FaceSay™
Social Skills Games that Work
See the real world benefits yourself
"I learned that I need to look at both halves of the Face. I've been looking at just the bottom half, at the mouth."
- Study Participant
Can a Game help a child know where to look on a Face for Clues?
It looks like our FaceSay™ games do. When kids see the face on the right, for example, they often say "Cat" and smile. It's just another bit of silliness to them. But these specially positioned whiskers, and the snake like skin, are some of our patent pending concoctions for "mapping", "quantifying" and "amplifying" the region around the eyes and eyebrows. In blinded grad student observations in the first randomized controlled study (N=49) (view study results - slide 13), students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder who played FaceSay (the intervention) or Tux Paint (the control) were observed on the school playground. The FaceSay students intitiated more social interactions, made more eye contact and had fewer negative behaviors.
This generalization to everyday life is a breakthrough for the students and also for the field, where brilliant teams have struggled to show even "near generalization" (e.g. sustaining the benefit when just the voice in the game is changed). The FaceSay students also improved on standard emotion recognition tests - impressive given that FaceSay never mentions "happy" or "sad", but helps the students become aware of even subtle facial movements, particularly around the eyes.
Read about the ongoing studies.
What might help a child recognize a classmate's face?
What if (s)he could pretend to be the doctor in our "Bandaid Clinic" game, finding and touching the matching facial bandaids to cure a silly disease (see video at right)? What if a classmate could be the animated patient who winks a "Thank you"? How would a visually oriented child respond to an interesting mask and "amplified feature geometry" on a classmate's face? We think children, particularly those who are very visual and love puzzles, might find Bandaid Clinic a fun way to focus on facial features
Can Following a Gaze be Fun?
Children (and adults) smile when "Rebecca" - at right - looks around at the objects and says "These DO look fun! Can you touch the one I'm looking at?" (watch a video clip at right).
In this "Amazing Gazing" game, without any mention other than "let's try another game", we gradually increase the social meaning in the game.
We start with simply touching a number, move to helping Rebecca get the costume she wants, and then the child moves on to play "Tag Your it" with 13 people. The characters use only their eyes, and the child uses his or her eyes and a finger to "tag" someone. A bit to our surprise, this is one of the kids' favorites.
Read what the kids say.
