Faceland
© 2009 Do2Learn
Can you glance at a facial expression, and tell the difference between anger and disgust? Most people can, but if you have autism or some other learning difficulty that prevents you from picking up this "untaught" skill, you may have trouble. Here's a solution. Set in an amusement park setting called Faceland, this collection of 11 games and six tutorials teaches and provides practice on distinguishing between Surprise, Fear, Disgust, Anger, Sadness and Happiness. The tutorial portion of the game shows video scenarios, such as a person walking into a surprise party (Surprise!), and then teaches "clues” for each expression, drawing on the work of Ekman and Friesen. At various points, children are asked to mimic the expressions with a mirror -- we wondered why you couldn't use your computer's webcam as an option. Next, children apply the knowledge in a game such as Face Cakes, or children use a unique submarine vacuum to scoop up divers whose faces show signs of fear. Face Cubes are flipped to make rows of happy faces and so on. Management features include a Demo Mode (that can be turned off in the Adult Section), the ability to track progress for multiple children, with records for the number of correct and incorrect responses, and completed sections. These reports can be printed for use in portfolio assessment or IEPs. Visit www.do2Learn.com or Don Johnston Inc.
$179, Windows, Mac OSX
Teaches: logic, timing, classification, special needs, Autism, Aspergers, emotional expressions, classification
CTR Rating: 94%