Phonocentrism

The ideological privileging of spoken language as the default and superior mode of communication, with corresponding devaluation of signed, typed, symbolic, or augmentative forms. In accessibility, phonocentrism surfaces when technologies (voice assistants, automatic speech recognition, videoconferencing) assume speech is the norm, when "communication" research centres hearing-speaking interlocutors, or when AAC systems are designed to approximate neurotypical speech patterns rather than support alternative modalities on their own terms. Critical Deaf studies and disability justice scholars use the term to name a systemic bias related to audism.