Cognitopia Celebrates National Disability Employment Awareness Month

During October, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Cognitopia will be sharing on social media a series of employment-related routines that were creating using the Routines tool that is available on the Cognitopia Platform for Self-Determination, a suite of web-based applications to support self-management at work, at home, and in school.  Routines is a tool for task-analyzing any activity using text, … Read More

How Autistic Individuals Have Helped Direct Cognitopia’s Development

On Location Building New Video Content

Cognitopia’s development of self-management applications has been shaped by people with autism in ways both direct and indirect. From the beginning we have used a participatory design process whereby students and adults with autism work with us on design iteration and testing. For example, for the last five years, we’ve had a deep collaborative relationship with a local transition program … Read More

Using Self-Management and Team Collaboration Tools for Pre-Employment Transition Services and Competitive Employment

Person-Centered Planning (PCP) is a common process employed by agencies that provide supported living and employment services to individuals with disabilities. Mandated by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services at the federal level, one goal of the PCP process is to facilitate access to employment services in community settings for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and to … Read More

Announcing the New MyLife

Earlier this week Cognitopia released a major upgrade to the MyLife ePortfolio application for IEP Self-Direction and Person-Centered Planning. MyLife is being successfully used in elementary, middle, and high schools as well as in college programs and adult customized employment and supported living services across the United States. The new MyLife is more intuitive, customizable and user-friendly, strengthening the focus … Read More

Innovative Self-Management Apps for Aging in Place

More and more, technology enables our lives in ways that facilitate independence and connectivity and it seems like there’s an app for just about everything. For individuals aging in place, apps can help them stay organized, accomplish daily goals, or remotely link them to their adult children, a team of caregivers, or the support services they need in order to … Read More

Making Connections and Using the Impersonation Feature to Support Cognitopia Users

One of the key features of Cognitopia is that it is designed for maximum access by users with cognitive disabilities while also providing tools for teachers or parents to assist as necessary. Tom KeatingTom Keating, Ph.D. is founder and CEO of Cognitopia, home of the Cognitopia Platform for Self-Determination, emphasizing tools for IEP self-direction, goal management, task analysis, and team … Read More

How Goals and Routines Connect

Managing the Routines of Daily Living Goal Guide helps individuals with cognitive disabilities set goals, track progress, and share their accomplishments with others. In the course of developing Goal Guide we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between goals and routines of daily living. Field, Martin, Miller, Ward, and Wehmeyer (1998) suggested that to become self-determined, students … Read More

MyLife: IEP Self-Direction and Digital Storytelling

When we started the MyLife project, our focus was on the development of a cognitively accessible, multimedia ePortfolio that would function as a kind of online résumé with a person-centered planning style. The end goal was to provide an intuitive, digital tool for students as end users that would let them document and share their educational, work, and personal experiences, … Read More