Sonderly: Autism Decoded

This was a campaign aimed to educate the public about autism and drive empathy by creating a simulated experience through puzzles.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in all of its facets remains a mystery to most of the general public to this day. Not only it is highly stigmatized, but also is often misunderstood. Individuals on the spectrum may think, imagine things and translate them differently compared to neurotypical people, making it hard to truly connect with others.

That’s why Sonderly, an educational platform for those seeking to learn more about autism, wanted to normalize the different ways of seeing the same world.

To address the challenge, we focused on children on the spectrum who are also hyperlexic, meaning they are fascinated with letters and numbers and may arrange them around endlessly.

To convey their experience of perceiving the world, we created a set of codes for people to crack.
The codes were pushed out in spaces where people would have the most time to interact with them: on social media targeting mindless scrollers and via subway posters targeting bored passengers.

While spending the time decoding the messages on a long subway ride they were encouraged to learn about autism and Hyperlexia. Some of the hidden phrases were “See the spectrum of possibilities” (19 5 5 0 20 8 5 0 19 16 5 3 20 18 21 13 0 15 6 0 16 15 19 19 9 2 9 12 9 20 9 5 19 ) and “Children with autism do not need to be in specialized classrooms”. (3 8 9 12 4 18 5 14 0 23 9 20 8 0 1 21 20 9 19 13 0 4 15 0 14 15 20 0 14 5 5 4 0 20 15 0 2 5 0 9 14 0 19 16 5 3 9 1 12 9 26 5 4 0 3 12 1 19 19 18 15 15 13 19).

A landing page was created for those who were stumped by the codes and wanted the answers, allowing them to learn more about autism and how Sonderly can help.

The campaign has sparked a conversation around ASD and has received record levels of engagement. By shedding light on just one group of those on the spectrum, Sonderly has shown that there’s always more than meets the eye.