Raising the Volume: Why Dyslexia Awareness Week Mattered for Adults Too
- Divergent Thinking
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
When Dyslexia Awareness Week 2025 arrived with the theme “Raising the Volume,” it felt like more than a slogan.
It felt like a correction.
For too long, dyslexia conversations have often focused on children, school support, or basic awareness. All of that matters. But adults with dyslexia are still too often left navigating work, systems, confidence and identity with far less recognition than they deserve. So when the Adult Network: Neurodiversity and Dyslexia (ANND) brought together a coalition of organisations and advocates for a major webinar during #DAW25, it felt important.
You can watch the full discussion here: ANND Dyslexia Awareness Week 2025 webinar.
What mattered was not just who was in the room, but what the conversation represented:
a move from awareness to action,
from isolation to community,
and from deficit language to real change.
Why this event felt different
The webinar, hosted by Donna Stevenson, Head of Training Services at Neurobox, was not just another awareness session.
It was a serious, adult-focused conversation about what dyslexia actually means in real life — in work, in systems, in technology, in confidence, and in community. That matters because many dyslexic adults are still living with the after-effects of being misunderstood for years.
Some were told they were careless.
Some were told they were lazy.
Some learned to mask.
Some got by quietly.
Some succeeded outwardly while burning huge amounts of energy privately.
So the real power of this kind of event is not only information. It is recognition.
It says: adults matter too.
Your experience matters too.
And the conversation about dyslexia should not stop at childhood.
ANND matters because collaboration matters
One of the strongest things about the event was the coalition behind it.
ANND brings together organisations that are each doing important work in different parts of the dyslexia and neurodiversity landscape, including:
That matters because no single organisation can shift a culture alone.
When groups like these collaborate, the conversation gets bigger, more joined up, and less fragmented. It moves from individual support toward something more collective and more powerful.
That feels especially important for adults, who often fall through the cracks between education support, workplace policy and clinical pathways.
The conversation moved beyond “awareness”
One of the clearest themes in the webinar was that awareness on its own is no longer enough.
Dyslexia has been “raised” in public conversation for years. Most people have heard the word. Many employers would say they care. Plenty of organisations now mention neurodiversity in principle.
But awareness without action has limits.
Knowing dyslexia exists is not the same as understanding how dyslexic people think.
Knowing the label is not the same as designing work well.
Knowing someone may struggle with spelling is not the same as recognising their strategic, creative or systems-level strengths.
That is one of the reasons I pushed in the discussion toward impact.
Because the real question for organisations is no longer:
“Do we know what dyslexia is?”
It is:
“What are we doing differently because we know?”
We need to move beyond “reasonable adjustments” as the whole answer
Another major theme was the need to shift away from over-relying on individual disclosure and “reasonable adjustments” as the main model of support.
Let me be clear: adjustments matter. Legal protection matters. Individual support matters.
But I do think we need to be honest about the limitations of a system that depends on people identifying themselves, explaining themselves, advocating for themselves, and often justifying their needs before anything changes.
That model still creates an “us and them” dynamic.
It quietly tells people:
the workplace is standard,
you are the variation,
and support arrives only if you ask well enough.
I want us to move much further toward inclusive design as the baseline.
That means building systems, communication and environments that are clearer, more accessible and less dependent on one narrow kind of processing from the outset.
When you do that well, you help dyslexic people — but you also reduce friction for everyone else.
That is a far better goal than endlessly waiting for people to disclose and then patching the system one case at a time.
Community is not optional — it is part of survival
Another thing that came through strongly in the discussion was the role of community.
Technology matters.
Training matters.
Tools matter.
But for many neurodivergent adults, what changes things most deeply is finally being in spaces where they are understood.
That is why groups, charities, peer networks and advocacy communities matter so much. They do more than provide information. They help repair the damage done by years of misunderstanding.
They help people realise:
I am not the only one.
I am not broken.
I was navigating systems that were badly designed for me.
That shift can be life-changing.
And it is also where a lot of resilience comes from. Not the polished, motivational kind of resilience people like to talk about, but the stubborn, practical resilience of people who have spent years adapting, compensating, and still finding ways to contribute.
AI could become a major turning point for dyslexic adults
One of the most exciting parts of the conversation was around AI.
Not as hype.
Not as magic.
And not as something that replaces human thinking.
But as something that can remove friction.
For many dyslexic adults, one of the hardest parts of traditional work has been the gap between thought and output. You may have the idea, the structure, the insight, the answer — but getting it down cleanly onto the page can feel like wading through resistance.
AI has the potential to change that.
It can help people move past:
the blank page
first-draft paralysis
wording bottlenecks
formatting friction
the administrative drag that gets in the way of thinking
Used well, AI does not replace the dyslexic mind. It helps unlock it.
That is why I think it could become one of the great equalising tools of this era, especially if organisations understand that the point is not to standardise people, but to help them express what is already there.
The bigger shift: difference, not deficit
If there was one phrase that captured the wider direction of the conversation, it was this:
difference, not deficit.
That may sound simple, but it is a profound shift.
For a very long time, dyslexia has been framed mainly in terms of lack:
what is harder,
what is slower,
what is weaker,
what needs fixing.
A difference-based view does not deny challenge. It does not romanticise struggle. But it does refuse to treat the person as inherently lesser.
It asks:
What kind of thinking is here?
What strengths are being missed?
What systems are creating unnecessary difficulty?
What changes would allow this person to contribute fully?
That is the kind of question that leads somewhere useful.
Why this matters beyond Dyslexia Awareness Week
The truth is, the conversation should not begin and end with an awareness week.
If #DAW25 helped do anything, I hope it helped push the adult dyslexia conversation into a more mature place.
A place where:
adult support is taken seriously
workplace inclusion goes beyond surface statements
dyslexic strengths are understood more precisely
community is seen as essential
technology is used intelligently
and systems are redesigned, not just individuals managed
Because the issue has never been that dyslexic adults lack value.
The issue is that too many systems still fail to recognise it properly.
Final thought
What made this event feel important was not only the expertise on the panel.
It was the sense that the volume is finally rising on the right things.
Not just “dyslexia exists.”
But:
dyslexic adults matter,
their needs matter,
their strengths matter,
their stories matter,
and the systems around them need to catch up.
That is the conversation I want more of.
Not pity.
Not vague awareness.
Not outdated deficit language.
But practical change, stronger design, better understanding and a culture that knows how to recognise brilliance when it shows up in non-standard ways.
That is what raising the volume should mean.
To explore more support and resources, you can visit Adult Dyslexia Centre, Succeed With Dyslexia, Yorkshire Rose Dyslexia, Neurobox, Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity, and The Dyslexia Association.
You can also explore more reflections and practical workplace neuroinclusion content on the Divergent Thinking blog.
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