Talking about children with special needs generally means kids with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy or some kind of mental deficiency. Truth is, the spectrum of special needs is so wide that discussion may include not only many varied conditions, but also the people with them: mental deficiencies, motor deficiencies, learning problems, visual and/or aural weakness, blindness, deafness and even outstanding intelligence, among many others.

In the same way, etiology for all of these is multi-factorial, with causes ranging from congenital factors, pregnancy and/or birth problems, illnesses during the first development stages, traumas, chronic-degenerative diseases, poor psychosocial stimulation, etc. However, and despite the needs that a child may have or the causes that originated them, areas susceptible of developing should be considered in accordance to the specific characteristics of his/her special condition.

There are worldwide proposals that strive for equality of opportunity and participation in social life for persons with some type of disability. WHO[1], ILO[2] and UNESCO[3] (2004), propose a Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), which establishes a series of recommendations to transform communities into spaces where these type of people can find development opportunities in areas such as community participation, education and employment.

In the case of children with special educational needs, and their inclusion into a regular school, references to the term “curricular adaptations” are common. This term establishes, besides modifications to the teaching techniques and curricular content to learn, infrastructural and equipment incorporations that enable and ease access to educational services. Among this group of children with special educational needs we find those referred by the literature as having “print disabilities”, or those that suffer from some of the following conditions: visual weakness, blindness, dyslexia or dysgraphia. Particularly, this group has obtained the support from a growing number of technological solutions available according to their age and particular condition.

Some of these technological solutions for people with print disabilities refer to the use of software and electronic devices that include specific design and usability features.

Therefore, we can find graphic calculators with wide screens that show bigger characters, which can be easily read by persons with some type of visual weakness, and digital reading devices. All of these offer opportunities for people not only with visual deficiencies, but also with dyslexia or other type of reading and writing problems.

The use of software has also extended to educational and literary recreational applications for people with print disabilities. Such is the case of the “Digital Accessible Information System” (DAISY) format texts, which synchronize text with audio elements. Recently, the DAISY consortium joined efforts with Microsoft Corporation to make its digital text conversion technology available in Microsoft Office Word applications, making it available for an even greater number of individuals.

As can be seen, the field of technological resource application to the educational needs of children with print disabilities, on top of being a modulating element for educational system reform around the world, is also a growing area that has innovated creatively and efficiently, offering technological solutions that ease access to education for this type of children. However, there is still much to do, and the development of better inclusion technological alternatives must go hand in hand with the development of a social conscience that recognizes equality of opportunity, tolerance and respect for individual differences.