Special Tools: Educational Technologies for Children and Adults with Disabilities in Switzerland, 1970s to 1990s

This article examines the history of computer-based technologies for children and adults with disabilities. Using Switzerland as an example, it demonstrates how special hardware and software for people with disabilities became a national policy issue in the last decades of the twentieth century. The focus is on private and public actors, and the historical sources are publications, newspapers, magazines and archival documents. Starting with early regional efforts to develop specialised electronic devices in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the article first shows the enthusiasm that accompanied the development of new tools for people with disabilities in the 1980s. From the late 1980s, experts in special education and technology development began to network with national stakeholders in computer education. However, this did not generate significant momentum, highlighting the limits of ambitious educational policies in the so-called post-liberal welfare state.