Personal technology to truly empower

The use of technology in everyday life is widespread. Smartphones and apps form such an integral part of daily life that it goes unnoticed. Scheduling your day, help with travel timetables and directions, alarms and... [ view full abstract ]

The use of technology in everyday life is widespread. Smartphones and apps form such an integral part of daily life that it goes unnoticed. Scheduling your day, help with travel timetables and directions, alarms and reminders, communications and help to know what to do in unfamiliar circumstances.

Using these principles, technology can be extremely empowering to those with Autism and learning difficulties, and yet the use of such technology is in its infancy and most support providers are not familiar with how to build this into the help they offer.

This paper will focus on the increase in independence and achievement, of people using one such app. It will draw on the experience of over 3 years of development and use in practice and data from over 200 users across over 30 different organisations. It will place a particular emphasis on case studies demonstrating the results of this empowerment and specific differences that this has made: in education, the workplace and in daily life. With diverse users. Those at university or in full time work, and those who are in day or residential care. It will look at specific benefits to the user (reduced anxiety, greater achievements, a sense of independence); and to benefits to the support organisation in terms of increased outcomes and better use of resources.

The conclusions will focus on lessons for integrating the use of technology into routine support, which will have wide applicability to practitioners and to people with autism.

not relevant [ view full abstract ]

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