The Tips Hub was designed with and for autistic people, their families and professionals who work with autistic people. Here, you can find resources based on scientific evidence on varied topics such as diagnosis, health, anxiety, eating, gaming and finance.

The Tips Hub is free to use. Some features of the Tips Hub are only available to registered users, so we recommend signing up to enjoy all the app’s features. Once you have registered as a user of Tips Hub and provided an email address, you can save information to your library and see different types of resources that you might find useful.

There are three types of tips and resources:

-Everyday tips for autistic people and their families on the topics that autistic people have told us matter most. Here, you’ll find information about understanding autism and diagnosis, finding post-diagnosis support, and tips for everyday life.
-Professional tips for professionals who support autistic people and their families. These tips cover a range of topics to better understand autism and are designed to help professionals be more inclusive in their work and services.
-Mental Health and wellbeing Tips for autistic people and their families and the professionals who support them to know more about the complex challenges related to mental health and autism. This section includes proven tools and resources that offer information on mental health topics.
In this version of the app, you can find out more about the following topics, which were chosen by the autistic community and their families as priority areas:

-Understanding autism
-Understanding diagnosis and finding post-diagnosis support
-Taking care of your wellbeing (anxiety and mental health)
-Understanding eating behaviours and difficulties
-Understanding physical health concerns
-Information about sleep difficulties
-Financial resilience and financial wellbeing
-Gaming for education, community connectedness, and online safety
-Autistic burnout
-Camouflaging/masking

We are always improving the Tips Hub and adding new information, tips, and resources on varied topics. We hope you will keep using the app and coming back to see new topics and tools in future versions.

We also hope that the Tips Hubs can help to empower autistic people, families, and professionals. Although this will vary for everyone based on their lived experience, we aim to share information that helps in the following ways.

You will: 
-access high-quality, reliable, evidence-based information
-feel empowered to be autonomous, self-advocate and thrive-gain knowledge and skills to build confidence in financial resilience and wellbeing
-connect with other people sharing their experiences through tips; and
-find out how games and gaming can help with wellbeing and learning new skills.

We have co-designed the Tips Hub at every stage with autistic people, families, carers, and professionals to ensure it empowers autistic people to live happier, healthier, longer lives. The involvement of our community partners is crucial in the ongoing development of the platform to ensure that it is meaningful and relevant.

Our community advisors told us what priority topics and types of content should be included in the Tips Hub. Together, we co-created a long list of topics our community wanted to see resources on in the future. They also helped us create the design of the Tips Hub and how it works.

We invite you to take part in the research surveys that will help us understand how the Tips Hub helps you and others. These surveys are important as they help us learn how to improve the content and features of the Tip Hubs in the future.

If you have any further suggestions for future content or features, please email our research team at tips@autistica.org.uk

We want to help everyone using the platform find the information they need when they need it. The short summaries use plain language to explain each topic or resource. You can also click the links provided to read more.

As we are always trying to improve the Tips Hub, we are also building new features for future updates to change how you can find and use information. This will include new features like changing text size, colour contrast, speech-to-text, and audio and video subtitling. This will improve accessibility and inclusion for diverse needs in how you or other neurodivergent people read, understand and share information. We hope you will keep using the Tips Hub and coming back to see new features in future versions.

We want all users to have a safe and helpful experience of using the Tips Hub. Our focus is on providing reliable information and practical tips to help you navigate life and thrive. While the Autistica Tips Hub is a great resource for information and tips, there are a few things we don't provide:

-Personal support or advocacy: We don't provide one-to-one support or advocacy services, such as advice or supporting letters for seeking a diagnosis, benefits, or workplace tribunals. But we list information to learn about support needs and tools or why advocacy matters. We also offer evidence-based resources to help guide professionals to offer better support.
-Diagnosis or post-diagnosis support: we are not clinicians or healthcare professionals, so we can't offer a diagnosis or comment on your health and care assessments. We do offer links to information that can help you understand more about autism diagnosis and what other support services might be available.
-Legal advice: We're not a legal advice provider, so we can't help with legal matters.
-Financial advice: We're not financial experts so we don't provide advice on money matters. We offer guidance and practical tips and resources that can help to learn about financial wellbeing, and list other organisations that can offer advice.
-Counselling or therapy: We don't offer counselling or therapy services, but we can guide you to resources that do.
-Crisis or Emergency Services: If you're in crisis, at risk of harm, or if you need emergency help, please contact appropriate emergency services.
-For specialised support, we recommend reaching out to the appropriate services.

Download the Tips Hub app for free:

New users: Tap 'Sign up with email' and complete the required details. It is free to sign up and use the full range of features on the app. You need to enter your email address and choose a password. You will receive an email with a verification code. Enter the code into the app to complete the registration.

Existing registered users: tap 'Log in' and enter your email and password.  If you have forgotten your password, you can send a new link to your email address to help you log back in and change it.

Unregistered users: Tap ‘Skip sign-up’. It is still free to view the information in the Tips Hub.

Please note that some features are not available for unregistered users. Sign up to access features such as upvoting, bookmarking posts, and setting your sensitivity preferences to control the content you see (see the 'key terms’ section at the end of this guide for more information).

1. Home screen: The home screen welcomes you to the app and reminds you what each of the three features does. To return to the home screen click the Autistica logo in the top left-hand corner.

2. Menu: The menu is at the bottom of the screen in a black bar. The menu includes two main features: a list of resources and community-contributed tips.

3. User profile: Access your user profile by clicking the person icon in the top right-hand corner. See ‘User settings' in this guide for more information about your user profile.

Please note: the user profile icon only works for registered users. Unregistered users will have a question mark that links to this user guide.

1. Search for resources: Use the search bar at the top to look for keywords or phrases and find resources. 

2. Filter resources: To filter resources by topics, click the green topic buttons at the top of the resources section.

3. View resource details: Click on a resource to read its description, and access hyperlinks and other related resources. You can also give feedback on whether you found a specific resource helpful or not by clicking on the feedback buttons.

4. Upvote resources: Click the light green arrow at the bottom left of the resource to upvote it. Please note: Once you have upvoted, you cannot remove it.

5. Bookmark resources: Click the light green bookmark text at the bottom right of the resource to save it for future reading. Access your bookmarked resources by clicking 'bookmarks’ above the search bar.

6. Sensitive content tag: Some resources contain information that some users may find uncomfortable or potentially triggering to read. For example, mentions of suicide, self-harm and eating behaviours. Registered users can set sensitivity preferences to avoid specific content. All resources on these topics are flagged with a pink 'sensitive content' tag and start with a content warning.

7. Review score tag: Resources are reviewed by the Autistica team to ensure they are meaningful, relevant and accurate. Tap the green review score tag to learn more about how resources are rated, and the scores for that specific resource.

Additional actions:

Click … in the top right corner of a resource. There are four additional actions that you can take:

Click I found this sensitive to add a sensitive content tag to a resource. Only you will see this tag. Please note this option is not available on resources that already have a sensitive content tag.

Click Hide to hide a resource so it will not appear. Please note that you are currently unable to unhide a resource.

Click Report to flag to the moderators that a resource is inaccurate, offensive or requires a pink sensitive content tag.

Click Block account to block the user who uploaded the resource.

Please note: Only registered users can use the upvote and bookmark features. To create a more personalised experience and use all the features of the Tips Hub, please sign up.

Using a citizen science approach, community and professional users who are registered on the app can post tips on individual topics, such as sleep, eating, anxiety, employment and others.

Sharing a tip is sharing something that has worked for you personally, that may be helpful for others. It is not the same as giving advice, and should not be used as a substitute for professional advice.

In the tips section, you can find community tips and post your tips on numerous topics.

1. Search for resources: Use the search bar at the top to find tips, keywords or phrases.

2. Filter resources: Click the green topic buttons to filter tips by topics.

3. View tip details: Click on a tip to read its description. You can also give feedback on whether you found a specific resource helpful or not by clicking on the feedback buttons at the bottom of the screen.

4. Upvote tips: Click the light green arrow at the bottom left of a tip to upvote it. Please note: You are currently unable to remove an upvote.

5. Bookmark tips: Click the light green bookmark text at the bottom right of a tip to save it for future reading. Access your bookmarked tips by clicking ‘bookmarks’ above the search bar.

6. Sensitive content tag: Some tips will contain information that users may find uncomfortable or potentially triggering to read, such as mentions of suicide, self-harm and eating behaviours. Registered users can set their sensitivity preferences to avoid seeing specific content, but all tips that include one of these topics are flagged with a pink 'sensitive content' tag.

7 Additional actions:

-Click the … button in the top right corner of a tip. There are four additional actions that you can take:

-Click I found this sensitive to add a sensitive content tag to a resource. Only you will see this tag. Please note this option is not available on resources that already have a sensitive content tag.

-Click hide to hide a tip so it will not appear. Please note that you are currently unable to unhide a resource.

-Click report to flag to moderators that this tip is inaccurate, offensive or requires a pink sensitive content tag.

-Click block account to block the user who wrote the tip.


Please note that only registered users can use the upvote and bookmark features. To create a more personalised experience and use all the features of the Tips Hub, please sign up.

In addition to reading tips from the community, you can contribute your own. To add your tip, click the dark green + button next to the search bar on the tips page. You will then need to provide the following information:

Title: Give your tip a title.
Content: Write your tip.
Category: Select a related category from the list provided.
Weblink (optional): If appropriate, include an external web link related to your tip.
Sensitive warning: Check the ‘sensitive content’ box if your tip relates to a sensitive topic. This will provide a warning for other users that your tip contains sensitive content.

Click the green 'post' button at the bottom of the page.

Your tip will be sent to our team for moderation. Moderation takes up to seven days. After approval, your tip will appear on the tips page.

-Access your user profile settings from the menu to update your preferences and information.

-Personal information: Update details such as your name, age, gender, and which user group(s) you belong to.

-We collect this information to help us continue to develop the Tips Hub and information that is useful and inclusive to everyone, especially people with different needs and backgrounds. For more information about how we protect, store and use your information, read our privacy policy.

-Sensitive preferences: Set your preferences regarding what content you do not want to see for a personalised experience.

-Privacy and sharing: This section links directly to our privacy policy.

-Delete account: Here, you can delete your account and all your personal information. This will stop you from receiving any more Tips Hub-related emails. If you have also signed up for the Autistica mailing list you will still receive these emails. To opt out of everything, please email ‘stop’ to info@autistica.org.uk.

-Log out: Here, you can log out of the Tips Hub for registered users. Your preferences and information will be saved for when you log in again, but some of the features will not be available.

The Autistica Tips Hub is designed to make sure that all users have access to quality information that is safe, accurate, reliable, trustworthy, and ethical. We are committed to maintaining the trust and safety of our users without compromise.

All resources in the Tips Hub are assessed using an independent scoring method. Similarly, we want to ensure the safety and quality of the community tips.

Our community advisors have helped define how tips are moderated.

All tips will be moderated within seven days. Once approved, your tip will appear on the tips page. It will also be tagged to different topics, such as sleep, diagnosis, or other relevant information.

Your tip will not be approved if it:

- is offensive or inaccurate

- contains external links that cannot be validated

- is too vague to be helpful to others

- references contentious, illegal or potentially harmful suggestions

You can report a tip if you believe it is inappropriate, inaccurate or offensive and our moderators have missed something.

When posting a tip you can use sensitive content tags to show that the content might be triggering for some users. This helps other users exclude some tips from their search, to help keep them safe online.

If your tip contains a link, the tip will not be posted until moderation has approved the external link.

Any external links included in the post will automatically flag the post for review by our team of advisors. This helps us to make sure the external links don’t unintentionally contain malware, cybersecurity risks, or content that is offensive, harmful or inappropriate for the Tips Hub community. The tip will also not be approved if the post includes a faulty link.

Our moderators may edit the tags if the content applies to different topics. They may also add sensitive content tags, if relevant.

Tips are reviewed within seven days of being posted, but the majority of tips will be moderated before this.

Please note we will close over bank holidays and weekends.

While the Tips Hub community is building a library of helpful tips, all the tip posts will be moderated by a member of the Autistica team rather than a computer algorithm.