The Role of Technology

Like efforts organized to break barriers such as "Whites Only" and "Men Only", the disability rights movement has resulted from people coming together in ways that allow them to compare experiences and forge relationships. For the community with disabilities, this has taken place primarily in centers for independent living, which started in the 1970s, and via the Internet since the 1990s.

Crucial to the movement's success is access to information and communication through technologies such as telecaptioners, TTY devices for telephones, voice-recognition systems, voice synthesizers, screen readers, and computers.