One App. Every Tool Your Family Needs
to Get Through This.
I built Autism Pathways around one idea: you shouldn’t have to piece this together from a hundred different places. Everything in the app connects. What you log each day feeds your appointments. Your appointments build your documentation. Your documentation makes your applications stronger. It all works together so you don’t have to hold it all in your head.
Every Piece Connects to the Next
Most tools give you information and leave you to figure out what to do with it. Autism Pathways gives you a system. Your daily observations power your provider appointments. Your appointments generate documentation. Your documentation strengthens your Medicaid and waiver applications. It flows in one direction: forward.
The Observation Log
This is where everything starts. Every day, or as often as you can, you write down what you’re seeing with your child. A meltdown at school pickup. A new word. A sensory reaction at the grocery store. A good therapy session. A really hard morning.
These aren’t just notes. They become the foundation for everything else in the app. They’re what turns a vague feeling that “something is different” into a documented, organized record that providers, evaluators, and Medicaid caseworkers can actually use. You don’t need clinical language. You just write what you saw, the way you’d tell a friend.
What a log entry looks like
“Meltdown at school pickup, about 45 minutes. Teacher said he had a hard transition after lunch. Covered his ears in the parking lot. Took about an hour to regulate at home. This is the third time this week.”
“Used a full sentence to ask for his snack, unprompted. First time this week. Speech therapist will want to know.”
These two entries alone tell a provider something meaningful about sensory processing, communication patterns, and what’s happening at school.
The Provider Prep Guide
How many times have you left an appointment and thought, “I forgot to ask about that”? Or realized on the drive home that you didn’t mention the thing that happened three times last week? The Provider Prep Guide is there so that doesn’t happen anymore.
Before each visit, whether it’s a diagnostic evaluation, a regular pediatrician check-in, or a therapy session, the app looks at your recent observation log and generates a personalized set of questions and talking points. Not generic questions from a website. Specific ones, based on what you’ve actually been logging, what pathway you’re on, and what you need from this particular appointment.
Example: Prep guide for a developmental pediatrician visit
Generated from 14 days of observation log entries, Medicaid pathway active
- Based on what I’ve been logging about his sensory reactions, do you think we should add an OT evaluation?
- He’s had 3 major meltdowns this week. Is this level of dysregulation something you’d document in your notes?
- We’re applying for Medicaid. Can you provide a letter confirming his diagnosis and functional limitations?
- Sensory reactions at school pickup, 3 times this week
- One spontaneous full sentence on Wednesday, first this week
- Sleep disruption Sunday and Monday nights
- Written summary of today’s findings
- Referral letter for OT evaluation (if recommended)
- Medicaid support letter for your application
The Provider Report
This is the part that really changes the conversation. The Provider Report is a printable document you bring to your appointment and hand to your provider at the very start of the visit. It’s generated from your observation log and tailored to your current pathway, so it’s never generic and it’s never the same twice.
Think of it as a professional summary of everything you’ve been tracking, organized in a way that providers can actually read and use. It shows your child’s recent patterns, flags the areas you most need addressed, and includes pathway-specific sections depending on where you are in the process.
If you’ve been denied Medicaid, the report includes a dedicated section on functional limitations and disability indicators. That’s the exact language that supports a long-term disability determination and a stronger reapplication. If you’re in the diagnosis pathway, it focuses on developmental history and behavioral patterns. The report speaks the language of whoever is reading it.
What’s in the Provider Report
Contents adapt based on your active pathway
- Child’s name, age, and current providers
- 30-day observation summary with patterns highlighted
- Areas of most concern from your log
- Current services and therapies
- Your top questions for this visit
- Developmental history summary
- Behavioral and communication patterns
- School and social observations
- Functional limitations documentation
- Disability indicators from your observation log
- Request for supporting letter language
- Long-term disability determination context
Four Pathways. One App. Built for Where You Are Right Now.
Each pathway is built for a specific moment in your family’s experience. You tell the app where you are, and it builds the path forward from there. Your observation log is the foundation for all of them.
Diagnosis Pathway
You noticed something. You’re not sure what it means yet, and that’s okay. The app walks you through the evaluation process: what to ask your pediatrician, how to request a school evaluation, what to expect from a diagnostic assessment, and how to understand the results when they come back.
How your log helps here: Your daily entries build the developmental history that evaluators need. The Provider Report for this pathway focuses on behavioral patterns, communication milestones, and what’s happening at school.
Medicaid Pathway
Medicaid is different in every state, and the rules are genuinely hard to figure out. The app sorts through what applies to your family based on your state, your child’s diagnosis, and your household situation, then walks you through the application step by step.
How your log helps here: Your entries help identify what documentation your provider needs to supply. The Provider Report for this pathway includes functional limitations language and a request for supporting letters.
Waivers and Funding Pathway
Medicaid is just the beginning, and most families don’t know what else is out there. The app shows you what HCBS waivers, autism waivers, DD waivers, and other programs your child may qualify for, how to get on waitlists, what to do while you wait, and what doors open once you have a waiver.
How your log helps here: Waiver eligibility often depends on demonstrating the level of care your child needs. Your ongoing log provides the documentation that supports waiver applications and annual reviews.
Denial Recovery Pathway
A denial is not the end, even though it feels that way. The app identifies exactly why you were denied, walks you through the appeal process, and if disability eligibility was the issue, guides you through getting a long-term disability determination so you can reapply for child-only Medicaid.
How your log helps here: The Provider Report for this pathway is specifically designed to help your doctor document functional limitations in the language that supports a disability determination. Your log is the evidence base for all of it.
From First Concern to Medicaid Approval
Here’s what the full journey looks like for a family using Autism Pathways from the beginning. This is what it’s actually like.
You start logging what you see
You open the app and start writing down what you’re noticing: daily behaviors, school reports, sleep patterns, sensory reactions. The app begins building your child’s profile from your entries. You don’t need to know what any of it means yet.
Pediatrician appointment, with a Provider Report
Before the visit, the app generates your Provider Prep Guide. You print the Provider Report and hand it to your pediatrician at the start of the appointment. She reads it, asks better questions, and writes a referral for a developmental evaluation with specific language about the behaviors you’ve been logging.
Diagnosis pathway: evaluation prep
The app walks you through what to expect from the evaluation. You bring a Provider Report to the assessment. Your 60-day observation log gives the evaluator a detailed developmental history they wouldn’t otherwise have. Your child receives a diagnosis.
Medicaid pathway: applying with real documentation
The app guides you through the Medicaid application for your state. Because you’ve been logging and using the Provider Report, your providers have already written supporting letters using the right language. Your application is complete and well-documented.
Waivers pathway: building toward long-term support
Medicaid is approved. The app now guides you to the next layer: HCBS waivers, autism waivers, and other programs. Your observation log keeps building the documentation record you’ll need for annual waiver reviews and renewals. You keep moving forward.
What You Log Stays on Your Device. Full Stop.
Everything you write in the Observation Log, every note, every behavior, every date, is stored only in your browser’s local storage. It never leaves your device. It’s never uploaded to our servers, never seen by us, and never shared with anyone. I want you to be able to write honestly without worrying about where it goes.
The only information we hold is your email address for your account, and your newsletter subscription if you signed up. That’s it. See our Privacy Policy for the full picture.
Open the App — It’s FreeStart logging. Start learning. Keep moving forward.
The core of Autism Pathways is free, because no family should hit a paywall when they need answers most. Create your account in two minutes and let the app take it from there.