Disability Tech Dad - an introduction

My name is Matthew and I am a blogger who uses the name Disability Tech Dad.  I write blogs about my son Macsen, his life and how technology is helping him to live his life and reach his potential.  

Macsen was born 3 years ago with a number of brain related conditions including 4 limb cerebral palsy, cortical visual impairment and epilepsy.  These conditions mean that he is unable to sit-up, hold his own head, control his limbs and his brain has trouble processing images.

As you can imagine dealing with these diagnoses was challenging at first, but my wife (Lisa, an amazing lady) and I are not the type of people who just sit back and complain.  We both set about researching how we can help.  Lisa, with her experience in public health, focused on learning about his conditions and treatment, but as a geek there was only one way I was going to look... 

I've always been interested in technology: as a child I loved computer games, I studied Information Systems at university and have worked in the IT industry for the last 13 years as a programmer and technical manager.  Strangely I've also crossed paths a number of times with education and disability.  Whilst at university I worked as a learning support assistant helping children with dyslexia and behavioural issues, I wrote educational games for dyslexic kids for my dissertation and my first IT customer was a paralysed man who controlled his computer with a head pointer and blow straw clicker.

With this experience behind me and the diagnosis spinning around in head I set about looking for options.  I knew that my son had intelligence, I could feel it and I could see it in his eyes.  Macsen and I have tried lots of cool stuff, we've learnt a lot and had some amazing results.  I use this blog to share our experiences and hopefully show how technology can change lives for children like Macsen!