication besides text for gaining knowledge. For example, the blind can benefit from computer systems that read text aloud. Access to knowledge is also created through sound and images. Affordable, efficient global communication allows ideas to pass back and forth even for people who are immobile, blind or deaf. These people are able to communicate transparently; others are unaware of their disabilities. In some cases, even those with great disabilities can be substantially aided by technology. For example, Eva Sweeney, a young women beset with cerebral palsy, has not been slowed in her pursuit of knowledge and interaction with others. Seymour Papert, a LEGO Professor of Learning Research, Epistemology and Learning, MIT, sees the disabled in a position to benefit from technology since the routes to literacy are expanding beyond reading and writing of text into media which offer "richer ways to explore knowledge and communicate."[1]
[1] Laura Evenson, "Computers in the Lives of Our Children: Interview with Seymour Papert," San Francisco Chronicle, February 2, 1997.