Designed by a physician with a child in the autism spectrum to help children learn to read the state of mind of others around them — improving both their social interaction and personal well-being.
Great for learning all about emotions, Fun with Feelings targets:
* identification and understanding of common emotional states
* visual features of each emotion
* situational factors that produce emotions
* voice and sounds associated with emotions
* language-thinking skills
* comprehension and perception
* part/whole relationships
How It Works
Fun with Feelings uses a strong audio and visual interface to maintain interest during the learning period. Each emotion is broken down into several small pieces that are built in stages into an image of that emotion for the child. They include:
* Identification Through Repetition
In Level 1, the child learns in a global sense about 20 different emotions. Colorful cartoon are used to maintain a sufficient interest level to see the application through to completion. Here the child learns through cartoons a label for the individual emotion without learning what individual features or environmental factors resulted in that emotional state.
* Visual Features
In Level 2, the user taught the individual facial and body features relating to each emotion learned in Level 1. For example, a picture of a happy person smiling is shown with a question stating, you can tell this person is happy because? Then the user is asked to select an answer from the choices given. The correct answer in this case is, "My mouth is going up." Piece by piece the user begins to put together a picture of what a person who feels happy looks like. This process is performed for all 20 emotions.
* Environmental Features
Level 3 demonstrates how the environment can cause emotions. Typical examples include the boy is happy because he got a birthday present. The girl is sad because her bike is broken and so on.
* Auditory Features
Level 4 teaches the verbal data associated with a given emotion. In this level, voices are played and are required to be matched to the picture of the corresponding emotion. For example, hearing a voice yelling in anger would correspond to one of the possible answers, a picture of an angry person.
* Generalizing Features
In Level 5 we use videos of real people with each emotional state. Using the lessons learned in levels 1-4, the user is now asked to identify the emotional state of the person in the video.
* Real World Social Application
In Level 6, we take a walk into a crowded room with real people in different emotional states. Using knowledge gained from Levels 1 though 5, the user is asked to identify a person with a specific emotional state. After successful completion of Level 6, the user is ready for real world, appropriate communication and interaction.
All answers that are not selected correctly the first time are repeated at the end of the level. The user cannot progress to the next level until they have answered all questions correctly the first time. Therefore the user is forced to succeed and learn through repetition.
Fun with Feelings also has a learning center to teach the features of each emotion before or during the game. The learning center reinforces and supplements the information learned through playing the game.
In the Classroom
Not only is Fun With Feelings the ultimate learning tool for all children ages 3-11, but it also has been recognized by educators to be effective in the treatment of mind blindness — a common disiblity in the the learning challenged child.
Many of us find it difficult to asses the emotional state of others. We observe peoples actions and words and try to match the data input to some filtered perception that relates to a sum of past experiences. For the adult or child with special educational needs such as autism, this process may be non-existent.
For example, the autistic child may be unable to assess the state of emotion of others in their immediate environment. This leads to the inability to appropriately relate to or identify with others.
Coupled with poor conversational skills, the autistic child is doomed to a life of isolation without a chance for developing significant relationships in the social world.
In the absence of a cure for autism through some magic bullet, we must rely on learning and behavior modification to teach the special needs child how to assess the emotional states of others.
Since the data used for this process may be overwhelming, a method that breaks down the individual components of an emotion is necessary.
System Requirements
