These are the resources I actually use, or wish existed when I was first diagnosed. Collected from lived experience, not a literature review. If something here helps you feel less alone or more capable, it's done its job.

Free Tools from HeyASD

Built from lived experience. No clinical distance. Designed for the moments when you need something that actually understands the situation.

Advocacy & Community

Organisations and platforms created by or meaningfully centring autistic people. Useful for understanding your rights, finding community, and accessing resources without having to justify yourself to use them.

• Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) — The baseline. Free toolkits, policy guides, and plain-language self-advocacy resources created by and for autistic people. Start here if you're newly diagnosed.
• NeuroClastic — First-person essays and community writing across a wide range of autistic experiences. Consistently inside-out perspective, no clinical framing. Good for feeling less alone in specific experiences.
• Asperger/Autism Network (AANE) — Practical guides on late diagnosis, relationships, and identity. Particularly useful for adults who were missed in childhood and are rebuilding their self-understanding.
• Autism Society of America — Free information on adult diagnosis, sensory-considerate events, and local chapters. Wider in scope than ASAN but still useful for practical navigation.
• Autism Research Institute (ARI) — Free webinars, research summaries, and tools. More research-facing than community-facing, but useful when you want to understand the evidence base.
• The Arc — Disability advocacy and legal resources across the US. Many free guides on rights, housing, and employment — useful when you need something with legal weight behind it.

Employment & Workplace Rights

Navigating work as an autistic adult is its own discipline. These focus on the practical: what you're entitled to, how to ask for it, and who can help when asking doesn't work. We've written in depth about workplace accommodations and discrimination at work on the blog.

• Job Accommodation Network (JAN) — Free consulting to help you understand and request reasonable adjustments. You can ask about your specific situation and get practical answers, not generic policy language. One of the most immediately useful resources here.
• Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) — Government-funded career support available in every US state. Services can include counselling, job coaching, and assistive technology. Free to access through your state's VR agency.
• Specialisterne — Employer-funded job training and placement for autistic adults, typically in IT and QA roles. One of the few programs where the employer is paying, not you.
• Autism Job Club — Online job search support, networking, and resume tools. Free to join. Lower-barrier than formal programs if you're not ready for a structured placement.
• Project SEARCH — Internship-to-employment program for disabled adults, often hospital or large employer-based. Free and structured, useful if you need a scaffolded entry point into work.

Books Worth Actually Reading

Not a complete list — a filtered one. Most are available free through your local library or the Libby app. These are books that don't talk around you.

• Unmasking Autism by Devon Price — The clearest book on masking written from an autistic perspective. If you're post-diagnosis and trying to understand why you're exhausted, start here.
• I Think I Might Be Autistic by Cynthia Kim — Practical and non-clinical, written for adults who came to diagnosis later. Better than most formal guides because it doesn't assume you need to be explained to.
• Asperger's on the Job by Rudy Simone — Focused specifically on workplace survival: disclosure, communication, managing sensory load in an office. One of the few books that treats this as a real problem rather than a deficit to fix.
• Different… Not Less by Temple Grandin — Accounts from autistic adults across careers and life stages. Useful for possibility-thinking when everything feels blocked.
• Neurotribes by Steve Silberman — Historical and cultural context for how autism came to be understood the way it is. Useful for depathologising your own self-understanding.
• The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida — First-person account of the internal experience of autism. Not a how-to guide — a piece of perspective-shifting writing.

Apps That Are Actually Useful

Tested for real-world utility, not app store ratings. Most have free versions worth trying before committing to anything paid.

• Goblin Tools — Free, browser-based, no account required. Breaks tasks into smaller steps using AI. One of the more genuinely useful tools for executive dysfunction — low friction to start.
• MindShift CBT — Free anxiety management using CBT and ACT tools. Notably not condescending. Includes journalling prompts, thought challenging, and a coping card builder. Works offline.
• Time Timer — Visual countdown that shows time as a disappearing disc. Genuinely useful for time blindness. Free on web — try the browser version before buying the app.
• Finch: Self-Care Pet — Gamified self-care check-ins built around small goals. Useful if you need an externalised prompt to do basic maintenance tasks. Free core features.
• Autism Tracker Pro — Mood, sensory input, and routine logging. Useful if you're trying to identify patterns in burnout or dysregulation before they become crises. Basic version free.
• Proloquo2Go — AAC app for selectively speaking autistic people or those managing communication differences across contexts. Trial available.

Frequently Asked Questions