Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
19 results found in Disability Concepts.
- Ableist Language (Disability Slurs, Derogatory Disability Language)
- Ableist language refers to words, phrases, and framings that demean, stereotype, or pathologize people with disabilities — from explicit slurs such as 'cripple,' 'handicap,' 'retard,' or 'lame' used p…
- Accessibility Tax (Crip Tax, Disability Tax, Access Tax)
- The cumulative direct and indirect costs — financial, temporal, cognitive, and emotional — that disabled people pay to obtain the same access, outcomes, or opportunities available to non-disabled peer…
- 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…
- Cross-Disability
- A research, advocacy, or design orientation that deliberately engages multiple disability communities at once rather than treating disability as a single-axis category or focusing on a single impairme…
- Digital Disability Divide
- The gap between people with and without disabilities in both access to and effective use of information and communication technologies. The term extends the broader concept of the digital divide to em…
- Disability Microaggression (Ableist Microaggression)
- A subtle, often unintentional verbal, non-verbal, or environmental slight, snub, or insult that communicates hostility, marginalization, or prejudice toward a person with a disability. Conover et al. …
- Functional Capacity (Functional Ability)
- The maximum level at which a person can perform a given physical or cognitive activity under standardised conditions. Functional capacity represents what a person is capable of doing, as opposed to wh…
- Functional Limitation (Functional Restriction)
- A restriction or lack of ability to perform a physical or cognitive action in the manner or within the range considered typical. In the context of accessibility and rehabilitation, functional limitati…
- Linguistic Minority (Language Minority)
- A group whose primary language differs from the dominant language of the surrounding society, often placing them at a disadvantage in education, employment, civic participation, and access to informat…
- Loss of Obscurity (Loss of anonymity)
- A concept introduced by Thomas J. Carroll in his 1961 book "Blindness: What It Is, What It Does, and How to Live with It," in which he identified twenty distinct losses that accompany the onset of bli…
- Ocular Aberration (Optical Aberration, Wavefront Aberration)
- Ocular aberration refers to deviations in the way light is focused by the optical components of the eye (cornea and lens) compared to an ideal optical system. These aberrations distort the image forme…
- Personhood
- The recognition of a human being as a full person with agency, dignity, self-expression, and moral standing, irrespective of cognitive, physical, or communicative impairments. In dementia care and acc…
- Refractive Error (Refractive Disorder, Ametropia)
- Refractive error is a common vision condition in which the shape of the eye prevents light from focusing correctly on the retina, resulting in blurred vision. Types include myopia (nearsightedness), h…
- Self-Injurious Behavior (SIB, Self-Harm Behavior, Self-Injurious Behaviour)
- Self-injurious behavior (SIB) encompasses repetitive actions that cause physical harm to the individual performing them, such as head-banging, skin-picking, biting, or severe hand-mouthing that leads …
- Stereotypic Behavior (Stereotypy, Stereotypical Behavior, Stereotypies)
- Stereotypic behavior refers to repetitive, seemingly purposeless movements or actions that follow a consistent pattern, such as rocking, hand-flapping, spinning, or hand-mouthing. These behaviors are …
- WHODAS 2.0 (WHODAS, WHO Disability Assessment Schedule, World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0)
- WHODAS 2.0 is the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule, version 2.0, a standardized instrument that measures health and disability across six life domains: cognition, mobility, sel…
- Well-being (Wellbeing, Well Being)
- Well-being is a multi-dimensional construct covering a person's physical health, psychological state, social connectedness, autonomy, and environmental quality of life. Accessibility research uses wel…
- Whole-Self (Whole Self)
- A concept from disability justice that frames a disabled person's identity, needs, and preferences as a rich, multidimensional whole — cultural background, lived experiences, interests, relationships,…
- Wholeness
- Wholeness is a core principle of the 10 Principles of Disability Justice articulated by Sins Invalid: the recognition that 'each person is full of history and life experience' and has inherent worth o…