A young autistic man from the Canary Islands creates an app to help people with the same condition in their daily lives

Daniel Comín's is a story of overcoming in the broadest sense of the word. Diagnosed with moderate autism from the age of 2 and unable to express himself verbally until 11, he has overcome barriers to develop AutiStok, a free mobile application to help people with his condition manage anxiety, regulate emotions, and organize their daily activities.

The app offers tools to keep track of mood and energy levels, as well as to plan daily tasks.

Its main objective, Daniel tells EFE, is to promote emotional self-management, encourage self-awareness, and prevent exhaustion, adapting to the individual needs of each user.

What motivated him to take this step? "Honestly, I would have given anything to have something like this years ago," says Daniel.

"It would have helped me a lot to understand myself better, to regulate my emotions on my own, to know how I feel, and also to organize myself better, especially now that my studies are more demanding and the daily pace is very fast."

Daniel, who is now 22 years old and studying 3D animation and video games at a vocational training center in Tenerife, says that his application collects all that information that before "was scattered in therapies, folders, notes, and videos, and it was a chaos, because nothing was immediate or accessible at the moment."

It has several functionalities, such as an emotional well-being record, to carry out a personalized follow-up of the user's mood and energy; a daily activity planner to structure routines in a clear and accessible way; and personalized profiles to express specific needs and facilitate communication in difficult moments.

It also facilitates the possibility of calling or sending automatic messages to emergency contacts in critical situations, as well as silent and configurable notifications.

Daniel explains that although he would love to continue improving it and adding more functions, his priority right now is to maintain clear structures and positive reinforcements, so that the app is "really functional and not repetitive, as happens with many others."

Getting to this point has not been easy for Daniel. From a very young age, he has attended numerous therapies without which "he would not be speaking today," since his language did not flow naturally, but through tools.

He learned to say words with programs like Pipoclub or My World in Words, in addition to a sensory and auditory integration process that unlocked him. Until the age of 11, he could only communicate through images, and it was from then on that he was able to start talking.

He began his educational stage in a special education center, went through a specialized classroom in a school in Valencia, and when he moved with his family to the Canary Islands, he continued his studies in public centers with support and adaptations that in some cases have had to be fought hard for.

His mother, Delfina Pérez, details that in a school where her son studied, he suffered bullying, and it was thanks to a support teacher who was assigned to him that she found out that he wanted to commit suicide. She noticed he was nervous but associated it with the fact that he was going to get 'braces' in those days.

Although that phase has already been overcome, Daniel continues to face "challenges," although he has more tools and support, which finally allows him to "experience the word calm," which he pronounces with special emphasis.

He assures that if a similar tool had existed years ago, it would have helped him, and it continues to help him now, to better manage "the intense stress" he faces every day, in which any unforeseen event is overwhelming, as well as to organize his routines "in a more balanced way."

"My greatest difficulties are communication with others and the management of my emotions, so having tools that allow me to record how I feel, plan my activities according to my energy levels, and perform relaxation exercises has been fundamental," Daniel elaborates.

Autistok is available for Android on Uptodown and Google Play, and its author intends to create explanatory videos later on to upload them to his YouTube channel (elmeneos), where he usually publishes some of his creations.

Delfina advances that in a second phase of development, her son intends that through the application and a watch, vibration warnings can be sent to users when their cortisol levels rise or they become blocked, just as hypoglycemia or an epileptic seizure is detected.

And as Daniel affirms, his "greatest dream" is that his effort and work "can help people like me, providing them with tools that facilitate their day-to-day life and continue studying."