Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
259 results found in cognitive accessibility.
- Metacognition (Thinking About Thinking, Meta-Cognitive Awareness)
- The awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes, including the ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate one's cognitive strategies during learning or problem-solving. In accessibility, su…
- Micro-Prompting (Step Prompting, Task Segmentation)
- An assistive technology approach that breaks complex multi-step tasks into individual sub-steps, presenting each step one at a time to guide users through completion. Originally developed to support p…
- Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
- A condition involving a noticeable decline in cognitive abilities — including memory, reasoning, or judgment — that is greater than expected for a person's age but does not significantly interfere wit…
- Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE, Mini-Mental State Exam, Folstein Test)
- A widely used brief screening tool for cognitive impairment, originally developed in 1975. The MMSE assesses orientation, memory, attention, language, and visuospatial skills through a series of quest…
- Monospaced Font (fixed-width font, fixed-pitch font, non-proportional font)
- A typeface in which every character occupies the same horizontal space, regardless of its width. Examples include Courier, Consolas, and Monaco. Research shows monospaced fonts like Courier lead to sh…
- Multimedia Learning
- The cognitive theory that people learn more effectively from words and pictures together than from words alone. According to Richard Mayer's cognitive theory of multimedia learning, working memory pro…
- Multiple Cue Responding (MCR)
- The ability to observe and attend to multiple features of a stimulus simultaneously (such as colour, shape, and size) and use all of those features to make decisions. Multiple cue responding is a foun…
- Narrow-Deep Interface (Narrow-Deep UI, Wizard Interface, Step-by-Step Interface)
- A user interface design pattern that presents information across many screens, with only a small amount of content per screen. Users navigate through multiple sequential screens rather than scrolling …
- Neurodegenerative Disease (Neurodegenerative Disorder, Neurodegeneration)
- A category of diseases characterized by progressive loss of structure or function of neurons, including death of nerve cells. Common neurodegenerative diseases include Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's…
- Neurodevelopmental Condition (Neurodevelopmental Disorder, Neurodevelopmental Disability)
- A group of conditions that arise from differences in brain development and affect how a person processes information, learns, communicates, and interacts with the world. Common neurodevelopmental cond…
- Neurodevelopmental Conditions (Neurodevelopmental Disorders, NDD)
- A group of conditions that affect brain development and function, typically emerging in early childhood. These include autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, intellectual disabilities, Down syndrome, and spe…
- Neurodevelopmental Disorder (NDD, Neurodevelopmental Disability)
- An umbrella term for a group of conditions that originate during the developmental period and involve impairments in cognitive, social, emotional, or motor functioning. Common neurodevelopmental disor…
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD, Neurodevelopmental Disabilities)
- A group of conditions that originate during the developmental period and are characterized by impairments in personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning. Neurodevelopmental disorders inclu…
- Neurodivergent (Neurodiverse Individual, ND)
- A term describing individuals whose neurological development and functioning differ from what is considered typical or "neurotypical." Neurodivergent conditions include ADHD, autism spectrum disorder,…
- Neuronormativity (Neurotypical bias, Neuronormative standards)
- The set of assumptions, norms, and practices that privilege neurotypical cognition as the default and superior way of thinking, communicating, and functioning, while treating neurodivergent ways of pr…
- Neurotype
- A classification of minds based on patterns of neurological functioning. The term encompasses both neurotypical (conforming to dominant neurological norms) and neurodivergent (diverging from those nor…
- Neurotypical (NT)
- A term used to describe individuals whose neurological development and cognitive functioning fall within the range considered typical by prevailing societal standards — that is, people who do not have…
- Normative Language (Normativity in Assessment)
- Language in assessment tools, questionnaires, or descriptions that implicitly establishes neurotypical or non-disabled experience as the standard against which all responses are measured. In emotional…
- Notification Fatigue (Alert Fatigue, Information Overload)
- Notification fatigue is a state in which users become desensitized to or overwhelmed by frequent alerts, notifications, or information delivery from a device or system, causing them to ignore or tune …
- Numeracy (Mathematical Literacy, Quantitative Literacy)
- The ability to understand, use, and reason with numbers and mathematical concepts in everyday contexts. Numeracy skills include counting, arithmetic operations, understanding percentages and proportio…