Project Overview
Young people with special educational needs, including autism, dyslexia, and ADHD, face heightened vulnerability in online environments. Challenges with information comprehension, memory retention, and risk monitoring make it difficult for them to navigate the digital world safely, exposing them to online harms such as data misuse, privacy violations, and deceptive content. Existing digital literacy resources are seldom designed with neurodiverse learners in mind, leaving a significant accessibility gap. This project develops a tangible user interface with visual indicators to help young people with neurodiversity better understand how the Internet works, how their data is used by online services, and how to recognise common online harms. Working closely with stakeholders, family members, and partner organisations, the research team co-designs, develops, and evaluates tools that bridge the gap between abstract digital concepts and concrete, accessible representations.
The approach empowers neurodiverse youth and their families to explore online safety, privacy, and data usage together through hands-on interaction. Partner organisations including Innovate Trust, Digital Communities Wales, and Ofcom contribute domain expertise and access to communities that ensure the resulting tools are grounded in real needs and practical contexts.
Funded by Google Research, the project contributes design guidelines and open toolkits for creating inclusive privacy and safety education technologies. These resources are intended to help educators, families, and developers build digital literacy tools that accommodate the specific needs of neurodiverse learners, ensuring that online safety education is accessible to all young people regardless of their learning profile.
Team
