Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone! I’m new here and really happy that there’s a place like this forum to come to. I’m a 32 year old female and I was diagnosed when I was 30. It’s been an uphill journey since, but very rewarding overall. It feels a bit like being on a long-distance phone call with the world, or being behind a glass screen where you can’t quite hear speech properly. Really keen to hear about your experiences, talk about details so I can learn more about the condition, and lend a digital ear to anyone who’d like one. Am also really interested in assistive technology and supports. It seems like there is a lot of exciting technology coming out at the moment such as speech-to-text and speech-to-sign translation apps, specialist hearing aids that can be adjusted from phones, and virtual / augmented reality for experiencing different social environments, and I think it could be an innovative time for support tools not just for those on the spectrum, but to augment all types of sensory abilities. Anyway, would love to hear from you. Thank you
Welcome, Rach.
Uphill but rewarding - yes, I like that, it sums my journey over the last few years since diagnosis pretty well too. Not so sure about the phone bit (shudder - hiss - evil person-voice machine thingies!) - I'm more of a sneaking out of my coccoon in a full suit of armour when I'm feeling very brave and the planets are in alignment kind of Aspie, I think!
I've been a coder for years, and coincidentally enough I've met someone on a little geek forum that I moderate who's working on some code for a hearing aid system much like the one you described. Most of us there make synthesisers and sound effects, but his project has been very interesting, though the maths of it is a bit beyond my understanding. I use assistive tech a little bit myself - nothing specialised, but my attention and executive deficits have really been helped by being able to send myself notifications and use photos as a better way to keep myself organised - along with a little "stop procrastinating" program I made which picks things for me to do at random when I can't decide (typical coder - I couldn't possibly just roll a dice!). And of course, the incredible internet, so that I can keep in touch with the lovely people here!
Nice to meet you, I hope you like it here as much as I do (even if I do sneak off and hide under my duvet quite often!)
Hi, really appreciate your response. Nice to meet you too. I have a few spreadsheets that I use to manage recipes, groceries and finances, and a clothes routine, which helps a lot as I didn't realise how much energy I expended trying to figure out on the spot which item goes with which other items / context / weather! I also use a smart watch for notifications linked to my Google calendar, and a Filofax-type journal for daily tasks and general lists. Curious to hear what you do in terms of using images to help with tasks, if you don't mind sharing? No pressure though. Would also be very keen to discuss more technology-related topics here, it's my number one interest though I have much to learn. Hope you have a good day today