Find Do2Learn Products at the ASNC 2012 Conference

I was at the main office of the Autism Society of North Carolina (ASNC) in Raleigh, NC today for several meetings and had the opportunity to run into the Bookstore while I was there and chat with Dawn Eberwein, the Bookstore Sales Specialist. She was packing up stock to set up the “mobile” bookstore at the ASNC 2012 Conference to be held in Charlotte, NC on March 30^th – 31^st. What a huge task that is for Dawn, because the ASNC bookstore is the largest non-profit, ASD specific bookstore in the United States and she was having to choose a good cross section of what conference attendees would want to purchase to have there on site.

I was excited to see that she had quite a number of Do2Learn products packed and ready for purchase. So if you are planning on attending the ASNC 2012 Conference, make sure you go and see Dawn at the Bookstore. You will be able to pick up the following and more!

• Feelings & Emotions Activity Book

• Feelings Journal (blog post 2/22/12)

• Special Needs Handbook for Teachers (blogpost 2/19/12)

• Fine Motor Skills Activity Book (blog post 2/14/12)

• Faceland (blog post 3/10/12)

If they have sold out of our products at the conference or do not have exactly what you are looking for from Do2Learn, remember that you can always order directly from us when you return. We hope you all have a great time!

How Do We Recognize Faces?

Researchers, Jason M. Gold and Patrick J. Mundy, have found that people recognize an entire face no better than how they recognize each individual feature as it is shown alone. “Surprisingly, the whole was not greater than the sum of it's parts,” says Gold. These findings appear in the journal Psychological Science, which is published by the Association for Psychological Science. A summary of this article can be read in the March 9, 2012, ScienceDaily research news review.

Do2Learn released it's game FACELAND in 2009. FACELAND was designed and developed by Donna Stanger, a teacher for over 20 years and an educational software developer since 1979. Donna is responsible for over 100 award winning programs from Edmark and Sunburst including Muppet Slate and Imagination Express. Donna and the team at Do2Learn knew back before 2009 that those individuals with Autism struggle with recognizing facial expressions. 

Strategies teaching facial recognition led to FACELAND and here are some of the effective ways that this game works:

• Breaks down the entire face into smaller concepts (clues).
• Promotes clue acquisition via spaced repetition.
• Combines clues for “part to whole” learning.
• Checks for understanding of clues using new examples.

Our team included the ability to produce student progress reports and for extensive student tracking. This is a huge bonus for classroom teachers who need this kind of data for IEP reporting. The game uses real faces, not cartoon images. So, your student is learning exactly what they will be looking for in the expressions of others. FACELAND was awarded the Children's Technology Review's Editor's Choice Award in 2009.

How exciting to know that Do2Learn was ahead of this research in getting FACELAND out and available to our customers! If you don't have your students playing this yet, get FACELAND now.

Please take a look at Do2Learn's YouTube FACELAND Video!

Flash Cards—The Power of Something Simple

We had a great question on our Do2Learn Facebook page earlier this week regarding flash cards. One of our followers asked if we offered flash cards on our website. Yes, we do and I will give you the link to get to those in a bit. This question got me thinking about my first flash card experience, at least the first one I could remember. Those multiplication tables! Man, did they give me a hard time. My parent's tried all the educational tricks they could find. They used the grid, then some crazy finger trick for the 9's, but what finally worked was a good old set of flash cards that we went over and over again. I am sure my teachers and parents used flash cards to teach me things before those dreaded multiplication tables, but those earlier memories did not stick like this one. I did learn from that experience though and continued to use flash cards throughout my educational career to learn many subjects and prepare for many tests. I also loved using them with each of my daughters as we learned things from shapes, to letters, to symbols on the periodic table.

Why do flash cards work so well for all of us when we are trying to learn something new?

• You can take them anywhere. Flash cards are just that portable!

• You can study one-on-one with your student/child or turn it onto a group game/activity. Studying can be a lot of fun with flash cards.

• Flash cards make it easy to sort out what is already known from what needs more work.

• All ages of learners use flash cards. Toddlers to college students use them in learning!

Do2Learn has put together several sets of flash cards for you to download and print to use with your students/children. They can all be found here on our products page. Two of my favorite sets are the Preposition Flash Cards and the SignLanguage Flash Cards.