Feature Request: Abbreviation Pronunciation Control (Acronyms & Initialisms) with Optional Expansion Support

[DustinSchieler]

Summary

I would like to propose an optional feature to improve accessibility handling of abbreviations in the PDF remediation pipeline:

Abbreviation Pronunciation Control (Acronyms & Initialisms) with optional expansion metadata

This feature would address both:

• pronunciation issues for screen readers (especially initialisms)
• comprehension issues where abbreviations are not defined

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Problem

The current pipeline (Adobe autotagging + generated alt text for images/links) does not appear to handle abbreviation pronunciation or expansion within body text.

This creates two accessibility gaps:

1. Pronunciation Issues (Initialisms)

Some abbreviations should be read letter-by-letter but may be mispronounced by screen readers.

Example:

• ADA should be read as "A-D-A", not "ada"

Similarly:

• COS should be read as "C-O-S", not "cos" (like "cause")

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2. Comprehension Issues (Acronyms & Abbreviations)

Even when pronunciation is correct, users may not know what an abbreviation means.

Example:

• FERPA may be pronounced correctly, but users may not know it stands for
  Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

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Proposed Solution

Introduce an optional, configuration-driven abbreviation dictionary that allows:

• distinguishing between acronyms and initialisms
• specifying pronunciation behavior where needed
• optionally expanding abbreviations on first occurrence

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Example Configuration (Higher Education + ADA Context)

These examples reflect common abbreviations used in higher education and accessibility contexts, where both pronunciation accuracy and first-use expansion are critical for usability.

{
  "ADA": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Americans with Disabilities Act",
    "pronunciation_hint": "A D A",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "COS": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "College of the Sequoias",
    "pronunciation_hint": "C O S",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "FERPA": {
    "category": "acronym",
    "expansion": "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act",
    "pronunciation_hint": null,
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "IEP": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Individualized Education Program",
    "pronunciation_hint": "I E P",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "DSPS": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Disabled Students Programs and Services",
    "pronunciation_hint": "D S P S",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "SSSP": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Student Success and Support Program",
    "pronunciation_hint": "S S S P",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "EOPS": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Extended Opportunity Programs and Services",
    "pronunciation_hint": "E O P S",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "ASL": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "American Sign Language",
    "pronunciation_hint": "A S L",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "ESL": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "English as a Second Language",
    "pronunciation_hint": "E S L",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "LMS": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Learning Management System",
    "pronunciation_hint": "L M S",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "CMS": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Content Management System",
    "pronunciation_hint": "C M S",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "GPA": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Grade Point Average",
    "pronunciation_hint": "G P A",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "SAP": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Satisfactory Academic Progress",
    "pronunciation_hint": "S A P",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "STEM": {
    "category": "acronym",
    "expansion": "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics",
    "pronunciation_hint": null,
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "PDF": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Portable Document Format",
    "pronunciation_hint": "P D F",
    "expand_on_first_use": false
  },
  "URL": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Uniform Resource Locator",
    "pronunciation_hint": "U R L",
    "expand_on_first_use": false
  },
  "HTML": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "HyperText Markup Language",
    "pronunciation_hint": "H T M L",
    "expand_on_first_use": false
  },
  "WCAG": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines",
    "pronunciation_hint": "W C A G",
    "expand_on_first_use": true
  },
  "OCR": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Optical Character Recognition",
    "pronunciation_hint": "O C R",
    "expand_on_first_use": false
  },
  "AI": {
    "category": "initialism",
    "expansion": "Artificial Intelligence",
    "pronunciation_hint": "A I",
    "expand_on_first_use": false
  }
}