ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

E-readers have become very popular for main stream consumers but do they help people with print disabilities? People with print disabilities can benefit from electronic text but only if it is in the right format. The Nook does not have text-to-speech. This means that Nook is no better than a paper back for people with print disabilities. The Kindle does offer a text-to-speech option but many publishers choose to disable this function. In contrast the iPad has a built in feature called VoiceOver which reads any text on screen aloud, including text in the iBooks app. Unfortunately the voice is not great quality but you are able to change the specking rate.