Cognitopia Fosters Independence

Person cooking and being independent in living situation.

Through Cognitopia’s long-time collaboration with Supporting Living, Learning, andEarning with Autism (SLLEA), we’ve been helping young adults with autism to be moresuccessful in learning how to live on their own, find successful employment, and pursuecollege degrees. This recently-produced video showcases how for one SLLEAparticipant, Cognitopia systematically builds independence and optimizes the efforts ofa key support staff. View this newly-released video …

Vincent’s Story: MyLife Supports Transition Process During Pandemic

Profile of example users stregnths in the MyLife tool.

My son Vincent is a happy, curious 17-year-old, who was born with Down syndrome. In addition to several chronic health issues, he also has a diagnosis of autism and cortical visual impairment.  For the last five years, he has been in a private ABA program focusing on his functional, adaptive, and social skills. Two years ago, our family began seeking …

Cognitopia Celebrates National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Kyle a Cognitpia user catering an event.

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, …

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 …

Staying Healthy Portfolio: How to Stay Positive, Keep Clean, and Be Informed about the Coronavirus

Staying Healthy Blog - Feature image.

To showcase how our MyLife ePortfolio tool can be customized, we created a Staying Healthy portfolio with information on the importance of staying positive, keeping clean, and a list of useful resources related to COVID-19. Julie HenningJulie Henning has been with Cognitopia since 2015. In that time, she has been involved in customer support, training, marketing, documentation, social media, and …

Five Tips for Creating an Effective Routine

Routine creation menu with past routines.

Within the Cognitopia Platform for Self-Determination a routine is a sequence of steps consisting of actions that lead to the accomplishment of work assignments, activities of daily living, social skills, recreational activities, or any other self-management task. In practice, the concept of a routine may be referred to as a step-by-step procedure, schedule, task list, plan, or even a goal. …

Podcasting: It Can Provide Opportunities for People with Autism

Two individuals talking in front of a computer.

Leveraging special interests is a great way to engage people with autism in the world around them. Getting someone on the spectrum to talk about their area of special interest is not difficult. Rather, the challenge lies in getting them to shift to other topics or to show interest in those around them. One way to celebrate and showcase an …

OSTC 2019: Igniting Partnerships for Student Success

This past March, Eugene welcomed transition specialists and educators from across the state of Oregon for two days of professional development and networking at the 2019 Oregon Statewide Transition Conference. The theme of this year’s conference was Igniting Partnerships for Student Success, a natural fit for our session on Supporting Seamless Transition Through Technology for Self-Determination and Data Sharing. Julie …