Response to the Montgomery Inquiry Article: Military Improves Autistic Care Coverage

Click to view the Montgomery Inquiry Article
November 20, 2014

26,000 military families are receiving access to better TRICARE coverage for ABA therapy for young children with an Autism Diagnosis. ABA therapy is approved by the Surgeon General and American Academy of Pediatrics as the number one treatment and standard care for individuals with an ASD. However, the cost of coverage for therapy averages $125 an hour and may be cut to $68 for providing day-to-day treatment. The higher rate would be assessed only when drawing up an individual treatment / therapy plan or assessing a patient's needs (Philpott, 2014). This could impact thousands of children, and many families are speaking out. The old cap on spending limited children to just 12 hours of therapy a week. Day-to-day improvements are made with one-on-one comprehensive care, anywhere from 25-40 hours, a figure which now may be possible with a $36,000 cap. For youth with an Autism Diagnosis, social interaction and communication skills are something that have to be a part of the daily routine in order to be improved (AutismSees LLC).

However, what about those who may not have an Autism Diagnosis, but whose social skills are lacking? Those in schools who are highly intelligent, but are being bullied for socially awkward behaviors or miscommunication, those kids looking for employment directly upon graduation but who fall down in interviews. Without the diagnosis label, resources in including ABA therapy and access to assistive technology for social skills communication are not easily found (AutismSees LLC). The iPresentWell software in development by AutismSees LLC is designed to be a platform for engagement and self-directed presentation improvement, able to be used by the most functional and independent young adults seeking improvement for an up-coming job interview. However, another key feature to this software is that it is able to be customized with a provisioning setting for users to connect to mentors, therapists, life skills coaches, or even their future employer. Bringing aspects of LifeMap coaching and ABA therapy to users on the Spectrum in an affordable fashion, even those who may be without an Autism Diagnosis or who preferred to not be labeled as Autistic. Can AutismSees LLC give an automated engagement score to users of iPresentWell and improve chances for a successful interview, presentation, or speaking engagement? This development process is in the works. Follow AutismSees LLC +AutismSees  or visit www.autismsees.com.

Social Robots and LEGO Engineering for Children with Autism and Learning Disabilities

Check out our Tumblr post: AutismSees LLC travels to Panama to work at the CASPAN Foundation for children with Autism and other related social communication disorders.

TUMBLR LINK

Debugging Code

Calling All Girls: Coding Is Cool!

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, in a partnership with other local universities and industry support groups, is launching a non-profit collaborative community program aimed at encouraging and educating young women to learn and apply computing skills.

– University of California, San Diego

ENP 105 Assistive Tech-- Cardboard Carpentry

http://media.wix.com/ugd//d3e2e3_0dc5750fc2d0892fc02adc4961ab6a11.pdf

The above attachment will link you to instructions for building any adaptive piece of furniture for children and people with physical disabilities out of CARDBOARD...yes...CARDBOARD. Adaptive devices, OT, and engineering go hand in hand. My Tuesday night seminar with Jennifer Buxton, an Assistive Technology Practitioner at Tufts has become one of my favorite classes this semester. I look forward to a design project in engineering in the local community toward the end of the semester.

Tufts OT and Engineers have only 1 class available to them as of right now to partner for building technology to help people with learning, physical and mental disabilities. To me, that seems ridiculous--especially since Robotics in OT has been given grant money, research, and success at an institutional level that I witnessed at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Social Entrepreneurship...assistive tech...legos??

So it's been awhile since I've written. Mostly because I have created a separate website with a separate blog...all about developing apps for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Guess you could say that I've been busy.

So after a fellowship spot in my freshman year at Tufts in Compass Partners, I became a little bit passionate about entrepreneurship. I read articles everyday, plan the next step with the app I'm designing, and I even booked an $800 plane flight to the Autism Speaks Hackathon this July in San Francisco. Crazy? Maybe. But you only live once and if you have that gut feeling that you love what you're doing, and what you're doing is Good...book the plane flight. Take the jump. Reach out to others.

So here's an article that I read today. Passing it onto you all who hopefully still read this blog or aspire to something greater than yourself.

http://under30ceo.com/building-apps-in-a-dorm-to-mobile-innovation-interview-with-alex-moazed-of-applico/

~ D.

Autism Sees Launches! Engineering Assistive Technology

This year I have taken technology to a new level at the Boston Medical Center in the Autism Resource Program. Learning about assistive technology, iOS and software development for children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders. I have designed my own app, which my business partner Isabella Slaby and I are coding ourselves. iContact is our new product launching before the start of next school year if all goes well. Make sure to check out our company: www.autismsees.com later this week~ the company's website is officially being launched tonight, along with a KickStarter profile to raise money for the Text to Speech technology Isabella and I want to incorporate in the app. Best everyone and keep engineering, designing, and moving.

Snow Snow Snow---Spring Break Spring Break

Hey Guys! Second semester has been great. I'm still at Argenziano, but with a new teacher named Ms. Murphy. I'm teaching fifth grade with my partner Joe Singh, a Comp Science and IR double major. I took the driving test so now I drive the two of us with the STOMP car to Ms. Murphy's class. Next Friday we are FINALLY starting environmental engineering, where the students will build water filters. This lesson has been delayed a little while due to the TONS of snow we have been getting, winter breaks and field trip-reschedulings. Can't wait to post some pictures of my new class! Also check out www.codeacademy.com. I've been doing 10 minutes everyday to learn computer programming. There is a curriculum for kids online that Joe and I might turn into our final project with Ms. Murphy's class.

Best, Danielle