Essential Podcast Accessibility for Listeners with Dyslexia with Russell Van Brocklen

Are you a content creator or podcaster worried that you're unintentionally excluding a portion of your audience? The pain point is simple: if your message isn't built for podcast accessibility, you're missing out on vital audience engagement, especially from listeners with dyslexia and other learning concerns. In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, we sit down with leading researcher Russell Van Brocklen to discuss the actionable strategies you can implement right now. Learn how to refine your content strategy to be more specific, improve clarity, and ensure your powerful message lands with every single listener. This week, episode 242 of Podcasting Unlocked is all about essential podcast accessibility for listeners with dyslexia!

Russell Van Brocklen aims to empower parents, tutors, and teachers to improve the comprehension, writing, and organizational skills of struggling dyslexic students. Drawing on extensive research and personal experience, he developed a unique system that dramatically enhances these abilities, leading to increased confidence and opportunities for long-term success.

In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Russell Van Brocklen is sharing the importance of specificity to retain your audience’s attention and actionable steps you can take right now to make your podcast more entertaining to people with dyslexia.

Russell and I also chat about the following: 

• Prioritize Specific Content: Stop being vague! The more specific and simple your language, the better you support listeners with dyslexia and drastically improve audience engagement for everyone.
• Refine Your Listener Avatar: When building your ideal listener profile, include potential challenges like learning concerns and short attention spans to tailor your podcast content more effectively.
• Boost Auditory Clarity: Focus on your articulation and word structure. These elements of verbal delivery are crucial for listeners with dyslexia who rely on strong auditory cues for processing information.
• Accessibility is a Productivity Hack: Designing your content with podcast accessibility in mind forces you to be clearer, more intentional, and ultimately more efficient in your overall content creation.

Accessibility is not an extra step; it is the foundation of a powerful content strategy. When you design for the people who need clarity the most, you improve the listening experience for everyone. Your challenge this week: Take your next episode title or description and rewrite it to be 10x more specific and simple.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. 

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Podcasting Unlocked at https://galatimedia.com/podcasting-unlocked/ 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Essential Podcast Accessibility for Listeners with Dyslexia with Russell Van Brocklen
• 0:50 Meet Russell Van Brocklen—Dyslexia Research and Impact
• 3:00 Specificity and Learning—How Dyslexics Best Absorb Content
• 7:30 Applying Specificity—Podcast Example on Productivity
• 9:30 Word Choice in Content—From “Done” to “Perfected”
• 17:03 Engaging Short Attention Spans & Building a Unique Podcast Brand