Glossary

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Capabilities approach(also: Capability approach, Human capabilities framework)

A philosophical framework developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum that evaluates well-being and justice based on what people are actually able to do and be, rather than on the resources they possess. In disability and accessibility contexts, the capabilities approach…

Care Partner(also: Care Dyad, Caregiving Relationship)

A term encompassing both the person providing care (caregiver) and the person receiving care (care receiver), emphasizing the collaborative and reciprocal nature of care relationships rather than a one-directional helper-recipient dynamic. The care partner framework recognizes…

Celebratory technology

Technology designed to highlight, affirm, and celebrate neurodivergent and disabled ways of being, rather than seeking to correct, normalize, or remediate them. Coined by LouAnne Boyd (2023), celebratory technology contrasts with deficit-oriented assistive technology by…

Charity Model of Disability(also: Charity Model)

A framework that views people with disabilities as helpless victims who are dependent on the goodwill and benevolence of others. Under this model, disability is treated as a tragedy requiring charitable intervention, positioning disabled people as passive recipients of aid…

Chronic Illness(also: Chronic Condition, Long-Term Illness)

Health conditions that persist for an extended period, typically more than three months, and may require ongoing management but do not necessarily have a cure. Examples include diabetes, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and chronic fatigue syndrome. People with chronic…

Civil Inattention

A social behavior theorized by sociologist Erving Goffman describing how strangers in public spaces acknowledge each other's presence through brief eye contact or a nod, then deliberately look away to respect personal boundaries. Civil inattention is a form of unfocused…

Cognitive Disability(also: Cognitive Impairment, Cognitive Disabilities)

A broad term encompassing conditions that affect cognitive processes such as memory, attention, perception, learning, language, and executive function. Cognitive disabilities include intellectual disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, neurodegenerative conditions, and…

Collaborative Access(also: Collective Access)

An approach to accessibility that frames access as a shared, negotiated process involving multiple stakeholders rather than an individual accommodation provided to a single person. Collaborative access recognizes that achieving inclusion often requires coordination between…

Communication Disability(also: Communication Impairment, Complex Communication Needs)

A condition that significantly limits a person's ability to communicate through speech, language, or other conventional means. Communication disabilities can result from neurological conditions (cerebral palsy, stroke, ALS, Parkinson's disease), developmental conditions,…

Community Sustainability(also: Research Sustainability)

The principle that research practices should not deplete, harm, or overburden the communities from which participants are recruited. In accessibility research, community sustainability requires considering the cumulative impact of multiple studies drawing from the same…

Compensatory Technology(also: Compensatory Approach)

Assistive technology designed primarily to offset or make up for a person's functional limitations, focusing on what the person cannot do rather than building on their existing abilities. While compensatory approaches have historically dominated AT design, there is a growing…

Complementary Cognition

A theory proposed by Taylor, Fernandes, and Wraight suggesting that the human species has adapted and evolved cognitively to complement each other through cognitive specializations and effective collaboration. Under this framework, different neurological profiles (including…

Compulsory Able-Bodiedness(also: Compulsory Ableness)

A concept from disability studies scholar Robert McRuer describing the pervasive social assumption that all people should aspire to and perform able-bodiedness as the default, desirable state. Like compulsory heterosexuality, compulsory able-bodiedness operates as an invisible…

Consequence Calculus

The decision-making process by which disabled individuals weigh all available options for addressing an access barrier and select the option that best matches their priorities given their contextual factors. Consequence calculus involves evaluating trade-offs across multiple…

Consequence-Based Accessibility

A framework introduced by Mack and McDonnell that describes how people with chronic illnesses experience access barriers where the consequences of their actions, rather than the nature of the task itself, make something inaccessible. For example, a person may be physically…

Contextual Factors

The characteristics of a person, their tools, or their environment that influence experiences of access or inaccessibility. Contextual factors include identity-related factors (race, gender, class, age, language, religion, sexuality, body size), social contexts (who one is…

Counternarratives(also: Counter-storytelling, Critical Counter-narrative)

A qualitative research and pedagogical technique, rooted in critical race theory and education research (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), in which members of marginalized groups write and share their own stories to challenge dominant, “flat” narratives about their identities. In…

Creative Agency(also: Creative Autonomy, Creative Control)

The ability of an individual to make independent creative decisions, express personal aesthetic preferences, and maintain ownership over the creative process and its outcomes. For blind individuals, creative agency in visual media is often limited by inaccessible tools, reliance…

Crip Epistemology(also: Cripistemology)

A framework for understanding how disability produces distinct forms of knowledge that challenge dominant, ableist ways of knowing. Rooted in crip theory and disability studies, crip epistemologies recognize that disabled bodyminds generate situated, embodied knowledge through…

Crip HCI

An orientation within human-computer interaction that brings crip theory and crip technoscience into the methods, design practices, and evaluation frameworks of computing research. Rather than asking how technology can accommodate disabled users within existing normative…

Crip Spacetime

A concept developed by disability-studies scholar Margaret Price to describe the material-discursive reality in which disabled people live according to temporalities and spatialities that remain invisible to privileged groups. Crip spacetime names the significant extra effort…

Crip Technoscience(also: Critical Disability Technoscience)

A framework articulated by Aimi Hamraie and Kelly Fritsch that examines how disabled people engage with, repurpose, and create technologies from their own embodied knowledge and political standpoints. The Crip Technoscience Manifesto advocates for technology research and design…

Crip Theory(also: Crip Studies, Critical Disability Theory)

A theoretical framework that reclaims the word "crip" (from "cripple") as a positive identity and analytical lens for challenging normative assumptions about bodies, ability, and disability. Rooted in disability studies and informed by queer theory, crip theory critiques…

Crip Theory(also: Crip, Crip Technoscience)

An academic and activist framework that reclaims "crip" as a positive identity term, challenging normative assumptions about disability, ability, and bodily difference. Emerging from queer theory and disability studies, crip theory questions compulsory able-bodiedness and…

Crip World-Making

Crip world-making, articulated by Robert McRuer and related disability theorists, describes the generative practices through which disabled people make hostile environments liveable - hacking, repurposing and reconfiguring tools, spaces and social norms to fit their bodyminds…

Crip time(also: Crip temporality)

A disability studies concept, developed by scholar Alison Kafer, that recognizes how disabled and chronically ill people experience and navigate time differently due to bodily, cognitive, or systemic factors. Rather than forcing conformity to linear, clock-based productivity…

Cripepistemology(also: Crip knowledge, Disabled knowledge)

A framework recognizing that disability itself is a valuable way of knowing about the world — that disabled people acquire deep, embodied knowledge from their experiences navigating inaccessible environments, using assistive technologies, and perceiving the world differently.…

Cripping(also: Crip practices)

Practices or actions taken by disabled people to disrupt the status quo, flip ableist norms, and work toward a more accessible and just world. Cripping can involve material changes (hacking environments and technologies), social changes (challenging assumptions about what…

Critical Autoethnography

A qualitative research method that combines personal narrative with critical analysis of systems of power, privilege, and oppression. Unlike traditional autoethnography, the critical variant explicitly interrogates how institutional, political, and cultural structures shape…

Critical Disability Theory(also: Critical Disability Studies, CDT)

An interdisciplinary theoretical framework that examines disability as a social, political, and cultural phenomenon rather than solely a medical condition. Critical disability theory draws on disability studies, critical theory, and intersectional analysis to challenge dominant…

Critical Discourse Analysis(also: CDA)

An interdisciplinary research methodology that examines how language and texts both reflect and shape power structures, ideologies, and social practices. Originating from the work of Michel Foucault, CDA uses abductive reasoning — moving between theory-driven deductive analysis…

Critical Race Theory(also: CRT)

Critical Race Theory is a scholarly framework originating in legal studies that examines how laws, policies, and institutions perpetuate racial inequality, even in the absence of overt individual racism. It positions race as a social construct embedded in systems of power rather…

Critical Realism(also: Transcendental Realism, Critical Naturalism)

A philosophy of science developed by Roy Bhaskar that offers a middle position between positivism (reality is only what can be empirically observed) and radical constructivism (reality is entirely socially constructed). Critical realism holds that reality exists independently of…

Cross-Disability Solidarity(also: Cross-Disability Alliance, Disability Solidarity)

A framework for collective action in which people with different types of disabilities unite around shared goals of access, inclusion, and justice rather than organizing solely around specific disability categories. Cross-disability solidarity recognizes that while access needs…

Cultural Model of Disability

An extension of disability models that accounts for the multitude of cultural meanings embedded in disability across different societies and communities. The cultural model recognizes that disability is not experienced uniformly across cultures—different cultural contexts…

Culturally-Situated Design(also: Culturally-Embedded Design, Culturally-Responsive Design)

An approach to technology design that treats culture — including national identity, religion, ethnicity, language, geo-politics, and community traditions — as central to user needs and design decisions rather than as a surface localisation concern. Culturally-situated design…

Cumulative Marginality(also: Stacked Stressors, Intersecting Disadvantage)

The compounding effect of multiple marginalizing factors—such as disability, low income, first-generation student status, racial minority status, or caregiving responsibilities—that together create greater barriers than any single factor alone. Research shows that students…

Cyborg Theory(also: Cyborg Manifesto)

A theoretical lens originating in Donna Haraway’s 1985 "A Cyborg Manifesto" that views technology as an integrated extension of human cognitive and bodily capabilities rather than as a separate tool. In disability and neurodiversity studies, cyborg theory reframes assistive…

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