The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are about 1 in 68 American children that have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is a ten-fold increase over the last 40 years. And there are more than 3 million individuals in the U.S. and tens of millions people across the globe affected by ASD worldwide. Additionally, it places the number of American children who have a developmental disability at 1 in 6, which is also on a steep incline. To help parents with children that have autism and other developmental disabilities, Birdhouse has created a care coordination platform that tracks and organizes important health information to empower families and help their kids succeed.
Birdhouse was created by husband and wife team Ben Chutz and Dani Gillman. Before getting married to Chutz, Gillman was using a combination of notebooks, binders and apps for her phone to manage the care of her daughter, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3.
Chutz told me that this was the status quo for families that have children with autism, which is a major problem because autism is a poorly understood condition and most care actually takes place outside of the doctor’s office. Since there are more questions than answers, it can be cumbersome or downright impossible for parents to find the best ways to ensure their children thrive. Doctors and fellow parents suggest tracking children’s behavior to see how they are responding to various interventions in order to find out what is working and what needs to be changed, as well as to determine triggers or causes of certain behaviors.
“Getting that Autism diagnosis can be incredibly overwhelming. Not just because of the diagnosis itself, but because there are so many different therapies and protocols out there. There's no ‘cure’ for Autism, nor are we searching for one. Rather, we are looking to help our daughter feel better in her own skin, so she can function to the best of her own ability, helping her to get her needs and wants met,” said Gillman in an interview. “Birdhouse helps to eliminate that out-of-control feeling. Parents can feel empowered simply by being able to organize the massive amount of information that goes into caring for a child with a disability. Our ultimate goal is to help parents identify behavioral patterns, help them ask better questions, and bring down their own stress as caregivers, all of which lead to greater quality of life for the entire family.”
With the trend of children being diagnosed with developmental delays and disabilities rising so rapidly, technology in some ways has failed to keep up. Gillman said that other moms she talked to in clinic waiting rooms dealt with similar problems. When they could not find anything better than a notebook or
Birdhouse makes it easier to organize medications, keep important contacts on hand, and track food, behavior, moods, sleeping habits, and anything else a parent is monitoring. Special education teachers are able to use Birdhouse to provide better care in the classroom or determine whether to relocate children to more supportive placements. Parents have used Birdhouse to successfully figure out which medications or supplements work best for their child and in what dosages, identify meltdown and behavioral triggers, and reduce paperwork and inefficiencies amongst care teams. One family even used it to uncover that fluctuating atmospheric pressure was causing her child to have good and bad days. So far, more than 10,000 parents have joined Birdhouse. “We give parents and care teams the tools to better manage the health and care of a child, which leads to more effective progress for not only the child, but reduces stress and overwhelm for the parents, team, and family as well. It’s been very well received.” added Chutz in the interview.
On January 1st, Birdhouse launched a new app for special education teachers. The app lets teachers organize critical information on all of their students in one searchable place and share it with support staff in the classroom. It can be used for tracking positive and negative behaviors, monitoring progress towards students’ goals, and reducing the amount of time teachers must spend on paperwork and other administrative tasks. The Birdhouse team designed the app based on feedback from special education teachers all over the U.S. after realizing that teachers were creating Birdhouse accounts to use in their classrooms and to share information with their students’ parents.
Chutz pointed out that there are a number of applications available for the developmental disabilities community, but few of them focus on the needs of parents and caregivers. Other services that focus on parents with children who have developmental disabilities are often times side projects, not as intuitive and lack the social media communities necessary for providing proper support, encouragement and education compared to Birdhouse.
Based out of Detroit, Birdhouse has raised $500,000 from angel investors and venture capital fund Start Garden. Birdhouse operates on a direct to consumer subscription revenue model and is exploring corporate wellness and health insurance benefits opportunities as well. The Birdhouse team is using its most recent funding to expand beyond Autism and developmental disabilities to support the Epilepsy community and caregivers for the aging and elderly.
