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The unimprovable white cane
Recent technological additions to the white cane aim to make the world easier for visually impaired people to navigate. Alex Lee explores whether new is really better.
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Navigating in a connected world
Alex Lee ponders the promising ideas, stalled projects and pricey gadgets that aim to help visually impaired people get out and about. But it seems that an actual human could be the essential ingredient.
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The sweet sound of synthetic speech
After Alex experienced a serious deterioration in his sight, he came to rely on artificial voices to help him with everyday tasks. Find out how synthetic speech came to be developed.
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The joys and failures of audio description
Audio description enhances the experience of watching a film or TV show for people with a visual impairment, but it's not widely available in the UK. Alex Lee explains why.
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Life before assistive technology
When an inherited condition caused Alex Lee’s vision to deteriorate, he began to discover the technologies that would help him navigate the world around him. Here he describes how his life began to change.
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Bringing Braille back to the modern world
For anyone who thinks Braille is so last century, read on. New tech is helping dust Braille down and bring it to today’s visually impaired people.
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Hysteria
Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.
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Walk, interrupted
By listing all the things that get in her way, Caroline Butterwick wants to create an embodied experience of disability and convince you that inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.
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Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages
Medieval texts, from Islamic medical treatises to Christian books of miracles, reveal surprisingly varied and complex experiences of blindness. But when medieval scholar Jude Seal experienced visual impairment themselves, they gained an even deeper understanding of the lives they were studying.
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A walk through other people’s expectations
The steep path isn’t the only thing Caroline Butterwick has to navigate on her Lakeland hike. Always aware of other people’s expectations, she continually monitors how her disability might seem to strangers.
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Aphasia and drawing elephants
When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.
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Keeping death close
Scattering her father’s ashes, Lauren Entwistle found herself longing for something physical that proved he once was a living, breathing person. Here she reflects on the objects that help us to grieve and remember.
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The boundaries that shape my writing
While writing about her life can be enormously helpful, Caroline Butterwick needs to regularly reassess her boundaries. Here she explores the line between what’s public and what’s private, and how porous that can be.
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Are people born violent?
Laura Bui explores how the nature vs nurture debate applies to those who commit homicide.
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A nose through Blythe House
Recently sold and emptied out, Blythe House was once one of the UK’s biggest museum storage facilities. Here, museum worker Laura Humphreys reflects on her relationship with the store’s architecture, objects and aromas.
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Performing my disability
Caroline Butterwick explores the idea of disability as performative, and the pressure to act out what we think others expect.
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Guide dogs or good dogs from the Middle Ages
Medieval illustrations often show blind people, sometimes with dogs. But working out whether these were actually guide dogs involves a mix of detailed detective work and expert speculation.
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Why the truth is better than a happy ending
Caroline Butterwick often uses lived experience to inform her journalism, but she’s discovered a tension between the truth and stories that will sell.
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What writing myself has revealed
Caroline Butterwick talks to two creators about how lived experience feeds their art, and reflects on her own year of writing about her life.
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Reclaiming my story
Sharing her story of mental illness and treatment with trainee social workers has helped Caroline Butterwick make sense of her past, and continues to be a positive part of her life today.
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A head apart from the body
We look to the future of science via science fiction to explore how a head may live apart from its body.
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Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars
‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?
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Dyslexia and its misconceptions
Overcoming common myths about dyslexia only adds to the challenges of growing up with the condition. Madeleine Morley, who was diagnosed with dyslexia aged eight, goes into myth-busting mode and shares her personal experiences.
- Photo story
- Photo story
’No you’re not’ – a portrait of autistic women
In this sensitive series of portraits and interviews, photographer Rosie Barnes acknowledges the voices and experiences of autistic women.
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The cures and demons of sleep paralysis
Discover the murky past of sleep paralysis, the terrifying disorder once associated with demonic possession