Smartphone for all: " Parental " controls and managing messaging abuse
< p > It ’s hard to get good information on managing smartphone use for a vulnerable person — aka “parental controls”. Especially for Smartphones. < /p > < p > Vendors sites often promise more than they can deliver and provide little information on how they work. Vendors are also understandably reluctant to discuss side-effects and problems. The tech resources I trust tend to dislike the whole idea of parental controls (writers are too young!), and Google search results are dominated by vendor sites, spam blogs, and under-resourced newspaper columns. Parents and “Guides” (supporters of vulnerable users, aka “...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - February 10, 2016 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence adult Asperger ' autism smartphone smartphone4all support technology Source Type: blogs
Smartphone for all: "Parental" controls and managing messaging abuse
It’s hard to get good information on managing smartphone use for a vulnerable person — aka “parental controls”. Especially for Smartphones.Vendors sites often promise more than they can deliver and provide little information on how they work. Vendors are also understandably reluctant to discuss side-effects and problems. The tech resources I trust tend to dislike the whole idea of parental controls (writers are too young!), and Google search results are dominated by vendor sites, spam blogs, and under-resourced newspaper columns. Parents and “Guides” (supporters of vulnerable users, aka “Explorers”) are tru...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - February 10, 2016 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence adult Asperger ' autism smartphone smartphone4all support technology Source Type: blogs
Smartphone for All: Examples of using Apple Notes.app or Google Keep.app to extend memory and independence
A Smartphone for All: book excerpt, from a chapter on using Notes…————There are many ways to use Notes to extend an Explorer’s memory. The following table gives a few examples taken from real world experience. Many of these Notes hold non-sensitive or public information, but some require that both the Explorer’s smartphone and Cloud information are truly secure. We reviewed this in Setting up an Explorer’s Smartphone including an encrypted smartphone, long letter-number smartphone unlock codes, fingerprint identification, a responsible Explorer, short timeout auto-lock, and a strong Cloud password. Some l...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - February 1, 2016 Category: Disability Tags: computer support technology Source Type: blogs
Smartphone for all: Android or iPhone?
I’ve rewritten the “which smartphone” section of my Smartphones for All: Independent Living with iPhone and Android book at least four times.Despite my iPhone background I started out leaning towards Android for my book audience — I have not been entirely happy with Apple’s iCloud services and I was impressed by the value for dollar of my moto E. Then I spent some more time with my Android phone; trying to see it from the perspective of a “Guide” reader and “Explorer” user. That experience helped me understand why my Calendaring Survey showed a strong iPhone bias among non-experts who use a Calendar an...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - January 22, 2016 Category: Disability Tags: smartphone smartphone4all Source Type: blogs
Smartphone for all: the Guide is impersonating the Explorer. There's a problem there...
It’s only in writing or teaching something that we come to understand it. I’ve been guiding my two special needs Explorer’s using their iPhones for at least five years, but I only today realizes why the Guide role works — and why it might get harder.I’ve put the key concepts into a book chapter (Smartphones for all) about Guide tools:A Guide could implement many of the recommendations of this book by working on an Explorer’s smartphone every evening. You could take it in your hand and review emails, enter Calendar items, update Contacts, review Facebook Group membership and so on.You could do that, but it would...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - January 20, 2016 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence adult Asperger ' autism cognitive impairment smartphone smartphone4all support technology Source Type: blogs
Autism and interest depletion - leveraging routines, calendars and checklists
As #2 enters late High School his interests have narrowed considerably. This means he has fewer options if he bores of the interests he does have, and increasing amounts of his time are spent in passive and compulsive screen activities that seem to produce dysphoria and ennui rather than satisfaction or happiness. It’s a common trend that seems unlikely to lead to a satisfying or independent life.Fortunately, he’s aware of this and, when he’s not working through what I think of as an “autistic-arrest” (sudden deterioration in perception of self and context, often associated with anguish and psychic distress), he...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 24, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence Asperger ' autism brain and mind cognition computer smartphone support Source Type: blogs
Book chapter excerpt: Smartphone calendaring and special needs
For the book. Comments welcome …Calendar management is one of the most powerful smartphone tools for independent living. Knowing what to do when takes a lot of memory stress away. The Calendar is where healthy and helpful habits are maintained. It can be very hard for spectrum Explorers to initiate new work, scheduling it on a calendar can be a good launch step. Special Hockey games, doctor’s appointments, work schedules, study schedules, screen break times, family outings, dates, holidays — it all starts with the Calendar.That was true in the days of the family wall calendar, but the smartphone Calendar is a big i...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 24, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence adult Asperger ' autism brain and mind cognition computer smartphone support technology Source Type: blogs
Smartphone calendaring: a brief survey
i’m collecting some data on how people do calendaring on their smartphones to support my special needs smartphone for independent living book project. If you’re reading this before December 20th 2015, can you please fill out this 2-3 min, 3-7 question survey? Thanks! (Source: Be the Best You can Be)
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 15, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: smartphone support technology Source Type: blogs
Autism and the police: St Paul Police Department Western District leads
Most of the autism meetings I attend have a largely white audience. Tonight’s ‘CARE Project Meeting’, hosted by the St Paul Police Department with help from the Autism Society of Minnesota, was different …AUSM - Autism Society of Minnesota - CARE Project MeetingOfficer Robert Zink and the St. Paul Police Department will host an open meeting about its CARE Project (Cop Autism Response Education). Officer Zink and the department invite the community and other precincts to participate, learn more, and offer suggestions on the CARE Program.Dec. 14, 2015 from 6:30-8 p.m.St. Paul Police Department389 Hamline Ave. N.St. P...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 15, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence adult autism crime Twin Cities Source Type: blogs
Special needs smartphone: draft sample sub-chapter on Google Nest Cam use
Early version …….Some people with cognitive disabilities may be prone to impulsive anger, and may need monitoring when home with siblings but no parents. A teen with ADHD and autism may alleviate boredom by pestering a sibling. Head injury related to seizure activity could lead to extended unconsciousness. Kitchen hygiene neglect may be causing roommate or landlord problems.These are all familiar problems for supporters of special needs teens and adults. In each case we’d like to be able to peek around the corner, even while we’re at work or simply away from home. We can do just that with a smartphone and some gear...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 11, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence adult autism cognitive impairment Explosive Child smartphone smartphone4all support technology Source Type: blogs
My book to be: The special needs smartphone for independent living
I’m working on a book with a working title of Special Needs Smartphone. I don’t think that will be my final title, but it’s a good description. It’s a book I’m well placed to write; I have years of experience with two very different special needs smartphone users, I’m a geek, I’m used to writing, and I have the opportunity to do it. I’m not expecting to make money, but I do hope to make a positive difference. The book will cover both iOS and Android (that’s not easy, by the way :-).I’m writing this book for parents and other supporters of teens and adults with a range of different minds. This includes ...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 11, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: ADHD adolescence adult Asperger ' computer employment Explosive Child sharing knowledge smartphone support technology Source Type: blogs
529 ABLE accounts and supplemental needs trusts for disabled adults - a few bullet points
We set up the legal aspects of a supplemental needs trust for #1 several years ago — including a taxpayer ID for the trust. Then we kind of dropped the ball; I don’t think I quite understood the next steps in setting it up.Today we reviewed current law with a specialist attorney. This is much too complex a topic for me to fully describe in a blog post tonight, but I’ll share some of the key points I wrote about.Special needs trusts, supplemental needs trusts, and, I think, the new 529 ABLE plans all require proof of disability, specifically the inability to work with reasonable supports. (If you think about this too ...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 11, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: adult disability law finance Source Type: blogs
Special needs smartphone: looking for a Notes app with a difference
I’m working on a book about iOS and Android smartphone use by special needs teens and adults; It will have a special focus on supporting independence. The project is in its early stages, but sometime in the next few weeks it should get a companion domain and a blog. In the meantime I’ll have a few posts here on related topics.One of the things I don’t have an answer for is the “deletion problem”. My #1, for example, hates clutter. On an iPhone that means he compulsively closes open apps, deletes his browser history, old email, saved images, iMessages and even the Notes I’d like him to have. Notes that consist o...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - December 7, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: computer technology Source Type: blogs
Cognitive disability and AI assistance with Google Inbox.app. Suddenly, a new world.
Google announced nsAI (non-sentient artificial intelligence) assisted email today, it will debut in the Android and iOS Inbox.app.My first thought was that this will be kind of annoying. A few minutes later I was thinking about AI-responses generating AI-responses and the various spam implications. I decided this would be interesting, exciting, maybe a bit scary. There will certainly be unexpected consequences.Then I remembered how much iOS word and phrase completion has helped #1 son with texting and email. I remembered that I’ve been watching for more nsAI assistance to support both of my sons. That’s when I realiz...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - November 3, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: adult Asperger ' autism brain and mind cognition cognitive impairment computer disability law nsAI support technology Source Type: blogs
Special needs - death by car and what we can do about it
The Centers for Disease Control’s pedestrian injury page tells us that in 2012, "4,743 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in the United States, and another 76,000 pedestrians were injured…. Pedestrians are 1.5 times more likely than passenger vehicle occupants to be killed in a car crash on each trip…"Some groups are more at risk than others. "Pedestrians ages 65 and older accounted for 20% of all pedestrian deaths and an estimated 9% of all pedestrians injured ...more than one in every five children between the ages of 5 and 15 who were killed in traffic crashes were pedestrians."The CDC doesn’t collect ...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - September 23, 2015 Category: Disability Tags: adolescence adult cognitive impairment employment technology Twin Cities Source Type: blogs
