Inventors and engineers have been developing tools to help the disabled for centuries. And many of the technologies we all use today can be traced to these efforts.

For example:

From technology for the deaf to your smart phone

Alexander Graham Bell’s wife and mother were deaf so he worked for years to create technologies to help people with limited hearing. This led to the invention of the telephone.

And speaking of the telephone: the first working transistor was developed in labs trying to improve the reliability and efficiency of telephone systems. Without the transistor, we wouldn’t have computers, cell phones, or any of the other countless electronic devices we use today.

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From tools for the blind to computer keyboards and online libraries

Two of the earliest working typewriters were designed to help blind people write legibly. From their humble beginnings in the first years of the nineteenth century, typewriters eventually evolved into word processors and the keyboard you use to help control a computer or laptop.

In the mid 1970s, Ray Kurzweil developed a device that could scan a document printed in any regular font and convert it to a digital text file. That file could be saved to a computer or read aloud by a text-to-speech synthesizer. He designed it to help the blind, but the technology has allowed millions of books and documents to be digitized and made available online. It is used in business to streamline data entry. And security services use it for license plate and passport recognition.

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From soda fountains to hospitals

In the 1930’s Joseph Friedman noticed that his daughter was having difficulty drinking a milkshake through a straight straw. So, he invented the flexible, bending straw – much to the delight of small children everywhere. When he first started to manufacture his flexible straws in the late 1940s, however, his buyers were mostly hospitals. The straws proved to be incredibly helpful to bedridden patients.

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The ubiquitous dropped curb

In 1945, a disabled veteran named Jack Fisher convinced the city commission in his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan, to install curb cuts at a few city crosswalks. Fisher later wrote the mayor saying that the “ramps were instrumental in allowing disabled veterans, disabled non-veterans, aged and infirm persons and mothers with baby carriages more freedom of movement...” 

Over the years, crosswalk designs have been further improved with contrasting colors and changing textures to signal people with impaired vision that they have reached the end or beginning of the sidewalk. These cues work equally well for people daydreaming, texting, or simply not paying attention.

What started as a way to help disabled veterans, turned out to benefit many others - and make everyone safer in the process.

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These are just a few of the many technologies originally developed to help the disabled,  or those with limited abilities, but have led to advances that potentially make life easier and more enjoyable for everyone.

What technology do you use every day that may have been developed for people with different or limited abilities?