JobTIPS for Folks with ASD

Do2Learn has developed JobTIPS, an exciting free program designed to help individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gain meaningful employment.

Finding employment is tough for many individuals right now, but this is especially true for individuals with ASD who are seeking work. Communication, social, and organizational deficits often cause challenges and misunderstandings in the workplace in terms of task completion, interpersonal interactions, and coping with stress. These are challenges all of us face, but again, people with ASD may struggle more with managing these stressors.

JobTIPS approaches the goal of obtaining meanginful employment for folks with ASD in two ways:

1. JobTIPS provides a free web-based curriculum that the user with ASD can access himself in order to learn strategies on how to find, get, and keep a meaningful job. This includes videos, printable materials, situational stories, Why? boxes, and coping comics to make the content interactive and fun while facilitating deeper understanding of concepts and generalization of skills.

2. The Transitional Toolbox educates teachers, job coaches, parents, transition coordinators, Vocational Rehabilitation staff, and clinicians how to teach appropriate employment skills by providing them with strategies across the developmental range as well as materials. The content for this section is being developed now, and should be ready this summer!

We are excited for more people to learn and use JobTIPS, and are thrilled that JobTIPS has received such attention and praise recently! The Autism Society of America profiled JobTIPS in April, which you can check out here. Autism Speaks noted how JobTIPS helps to level the playing field, and the National Institutes of Health remark that JobTIPS fills a critcal gap for teenagers leaving school and therfore most of their ASD-related services.

Check out JobTIPS and tell us what you think! What do you think is the hardest part of gaining meaningful employment for folks with ASD? And...what's your favorite part of JobTIPS! We love feedback!