A father from Pennsylvania who has a son with autism is planning to create an app called "Autism Village" that will help autistic children and their families find autistic-friendly places to enjoy.
Topher Wurts, 48 was inspired to create the app because of his 13-year-old son Kirby, who suffers from autism. He said that through the app, people from the autism community can add, rate, and review different restaurants, museums, parks, playgrounds and other locations based on "autism friendliness."
He has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Autism Village, and they have already raised over $40,000, thousands of dollars more than their expected $38,500 target. Wurts told The Huffington Post that they plan to launch the app this summer.
Wurts explained that the app will be useful for the autism community as people with autism have special diets and are very sensitive to light and sound. His son in particular is sensitive to sensory input, so they cannot go to loud and bright places.
So if they have a positive or negative experience in a certain area, they can rate it on Autism Village, and other families can consider whether or not the location will be suitable for them.
"Families and autistic adults - especially when away from home or when looking for new ideas - will benefit from being able to discover places that are highly rated and reviewed by other autism families. There's lots of misinformation out there and reading reviews by other families or people who are actually in the autism community will be really helpful," Wurts said.
Wurts also credits his son for the app's development and called him an "inspiration."
"He led us into the autism community and then we realised how helpful we could be to many people by applying ourselves to using our skills from other startups and industries to helping with practical problems that autism folks deal with day to day," he said.
