# Specialisterne: leveraging the unique skills of Autistics at competitive market terms **URL:** \ **Category:** Lounge\ **Created:** [May 10, 2011, 7:15am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/specialisterne-leveraging-the-unique-skills-of-autistics-at-competitive-market-terms/50245 "2011-05-10T07:15:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 45
**Author:** ![Visionary7903](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/45deac/32.png) [@Visionary7903](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Visionary7903)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/specialisterne-leveraging-the-unique-skills-of-autistics-at-competitive-market-terms/50245/45 "2011-07-26T04:54:49Z")
**Specialisterne (Danish for ‘Specialists’) seeks to harness strengths that many people with Autism Spectrum Disorders possess - good attention to fine details, precision, and high tolerance for repetitive tasks. Their consultants bring the joy of work into areas where it is often missing.🙂 To ensure their consultants achieve their full potential, the social enterprise creates a highly-planned and predictable working environment to minimise stress.** (source: [BBC News - Jobs cash for people with autism in Scotland](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-10857029)) The above is an example of ‘niche construction’ - this is the term Dr. Thomas Armstrong uses for modifying an environment (creating a ‘niche’) to adapt to each unique brain. Assistive technologies represent important resources to help accomplish these environmental modifications. Proloquo2Go is a powerful augmentative communication app for the iPhone and iPad. Jamie Knight, a 21-year-old front end web developer from the UK, talks about how he uses it to deal with issues related to his Autism: > [@](#): > > … **Communication** > Communication is hard; with or without autism. But once you start limiting the ways you can communicate it starts getting harder. My biggest issue with communication is speech. When stressed I am unable to talk, word simply won’t come out. Back when I was younger this would mean going back to PECS (a big books of pictures) or sign language (assuming someone else can sign). Both methods are slow, or difficult to use without some specialist know-how. What if technology could give me a voice? Well, using a few choice pieces of software it can. > > Back a couple of years ago, I lost the ability to speak for almost 7 months; this was while I was at college and the stress levels were high. However I still had to communicate in class, communicate outside of lessons and with my peers. > > …A couple of years later and my choice of phone has changed – I am now an avid iPhone user – and the apps for my needs have grown in sophistication and power. Proloquo2Go is my current app of choice for communicating. It goes beyond the old Nokia in that after building up a phrase or sentence with a quick tap, it reads the sentence to whoever I need to talk to. > > In my pocket, every day, I have a voice for when I am unable to speak. This has changed my life, empowering me to go into situations which would have been daunting just a few short years ago. Providing confidence, providing communication… (sources: [A Key Set of Resources for Neurodiversity: Assistive Technologies | Dr. Armstrong’s Blog](http://thomasarmstrong.com/blog/2010/03/02/a-key-set-of-resources-for-neurodiversity-assistive-technologies/); [Autism, Apple, iPhone, MacBook & Life](http://atmac.org/autism-apple-iphone-macbook-life); [http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/downloads/thirdparty/Autism\_AAC\_and\_Proloquo2Go-Sennott&Bowker\_2009.pdf](http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/downloads/thirdparty/Autism_AAC_and_Proloquo2Go-Sennott&Bowker_2009.pdf)) --- _[View the full topic](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/specialisterne-leveraging-the-unique-skills-of-autistics-at-competitive-market-terms/50245)._