Parenting or teaching a neurodivergent child can be an isolating experience. When a child navigates the world differently, trying to figure out what they're going through every day can be overwhelming. For parents, that gap in understanding can quietly get in the way of support, showing up as dismissing a child's struggles, using unhelpful language like "you're not trying hard enough," or feeling too overwhelmed to advocate effectively. Educators face a different version of it: they're often stretched too thin to extend the empathy their students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and 504 plans deserve.
During the 2025 back-to-school season, Understood.org, a nonprofit supporting people navigating neurodivergence, launched Through My Eyes, a free, immersive digital experience designed to close that gap through empathy. Through My Eyes lets people step into a child's world and walk in their shoes, experiencing daily challenges firsthand through immersive stories and simulations co-designed with kids who have ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia. For kids themselves, Through My Eyes helps nurture self-advocacy, giving them the tools to find the words to express their feelings and ask for what they need. Since people absorb information differently, Through My Eyes offers three distinct ways in: simulations, videos, and downloadable resources.
The two primary audiences for Through My Eyes are parents of middle-school-aged kids and K-12 educators, with a secondary goal of helping these kids feel seen and their peers build empathy.
The objectives included increasing understanding of learning and thinking differences by dispelling misconceptions, and promoting positive mental health outcomes by reducing stigma among the adults and peers who surround these kids.
Through My Eyes was co-created with kids, not just built for them. Understood.org experts worked with Caris, Pedro, and Francesca, who courageously shared their stories to help build the experience: Caris has dyslexia, Pedro has ADHD, and Francesca has dyscalculia.
Over nine months of a broader 18-month development, Understood.org designers, producers, and experts worked directly with each child and family, listening to how their learning difference shows up at school, at home, and in daily life, then translating those real stories into interactive simulations. The production team traveled to each child's hometown to follow a day in their life — getting ready for school, going to school, tagging along during extracurriculars, and meeting their families on camera for the "Day in the Life" videos. The simulations reflect real, lived signs of ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia.
Understood partnered with Make Me Pulse, a creative interactive studio, to build the gamified simulations, and worked with 13 mission-aligned partners including the American Academy of Pediatrics, CAST, and CHADD to vet content for accuracy and sensitivity. A panel of psychologists, equity researchers, special educators, and school leaders shaped every scenario, and one-on-one testing with kids who have ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia confirmed the experience met our empathy and learning goals before launch.
Each simulation is intentionally frustrating and unwinnable. Speed, music, and a visual "frustration meter" recreate the daily experience of these kids. Every obstacle is paired with a "bonus," a real accommodation, to show exactly what support looks like in practice.
Understood.org treated accessibility as a design requirement, not an afterthought. The platform is entirely free, ad-free, and login-free, and works on any device including Chromebooks, often used in school classrooms. Every video has captions and transcripts.
Empathy alone doesn't change behavior, so Understood built 22 companion resources including lesson plans, discussion guides, and self-advocacy activities that help turn understanding into action. The launch was timed to back-to-school season, when parents and educators are already navigating new classroom relationships and IEP/504 conversations.
Through My Eyes did exactly what Understood.org set out to do: it turned understanding into action, and turned action into less stigma for kids navigating a world that wasn't designed for them.
Understood.org surveyed parents and educators after they used Through My Eyes. Forty-seven percent (47%) of parents and educators said they knew more about ADHD, and 43% said the same about dyslexia. These are measurable gains in comprehension, not just awareness. Additionally, 8 in 10 found the downloadable resources useful, and 9 in 10 educators said the middle school lesson plan helped them better support their students in practice.
Nearly half of parents and educators (46%) said they wanted to do more to advocate for kids with learning and thinking differences after using TME, a direct line from empathy to action.
And people showed up in force: over 360,000 visitors in year one, with more than 130,000 engaging directly with the simulations and nearly 50,000 watching a "Day in the Life" video. There have also been 17,000 downloads of PDFs for lesson plans, fact sheets and other related resources.
Using Through My Eyes can help parents and educators become stronger advocates for a child's needs and strengths at school, at home, and in the community. One of the most profound reviews came from a parent using the tool while their daughter watched. The daughter said, "See? Now do you understand how I feel?" When a platform can give kids the words to say that, you know it's making a real-world impact.
