About 90% of adults with autism are unemployed, so kudos to any employer that makes an effort to give them a chance and reduce that percentage. The Matador Coffee Shop in Scottsdale Public Library (Arizona, USA) has done just that, teaming up with The Southwest Austism Research and Resource Center to employ Jon, a barista with Aspergers. [Story & video via ABC 15]
“This was the first company that gave me a chance,” said Jon who has been looking for a job for the past six years.
Image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Click image for source.
Researchers from Stanford’s Graduate School of Education have launched a startup called Go Go Games Studios to produce games for autistic children. The first suite of games aims to augment autistic children’s cognitive skills, and are available from Apple’s iTunes App Store.
“We wanted to use our technical and design skills to serve an underserved audience. We saw Go Go Games as a way to provide learning experiences that work like therapy but feel like play.” [ Wong Daniels, CEO of Go Go Games]
Go Go Games Studios won this year’s Shobe Prize, awarded by the University of Washington’s Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) program. The prize will support the development of a second suite of games aimed at improving verbal communication in autistic children.
Go Go Games from Go Go Games Studios on Vimeo.
Via Stanford GSE News Video from Go Go Games
No, it’s not a motorized unicycle. The RYNO has a self-balancing mechanism, so you don’t have to be an acrobat to ride it. Great thing about this vehicle, it’s small enough to take up the elevator to your apartment, or on public transport (if they allow it). If you think the RYNO’s compact, how about the Solowheel (bottom vid)? Also self-balancing, but you can tote the Solowheel like a briefcase (it has a carrying handle). Small footprint, space-wise, fuel-wise and carbon-wise.
Via AliciaKeysVEVO
Dr Peter Flom
“Dr. Peter Flom, Ph.D., talks in this podcast about living with a rare learning disability known as NLD, which stands for nonverbal learning disability. He is a learning disabled adult. When he was five, a psychologist told his parents he would never go to college. Undaunted, his mother teamed with Elizabeth Freidus to start The Gateway School of New York. Peter got his B.A. at 20, and now he has two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in psychometrics.” [quoted from the page at mentalhelp.net]
Take my word for it, this giant mud-grey bubble is more interesting than it looks. It’s made of Concrete Canvas, a flexible textile that takes on the attributes of concrete when soaked with water. The material allows permanent structures to be put up in hours instead of days, by just two men (with the right equipment). The video shows how it’s done, in four easy steps. Funny thing is, they can make concrete cloth, but they can’t make a truly iron-free shirt.
Via concretecanvaspg
DESIGN FOR ASD 