FaceSay Games for
Social Skills Generalization
"I learned that I need to look at both halves of the Face."
- Study Participant
Watch a TV Interview
Can a Game help a child know where to look on a Face?
It looks like our FaceSay™ games might. 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 concotions for "mapping", "quantifying" and "amplifying" the region around the eyes and eyebrows. The results from our first randomized controlled study (view study presentation) provide encouraging, but indirect evidence that our games improve social skills . Additional studies in Spring 2008 will directly measure how playing FaceSay games affects where the children are looking.
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.
