Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
28 results found in Deaf accessibility.
- Aural Diversity (Hearing diversity)
- A framework that recognizes the wide variation in how humans perceive and engage with sound, rather than treating typical hearing as the norm against which all other experiences are measured. Aural di…
- Bangla Sign Language (BdSL, Bangladeshi Sign Language)
- The sign language used by the d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing community in Bangladesh. BdSL has distinct grammatical structures, vocabulary, and regional variation that differ from American Sign Language (…
- Continuous Sign Language Recognition (CSLR)
- A computer vision task that involves recognizing sign language from continuous, naturally produced signing — as opposed to isolated sign recognition, which identifies individual signs in segmented cli…
- Cross-language Research (Cross-linguistic Research, Multilingual Research)
- Research conducted across different languages, requiring translation and interpretation to bridge communication between researchers and participants who do not share a common language. In accessibilit…
- Cross-modal Plasticity (Cross-modal Reorganisation, Cross-modal Cortical Recruitment, Sensory Substitution)
- A neurological phenomenon in which brain regions typically dedicated to processing one sensory modality are repurposed to process information from another sense, often as a result of sensory deprivati…
- Deaf Culture (Deaf Community Culture)
- The shared cultural identity, values, social norms, language, art, literature, and history of Deaf people who communicate primarily through sign language. Deaf culture (with a capital "D") views deafn…
- Deaf Music (Deaf musicality, Music in Deaf culture)
- Music as experienced, created, and culturally interpreted by d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals and communities. Deaf music encompasses a multimodal, spatio-temporal engagement with rhythm, vibrat…
- Differential Signing Rate (Dynamic Signing Speed, Signing Rate Variation)
- The degree to which the speed of individual signs varies throughout a sign language passage, reflecting natural speed-ups and slow-downs driven by linguistic context. In human signing, certain words m…
- English Literacy (Reading Literacy, English Reading Literacy)
- The ability to read, write, and comprehend written English. In the context of deaf and hard-of-hearing accessibility, English literacy is a significant consideration because many DHH individuals — par…
- Eye Gaze (Gaze, Gaze Direction, Visual Gaze)
- The direction and focus of a person's eyes during visual attention, used both as a communication signal and as a measurable indicator of cognitive processing. In sign language communication, eye gaze …
- Facial Avatar (Singing head, Talking head avatar)
- A digital, animated representation of a face — typically rendered as a 3D or stylized 2D character from the neck up — driven by audio, video, or data signals to produce expressive facial behavior such…
- German Sign Language (DGS, Deutsche Gebärdensprache)
- The sign language used by the deaf community in Germany, recognised as an independent natural language with its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary distinct from spoken German. Like other sign languag…
- Gloss (Sign Gloss, Gloss Notation)
- A form of transliteration used in sign language research where written words from a spoken language (typically the dominant spoken language of the region, such as English) are used as labels to repres…
- Language Erasure (Linguistic Erasure, Language Flattening)
- The process by which a language's unique characteristics, variations, dialects, and cultural significance are diminished, homogenized, or eliminated — often through the dominance of a majority languag…
- Lip-reading (Speechreading, Speech Reading, Visual Speech Perception)
- The practice of understanding speech by visually interpreting the movements of the lips, face, and tongue, often used by deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals as a communication strategy. Lip-reading r…
- Music Visualization (Music visualisers, Visual music)
- The representation of musical content — pitch, rhythm, timbre, dynamics, melody, lyrics, or emotion — through visual rather than auditory channels. Visualizations range from abstract mappings of audio…
- Non-Manual Signal (NMS, Non-Manual Marker, NMM)
- A linguistic component of sign languages that is expressed through parts of the body other than the hands, including facial expressions, eyebrow movement, head tilts, shoulder shifts, mouth movements,…
- Perceptual Span (Reading Span, Visual Span)
- The area of text around a fixation point from which useful information can be extracted during reading. Research using eye-tracking has shown that skilled deaf readers have a larger perceptual span th…
- Phonology (Sign Language Phonology)
- The study of the smallest meaningful units that make up language and the rules governing their combination. In sign languages, phonology describes the building blocks of signs: handshape, location on …
- Privacy-Enhancing Data Filters (Privacy Filters, Data Obfuscation Filters)
- Visual or data modifications applied to training datasets that obscure the identity of contributors while preserving the information needed for machine learning tasks. In the context of sign language …