Hi, I’m Alessandra
And everything I build here comes from years of living, learning, and supporting a child who taught me how powerful a different path can be.
I’ve walked this journey from the inside — through different school systems, through challenges, doubts, and endless searches for clarity. Dysferent was born exactly here: from real experience, real needs, and the desire to make learning feel simpler, more accessible, and more human.
A designer, a mother, and the mind behind Dysferent.
I work by combining design thinking, long experience inside learning differences, and a deep respect for each child’s unique way of understanding the world. My focus is simple: turning complexity into clarity — creating tools that feel intuitive, accessible, and genuinely helpful for families, students, teachers, and tutors.
My Journey into learning differences
How It All Began
My name is Alessandra, and my journey into the world of learning differences began long before Dysferent — it began as a mother, not as a professional, when my son Giacomo was just five years old. At the time, we were living in the United Kingdom, where his school — attentive and well-prepared — was the first to suggest that he might be dyslexic.
That gentle conversation opened a path I never expected to walk, and it marked the beginning of everything that came next. In the UK, I was introduced to an educational system that recognised learning differences early, listened to families, and showed a level of awareness I had never experienced before – even as a mother of five children. That experience gave me my earliest understanding of dyslexia and shaped the way I began supporting my son.
A Turning Point
When we moved back to Italy, we found a school system that was not yet fully prepared to support students with specific learning difficulties.
I needed to learn more, research more, and find ways to support Giacomo within a context that lacked the same level of awareness and resources.
That learning journey changed me deeply.
At that time, I was working as an architect, a profession that taught me to design with purpose, solve problems through structure, and create spaces that serve people’s real needs. I never imagined that these skills would one day intertwine with my personal life in such a profound way.
A Project For Dyslexic Students
As I explored methodologies, technologies, and strategies for students with DSA, I began to see a huge potential to reshape how children with learning differences approached school.
This led to the creation of ICM – Insieme con Metodo, a didactic-technological programme designed to help students with dyslexia build autonomy, confidence, and an effective study method.
ICM was not an after-school service; it was a structured educational project with small groups, specialised tutors, and personalised strategies.
We worked with tools like text-to-speech, audiobooks, concept maps, digital textbooks, and alternative approaches for maths, reading, writing, and oral expression.
I coordinated the programme for several years, guiding both students and tutors. Over 200 children attended ICM.
Dysferent
Although ICM eventually ended when our family moved abroad, its impact stayed with me — as a mother, as an educator, and as an architect.
It taught me what truly works for students with learning differences, and it inspired me to design tools that are intuitive, practical, and genuinely helpful for families, students, and teachers. Living across different countries gave me a wider perspective: every child learns differently, and every family needs tools that respect those differences. That understanding became the seed of what would come next.
Dysferent is the natural evolution of my entire journey —
combining my cross-cultural experience, my years of work with students and families, and my background in design thinking.
My mission is simple:
to help students discover not only how to learn, but how they learn best — and to offer families and teachers tools that truly make a difference.
Because being “different” is not a limitation.
It is a form of genius waiting to be understood.
What These Years Have Taught Me
These intense years of study, work, and life alongside students with learning difficulties have confirmed something essential:
when students develop a strong and well-structured study method, they can succeed in any school system — anywhere in the world.
I saw this clearly through Giacomo’s journey.
Over the years he studied in England, Italy, an international school in Luxembourg, and Singapore — adapting to radically different systems thanks to the strategies he had learned.
Last year he graduated in the Netherlands with a degree in Industrial Design Engineering, a field that blends creativity, structure, and problem-solving — very much like the path that brought him there.
His story reinforced a belief that guides all my work:
an effective study method is the foundation for both academic success and emotional wellbeing, wherever life takes you.
Giacomo — Age 5
The moment everything began.
Giacomo — Graduation Day
A journey shaped by courage and method.
Children grow when we truly see them: for who they are, for how they think, for how they learn.
Every student has a story.
This is ours.