Molehill Mountain

I was recommended this app through Mental Health Access To Work. I was sceptical at first, and it took a little while to get into it. But I really like it now. It’s specifically for autistic people as you track your worries and concerns overtime, you can see the things that bother you the most. You can also see whether or not. It’s a general anxiety, a specific anxiety, sensory anxiety or a social anxiety. I actually found this quite helpful to break it down into the sections. Every now, and again you’ll unlock some extra learning/knowledge about autism and anxiety. I’m not sure if it’s anything new, but certainly a great reminder! (Poor memory!) There are specific breathing exercises, and a section where you can think about your worries, and then tap and lock them away… meh… I have written to Kings College, who are the creators of the app and made a number of suggestions for improvements. But for now I think it’s pretty good. I think generally it helps with self-awareness.

My sister used this app for years to help her with many of difficulties. When the recent update logged her out, she’s never been able to login since, and she is devastated by it. She’s tried reinstalling, and asking for a new password and she’s never been given one (despite the numerous tries). Starting a new account is too much for her as well. My sister won’t recommend this app from now on, until the fault for her (and perhaps many others) is fixed.

I’m not impressed with this app. It’s really basic and badly thought out. It’s also quite patronising. I was told about this app after I got my ASD diagnosis by my assessors. I also have PTSD and the best app ever has to be “PTSD Coach”. The exercises, tracker, listing feelings (very good if difficulty identifying these) are without comparison. As about 40-50% of people with ASD also have an anxiety disorder, the exercises on PTSD Coach are really good. For the developers of this app: check out PTSD Coach- learn and do better. Molehill Mountain is not good enough, needs improving and I would not recommend it in its present form.

As a person with ASD, I find the amount of typos in this app extremely irritating. I can’t see any modifications here for people with ASD. It says to log in once a day but is that as a minimum or should we log in regularly throughout the day if it’s supposed to be a journal? Lots of us with ASD have poor short-term memory and if I log in once a day it may be that at that time my anxiety is quite low but has been extremely earlier in the day. It’s not really keeping track of my anxiety throughout the day in that case. I often wake up with severe anxiety which can diminish as the day goes on or get even worse depending on multiple factors. Also, the fields for entering info are far too small meaning you can’t read what’s on the balloons. I don’t see the point of this app, I might as well just go back to using my online journal. I agree with previous posters that Autistica should not be promoting this app. It’s terrible for autistic people who need clear instructions and are often extremely irritated by typos.

A really nice simple informative app with checkins for autistic people.

This is not usable as it currently stands. It is sad to see a charity endorsing a product that so obviously wasn’t ready for release. Lots of typos throughout the app - not a respectful way to treat young people with ASD. The game changed with no warning (from moles popping out to balloon popping) and the game is a poor format - same every time, no stretch for the child as the max score is so low. If your worries are long you can’t even read them when you are popping the balloons. My child was also very upset that this app automatically upgraded with no warning. Surely for people with ASD who struggle with change this should have been considered and flagged? All his diary entries were wiped from before and the system wouldn’t allow me to recover the old profile. Unreliable and no support from the makers when things go wrong.

I have autism. This application is amazing! Extremely helpful. Thank you

Recommend by my doctor and has helped me in my understanding of conditions and my likelihood of having it. Simply worded and makes it easier to understand.

The process is daunting. You have to fill in ‘activities’ and triggers yourself. But when you come back to use it and have to select which triggers and actions apply you can’t read you’ve previously entered because the text field on the selection buttons is too small and won’t expand. There’s only enough room for maybe two words. How can you explain a trigger or action in one or two words?! I clicked on ‘help’ to find a totally blank page, nothing, zero, no help of any sort. I looked for a way of ensuring I could unsubscribe from everything and make sure they kept no data but there’s only an email unsubscribe. So they gave me a massive acute anxiety attack when I realised I’d been scammed for some sort of research project. Maybe it’s designed to wind up autistic people as a psychological test to see what we’ll do? I don’t know but avoid this app and don’t let it give you an anxiety attack

I think this CBT-based app can be helpful in developing emotional literacy, learning to focus on the experience of the body and what is called mind, but it doesn’t really take into account that learning to think differently and avoid less is ultimately limiting as an approach. As an autistic man, I know that even having spent multiple years in yoga developing mindful practice, and after several years of psychotherapy, some situations provoke severe anxiety owing solely to the sensory, social and cognitive input (for want of a better turn of phrase!) and all I can do is choose to stay with that anxiety (accepting my thoughts, my experience and live with the fallout, in terms of stress) or avoid it. This app completely misses the need to identify as autistic and learning to self-advocate, to self-limit and say ‘Not today, do I want to be exposed to this neurotypical milieu!’ I couldn’t really see where the autistic adaptations were, except for asking me to think about worries connected to sensory input. Overall, not bad, 3 stars. But where’s the autistic input? ♾ 🌈😊