Glossary

Accessible: In the case of a facility, accessible means it must be readily usable by a particular individual; in the case of a programme or activity, it must be presented or provided in such a way that a particular individual can participate – with or without assistance.

Access Barriers: Any obstruction that prevents people with disabilities from using standard facilities, equipment and resources.

Accessible Web Design: Creating web pages according to universal design principles to eliminate or reduce barriers, including those that affect people with disabilities.

Accommodation: Accommodation refers to equipment, practices or policies that enable an employee with a disability to succeed in the workplace. Examples of accommodation include additional equipment or modifications to existing equipment (e.g. modified keyboards), flexible hours of work or modified work schedule, additional training, etc.

Adaptive Technology: Hardware or software products that provide access to a computer that is otherwise inaccessible to an individual with a disability.

Assistive Technology: Technology used to assist a person with a disability, e.g., wheelchair, computer-based equipment.

Braille: System of embossed characters formed by using a Braille cell, a combination of six dots consisting of two vertical columns of three dots each. Each simple Braille character is formed by one or more of these dots and occupies a full cell or space. Some Braille may use eight dots.

Communication Device: Hardware that allows a person who has difficulty using their voice clearly to use words or symbols for communication. May range in complexity from a simple picture board to complex electronic devices that allow personalised, unique construction of ideas.

Compensatory Tools: Assistive computing systems that allow people with disabilities to use computers to complete tasks that they would have difficulty doing without a computer, e.g., reading, writing, communicating, accessing information.

Designated Employers: Employers who employ 50 or more employees or who hire less, but by virtue of meeting turnover thresholds as stipulated by the Department of Labour, are considered as designated employers.

Designated Groups: Previously disadvantaged people of South African origin who are African, Indian, Coloured, female or a person with a disability.

Disclosure: Disclosure refers to a process of self-identification and informing an employer about a disability.

Discrimination: Discrimination is any act or omission, including a policy, law, rule, practice, condition or situation which directly or indirectly (a) imposes burdens, obligations or disadvantages on; and/or withholds benefits, opportunities or advantages from, any person on one or more of the prohibited grounds, which include disability and any other ground that might disadvantage a person, undermines human dignity or adversely affects an individual’s rights and freedoms.

Unfair treatment or being refused a benefit because of one’s disability is considered discrimination in terms of the Employment Equity Act. For example, an employer refusing to accommodate or dismissing an employee from their jobs because of a disability is discrimination.

Indirect Discrimination refers to apparently neutral situations, regulations or practices which in fact result in unequal treatment of persons with certain characteristics.

Disability Discrimination: Discrimination on the basis of disability means any distinction, exclusion or restriction of persons on the basis of disability, which has the purpose or effect of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal basis with others, on all human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. It encompasses all forms of unfair discrimination, whether direct or indirect, including denial of reasonable accommodation.

Disability Mainstreaming: Disability Mainstreaming requires a systematic integration of the priorities and requirements of persons with disabilities across all sectors and built into new and existing legislation, standards, policies, strategies, their implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Barriers to participation must be identified and removed. Mainstreaming therefore requires effective planning, adequate human resources and sufficient financial investment – accompanied by specific measures such as targeted programmes and services.

Duty to Accommodate: Employers have a “duty to accommodate” disabilities of employees and potential employees up to the point of “undue hardship”. In determining whether an employer has reached a point of “undue hardship”, the courts will consider financial costs, health and safety risks, and, size and flexibility of the workplace.

Egress: A continuous and unobstructed way of exit travel from any point in a building or facility to a public way. A means of egress comprises vertical and horizontal travel and may include intervening room spaces, doorways, hallways, corridors, passageways, balconies, ramps, stairs, enclosures, lobbies, horizontal exits, courts and yards.

An accessible workplace means of egress is one that complies with the National Building Regulation Guidelines and does not include stairs, steps or escalators. Areas of rescue assistance or evacuation elevators may be included as part of accessible means of egress.

Employment Equity Act: A comprehensive South African law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment and details duties of a designated employer about identifying and eliminating barriers.

Employment Equity: Employment equity is about improving the representation of under-represented groups in the workplace, in accordance with the demographics of the land.

Enabling Environments: Interrelated physical and other infrastructures, built environments, culture, laws, policies, information and communication technologies, and organisations that must be in place to facilitate the socio-economic development of persons with disabilities

Equality: Equality refers to the full and equal enjoyment of rights and freedoms as contemplated in the Constitution and includes equality according to the law and in terms of outcomes. It ensures that individuals or groups of individuals are treated fairly and equally and no less favourably, specific to their requirements. It is the right of different groups of people to have respect for their social position and receive equitable treatment in society.

Equal Treatment: Equal treatment is when everybody is treated the same and there is no distinction based on the needs of employees.

Exclusion: Exclusion refers to the act of socially isolating or marginalising an individual or groups on the basis of discrimination by not allowing or enabling them to fully participate and be included in society and enjoy the same rights and privileges. This devaluation of and exclusion of individuals or groups results in keeping “others” outside of the prevailing social system and thus restricting their access to material, social, economic and political resources and rights.

Fair Treatment: Fair treatment of workers involves respecting their right to privacy, providing feedback regarding their performance, avoiding discrimination of any kind and ensuring that employees are treated in accordance with their circumstances and any special needs they may have.

Graphical User Interface: Programme interface that presents digital information and software programs in an image-based format as compared to a character-based format.

Hearing Impairments: Complete or partial loss of ability to hear caused by a variety of injuries or diseases including congenital defects.

Harassment: Harassment is a type of discrimination and can manifest in the form of humiliating or offensive comments or actions. Staring, touching, jokes or remarks relating to disability (or any other grounds for discrimination) are harassment.

Inherent Requirements of the Job: An inherent requirement of the job is a job requirement or qualification that is essential to completing the job safely and efficiently. An employer would not be required to accommodate a disability if it can show that the specific job duty or requirement is an inherent requirement and the person did not disclose a disability that could limit the person’s ability to perform a task.

International Symbol of Accessibility: The most recognisable Symbol of Accessibility, which we call the International Symbol of Accessibility, or ISA, is often known as the wheelchair symbol.

Interpreter: Professional person who assists a deaf person in communicating with hearing people.

Keyboard Emulation: A method of having an alternative device and/or software, such as a switch-based system, serve the role of a keyboard.

Large Print Books: Most ordinary print is six to ten points in height (font size). Large type is fourteen to eighteen points (font size and sometimes larger). The format of large print books is also proportionately larger.

Mainstreaming Inclusion: The inclusion of people with disabilities, with or without special accommodations, in programmes, activities and facilities with their non-disabled peers.

Medical Model: The medical model promotes the image of people with disabilities as needing health care or as “sick”.

Mobility Impairment: Disability that affects movement ranging from gross motor skills such as walking to fine motor movement involving manipulation of objects by hand.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR): Technology system that scans and converts printed materials into electronic text.

Peripheral Neuropathy: A condition caused by damage to the nerves in the peripheral nervous system which includes nerves that run from the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body.

Ramp: A ramp should be at least 1,2m in width and have a gradient no greater than 1:12.

Reader: Volunteer or employee of an individual with a disability (e.g., visual impairment, learning disability) who reads printed material in person or records to audiotape.

Reading System: Hardware and software designed to provide access to printed text for people with visual impairments, mobility impairments, or learning disabilities. Character recognition software controls a scanner that takes an image of a printed page, converts it to computer text using recognition software and then reads the text using a synthesised voice.

Refreshable Braille Display: Hardware connected to a computer that echoes screen text on a box that has cells consisting of pins that move up and down to create Braille characters.

Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI): A disability that may be chronic or acute and usually is described as pain caused by overuse of extremities, usually hands and wrists.

Scanning Input: A switch-based method of controlling a computer. Activations of a switch will, in order, bring up a control panel that upon subsequent switch activations allow a user to focus in on a desired control or keystroke. Custom scanning layouts can be created for a variety of purposes and programs and may also be used in a communication device.

Screen Enlargement: Hardware and/or software that increases the size of characters and text on a computer screen.

Screen Reader: Software used to echo text on a computer screen to audio output, often used by people who are blind, with visual impairments, or with learning disabilities.

Screen Resolution: Refers to the clarity or sharpness of an image. For computer monitors, this term indicates the number of dots on the screen used to create text and graphics. Higher resolution means more dots, indicating increased sharpness and potentially smaller text.

Sensory Impairment: A disability that affects touch, sight and/or hearing.

Server: Any computer that stores information that is available to other users, often over the Internet.

Sign Language: Manual communication commonly used by deaf. The gestures or symbols in sign language are organised in a linguistic way. Each individual gesture is called a sign. Each sign has three distinct parts: the handshape, the position of the hands and the movement of the hands. Deaf people from different countries speak different sign languages.

Specific Learning Disability: Disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in difficulties listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, or doing mathematical calculations. Frequent limitations include hyperactivity, distractibility, emotional instability, visual and/or auditory perception difficulties and/or motor limitations, depending on the type(s) of learning disability.

Speech Impairment: Problems in communication and related areas such as oral motor function, ranging from simple sound substitutions to the inability to understand or use language or use the oral-motor mechanism for functional speech.

Speech Input or Speech Recognition: A method of controlling a computer and creating text by dictation.

Speech input software is combined with a microphone.

Standard HTML: Version of HTML accessible by all web browsers.

Streaming Multimedia: A method of transferring audio and/or video via a network from a server to an end user’s computer. During the transmission, the material is displayed or played on the target computer.

Suitably Qualified Individual with a Disability: An individual with a disability who, with or without reasonable modification to rules, policies or practices, the removal of architectural, communication, or transportation barriers, or the provision of auxiliary aids and services, meets the essential eligibility requirements for the receipt of services or the participation in programs or activities provided by a public entity.