Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
148 results found in disability studies.
- Liberatory access (Liberation-oriented access)
- An approach to accessibility that goes beyond inclusion and assimilation to challenge the broader conditions of ableism and exclusion that create inaccessibility in the first place. Coined by disabili…
- Linguicism (Linguistic Discrimination, Language Discrimination)
- Discrimination or prejudice against individuals or groups based on the language or dialect they use, often intertwined with racism and ableism. In the Deaf community, linguicism commonly shows up as t…
- Lost Generation
- In ADHD and autism discourse, the term refers to adults — particularly women, minority genders, and people of colour — who went undiagnosed as children due to gendered diagnostic criteria, systemic me…
- Medical Gaslighting
- The dismissal, minimization, or invalidation of a patient’s reported symptoms or experiences by healthcare providers, often leading patients to doubt their own perceptions. The phenomenon disproportio…
- Medical Model of Disability (Individual Model of Disability)
- A framework that views disability as a deficit or pathology within an individual that should be treated, cured, or rehabilitated. Under the medical model, disability is seen as a personal health probl…
- Medical Model of Disability (medical model, individual model of disability)
- A framework that views disability as a problem located within the individual, caused by disease, injury, or health condition, that requires medical intervention or rehabilitation to "fix" the person. …
- Medicalization (Medical gatekeeping)
- The process by which human conditions and differences are defined, categorized, and treated as medical problems requiring clinical intervention. In disability and AI contexts, medicalization is reinfo…
- Mental Health Stigma (Psychiatric Stigma, Mental Illness Stigma)
- Negative attitudes, beliefs, and discrimination directed toward people with mental health conditions, leading to social exclusion, reduced help-seeking, and diminished self-esteem. For people with OCD…
- Microaggression
- A subtle, often automatic remark, question, or action that communicates prejudice or negative stereotypes toward a member of a marginalized group. Originally coined by psychiatrist Chester Pierce in t…
- Mis-accommodation (Failed Accommodation, Accommodation Failure)
- A situation where a disability accommodation that has been formally arranged fails to provide adequate access due to the unpredictability of real-world circumstances, context-specific limitations of t…
- Moral Model of Disability (Religious Model of Disability)
- A historical framework that attributes disability to moral failing, divine punishment, or supernatural causes such as curses or sins. Under this model, disability is viewed as a consequence of wrongdo…
- Multiple Impairments (Multiple Disabilities, Complex Disabilities, Co-occurring Impairments)
- The presence of two or more concurrent impairments — such as sensory, cognitive, physical, or neurological — in a single individual that together create complex accessibility needs not adequately addr…
- Neurodivergent Movement (Neurodiversity Movement)
- A social movement, largely driven by online collective action beginning in the early 2000s, that challenges traditional deficit-based models of neurological differences like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, an…
- 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…
- Non-visible disability (Hidden disability, Non-apparent disability)
- A disability that is not immediately apparent to others through visual observation. Non-visible disabilities include neurodivergent conditions (autism, ADHD, dyslexia), mental health conditions (anxie…
- Ocularcentrism (Visual Bias, Vision-Centrism)
- The privileging of visual perception and visual ways of knowing in the design of technologies, interfaces, and information systems. Ocularcentrism in technology design manifests when visual assumption…
- Online Health Communities (OHCs)
- Internet-based communities where people affected by a shared health condition exchange experiential knowledge, emotional support, and practical coping strategies. Traditionally hosted on dedicated for…
- PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder, Post-traumatic stress)
- A psychiatric condition that can develop after exposure to traumatic events, characterized by intrusive memories, avoidance of trauma-related stimuli, negative changes in mood and cognition, and heigh…
- Partial disclosure (Curated disclosure, Selective information sharing)
- A disclosure strategy in which individuals share some information about their disability or neurodivergence while withholding specific details, often framing their needs in more socially accepted term…
- Participatory Evaluation (PE)
- A research approach in which the people affected by a program, technology, or intervention are actively involved in evaluating it, rather than being passive subjects of assessment. In accessibility re…