Glossary

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ADHD Tax(also: Disability Tax, Crip Tax)

The additional financial, emotional, and intellectual costs that people with ADHD and other neurodivergent conditions must pay to navigate systems designed for neurotypical functioning. Examples include purchasing productivity apps, planners, and wearable devices to compensate…

Ableist Language(also: Disability Slurs, Derogatory Disability Language)

Ableist language refers to words, phrases, and framings that demean, stereotype, or pathologize people with disabilities — from explicit slurs such as 'cripple,' 'handicap,' 'retard,' or 'lame' used pejoratively, to subtler framings like 'suffers from,' 'wheelchair-bound,' or…

Access Intimacy

A concept coined by disability justice activist Mia Mingus describing the elusive, deeply felt connection that occurs when someone else genuinely understands and responds to your access needs. Access intimacy goes beyond formal accommodations to encompass the relational and…

Accessibility Tax(also: Crip Tax, Disability Tax, Access Tax)

The cumulative direct and indirect costs — financial, temporal, cognitive, and emotional — that disabled people pay to obtain the same access, outcomes, or opportunities available to non-disabled peers. Coined in non-academic contexts as 'crip tax' and distinguished by Olsen et…

Age-Related Capability Decline(also: Age-Related Impairment, Dynamic Diversity)

The gradual reduction in sensory, motor, and cognitive capabilities that typically accompanies ageing, including declining visual acuity, hearing loss, reduced dexterity and fine motor control, and changes in memory and processing speed. Unlike many disabilities that are stable…

Aural Diversity(also: Hearing diversity)

A framework that recognizes the wide variation in how humans perceive and engage with sound, rather than treating typical hearing as the norm against which all other experiences are measured. Aural diversity spans d/Deaf, Hard of Hearing, hyperacusis, tinnitus, misophonia,…

Cross-Disability

A research, advocacy, or design orientation that deliberately engages multiple disability communities at once rather than treating disability as a single-axis category or focusing on a single impairment group. Cross-disability work surfaces shared structural barriers (ableism,…

Diagnostic Overshadowing

A clinical phenomenon in which the symptoms or behaviours of a person with a disability are incorrectly attributed to their existing disability rather than being recognised as signs of a separate condition. In the context of intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD),…

Digital Disability Divide

The gap between people with and without disabilities in both access to and effective use of information and communication technologies. The term extends the broader concept of the digital divide to emphasise that merely providing connectivity or devices is insufficient when…

Disability Arts(also: Disability Art, Crip Art)

A cultural and artistic movement in which disabled artists create work that draws on, reflects, and is informed by their lived experience of disability. Disability arts encompasses visual art, performance, music, theatre, dance, and digital media, and is distinct from art…

Disability Microaggression(also: Ableist Microaggression)

A subtle, often unintentional verbal, non-verbal, or environmental slight, snub, or insult that communicates hostility, marginalization, or prejudice toward a person with a disability. Conover et al. (2017) validated the Ableist Microaggressions Scale (AMS), which organises…

Dynamic Disability(also: Fluctuating Disability, Variable Disability)

A disability or impairment whose severity, manifestation, or impact varies over time — sometimes rapidly — rather than remaining constant. Dynamic disabilities are common in many health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's Disease, multiple sclerosis, and…

Fluctuating Access Needs(also: Dynamic Access Needs, Variable Access Needs)

Accessibility requirements that change over time for a single individual, varying based on factors such as energy levels, symptoms, time of day, environment, medication, menstrual cycle, cognitive load, and fatigue. Common among people with chronic illnesses, neurodivergence,…

Functional Capacity(also: Functional Ability)

The maximum level at which a person can perform a given physical or cognitive activity under standardised conditions. Functional capacity represents what a person is capable of doing, as opposed to what they typically do in daily life (functional performance). In assistive…

Functional Limitation(also: Functional Restriction)

A restriction or lack of ability to perform a physical or cognitive action in the manner or within the range considered typical. In the context of accessibility and rehabilitation, functional limitations are the specific constraints on what a person can do — such as limited grip…

Health-Related Impairment and Disability(also: HIID, Health-Related Impairments and Disabilities)

A category of impairments that arise as a consequence of health conditions, both chronic and acute, rather than from a traditionally defined disability. HIIDs are characterized by four properties: they are combinatorial (multiple low-intensity impairments that interact to create…

Internal Access Conflict(also: Conflicting Access Needs)

A situation where a single individual's different access needs contradict or undermine each other, making it impossible to fully accommodate all needs simultaneously. For example, a person with chronic illness may benefit from remote meetings to avoid physical exertion, but the…

Linguistic Minority(also: Language Minority)

A group whose primary language differs from the dominant language of the surrounding society, often placing them at a disadvantage in education, employment, civic participation, and access to information. Deaf sign language users are frequently described as a linguistic and…

Loss of Obscurity(also: Loss of anonymity)

A concept introduced by Thomas J. Carroll in his 1961 book "Blindness: What It Is, What It Does, and How to Live with It," in which he identified twenty distinct losses that accompany the onset of blindness. Loss of obscurity refers to the unavoidable conspicuousness of carrying…

Medicalised Aesthetic(also: Medical Model Design, Clinical Aesthetic)

A design approach in assistive technology that prioritises clinical functionality over personal style, resulting in devices that visually signal disability through neutral, institutional-looking form factors such as plain plastic casings and uniform designs. Research with AAC…

Neurodivergent Questioning(also: ND Questioning)

A term adapted from gender questioning that describes people who are in the process of figuring out how to describe and label their neurocognitive functioning and who have reason to think they might be neurodivergent, but have not yet received or pursued a formal diagnosis.…

Noise Sensitivity(also: Auditory Hypersensitivity, Hyperacusis, Sound Sensitivity)

A heightened physiological and emotional response to sounds that others may tolerate without difficulty. Common among autistic individuals and people with other sensory processing differences, noise sensitivity can cause distress, anxiety, and sensory overload in everyday…

Ocular Aberration(also: Optical Aberration, Wavefront Aberration)

Ocular aberration refers to deviations in the way light is focused by the optical components of the eye (cornea and lens) compared to an ideal optical system. These aberrations distort the image formed on the retina and contribute to blurred or distorted vision. Lower-order…

Personhood

The recognition of a human being as a full person with agency, dignity, self-expression, and moral standing, irrespective of cognitive, physical, or communicative impairments. In dementia care and accessibility practice, affirming personhood means interacting with the individual…

Presumed Competence(also: Least Dangerous Assumption)

The principle that all individuals should be assumed capable and intelligent regardless of whether their abilities are displayed in ways that conform to societal norms. Advocated particularly by nonspeaking neurodivergent individuals and those with intellectual disabilities,…

Refractive Error(also: Refractive Disorder, Ametropia)

Refractive error is a common vision condition in which the shape of the eye prevents light from focusing correctly on the retina, resulting in blurred vision. Types include myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), astigmatism (irregular corneal curvature), and…

Relative Virtuosity

A concept from performance studies arguing that what constitutes a virtuoso performance cannot be separated from the social and material expectations around non-normative bodies. For disabled performers, virtuosity is shaped by how their bodies interact with the world, their…

Self-Injurious Behavior(also: SIB, Self-Harm Behavior, Self-Injurious Behaviour)

Self-injurious behavior (SIB) encompasses repetitive actions that cause physical harm to the individual performing them, such as head-banging, skin-picking, biting, or severe hand-mouthing that leads to tissue damage. SIB is more prevalent among individuals with intellectual…

Situational Disability(also: Situational Impairment, Situational Limitation, SIID)

A temporary reduction in ability caused by a person's environment or context rather than a permanent condition. Examples include difficulty reading a screen in bright sunlight (visual), being unable to listen to audio in a noisy environment (auditory), or having limited…

Situational Disability(also: Situational Impairment, Contextual Disability)

A temporary limitation in ability caused by environmental circumstances rather than a permanent condition. Examples include being unable to read a screen in bright sunlight (visual), not hearing audio in a noisy environment (auditory), being unable to use two hands while…

Situational Impairment(also: Situational Disability, Situationally-Induced Impairment)

A temporary reduction in a person's ability to interact with technology caused by their environment or context rather than a permanent condition. Examples include using a phone in bright sunlight (visual), operating a device while carrying groceries (motor), or trying to hear…

Stereotypic Behavior(also: Stereotypy, Stereotypical Behavior, Stereotypies)

Stereotypic behavior refers to repetitive, seemingly purposeless movements or actions that follow a consistent pattern, such as rocking, hand-flapping, spinning, or hand-mouthing. These behaviors are commonly observed in individuals with intellectual disabilities, autism…

Variable Ability(also: Fluctuating Ability, Dynamic Disability)

The characteristic of many chronic illnesses and disabilities where a person's functional abilities change significantly over time — across days, hours, or even minutes. Variable ability includes both baseline fluctuations (such as flares triggered by environmental factors or…

WHODAS 2.0(also: WHODAS, WHO Disability Assessment Schedule, World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0)

WHODAS 2.0 is the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule, version 2.0, a standardized instrument that measures health and disability across six life domains: cognition, mobility, self-care, getting along with others, life activities, and participation in…

Well-being(also: Wellbeing, Well Being)

Well-being is a multi-dimensional construct covering a person's physical health, psychological state, social connectedness, autonomy, and environmental quality of life. Accessibility research uses well-being as a target outcome because disability-related technology can be…

Whole-Self(also: Whole Self)

A concept from disability justice that frames a disabled person's identity, needs, and preferences as a rich, multidimensional whole — cultural background, lived experiences, interests, relationships, and aspirations — rather than being reduced to their disability or impairment.…

Wholeness

Wholeness is a core principle of the 10 Principles of Disability Justice articulated by Sins Invalid: the recognition that 'each person is full of history and life experience' and has inherent worth outside capitalist notions of productivity. It challenges medical-model framings…

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