In a spring article in the UAB Magazine, Dr. Biasini talked about the benefits of computer based interventions like FaceSay, and the encouraging gains seen in the study. 

"Also, the computer tasks performed by children in the study were brief in comparison to the time that might have been spent in social groups to achieve the same gains—we saw benefits that might have taken months to achieve in social groups."
-- UAB Magazine, Spring 2008

I hope FaceSay can be used as an "amplifier"/"accellerator" for group and person to person social work of every sort.  For example, I would bet - er, my hypothesis is - that the Gazing excercises in ABA, the "Thinking with the Eyes" sessions in Michele Garcia Winner's "Social Thinking" program and many others might see larger and/or faster gains when done in conjunction w/ FaceSay.

A nice interview w/ the UAB researchers, Dr. Biasini and Dr. Hopkins, and one of the study participants, 11 yo MaryLeigh Wear, is airing on some local TV stations.  It's great to see how tickled she is with the silly games :-).   They omitted her best quote, though.  The interviewer asked, "What did you learn from playing FaceSay?".  MaryLeigh replied, "I learned I need to look at both halves of the face.  I've been looking at just the bottom half."

Dr. Biasini and Dr. Hopkins turned at looked at each other, half wondering if the other had coached MaryLeigh to say that :-).  With my Montessori-sh "revelation vs explanation" approach, I never say that in the games.  But it's exactly the sort of "Aha moment" that I hoped for.

Read one of the news stories (cached on google)

See the UAB Researchers and one of the students talk about FaceSay's silly games and real benefits.
Watch the TV Interview

Read an interesting interview that first gave me the idea that such an "Aha" might be both possible and a big help.

Dec. 2007- UAB completed a randomized controlled trial w/ over 80 4yo Neurotypical preschoolers using two of the FaceSay games - "Amazing Gazing" and "Bandaid" Clinic - as the Intervention.  The kids loved the games and saw gains in Face Recognition Skills, but not Emotion Recognition (the facial expression matching game was not part of the study).  Generalization was not measured.   Trista Perez, the Primary Investigator, successfully defended her Master's thesis related to the study.

The study supports my notion/hope that FaceSay could be used inclusively for all 4-6 yo students, to provide a benefit to a) neurotypical children (learning to follow a teacher's gaze), b) children already identified on the spectrum and maybe most importantly, to c)  children who not be identified until 2nd or 3rd grade.

The University of Alabama Birmingham announced  encouraging results of their randomized controlled trial with 49 autistic children.  Read the Press Release.