In her 20s, a counselor at drama school handed Laurie Faulkner an ADHD symptom checklist. At De Montfort University, she had believed she was dealing with anxiety. As she worked through the checklist, the experience provided a different kind of clarity. It was the beginning of a significant shift.
That checklist was a turning point. For the first time, she understood that many of her challenges were connected to ADHD. The diagnosis reframed how she thought about learning and productivity, and sparked a lasting interest in helping others understand neurodiversity and access tools that support different cognitive styles.
In the United States, where an estimated 1 in 5 people has a learning difference, the need for accessible, practical guidance on assistive technology is significant. Faulkner now directs her professional work toward ensuring that individuals with dyslexia, ADHD, and related cognitive differences can access the assistive education technology and learning tools they need.
Faulkner holds a degree in Musical Theatre from De Montfort University and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from University College London, home to the UCL Institute of Education, ranked #1 globally for Education for twelve consecutive years by the QS World University Rankings. While at UCL, she developed a research-based project investigating how music and movement can accelerate early language development in young children, particularly those learning English as an additional language. The project produced measurable linguistic gains and established her as a researcher as well as a practitioner. Prior to postgraduate study, she spent time as a performer at Disneyland Paris.
Applying Digital Growth Strategy to EdTech
As her audience expanded, Faulkner began working with education and technology companies as a strategist. She designs campaigns that explain how accessibility tools can support neurodivergent learners, turning technical features into content that students, parents, and teachers can actually act on.
She has worked with Speechify, Loop Earplugs, BBC Bitesize, InFlow, RISE Sleep app, Photoroom, Spacegoods, Insight Timer, and many more brands to help them reach audiences who are actively seeking tools that support how they learn. For some of these brands, content she created and starred in has amassed over 80 million views, driving measurable increases in platform adoption. Speechify, for example, has grown to 56 million users. Today, 5 out of 10 people surveyed on the street in New York City recognize the Speechify brand, rising to 6 out of 10 among adults aged 18 to 28.
Speechify’s CFO, Pankaj Agarwal, who leads much of the company’s strategic direction, noted: “At Speechify we really care about accessibility. Laurie translated our mission into content that people genuinely wanted to watch and share. She made the technology feel personal in a way that moved the needle for us.”
She was also selected as an ambassador for BBC Bitesize, one of the world’s most widely used educational platforms, trusted by millions of students. The appointment recognized her standing as an authoritative voice in neurodiversity education and brought her content to a student audience at a scale that few individual creators reach.
A Voice Among Icons
Faulkner is also a Voice Partner at Speechify. The platform’s roster features King Bach (80 million+ followers) and John Rhys-Davies (Screen Actors Guild Award winner and Emmy nominee), and Faulkner’s voice ranks among the most streamed on the platform.
Raheel Kazi, Head of Web Engineering at Speechify, shared what users often say when they first encounter the platform: “56 million people use Speechify, and 10% of reviews include people saying that they cried when they first found the product because it had such a big impact on their lives. There’s a real emotional connection people have with the product. Laurie’s voice is among the most popular on the platform. Her empathy and lived experience of neurodiversity come through in a way that users genuinely connect with.”
In a field where most creators take years to establish a meaningful presence, Faulkner’s Instagram following has climbed to over 220,000 and her TikTok to over 162,000, a rate of growth that signals both the depth of public appetite for this content and the authority she has established within the neurodiversity education space. Most of her audience is based in the United States. Her content has surpassed 100 million views in total, and audiences have spent over 37 years watching her videos. That is an exceptional and rare achievement, one that places her among a very small group of creators who have built this level of sustained engagement in a specialist education niche.
For Faulkner, that response points to what she wants to build next. She hopes to partner with US institutions to make assistive technology a standard part of curricula in the United States and internationally, so that students encounter tools like text-to-speech platforms, adaptive learning games, and AI-driven study aids from the beginning of their education, rather than discovering them by accident.
