How to navigate
in the community
On this page, you’ll find various information to facilitate your navigation in the community.
Discover “Home”
How to complete my profile
Completing your profile is a great way to spark the interest of other members of the community. Members who view your profile will be able to recognize themselves in your description and start a chat with you.
To complete your profile:
- Move the cursor to the “Home” tab.
- Scroll down to “My Profile” and go to the “About Me” area.
- Describe yourself in a few words.
What is “Home”
The tab “Home”
Under the “Home” tab, which is located in the top menu bar, you can at any time:
- Edit your profile information.
- Manage your account.
- Access your messages.
- See who your friends are.
- See the list of community members.
- Choose an image for your profile.
How to change your account settings
To view or change your account settings, move the cursor to the “Home” tab and scroll down to “My Account”.
On “My Account”, you can modify:
. Your account information:
- Your pseudonyms.
- Your email address.
- Your password.
. The privacy settings of your account, to indicate with whom you want to share your information.
. The email notification settings, to indicate the frequency of notifications.
. The discussion forum alerts settings (on the right of your screen), to subscribe to or unsubscribe from a forum’s alerts.
How to receive email notifications and summaries
If you wish, you can change your account settings to choose to receive or not the community summaries and notifications to your personal email address.
For summaries
Summaries present recent discussions that can be found on your newsfeed.
You can define your settings to:
- Receive a summary once a day.
- Receive a summary once a week.
- Not receive a summary.
For notifications
Note that you will receive notifications only when you subscribe to forums or private groups.
You can define your settings to:
- Receive a notification immediately after a publication.
- Not receive notifications.
Interact with the community
Discussion forums and private groups
Like you, people concerned with autism access Autism Together for support, practical information and answers to their questions.
You can chat with members of the community by participating in:
- Recent discussions on your newsfeed
- Discussion forums, open to all members and grouped by theme
- Private groups
What is the difference between a discussion forum and a private group?
In a discussion forum:
Discussions are accessible to all members of the Autism Together community.
In a private group:
Discussions are restricted to members who register for the group. If you want to participate in more intimate exchanges, you can join a private group. In a private group, you can discuss topics that might be sensitive for other members of the community.
How to participate in forum discussions
Your experiences with autism can benefit other members when you share them in a discussion forum.
To start a new discussion in a forum:
Click on the “Discussions” tab or, from your “Dashboard” page, click on the button located at the top of your screen “Start a post.”
- Select the forum that best suits your discussion topic.
- Click on the “Add topic” button.
- Suggest a topic, for example: “How to better understand and support the sensory issues of people with autism”.
To join a discussion that has already been started in a forum:
- Participate in discussions that spike your interest directly in the forums.
- Join the discussions on your newsfeed.
Once in a discussion forum, you can:
- Respond to member posts.
- Add emojis.
- Delete a message if you change your mind after you post it.
- To do this, click on the three small dots at the top right of the dialog box and select “Delete”. Your message will no longer appear online.
- Tag other members of the community.
- “Tagging” a person means identifying them by writing down their pseudonym.
- Tagging is a good way to invite members to participate in a discussion.
- When you tag members, they’ll receive an email notification letting them know they’ve been mentioned in your post. They can then react to what you have written.
- To tag a member, type the symbol @ followed by the first 3 letters of their pseudonym (for example: @tig). The full pseudonym will then appear in blue (for example: @tigre).
How to participate in private group discussions
You want to talk about more intimate subjects, vent, or scream? Private discussion groups are here for you!
To access private groups:
- Click on the “Private groups” tab.
- Choose the private group that interests you.
- Click on “Join”, which is on the right of the screen, to participate in a group.
Once you have access to a private group, you can:
- Join a conversation already in progress.
- Suggest a new topic of conversation.
How to use your private messaging
Autism Together gives you access to a private messaging system.
This messaging allows you to communicate with other members of the community without revealing your personal email address.
You can also use the messaging system to:
- Send private messages to other members of a group in which you participate.
- Write privately to the moderation team in the same way.
There are 2 ways to access the messaging system:
- By using the drop-down menu from the “Home” tab to “My messages”.
- By clicking on the bell icon at the top right of your screen.
A red dot next to the bell indicates a new message.
In your messaging system, you can see:
- Your friend requests.
- Comments on discussions in which you participate.
- Private messages, which are confidential messages you send to other members of a private group or to a member of the community moderation team.