New Delhi, April 7 -- Like a lot of young children, Matthew Shifrin loved building Lego sets. But because he was blind, Shifrin had to rely on friends and family to help him complete his creations - sometimes bribing them with tea to get them to come by his house.

That all changed when he was 13. A family friend and babysitter came over to his house in Newton, Massachusetts and handed him a binder filled with accessible instructions for building a Middle Eastern palace. The instructions, written in braille, allowed him to complete the set without having to rely on the brightly colored pictures that typically come with Lego sets.

"This was the first time that I was able to build a Lego set on my own," Shifrin said at his home, surrounded...