Technology has transformed life for people living with disabilities. From food delivery to legal help, these are the best apps for people with disabilities.
When was the last time you heard of someone with a disability doing something inspiring? People with disabilities can inspire us all because they refuse to let their disabilities hold them back. And now technology is making their life easier than ever. No longer do they have to feel restricted from everyday life, some simple apps can help them feel more included.
Here’s what you need to know about apps for people with disabilities.
- Learn Braille Alphabet
This app is great not so much for people who are disabled but for people of all ages who know someone disabled and want to learn how to communicate with them.
All of the best works of literature can now be ordered in braille. Being blind can be difficult, you can feel as if you are alone and stuck in your little world. The Learn Braille Alphabet can make blind people or those with sight difficulties feel less alone as they can communicate with others in writing rather than through speech.
Like learning a language on a language app, the more you practice even if it’s just for a few hours every day the easier learning braille becomes.
The app is designed colorfully and uses animated sheep to make learning braille fun even for young children: perhaps you have two children, one who is blind and the other who is not. You can use this app to encourage the child who isn’t blind to learn to communicate with their sibling.
Be sure to download this app from the iOS App Store or the Google Play Store on Android today. This is one of the best apps for disabled persons.
- Google Voice Access
Imagine being able to use your phone without having to press a single button? That’s what Google Voice access does. From being able to turn on Bluetooth to composing text messages you can do anything simply by issuing commands.
This can be great not just for people with permanent disabilities but also people hauled up in hospital due to an illness that prevents you from moving your limbs easily. Legal experts from the Preszler Law Firm (https://www.preszlerlaw-ns.com/) explain that studies have shown that one in every 18 patients in a Canadian hospital will suffer some kind of preventable injury from their doctor.
The app will open automatically when you turn your phone on so you don’t even have to worry about having to fiddle around trying to find the app or ask someone to find it for you.
And remember phones are becoming so advanced now that you can do almost any activity from them. Imagine if a blind person was struggling to find the change to pay for the bus or their shopping? They could simply tell their phone to activate Android Pay or another mobile payment system. Then all they’d have to do is point their phone at the correct terminal and they’d have paid for their goods.
Or what about if suddenly the person feels lost and can not feel their way to their destination? All they would have to do with this is app is ask their phone to load up a map app like Google Maps and begin directing them. This is a great app for physical disability.
- Sound Amplifier
Another disability made easier by technology is those who are hard of hearing. The Sound Amplifier app, exclusively for Android phones, can enhance the sound around the user. One of the great things about this app though is that it doesn’t amplify all the sounds you hear, it focuses or zooms in on the sounds the user wants to hear.
It can tell when a sound is a conversation that you want to hear or a piece of music and it can amplify this whilst tunning out all of the other sounds and distraction around the user.
You could combine using this app with a pair of noise-canceling wireless headphones that could further amplify the sounds around you. There are many options to chose from such as the Beats Audio brand or Bose, great hardware additions for apps for people with physical disabilities.
- Tap Into the Accessibility Menu on Your Phone or Tablet
It doesn’t matter if you have an Android or an iPhone, phone companies now go out of there way to include features that allow users with a disability to access their phones with ease. Many of these features are already included so before you download any apps its important you dive into the settings to see what’s available.
There are voice-over features which can read the menus and text on the screen back to you, you can reverse the colors of your screen so that the text is white-on-black as opposed to black-on-white and if you own an iPad or tablet you can now even use a mouse or trackpad as well as the Apple Pencil to navigate the menus.
You will usually find the accessibility features as a sub-menu within the main settings.
Apps for People with Disabilities: There Is So Much Choose
Even 10-15 years ago technology for people with disabilities was still limited. Today there is much more choice and companies like Apple go to great lengths when it comes to accessibility awareness with their tech. With smartphone technology, no longer do disabled people have to rely on the accessibility of their devices, they can use apps developed by third-party developers.
If you have a loved one who is blind and want to be able to better communicate with them you can learn Braille using the fun Learn Braille App. If you know someone who is hard-of-hearing, then there are now apps that act as hearing loops to cancel out background noise and focus on amplifying the conversations they hear around them.
Finally, an app like Google Voice Access can negate the need for the use of a touchscreen altogether. Instead, users can dictate their commands to their phone and it will obey.
If you are interested in learning more about apps for people with disabilities, then be sure to check out the rest of our site.