New App Helps Neurodivergent Adults Fight Loneliness

For millions of neurodivergent adults, making friends feels like navigating a maze without a map. Now a new app called Synchrony is stepping in to help.

Launching February 19, this social network uses artificial intelligence to help autistic and neurodivergent adults connect with each other in a space designed specifically for how their brains work. The goal is simple: reduce the overwhelming anxiety that comes with traditional social media and help people build real friendships.

The idea came from Jamie Pastrano, a former management consultant whose 21-year-old son Jesse is autistic. She watched him struggle with timing conversations, planning hangouts, and knowing what to say, even though he genuinely wanted friends. Unlike other parenting challenges she'd faced, this one had no solution.

"No other app for the neurodiverse is focusing primarily on reducing social anxiety and encouraging friendship," Pastrano says. "I think that's the biggest piece of it, and no other app is focusing on building an authentic community."

Research backs up what Pastrano witnessed at home. People with autism or neurodevelopmental differences face increasing loneliness as they move from adolescence to adulthood. When school ends, so do many built-in support systems, leaving young adults isolated just when social expectations grow heavier.

Brittany Moser, an autism specialist at Park University in Missouri and one of Synchrony's cofounders, sees this crisis firsthand. She's held crying students who desperately want connection but feel lost trying to navigate a world not built for them.

Why This Inspires

Synchrony has already earned support from Starry Foundation and Autism Speaks, two major U.S. advocacy groups, plus approval from Apple's App Store. Bobby Vossoughi, president of the Starry Foundation, says the potential impact stopped him in his tracks.

"These kids are isolated and their social cues are off," Vossoughi explains. "They're creating something that could really change this community's lives for the long term."

The timing matters too, launching during a moment when parents everywhere worry about how digital spaces affect their kids. But Synchrony takes a different approach, using technology not to amplify chaos but to create calm.

For the roughly 1 in 5 people who are neurodivergent, this app represents something rare: a digital space built for them from the ground up, where making friends doesn't require masking who they are.

Sometimes the best innovations don't reinvent the wheel, they just make sure everyone gets a ride.