Mainstream Tech Helps Visually Impaired French Youth Build Their Own Workarounds

A qualitative study from France finds that children and adolescents with visual impairments are not relying solely on specialised assistive devices. Instead, many young people and their families are repurposing mainstream digital technologies, such as smartphones and free software, to support social participation, self-image and autonomy. The research, published as an open access original paper in the journal Ethics and Society, examined how young people with visual impairments use both specialised and everyday technologies in their daily lives.

The study was conducted among 15 families, including children and parents, and 15 support professionals working in healthcare, rehabilitation, education and associative sectors. Although the broader research project set out to analyse the impact of visual impairment on children’s quality of life, the interviews revealed the development of strategies through which young people appropriate and repurpose digital technologies on their own terms.

According to the researchers, specific assistive technologies such as Braille keyboards and screen-reading software remain essential for daily independence. However, these specialised tools carry significant constraints for families: they are costly, acquisition times can be long, and their versatility is limited. A dedicated Braille device, for example, typically serves one function, whereas a mainstream smartphone can be adapted to many different tasks.

Mainstream digital technologies, by contrast, appear to offer more accessible and less stigmatising alternatives. Because devices such as smartphones are widely used by adolescents in general, they integrate more easily into young people’s social practices. The study’s authors suggest this plays a role in how the devices are adopted, since using the same technology as sighted peers avoids marking the user as different.

The findings indicate that, rather than adhering to a purely compensatory approach, in which technology simply substitutes for a missing function, young people and their families engage in innovative practices that the researchers describe as forms of technological tinkering grounded in experiential knowledge. The authors align these practices with the perspective of crip technoscience, a framework that values the knowledge produced by disabled users as they adapt and rework technologies to fit their own lives.

This reframing matters because it shifts attention from devices designed for disabled users toward what users actually do with the devices available to them. The interviews highlighted how young people develop workarounds that enhance social participation, self-image and autonomy, often without waiting for purpose-built solutions to become affordable or available.

At the same time, the researchers caution that mainstream devices remain constrained by structural ableist limitations. Accessibility in consumer technology is not guaranteed, and the flexibility that makes smartphones attractive does not remove the barriers embedded in systems and environments designed around sighted users. The study therefore presents a nuanced picture: mainstream tools expand possibilities, but they do not resolve the underlying structural constraints.

The authors argue that greater recognition should be given to user knowledge and that tools should be co-constructed with the people who use them. In their view, this is essential to the autonomy and inclusion of visually impaired children and adolescents. The study is limited to a qualitative sample of 15 families and 15 professionals in France, so the findings describe the experiences of these participants rather than measuring outcomes across a wider population. The article was published on 17 September 2026 and is available as open access.

Subject of Research: How French visually impaired children and adolescents use mainstream and assistive technologies

Article Title: Beyond Assistive Devices: The Use of Mainstream Technologies by French Visually Impaired Children and Adolescents

Article References: Gourinat, V., Myazhiom, A. C. L., Le Breton, D., & Dollfus, H. (2026). Beyond Assistive Devices: The Use of Mainstream Technologies by French Visually Impaired Children and Adolescents. Ethics and Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-026-00507-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11569-026-00507-1

Keywords: visual impairment, assistive technology, mainstream technology, smartphones, children and adolescents, qualitative study, France, accessibility, stigma, autonomy, crip technoscience, social participation