Reading, accessibility, and neurodivergence: rethinking the way we read, engage with books, and build truly inclusive cultural spaces

Reading means accessing content, languages, spaces, and relationships. It means feeling entitled to walk into a bookshop, to ask for advice, to linger, to take one’s time. Yet for many neurodivergent people, all of this remains complicated, exhausting, and sometimes simply impossible. Not because books are lacking, but because the contexts, mediations, and skills needed to make reading truly accessible are often missing.

At the same time, those who build these contexts every day—namely small independent bookshops and the people who run them—operate within an increasingly precarious balance. Despite economic (un)sustainability, commercial desertification, competition from major platforms, and cultural labor that struggles to be recognized as such, small booksellers continue to play a fundamental role as social and cultural hubs. A role that, however, is often carried out without adequate tools to reach new audiences or to strengthen their mission from an inclusive perspective.

“Reading it the (Right) Way!” emerges precisely within this space of tension: not to “fix” reading or small bookshops, but to question the ways in which reading is proposed, supported, and experienced—especially when it comes to adult neurodivergence and access to culture.

“Reading it the (Right) Way!” is a project that began in 2025 and will run until mid-2027, with the aim of building a digital training pathway addressed to small independent booksellers and socio-cultural practitioners, in order to make reading and book-related spaces more accessible to neurodivergent people—while never separating the theme of inclusion from that of sustainability and social impact.

The project operates on multiple levels: on the one hand, the development of practical skills to support people with cognitive (dis)abilities in reading, to design inclusive cultural activities, and to rethink bookshop offerings in ways that are more attentive to the diversity of cognitive functioning. On the other hand, it places a specific focus on ethical and social entrepreneurship models, public policies, and support tools that can strengthen the resilience of small bookshops, increasingly transforming them into spaces of proximity, participation, and shared value.

A particularly significant element of the project is the active involvement of neurodivergent adults, who participate not only as beneficiaries of the activities, but as co-designers, validators, and direct interlocutors within the training pathways. Because cultural accessibility cannot be designed “in absence,” nor reduced to a set of abstract good practices: it requires listening, exchange, and a real presence within decision-making processes.

The partnership of “Reading it the (Right) Way!” is composed of Close in the Distance (Italy, coordinator), Afyonkarahisar Dyslexia Association – ADDER (Turkey), and CFCECAS (Romania), organizations working across vocational training, social work, and neurodiversity support, and bringing into dialogue different geographical and cultural contexts. The overarching objective is to build a European network capable of producing accessible resources, transferable skills, and lasting impacts in the field of inclusive reading and cultural micro-entrepreneurship.

The project “Reading it the (Right) Way!” will develop and promote:

-A digital training curriculum for small independent booksellers and socio-cultural practitioners, focused on accessible reading, the inclusion of adult neurodivergence, and ethical–social entrepreneurship models. The pathway will be co-designed with neurodivergent adults and will provide practical tools to support reading, design inclusive cultural activities, and navigate resources and policies that support social-impact initiatives.

-A Digital Archive on accessible reading, addressed to booksellers, trainers, social workers, and stakeholders. A space for collecting and sharing training resources and self-learning materials, designed to make the knowledge developed by the project more accessible and long-lasting.

-A virtual and workshop-based mobility pathway, inclusive and sustainable, dedicated to neurodivergent adults: a transnational opportunity for participation, exchange, and experimentation around reading, capable of overcoming economic, geographical, and organizational barriers.

-Networking and dissemination activities at the European level, through digital content, awareness-raising events, and contributions on Erasmus+ platforms, particularly EPALE. The aim is to broaden the dialogue on accessible reading, adult neurodivergence, and the role of small bookshops as cultural and social spaces.

All activities and resources will be available online and shared through the channels of the partner organizations, with a specific focus on linguistic and communicative accessibility, in order to foster participation that is as open and accessible as possible.

For more information, visit our Instagram page, EPALE, our Blog, or contact us directly via the Contacts page or email us at direttivo@closeinthedistance.com.

The full title of “Reading it the (Right) Way!” is “Independent Bookstores, (Dis)ability, and Neurodivergence: a VET Pathway for Small Booksellers and Socio-cultural Workers on Accessible Reading and Social Impact Entrepreneurship”.
The project identification code is 2025-1-IT01-KA210-VET-000358359.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, it is an Erasmus+ KA210 project, Small-Scale Partnerships, in the field of Vocational Education and Training (VET).
The project started on 1 September 2025 and will end on 30 June 2027, with a total duration of 22 months.

Close in the Distance, ADDER, and CFCECAS received EUR 48,000.00, corresponding to 80% of the total co-funding, from the Italian Erasmus+ National Agency I.N.A.P.P., to launch and implement the various planned activities.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.