When we say the future of mobile phones is the future of everything, there has to be some provided proof in making the phrase reality. While a portion of the population faces accessibility challenges technology doesn’t stand on the sideline. The introduction of such apps has shown further revolution for those people having disabilities. It all started when a 12-year old Alexander Knoll, saw a man on a wheelchair who was struggling to get through a door back in his hometown, this is when the idea struck to him to build an app or website that will help in the communication process with the people in need and a free accessible application called akin was born to help the people with disabilities.
The mobile apps of Android and iOS smartphones are rapidly seeking for new and innovative ways to help people with disabilities and helping to live a better life in this world.Let us see a few apps that are helping in providing facilities from traveling guidance to even personal dating apps.
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The Be My Eye App
This app is specifically for those with visual impairment. It basically has a large community of sighed volunteers willing to help the people in need with their day to day activity. It works on a live video chat, allowing the disabled person to be guided from others. This app is a reliable one as it provides instant assistance to the users when in need. Be My app helps in navigating their surroundings, or checking for the expiry date of a product and even guiding them to ensure their clothes match. This app is available for both the Android and the iOS platform.
Assistive touch
This app has been designed for the users having certain physical disabilities, who can’t even perform the seemingly simple task of operating the phone. Perhaps Assistive touch mobile app, activating smartphones operations are much simple. It offers the users visual buttons that help to navigate a device without actually having to touch it. Providing such apps is what innovation is and for companies who create such apps has to hire android developer and iOS developers who can provide users with such amazing features in the apps making life easy. It is interesting to see how this app provides the users with virtual home buttons, back buttons, screenshot buttons, volume control and even turning the device on and off in the simplest way possible.
Barton Tiles
It is an innovative app introduced by Bright Solutions Dyslexia Inc, who is an expert in the field of Dyslexia, and aims to improve the education of dyslexic children. Barton Tiles app is designed with various level. It has ten levels, each of with a tutor training DVDs, a complete lesson plan and also color-coded tiles. Each of the lessons is pre-installed with letter tiles with the use of which the students interact. The tutor can store the contact information, notes, current level and lessons which help in the communication and coordination process. It is a free app and is available in both the Android and iOS platform.
JABtalk
This app is built to take the text-to-speech functionality one step further by assisting those nonverbal adults and kids better communicate with the complex world. JABtalk apps include the ability to build a complex sentence or organize the words into user-defined categories, and also import pictures and audio. Not only this but it also comes with a backup feature to transfer the settings to a new device. It basically converts any Android device into an AAC device. This app is available for Android users.
Look At Me
Developed by Samsung, this app is an interactive camera app for autistic children. Look At Me app uses gamified interactions that help the autistic child to learn how to read moods, express themselves, memories faces, just by facial expressions and poses. The app is a pack of fun and interactive games which help to keep the children engaged with various reward offerings and audio-visual effects, which keeps them motivated to perform even better in social communication. It basically utilizes the game way which is a 15-20 minute session to help the autistic child to look at faces, understand different facial expressions and emotional responses. This app is available for free in the Google play store.
Dragon Dictation
This app is designed to assist those with a hearing disability. It becomes challenging to communicate with people having a hearing problem as one should have complete knowledge of lip-reading or sign language. For them, the most promising solution for this problem is either a visual text or more specifically a speech-to-text. Dragon Dictation app is an all-in-one speech to text application that is astonishingly accurate and simple to use. Above all, it saves valuable time from the process of having to type out long sentences on a smartphone keyword. This app is available for iOS users.
Avaz
This app is developed for children with a speech disability, autism and other related conditions, which has been also tagged as an award-winning AAC(Augmentative and Alternative Communication) app. This app is a child-oriented app that makes use of pictures, symbols and voice synthesis just to create messages for a variety of solutions, allowing the tutors and speech therapist to tailor their lessons in an effective way. This app also holds the status of collaborating with 25 schools and 500 children. This is a free app available for download on the iOS platform.
SuperVision+ Magnifier
This app brings the world of the printed word to those having moderate to severe vision impairments. The SuperVision+ Magnifier app uses the camera of the mobile devices to zoom-in on books, documents, and images. It makes sure that the image and text are provided in the clarity of high levels and also include image stabilizer to assist those with shaky hands. There are features offered like contrast black and white functionality with large buttons and text. This application is available on both Android and iOS platforms.
These are only a few apps enhancing the lives of a disabled person easy and many more are yet to be released. As the market is constantly growing and changing, the app developers are always on the search of new ideas and innovation that can make the complicated lives of a disabled person much more easier.
