ABSTRACT
J. Pickering reports three trends: first, decreasing costs of memory and processing power; second, decreasing physical size of main memory and processors and increasing program sophistication within microcomputers and, third, less rapid decrease in physical size of backup storage. Disabled people, including students, will benefit from using more powerful machines, but probably not as much as their able-bodied colleagues. In general, the next five years should see new information technology becoming more flexible, portable and interchangeable. All three of these changes will be of benefit to physically-disabled students. Microcomputers are being used increasingly in education for programming and computer-assisted learning. This has raised problems for blind and partially-sighted students because they have normally a visual display. New information technology for speech-impaired people may well improve over the next five years in these respects: speed of functioning, ease of inputting code, and portability and size.
