Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
117 results found in Communication.
- Narrative Skills (Narrative Competence, Storytelling Skills)
- The ability to recount events — real or imagined — as a coherent, temporally ordered, causally linked story that another person can follow. Narrative skills rest on autobiographical memory retrieval, …
- Oral Language (Expressive Oral Language, Spoken Language)
- Oral language is the system of spoken communication comprising articulation (producing speech sounds), vocabulary (tact or naming), grammar and linguistic structure, and pragmatic or conversational us…
- Parkinson's Disease (PD)
- A progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting movement, including tremor, rigidity, slowness of movement, and balance problems. Parkinson's disease can also significantly affect speech (causing q…
- Perpetual Contact
- Perpetual contact is a sociological term coined by James Katz and Mark Aakhus to describe the state, enabled by mobile phones and later by ubiquitous internet messaging, in which people maintain const…
- Personal Narrative (Storytelling, Conversational Narrative)
- The act of telling others about one's own experiences, events, and feelings — a fundamental aspect of human social interaction. Personal narrative serves multiple functions: building and maintaining r…
- Phonemic Spelling (Phonetic Spelling)
- The practice of spelling words based on their pronunciation rather than their conventional orthography, used as a workaround when text-to-speech systems do not support a desired language. In AAC conte…
- Phonocentrism
- The ideological privileging of spoken language as the default and superior mode of communication, with corresponding devaluation of signed, typed, symbolic, or augmentative forms. In accessibility, ph…
- Photo-based Communication (Visual Communication Aid, Image-based Communication)
- A communication strategy that uses photographs or images as the primary medium for conveying meaning, sharing experiences, and supporting conversation. For people with aphasia, intellectual disabiliti…
- Phrase-Based Communication (Phrase-Based AAC, Pre-Stored Phrase Communication)
- An augmentative and alternative communication approach where users select complete pre-composed phrases or sentences rather than constructing messages letter by letter or word by word. Phrase-based sy…
- Picture Communication Symbols (PCS, Boardmaker Symbols)
- A widely used graphic symbol system for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), consisting of simple, colorful line drawings representing words, phrases, and concepts. Developed by Mayer-Joh…
- Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)
- A structured augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system that teaches individuals to use pictures to communicate with others. Developed by Andrew Bondy and Lori Frost in 1985, PECS uses a …
- Pidgin Signed English (PSE, Contact Signing, Sign Supported English)
- A hybrid communication system that combines elements of American Sign Language (ASL) and English. In PSE, signers use ASL signs for the main content words of an English sentence, following English wor…
- Pragmatic language (Social language, Language pragmatics)
- The aspect of language concerned with how context, tone, social norms, and shared knowledge shape meaning beyond the literal words spoken or written. Pragmatic language skills include understanding sa…
- Preverbal Communication (Prelinguistic Communication)
- The stage of communication development before the consistent use of recognizable words, typically occurring in neurotypical children between birth and approximately 12 months of age. Preverbal communi…
- Remote sighted assistance (RSA, Visual interpreting service)
- A service connecting blind or visually impaired individuals with sighted helpers through live video calls, enabling real-time visual guidance for everyday tasks. Services like Be My Eyes (volunteer-ba…
- Self-Disclosure Statement (SDS)
- A short first-person text in which a creator, researcher, or performer reveals personal information about their identity, background, training, and motivations for producing a piece of work. Self-disc…
- Shared Reality (Shared Realities)
- Shared reality is the experience of a common inner state - thoughts, feelings, or perceptions about an object or situation - between two or more people, established through communication and mutual ac…
- Sign Language Video (Sign Language Interpretation Video)
- Pre-recorded or live video content presenting information in sign language, used to augment or replace written text for deaf and hard of hearing users. In reading support contexts, sign language video…
- Sign language translation (SLT, Sign-to-text translation)
- The automatic conversion of sign language video into written or spoken language text using machine learning. Unlike sign language recognition, which identifies individual signs or glosses, sign langua…
- Signed English (SE, Manually Coded English)
- Signed English (SE) is an artificial sign system that represents English words and grammar using manual signs, following English word order and syntax rather than the grammar of a natural sign languag…