Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
69 results found in Disability Studies.
- Disability Studies (DS, Critical Disability Studies)
- An interdisciplinary academic field that examines disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon rather than solely a medical condition. Disability studies draws on the social model of dis…
- Disability disclosure (Self-disclosure)
- The process by which a person with a disability chooses to reveal information about their condition to others, whether in the workplace, social settings, or digital environments. Disclosure decisions …
- Disability-Centered Evaluation (Disability-Centric Evaluation, Disability-First Evaluation)
- An approach to evaluating AI systems, tools, or research artefacts that places disabled people's lived experiences, information needs, and failure contexts at the centre of study design — including wh…
- Disenfranchised Grief
- Disenfranchised grief, a concept developed by Kenneth Doka, describes the experience of people who 'incur a loss that is not, or cannot be, openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported'…
- Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21)
- A genetic condition caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21, resulting in intellectual disability and characteristic physical features. People with Down syndrome typically experience …
- Dual-Positioned Researcher (Dual Positioning, Insider-Outsider Researcher)
- A researcher who holds both the role of investigator and the lived experience of the condition or community being studied — for example, a person with OCD studying OCD, or a Deaf researcher studying D…
- Episodic Disability
- A disability characterized by periods of illness or impairment interspersed with periods of wellness or relative health. Unlike fluctuating disability where severity varies continuously, episodic disa…
- Flourishing (Developmental Flourishing, Human Flourishing)
- An orientation in design and HCI that measures success not by task completion or outcome equivalence but by the extent to which a system supports individuals' subjective well-being, personal significa…
- Fluctuating Disability (Variable Disability)
- A disability whose symptoms and severity vary over time, sometimes day to day or even hour to hour. People with fluctuating disabilities may experience periods of relatively high function alternating …
- Functional Cognitive Disability (Functional Cognitive Limitation)
- An approach to categorizing cognitive disabilities based on the functional limitations they produce rather than clinical diagnoses. Categories typically include difficulties with memory, problem-solvi…
- Functional Independence (Functional Autonomy, Independent Functioning)
- The ability to perform daily living activities without assistance from others, encompassing both basic self-care tasks (eating, dressing, bathing) and more complex instrumental activities (shopping, m…
- Global South accessibility (Accessibility in developing countries, Majority world accessibility)
- The study and practice of accessibility in countries of the Global South (Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America), where over 80% of people with disabilities live. Accessibility in these cont…
- Hierarchy of Impairment (Hierarchy of Impairments, Disability Hierarchy)
- The hierarchy of impairment refers to the phenomenon where certain types of disabilities and impairments are viewed more favorably or given greater attention than others, both by non-disabled people a…
- Illness Narrative (Disease Narrative)
- An illness narrative is the story a person and their significant others construct to give coherence to the disruptive experience of illness or diagnosis and its effects on the family system. In the co…
- Infrastructuring for Access
- A design approach introduced by Wang and Marie (CHI 2026) that combines HCI's infrastructuring theory with Disability Studies and Repair Studies. Rather than focusing on removing barriers or accommoda…
- Intellectual Disability (ID, Intellectual Development Disorder)
- A disability characterized by significant limitations in intellectual functioning (reasoning, learning, problem-solving) and adaptive behavior (everyday social and practical skills), originating durin…
- Interaction with Disabled Persons Scale (IDP Scale, IDP)
- A standardized 20-item attitudinal instrument developed by Gething and Wheeler (1992) and later validated by Forlin, Fogarty, and Caroll (1999), designed to measure both desirable and undesirable emot…
- Interdependence (Relational autonomy)
- A framework in disability studies that recognises all people — disabled and non-disabled — as fundamentally reliant on others and on social infrastructure, challenging the Western ideal of individual …
- Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA)
- A qualitative research methodology focused on exploring how people make sense of their lived experiences, widely used in accessibility and disability research. IPA involves detailed analysis of indivi…
- Invisible disability (Hidden disability, Non-visible disability, Non-apparent disability)
- A disability that is not immediately apparent to others by observation, including conditions such as chronic pain, ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, epilepsy, and many cognitive or neurological condi…