Buttons!!!

I love buttons, the pin kind that I have a small collection of, and the image kind for links and stuff.  I've been busy working on assignments for school, but I do manage to browse a couple of places online, and decided I need a button.  So I made one. 

Feel free to use if you link to here.


And in other news, April is Autism Awareness Month, apparently.  Huh, that time of year again.  I always have fun with this, because I'm in Canada, and usually we have an Autism Awareness week sometime in Fall....

April is a rough month for me, to be honest.  The demands of schoolwork aside, it's an emotionally rough month.  April 1st is the anniversary of my Grandpa's death, and that was an event that deeply impacted me.  Each year, when it comes around, I am always struck with great grief.  Some years are better than others, some years I can get by just fine, other years I am struck with depression and anxiety, which shakes me up pretty badly.

Hopefully this year won't be so bad, but please excuse me if I'm a bit absent a while longer. 

I have written a piece for The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism for April.  I'm not sure when it'll be up, but I'm pretty sure that it will be, and I highly encourage people to check out all the stories they'll be posting for this month.

Developing Apps for Autistic Adults

First and foremost, I want to apologize to my regular readers for the lack of updates lately.  I've never been good at being consistent at the best of times, and being in school adds a whole 'nother level of distraction for me.  The two courses that I'm taking are online, which apparently means that it requires a lot of feedback, which, given my learning disabilities, becomes problematic.  As well as new opportunities to test some apps, but that's a different post.

Second, I was recently contacted by Johanna Manikiza, asking my help and advise about apps for Autistic adults.  She is an ASD Regional Support Officer at the Social Services Improvement Agency in Wales, UK. Her team supports the implementation of the Strategic Action Plan for ASD, and they are looking into the use of mobile phone apps to support Autistic Adults.  They have been able to secure funding to develop an app, and was thinking about developing one to support sequencing daily activities.

However, they've decided to gain feedback and suggestions from the Autistic community, and contacted me due to a comment on one of my blogs about the need for a social skills app to support Autistics in adulthood.  Johanna has asked for both my input, and the input of others that I know. 

I want to say thank you to Johanna and her team, for making the step to include us in decisions and supports for us.  It demonstrates true community-building attitudes that can really make a difference.

As for my readers and fellow Autistics, this is a chance for us to work with others to support one another.   I highly recommend getting in touch with Johanna's team with your suggestions and advise about developing apps to support Autistic adults.

They can be contacted at ASDinfo @ WLGA.gov.uk, and would appreciate any feedback that we can provide them.