I love being able to use technology to help work through solutions for every day things. One of my newest favorites is a website and iPhone App called “MyAutismTeam.”  MyAutismTeam is a sort of social-network that gives you a simple way to find some of the best providers who can help your child with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder to thrive. You can share your experiences with other parents, share your resources, and learn from each other’s experiences. While the site and app are still in the early stages, the growth is promising. They already have a pre-populated searchable database that has over 30,000 providers from their growing list of partners at Autism Speaks, Easter Seals, and Parents Helping Parents.

The philosophy of the site is to make it easy for all parents to get answers that they need in as simple a way posible. The idea is that the more parents know and share with each other  the easier it is to see if you’re missing a specialist that could help your child and see if the providers you have are among the best.

From their site: 

• Find Providers best suited to meet you child’s needs based keyword and zip code/city and state. This is a great place to start building your own team.
• Find Parents most like you based on location, your child’s diagnosis and age. You can browse everyone’s story and team, which helps provides insight as you share and build your own team.
• Q & A section enables you to search previously asked questions and answers, and gives you the ability to ask your own question that will be answered by other parents on MyAutismTeam.
• Activity page is where parents’ daily updates happen. It’s where daily triumphs and trials are shared and supported.

Parents use MyAutismTeam to find and share the best autism providers and businesses (from dentists and therapists, to autism-friendly businesses like barbers, babysitters, etc.) that especially cater to autism needs (marked by “Autism-yes”)‚ on a hyper-local level.

What exactly is a ‘team’?

A team on MyAutismTeam is everyone you recommend. Sometimes it can take years of trial and error to build the right team to meet your child’s needs. Everyone from that special speech therapist to the friendly barber who ‘gets it.’ It’s the team of people you’ve brought together to make life on the spectrum better for your child. MyAutismTeam makes it easy to find those best suited to meet your child’s needs while providing you a social network of support from other parents like you.

Their goal is to have hundreds of thousands of teams over the next two years. We all know we can’t do it alone. With the help of parents who use autism specialists or autism-friendly businesses, they can quickly identify and grow the searchable MyAutismTeam database to help many parents new to the autism community sooner rather than later. You’re not alone and you shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

I have to say that I have found the service useful, and hope to continue to see it grow. It’s a step in the right direction and I recommend it to others who are looking for support, answers, and most of all information.

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