Ableism: Ableism is beliefs, practices, and attitudes that discriminate and prejudice against people with disabilities or perceived to be disabled.
Access: The ability or freedom to approach or communicate with a person, use or occupy space, obtain services or products, or participate in an activity.
Access barriers: Any obstruction that prevents people with disabilities from receiving information or services or using standard facilities, equipment, and resources.1
Accessibility: The degree to which a product, device, service, activity, space, environment, or facility is attainable, approachable, and usable by as many people as possible, including persons with disabilities.
Accessible: The ease and ability to speak with, approach, use, enter, participate, understand, etc. In the case of a facility, readily usable by a particular individual; in the case of a program or activity, presented or provided in such a way that a particular individual can participate, with or without auxiliary aid(s); in the case of electronic resources, accessible with or without assistive computer technology.2
Accessible web design: Creating web pages according to universal design principles to eliminate or reduce barriers, including those that affect people with disabilities.3 It is the idea to create a website that can be used by as many people as possible despite their disabilities or impairments.
Accommodation: An adjustment or alteration to make a program, environment, facility, service, information, or resource accessible to people with disabilities.
Adaptive technology: Special versions of existing technologies or tools that provide enhancements or different ways of interacting with the technology. Adaptation helps individuals with a disability or impairment accomplish a specific task.4
ALT attribute: HTML code that combines graphical tags to provide alternative text for graphical elements.5
Alternative Text (ALT Text): Alternative text, or “alt text,” describes the content of images, graphs, and charts.6 It provides text substitutes for non-text information, helping users with visual impairments or cognitive disabilities to access the content.
Alternative keyboard: A keyboard redesigned, reconfigured, or customized for individuals who have difficulty using a standard keyboard.
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA): A comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination based on disability in all areas of public life, including employment, schools, transportation, telecommunication, and all public and private places open to the general public.7
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII): A standard table of seven-bit designations for digital representation of uppercase and lowercase Roman letters, numbers, and special control characters in teletype, computer, and word processor systems.8
Assistive technology: Any light-, mid-, or high-tech tool or device that helps people with disabilities perform tasks with greater ease and/or independence.9
Audism: Discrimination or prejudice against deaf or hard of hearing people.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC):An umbrella term that describes the methods used to supplement communication for anyone having difficulty with their communication or understanding. An AAC device can be a purpose-built device or a standard computer, tablet, or smartphone running specialist software or apps.10
Braille: A tactile reading and writing system of raised dots that enables blind or visually impaired people to read by touch.
Captioning: The process of converting the audio content of a television broadcast, webcast, film, video, CD-ROM, DVD, live event, or other productions into text and displaying the text on a screen, monitor, or other visual display systems. It enables people with hearing impairments to access the audio portion of the material.11
Closed Circuit Television (CCTV)/Video Magnifier: A stand-mounted or handheld video camera that projects a magnified image onto a video monitor, a television screen, or a computer monitor.12 These magnifying devices allow people with visual impairments to enlarge print and images for easy viewing.
Crip: Crip is short for “cripple,” a term used historically to stigmatize and oppress disabled people and has recently been reclaimed by disabled people. It should only be used with permission from the community or person being referred to.13
Disability: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines a person with a disability as someone with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. This includes persons with a record of such an impairment or who are regarded as having such an impairment.
FM Sound Amplification System: FM stands for frequency modulation. It is an electronic amplification system consisting of a microphone/transmitter and a monaural FM receiver. It uses radio waves to transmit audio signals from a speaker to a listener with a hearing impairment or auditory processing disorder.14
Hearing impaired: The term describes people with any degree of hearing loss, from mild to severe.15
- Hard of hearing refers to persons with mild to moderate hearing loss. It can also refer to a deaf person who does not have or want any cultural affiliation with the Deaf community.16
- Deafness describes a person with profound hearing loss who has very little or no hearing.
Inclusive Design: Design methodologies that create mainstream projects or services that are accessible to and usable by as many people as reasonably possible without needing special adaptions or adjustments.17
Inspiration Porn: Coined by the late disability rights activist Stella Young, the term refers to a media genre that portrays people with disabilities as being inspirational to able-bodied people based on their life circumstances. Young’s rationale for using “porn” is that the media contents objectify people with disabilities for the benefit of people without disabilities.18
Intersectionality: An analytic framework that describes how systems of power of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class, and other forms of discrimination “intersect” or merge to create distinct dynamics and effects.19
Keyboard emulator: A software component that allows users to enter characters onto a computer display through other devices, such as touch screens or mice.20
Mainstreaming: The practice of placing people with disabilities, with or without special accommodations, in programs, activities, and facilities with their non-disabled peers.21
Major life activities22: Activities or functions that are essential to most people’s daily lives. Under the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA), “major life activities” is expanded to include “major body functions.” ADAAA provides that:
- Major life activities include, but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.
- Major Bodily Functions include, but are not limited to, functions of the immune system, normal cell growth, digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, and reproductive functions.
Mobility impairment: A category of disability that affects movement ranging from gross motor skills such as walking to fine motor movement involving manipulation of objects by hand.23
Mouse emulator: Hardware or software that simulates mouse movement or clicking. There are various devices available that allow head and body movement to perform operations.24
Optical character recognition (OCR): OCR systems allow individuals who are blind or visually impaired to scan printed text and then have it spoken in synthetic speech or saved to a computer file.25
Mental disorder: According to World Health Organization (WHO), a mental disorder is characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in a person’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior. “Mental health conditions” is a broader term including mental disorders, psychosocial disabilities, and other mental states associated with significant distress, impairment in function, or risk of self-harm.26
Reading system: Hardware and software designed to provide access to printed text for people with visual impairments, mobility impairments, or learning disabilities. Character recognition software controls a scanner that takes an image of a printed page, converts it to computer text using recognition software, and then reads it using a synthesized voice.
Refreshable Braille Display/Braille Terminal
A user interface device creating Braille characters with round-tipped pins raised through holes on its surface.
Repetitive Strain Injury/Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI): A gradual buildup of damage to muscles, tendons, or nerves by repetitive motions and constant use of part of the body.
Sanism/Mentalism: Discrimination, prejudice, and oppression against persons who have been diagnosed with mental disorders, display certain mental traits, or are perceived/judged to have mental differences.
Screen enlargement: Hardware and/or software that increases the size of characters, text, and graphics on a computer screen.27
Screen reader: Software that allows blind or visually impaired users to read the text displayed on the computer screen with a speech synthesizer or braille display.28
Sensory disability: A neurological disorder that affects the human brain to process sensory information (such as sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell) normally and properly. Some examples of Sensory Disability are autism spectrum disorder (ASD), blindness and low vision, deafness/loss of hearing, and sensory processing disorder.29
Sign language: Manual communication that is commonly used by the deaf. The gestures or symbols in sign language are organized in a linguistic way. Each individual gesture is called a sign. Each sign has three distinct parts; the hand shape, the position of the hands, and the movement of the hands. American Sign Language (ASL) is the most commonly used sign language in the United States. Deaf people from different countries speak different sign languages.
Specific Learning Disability: Disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in difficulties listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, or doing mathematical calculations. Frequent limitations include hyperactivity, distractibility, emotional instability, visual and/or auditory perception difficulties, and/or motor limitations, depending on the type(s) of learning disability.
Speech impairment: A condition in which a person has problems in communication and related areas such as oral motor function, ranging from simple sound substitutions to the inability to understand or use language or use the oral-motor mechanism for functional speech.30
Under IDEA Sec. 300.8 (c) (11) — Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Speech input or speech recognition: A voice technology that enables a computer to recognize, understand and translate human speech to text.31
Speech synthesizer: A text-to-speech system used with computers. It can be a card inserted into the computer, a box attached to the computer by a cable, or software that works with the computer’s sound card.32
Switch input: A method of controlling a computer or communication device. It is most often used with Morse code or scanning methods but may also be used for controlling household appliances and related controls. Switches are available in an endless array of sizes, shapes, and activation methods.33
Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) or Teletypewriter (TTY): An electronic device for text communication over a telephone line, designed for use by individuals with hearing or speech difficulties.34
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): Traumatic brain injury (TBI), a form of acquired brain injury, occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. TBI can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue.35 The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital, degenerative, or induced by birth trauma.
Disabilities resulting from a TBI depend upon the severity of the injury, the location of the injury, and the age and general health of the individual. Some common disabilities include problems with cognition (thinking, memory, and reasoning), sensory processing (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell), communication (expression and understanding), and behavior or mental health (depression, anxiety, personality changes, aggression, acting out, and social inappropriateness).36
Universal design: Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood, and used to the greatest extent possible by all people, regardless of their age, size or disability.37 That is, designing programs, services, tools, and facilities so that they are useable, without modification, by the broadest range of users possible, taking into account a variety of abilities and disabilities.38
Universal design for learning (UDL): A framework that guides instruction design to make learning achievable for students with various abilities and disabilities.39
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973: Federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by Federal agencies, in programs receiving Federal financial assistance, in Federal employment, and in the employment practices of Federal contractors.40
Virtual keyboard: Software used to emulate a keyboard. A picture of a keyboard is displayed on a computer screen, and the user points and clicks on the pictures of keys to enter text.41
Vision impairments: Complete or partial loss of ability to see caused by various injuries or diseases, including congenital defects. Legal blindness is defined as visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with correcting lenses or the widest diameter of the visual field subtending an angular distance no greater than 20 degrees.42
Word prediction: Software that reduces the number of keystrokes needed to type words and sentences. As characters are entered on either a standard, alternative, or virtual keyboard, suggested completions of the word that has been started are provided to the user.43
1. Glossary of Disability Terminology | NSTA. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.nsta.org/glossary-disability-terminology
2. Glossary of Disability-Related Terms | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/glossary-disability-related-terms
3. Ibid.
4. What is Adaptive Technology? // ACT Center. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://actcenter.missouri.edu/about-the-act-center/what-is-adaptive-technology/
5. Glossary of Disability-Related Terms | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/glossary-disability-related-terms
6. Alternative Text | Accessible U. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://accessibility.umn.edu/what-you-can-do/start-7-core-skills/alternative-text
7. An Overview of the Americans With Disabilities Act | ADA National Network. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://adata.org/factsheet/ADA-overview
8. Definition of American Standard Code For Information Interchange (ASCII)—Gartner Information Technology Glossary. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/ascii-american-standard-code-for-information-interchange
9. What is Adaptive Technology? // ACT Center. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://actcenter.missouri.edu/about-the-act-center/what-is-adaptive-technology/
10. Communication Aids | AbilityNet. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://abilitynet.org.uk/factsheets/communication-aids-0
11. National Association of the Deaf—NAD. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://www.nad.org/resources/technology/captioning-for-access/what-is-captioning/
12. CCTVs/Video Magnifiers. (n.d.). The American Foundation for the Blind. Retrieved September 30, 2022, from https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/assistive-technology-products/video-magnifiers
13. Critical Disability Studies Collective/Terminology. (n.d.). University of Minnesota. https://cdsc.umn.edu/cds/terms
14. Hearing Assistive Technology. (n.d.). American Speech-Language-Hearing Association; American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.asha.org/public/hearing/hearing-assistive-technology/
15. How are the terms deaf, deafened, hard of hearing, and hearing impaired typically used? | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/how-are-terms-deaf-deafened-hard-hearing-and-hearing-impaired-typically-used
16. National Association of the Deaf—NAD. (n.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.nad.org/resources/american-sign-language/community-and-culture-frequently-asked-questions/
17. What is inclusive design? (n.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.inclusivedesigntoolkit.com/whatis/whatis.html
18. Inspiration porn. (2022). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inspiration_porn&oldid=1110303486#cite_note-:1-2
19. What is intersectionality. (n.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.intersectionaljustice.org/what-is-intersectionality
20. Accessibility, B. of I. (n.d.). Using Keyboard Emulators to Access the Web. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.boia.org/glossary/using_keyboard_emulators_to-access_the_web
21. Glossary of Disability-Related Terms | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/glossary-disability-related-terms
22. ADA Amendments Act of 2008 Frequently Asked Questions | U.S. Department of Labor. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/faqs/americans-with-disabilities-act-amendments
23. Glossary of Disability-Related Terms | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/glossary-disability-related-terms
24. Definition of mouse emulator. (n.d.). PCMAG. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/mouse-emulator
25. Optical Character Recognition Systems. (n.d.). The American Foundation for the Blind. Retrieved October 2, 2022, fromhttps://www.afb.org/node/16207/optical-character-recognition-systems
26. Mental disorders. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders
27. Glossary of Disability-Related Terms | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/glossary-disability-related-terms
28. Screen Readers. (n.d.). The American Foundation for the Blind. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/assistive-technology-products/screen-readers
29. Konczal, E. F. (n.d.). Sensory Disabilities. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://kines.rutgers.edu/dshw/disabilities/sensory/1061-sensory-disabilities
30. Glossary of Disability-Related Terms | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/glossary-disability-related-terms
31. The Difference Between Speech and Voice Recognition. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://kardome.com/blog-posts/difference-speech-and-voice-recognition
32. Speech Synthesizers. (n.d.). The American Foundation for the Blind. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.afb.org/node/16207/speech-synthesizers
33. Glossary of Disability-Related Terms | DO-IT. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/doit/glossary-disability-related-terms
34. Teletypewriter (TTY) & Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD). (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://www.adapacific.org/tty
35. Traumatic Brain Injury | National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/traumatic-brain-injury
36. Ibid.
37. About Us | Centre for Excellence in Universal Design. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://universaldesign.ie/about-us/
38. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (n.d.). OHCHR. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-persons-disabilities
39. About Universal Design for Learning. (n.d.). CAST. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl
40. A Guide to Disability Rights Laws. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.ada.gov/cguide.htm#anchor65610
41. Glossary of Disability Terminology | NSTA. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.nsta.org/glossary-disability-terminology
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.