The following are a handful of terms connected to accessibility. If you would like to learn more about accessibility generally, consider checking out reference texts in Credo, as well as the Accessibility Wikipedia page.
"The quality of being able to be entered or used by everyone, including people who have a disability." (Cambridge.org)
There are multiple "models" of disability that inform definitions. It is important to understand that they each contribute to the overall understanding of accessibility. The definitions listed below explore the medical, social, interactionist, and ecological-enactive models of disability.
Medical Model of Accessibility
"The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in everyday activities. The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability just as other civil rights laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. The ADA guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to enjoy employment opportunities, purchase goods and services, and participate in state and local government programs." (ADA.gov)
"It is important to remember that in the context of the ADA, “disability” is a legal term rather than a medical one. Because it has a legal definition, the ADA’s definition of disability is different from how disability is defined under some other laws, such as for Social Security Disability related benefits.
"The ADA defines a person with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. This includes people who have a record of such an impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability. It also includes individuals who do not have a disability but are regarded as having a disability. The ADA also makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person based on that person’s association with a person with a disability." (ADA National Network)
"[T]he 'social model of disability'—developed by disability rights activists in the 1970s and 80s—suggests that if societies were set up and constructed in a way that was accessible for people with disabilities, those individuals would not be restricted from full participation in the world around them. In other words, the social model of disability views the origins of disability as the mental attitudes and physical structures of society, rather than a medical condition faced by an individual." (The Social Creatures)
"an interactionist approach [...] recognises, amongst many other factors, the importance of school belonging, a relational approach to behaviour" (Davies and Soni)
"The EE-model combines ideas from enactive cognitive science and ecological psychology with the aim of doing justice simultaneously to the lived experience of being disabled, and the physiological dimensions of disability." (Toro, Kiverstein, and Rietveld)
"In simple terms, an invisible disability is a physical, mental or neurological condition that is not visible from the outside, yet can limit or challenge a person’s movements, senses, or activities." (Invisible Disabilities Association)
"Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework for creating learning environments that address the diverse needs of learners. At its core, UDL provides students’ flexibility in the ways they access and engage with course materials and demonstrate mastery of learning objectives." (University of Illinois Chicago)
"The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, are technical standards that help make the digital world accessible to people with disabilities. Numerous stakeholders, including disability advocacy groups, government agencies, and accessibility research organizations, collaborated to create these guidelines, which are considered the universal standard for digital accessibility." (WCAG.com)