Home Catalogue Software

Help students with autism learn to recognise facial expressions of emotions

Most of us begin the complex process of learning to recognise facial expression of emotions in infancy. From the faces of parents, siblings, grandparents, or other caregivers, we develop a considerable amount of expertise in this aspect of socialisation at an early age. For some children with Autism, Asperger’s, or other developmental deficiencies, this is often not the case. Since skill in recognising facial expression of emotions is important to functioning in a social environment, there is value in helping children develop this skill. But, what if it doesn’t develop normally?

FACELAND uses an Amusement Park theme to engage and motivate. Six “Schools” introduce concepts as “clues” and 11 game-like activities using 1000 real life faces offer practice that is fun!

FACELAND “Schools” are based on the hypothesis that some children will build skill in facial recognition of emotion by:

• Breaking them down into smaller pieces (clues)
• Promoting clue acquisition via spaced repetition
• Checking for understanding of clues using new examples
• Combining clues for “part to whole” learning
• Utilising instruction that incorporates photos, mirror mimic sessions, and varied interaction

FACELAND “Games” motivate practice and skill acquisition.

The program uses a diverse range of subjects to aid generalisation/transfer of recognition skills to real life situations.

Surprise, Anger, Fear, Disgust, Sadness, and Happiness were the emotions selected because they are the most basic of human emotions. These emotions are expressed in cultures throughout the world. FACELAND is based on a portion of Paul Ekman’s research, the leading psychologist in the study of facial expression of emotions.

Easy-to-use progress tracking provides data about correct and incorrect responses for each emotion and activity. This data helps teachers understand the specific expressions that a user struggles with and helps target remediation efforts. FACELAND reports “time on task” and assignments can be individualised. Student reports can be printed out for inclusion in portfolio progress evaluation and IEPs.

User requirements:

• Be willing and able to look at faces on a computer screen
• Have basic mouse skills (no click and drag required)
• Have the intellectual ability to play simple games
• Be willing to look at own face in a mirror

Requirements and ResourcesexpandClick to collapse

Prices

	Code	Media	Platform	$NZ Price	$NZ GST
	FACELAND - Single Computer Licence
	DJL20	CD-ROM	Mac OS X, Win 2000, Win XP, Win Vista	$350.00	$52.50