meerut sandeep kumar a visuallyimpaired teacher with brij mohan blind school in meerut learnt only by means of braille when he was a child but today he is no different than most of us he uses a touchscreen cell phone thanks to the talk back feature present in most phones these days with a difference of just 12 marks between the countrywide topper of cbse class xii and the differently abled category topper this year the gap between special children and other students seems to fade every yearbut what has changed differentlyabled students and teachers educating them say that not only has technology and new tools for educating them increased but awareness among the people of country is bringing about a major change in the lives of these studentspraveen sharma principal brij mohan blind school meerut said earlier the main curriculum for blind students used to be learning braille but now as new teaching tools make their way in the curriculum has expanded and there are more ways to learn things that we could only dream for visually impaired students earlier for instance using computers and touchscreen cell phones has become childs play for most of them with a software called jaws installed in a computer with speakers attached visually impaired kids can hear each letter as they type it on the keyboard the software also reads sentences and this i am sure is the tip of the iceberg and there are many more advancements which all of us are unaware aboutthe cbse class xii results that were declared on saturday saw a difference of 12 marks between the country topper sukriti gupta 497 marks out of a total 500 and the differentlyabled category topper mudita jagota who is orthopaedically impaired 485500 cbse has two categories of differentlyabled students visually impaired b and orthopaedically impaired h among the top three students of the category while mudita was from h category the second and third students siddhartha biswas 484500 and rakshit malik 482500 are from b categorytalking about the advancements that have come for orthopaedically impaired students sudha goel mother of twins suffering with cerebral palsy who pulled off a miracle in their class xii exams from meerut said studying for orthopaedically impaired students is not so much a task when compared with their studying postures and the movements of their hands and legs 20 years ago when doctors told me that my kids were suffering from cerebral palsy i had little idea about it but today awareness among the people of the country has increased there were no remotecontrolled wheelchairs earlier we were dependent on walkers and walking sticks which have a fear of falling associated with them but now it is easy moreover physiotherapy these days has advanced so much that people can learn it at home via internet