FACELAND: A Fun Game to Practice Recognizing Emotions

Many folks with autism spectrum disorder struggle with recognizing others facial expressions. There are many ways to teach recognizing emotions in others: through flash cards, comics, role plays, and even watching television shows and labeling the characters emotions can be helpful. Another option is FACELAND, a game developed by Do2Learn that teaches kids to recognize six important emotions: Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Fear, Surprise, and Happiness. These skills are taught through a video game format with an amusement park theme. The effective strategies in FACELAND include:

• Breaking the entire face down into a smaller concept (a clue). For example, raised eyebrows might indicate surprise or fear
• Promoting clue acquisition via spaced repetition
• Checking for understanding of clues using new examples
• Combining clues for “part to whole” learning
• Utilizing instruction that incorporates photos, mirror mimic sessions, and varied interaction

FACELAND was awarded with the Children's Technology Review's Editor's Choice Award in 2009. Click here to watch a demo of how FACELAND works!

What strategies have you tried for teaching emotion recognition?