Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
117 results found in Communication.
- Communication Disability (Communication Impairment, Complex Communication Needs)
- A condition that significantly limits a person's ability to communicate through speech, language, or other conventional means. Communication disabilities can result from neurological conditions (cereb…
- Communication Partner Training (Conversation Partner Training)
- Structured training for the people who regularly communicate with an AAC user — including family members, caregivers, teachers, and peers — to help them support effective communication. Communication …
- Communication Privacy Management Theory (CPM, CPM Theory)
- A communication theory developed by Sandra Petronio that treats private information as something people own and collectively manage through negotiated rules about boundaries, co-ownership, and turbule…
- Computerized Visual Communication (C-VIC)
- A computer-based assistive technology system that enables people with aphasia to communicate by arranging icons and images on screen to form sentences, which can then be translated into spoken or writ…
- Conversational Management (Conversation Management, Interactional Management)
- The processes by which interlocutors jointly regulate the structure of a conversation - taking and ceding turns, pre-empting interruptions, shifting attention and topic, repairing misunderstandings, a…
- Conversational Scaffolding (Scaffolded Interaction)
- Human or technology-provided support, prompts, or guidance that helps individuals accomplish communication tasks they might struggle with independently. In voice assistant contexts, scaffolding includ…
- Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theory (CCAT, Kim's Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theory)
- A communication theory, developed principally by Young Yun Kim, that describes how individuals adjust to an unfamiliar cultural environment over time through cycles of stress, adaptation, and growth. …
- Cross-neurotype communication (Cross-neurological communication, Neurotype-crossing communication)
- Communication between individuals with different neurological profiles, most commonly between autistic and neurotypical people. Cross-neurotype communication is characterized by differences in convers…
- Deictic Gesture (Pointing Gesture)
- A deictic gesture is a pointing or indicating motion (typically with a finger, but also with gaze, head, or tool) that directs another person's attention to a specific referent in the shared environme…
- Diarization (Speaker Diarization, Speaker Segmentation)
- The process of automatically determining "who spoke when" in an audio or video recording by segmenting the audio stream and assigning each segment to a specific speaker. In accessibility contexts, dia…
- Digital Storytelling (Multimedia Storytelling, Personal Digital Narrative)
- The use of digital media — including photographs, video clips, audio recordings, and text — to create and share personal narratives. In the context of accessibility and AAC, digital storytelling offer…
- Disability Etiquette (Disability manners, Interaction etiquette)
- A set of conventions for respectful and appropriate interaction with disabled people, typically taught to non-disabled colleagues, service staff, students, and healthcare providers. Common principles …
- E-Tran Frame (Eye-Transfer Frame, Eye-Pointing Frame, ETRAN)
- A low-technology augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device consisting of a transparent frame or board that allows a person to communicate by directing their eye gaze toward symbols, lett…
- Emoji (Emojis)
- Small pictographic characters — faces, gestures, objects, symbols — encoded as Unicode code points and rendered by platform-specific font sets, used to convey affect, tone, and non-verbal nuance in ot…
- Ethnomethodology
- A sociological approach, founded by Harold Garfinkel, that studies the everyday methods people use to make sense of and produce social order in interaction - the implicit rules and shared practices th…
- Facial Expressions in Sign Language (Non-Manual Markers, Non-Manual Signals, NMMs)
- Meaningful facial movements and configurations that serve grammatical, lexical, and affective functions in sign languages. In American Sign Language, facial expressions are not merely emotional indica…
- Fingerspelling (Manual Alphabet, Dactylology)
- A method of spelling out words letter-by-letter using hand positions that represent each letter of the alphabet. In American Sign Language, fingerspelling uses a one-handed manual alphabet and is prim…
- Fingerspelling (Manual alphabet, Dactylology)
- A method of spelling out words letter by letter using hand shapes, used within sign languages to represent proper nouns, technical terms, or words that lack a dedicated sign. Each letter of the writte…
- Formulaic Language (Formulaic Speech, Routine Language)
- Pre-established, conventionalised phrases and expressions that occur predictably in specific social or transactional contexts, such as greetings, service transactions, or ceremonial speech. In accessi…
- Gaze-Based Communication (Eye Gaze Communication, Gaze-Based AAC)
- A form of augmentative and alternative communication that uses eye movement tracking to enable people with severe motor and speech impairments to select words, phrases, symbols, or commands on a scree…