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Glossary

Terms used in accessibility research and practice. Each entry has a definition, common aliases, and category tags.

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GAIA(also: Guidelines for Accessible Interfaces for people with Autism, Guidelines for Accessible Interfaces for Autism)
A set of design guidelines specifically developed to make digital interfaces more accessible for autistic users. GAIA addresses common barriers that autistic people face when using technology, including sensory overload from animations and complex layouts, difficulty with…
GPS Tracking(also: GPS Monitoring, Electronic Tracking, Location Tracking)
The use of Global Positioning System technology to monitor and record the geographic location of a person or device in real time. In accessibility and dementia care contexts, GPS tracking is used in safe walking aids and wearable devices to help caregivers locate people who may…
Game-Based Assessment(also: Gamified assessment, Serious-game assessment)
The use of purpose-built games or playful interactive experiences to measure cognitive, behavioral, or skill-based constructs that would traditionally be assessed through structured tests or questionnaires. Game-based assessments embed validated task parameters (e.g.,…
Generalized Anxiety Disorder(also: GAD)
A mental-health condition characterized by persistent, excessive, and often uncontrollable worry about a range of everyday situations, accompanied by physical and cognitive symptoms such as restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance.…
Generative Thinking(also: Generative Cognition, Creative Problem Solving)
Generative thinking is the cognitive ability to spontaneously produce novel ideas, solutions, or approaches to problems without external prompting. In the context of autism and cognitive accessibility, generative thinking is significant because it is often considered impaired in…
Germane Cognitive Load(also: Germane Load)
One of three types of cognitive load identified by cognitive load theory, referring to the mental effort devoted to processing, constructing, and automating knowledge schemas — the productive cognitive work that leads to actual learning. Unlike extraneous load (which is…
Gist Summary(also: Gist, Page Gist, Web Page Summary)
A gist summary is a brief, automatically or manually generated overview of a document or web page that captures its central theme or focus, enabling a reader to quickly assess the content's relevance without reading the entire text. In accessibility contexts, gist summaries are…
Global Symbols
A community-interest company and open symbol platform that hosts multiple pictogram libraries for AAC and Easy Read, supports translation into many languages, and provides an AI-assisted SymbolBuilder tool for generating new symbols. Global Symbols is widely used in projects…
Grapheme
The smallest unit of a writing system, typically a letter or group of letters that represents a single phoneme (sound). For example, the word "ship" contains three graphemes: <sh>, <i>, and <p>. Understanding grapheme-phoneme correspondence — how written letters map to spoken…
Graphicacy(also: Graph Literacy, Visual Literacy)
The ability to read, interpret, and communicate information presented in graphs, charts, maps, and other visual representations of data. Graphicacy is considered a foundational literacy alongside reading, writing, and numeracy. It involves three progressive stages: reading the…
Graphical Model(also: Visual Model, Graphical Representation)
In educational and accessibility contexts, a visual representation system that uses shapes, colours, spatial relationships, and physical manipulation to convey abstract concepts. Graphical models for mathematics represent numbers as groups of objects whose size corresponds to…
Grounding(also: Grounding Techniques, Grounding Exercises, Self-Regulation)
A set of therapeutic and coping techniques used to help a person reconnect with the present moment and their physical surroundings during periods of emotional distress, anxiety, or trauma response. Grounding activities aim to strengthen the connection between mind and body and…
Guided Error Training(also: Error-Based Training, Productive Failure)
An instructional method where learners observe or experience common errors along with their corrections, rather than only seeing error-free demonstrations. Research shows this approach helps build more robust mental models of how systems work, improving knowledge transfer to new…
Guided Incremental Search(also: Step-by-Step Search, Faceted Browsing)
A web navigation pattern in which users are led through a series of small, sequential choices — such as selecting categories, subcategories, and filters — to progressively narrow search results toward a target. While this approach reduces the cognitive demand of each individual…
Gulf of Execution
A concept from Don Norman's theory of action describing the gap between a user's intention and the actions available to achieve that goal through an interface. When the gulf of execution is large, users struggle to figure out how to operate a system to accomplish their…
Gunning Fog Index(also: Gunning FOG, FOG Index)
A traditional readability formula developed by Robert Gunning in 1952 that estimates the years of formal education a reader needs to understand a text on first reading. It is calculated from average sentence length plus the percentage of "complex" words — words with three or…

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