Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
259 results found in cognitive accessibility.
- Self-Regulation (Self-Management, Behavioral Regulation)
- The ability to monitor and manage one's own emotions, behavior, and cognitive processes to achieve goals. Self-regulation encompasses emotional regulation, attentional control, and behavioral inhibiti…
- Self-Scaffolding
- Self-scaffolding is a process in which learners independently create their own support structures to achieve objectives they would not have reached without that support. Unlike traditional scaffolding…
- Sense of Agency (User Agency, Personal Agency)
- The subjective experience of being in control of one's own actions and their effects on the external world. In accessible design, supporting sense of agency means ensuring users feel empowered to make…
- Sensory Integration (Sensory Processing, SI)
- The neurological process of organizing sensory information from the body and environment to produce appropriate responses. Sensory integration dysfunction (also called sensory processing disorder) occ…
- Sensory Overload (Sensory Overwhelm, Overstimulation)
- A state in which the brain receives more sensory input than it can effectively process, leading to stress, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and in severe cases, meltdowns or shutdowns. Sensory overl…
- Sensory overload (Sensory overstimulation, Overstimulation)
- A state in which the brain receives more sensory input than it can effectively process, leading to feelings of overwhelm, distress, anxiety, or shutdown. Sensory overload is particularly common among …
- Serious Game (Serious Games, Applied Game)
- A game designed for a primary purpose beyond entertainment, such as education, training, health intervention, or cognitive rehabilitation. In accessibility and healthcare contexts, serious games are u…
- Short-Form Video Content (SFVC, Short-Form Content, SFC)
- Brief video content, typically 15–60 seconds long, presented in portrait orientation and consumed via infinite vertical scroll on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Re…
- Short-Term Memory (STM, Immediate Memory)
- The cognitive system that temporarily holds small amounts of information (typically 7±2 items) for brief periods, usually less than 30 seconds without rehearsal. Short-term memory is distinct from wor…
- Skimming (Scanning, Speed Reading, Content Skimming)
- Skimming is a speed-reading technique in which a reader quickly glances through text to get the general idea or gist without reading every word. Sighted readers skim by scanning headlines, bold text, …
- Social Playware (Interactive Playware, Technology-Mediated Play)
- Intelligent hardware and software systems designed to create playful interactive experiences that encourage learning, social interaction, and communication between users. In accessibility and therapeu…
- Social Stories (Social Narratives)
- Short, structured narratives developed by Carol Gray that describe social situations, expected behaviors, and appropriate responses in a clear, visual format. Social stories are widely used as therape…
- Spatial Awareness (Spatial Cognition, Environmental Awareness)
- The understanding of one's surrounding environment and one's own position within it. In accessibility contexts, spatial awareness encompasses multiple dimensions: the scale and shape of an area, one's…
- Spatial Cognition (Spatial Understanding, Spatial Awareness)
- The mental processes involved in perceiving, storing, recalling, and reasoning about spatial relationships, layouts, and environments. Spatial cognition enables people to form mental maps, navigate th…
- Spatial Learning (Spatial Cognition, Environmental Learning)
- The process of acquiring and integrating information about an environment into cognitive maps — mental representations of spatial relationships between places, paths, and landmarks. For sighted indivi…
- Spatial Representation (Spatial Mental Model)
- A cognitive structure that encodes information about the layout, distances, and relationships between locations in an environment. For blind and partially sighted people, spatial representations are b…
- Speech Disfluency (Disfluent Speech, Non-Fluent Speech)
- Any interruption to the normal flow of speech, including repetitions of sounds or words, prolongations of sounds, blocks (involuntary pauses), interjections, and revisions. While everyone experiences …
- Spell Checker (Spellchecker, Spelling Checker)
- Software that identifies and suggests corrections for misspelled words in text. Standard spell checkers often fail to catch errors made by people with dyslexia because dyslexic spelling errors differ …
- Split Attention (Split-Attention Effect, Divided Attention)
- A cognitive phenomenon in multimedia learning where users must divide their visual attention between multiple information sources presented simultaneously. In accessibility contexts, this is particula…
- Split-Attention Effect (Split Attention)
- A cognitive load phenomenon that occurs when learners or viewers must divide their visual attention between multiple sources of information that are physically or temporally separated. In captioned me…