New Video: Cognitopia MyLife Digital Portfolio Helps Tell Child’s Story

thumbnail image showing video screenshot for Meet Jen video in article on MyLife tools and effectiveness for autism support

If you are the primary caregiver for a neurodiverse child, you understand how tiring and frustrating it can be to tell their story over and over again. Cognitopia My Life Digital Portfolios make this easy. Your child might be young, an adolescent, or an adult, but you want other supporters to know your child the way you do. Whether autistic … Read More

Innovative Technology to Increase Confidence & Student Success: New Tool for Social and Emotional Learning

An example of a MyLife digital portfolio.

Amidst the minefield of potentially harmful, social media apps that have so many young people trying to simply keep up by looking cool, there are some amazing online tools that build rather than break down one’s sense of self-worth. Enter Cognitopia with its MyLife multimedia digital portfolio that transforms how students can effectively communicate their strengths, goals, and learning styles … 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 Goal Guide as a Therapeutic Support to Facilitate Patient Engagement Between Clinical Sessions

At Cognitopia, our goal is to develop a suite of essential web-based applications for students and adults with cognitive disabilities such as autism, intellectual disabilities, TBI, or learning disabilities, and for older individuals with cognitive decline due to normal aging, dementia, or stroke. Our overall emphasis is on self-management applications that help people navigate daily life, school, or work as … 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

Using Goal Guide to Manage Routines at Home and in Middle School

Our work on cognitively accessible self-management applications has always relied on a participatory research approach that grounds development in the real-world life experience of individuals with disabilities and those who support them. We are fortunate to have a rich network of students and adults with disabilities, parents, and teachers who drive our iterative development approach by providing design input, using … Read More

Using the My Life App in a College Environment

Last fall I decided I was going to college and I was very excited about my decision. I took the placement tests for reading, writing, and math and I got into credits classes at Lane Community College. I started in the winter term and I was ready to quit in the second week. Why? Because there was a lot of … Read More