Disability

The Lyric’s senior director of digital initiatives, Brad Dunn, meets with SoundShirt designers at CuteCircuit in London.

This High-Tech Shirt Helps Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Patrons Feel Music

Guests at Chicago's Lyric Opera can now immerse themselves in performances through the SoundShirt’s vibrations

An X-ray shows where the prosthetic metal fingers attach to the device.

Archaeologists Discover Centuries-Old Prosthetic Hand in Germany

Used by a man between 30 and 50 years old, the four prosthetic fingers date to between 1450 and 1620

Artist Dan Miller works at Creative Growth Art Center, which is partnering with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Acquires More Than 100 Works by Artists With Disabilities

The purchase is one of the largest acquisitions of its kind by any museum in the United States

TranscribeGlass is an attachment device that can pick up speech or audio from across a lecture hall.

This Augmented Reality Tool Could Change Communication for Some Deaf and Hearing Impaired People

TranscribeGlass attaches to any pair of glasses and projects real-time subtitles in the user’s field of vision

After a federal investigation, United will implement changes designed to improve the air travel experience for passengers who use wheelchairs.

After Federal Investigation, United Airlines Agrees to Make Changes for Travelers With Wheelchairs

The "lengthy" U.S. Department of Transportation investigation examined the airline's mishandling of a passenger's wheelchair

Installation photography of Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2023.

Video Artists Set the American Experience to Music

The Smithsonian American Art Museum brings its latest time-based media art to the widest possible audience, including the deaf and hearing impaired

Seventy-eight years after the end of World War II, hospital trains are an oft-forgotten chapter in U.S. military history.

What Happened on the Trains That Brought Wounded World War II Soldiers Home?

The logistics of moving patients across the U.S. by rail were staggeringly complex

Braille signage will be added to rows and individual seats, as well as lavatories.

United Will Be the First U.S. Airline to Add Braille to Its Plane Interiors

The carrier announced that it will update its entire mainline fleet over the next three years

Inaccessible airplane lavatories are just one of the many challenges travelers with disabilities face while flying.

Airlines Will Be Required to Make Bathrooms More Accessible

Single-aisle planes will face new rules from the U.S. Department of Transportation—but they won’t go into effect for more than a decade

The convertible seat folds down to make room for a wheelchair to be secured in place.

Could This Convertible Seat Improve Air Travel for Wheelchair Users?

If adopted, a new prototype would allow passengers to remain in their own wheelchairs on flights

Dogs sunbathing at the Acropolis

Pets Will Soon Be Welcome at More Than 120 Archaeological Sites in Greece

The new policies won't apply at certain high-traffic destinations like the Acropolis

The Seatrac on a beach on the Greek island of Samos

Greece Is Making Hundreds of Beaches More Accessible

Remote-controlled, wheelchair-friendly ramps will allow vacationers with mobility challenges to enjoy the sea

Woodrow Wilson and his second wife, Edith, in 1916

How Edith Wilson Kept Herself—and Her Husband—in the White House

A new book about the first lady reveals how she and the ailing President Woodrow Wilson silenced their critics

Judy Heumann was a leading voice in the fight for groundbreaking disability legislation.

What Made Judy Heumann, Mother of the Disability Rights Movement, an American Hero

The tireless activist, who died this weekend at 75, spent decades advocating for Americans with disabilities

Neal V. Loving in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1954

In 1946, a Black Pilot Returned to the Cockpit After a Double Amputation

Neal V. Loving, whose memoir will soon be released by Smithsonian Books, built his own planes, ran a flight school and conducted research for the Air Force

The eugenics movement formed the basis for policies in Nazi Germany and discrimination against Black people based on sickle cell disease in the United States.

Genetics Society Issues Apology for Ties to Eugenics and Racism

In a new report, the American Society of Human Genetics details its failures to address false and unjust uses of the field

Historian John Rice Irwin, linguist Carl Croneberg and historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

Three Pioneering Scholars Who Died This Year

They believed that the stories of marginalized communities were worth chronicling

Great Britain's John McFall (left) won a bronze medal at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.

The First Astronaut With a Disability Is a Paralympic Bronze Medalist

The European Space Agency selected John McFall, along with 16 others, as part of its latest class of astronaut candidates

About one in five students has a language-based learning disability. 

Scientists Identify Genes Linked to Dyslexia

In the largest study of its kind, researchers pinpointed 42 genetic variations tied to the language-based learning disability

Pages from Plastic Surgery of the Face by Harold Gillies

Inside a Trailblazing Surgeon's Quest to Reconstruct WWI Soldiers' Disfigured Faces

A new book profiles Harold Gillies, whose efforts to restore wounded warriors' visages laid the groundwork for modern plastic surgery

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