DVD teaches autistic kids lessons to recognize emotions

United Kingdom, January 16: Offering new insights into autism spectrum disorders, British Autism researchers have shown a new ray of hope and optimism to autistic kids and their parents, by designing a special video. The video teaches the kids lessons on how to recognize emotions.

The researchers at the Cambridge University’s Autism Research Centre have tried to bring a smile to young children with autism through a new video named “The Transporters” and make a real difference to their lives.

“What we're trying to do is to bring them back into the social world. By putting emotions onto the vehicles, they learn to understand the social world,” said Simon Baron-Cohen, a prominent British autism researcher who is director of the Autism Research Centre.

The video program aims to teach kids how to recognize emotions and help them generalizing the learned facts. “We've got to somehow find a way to get autistic children to overcome their fear of looking at people's faces so that they can start learning about how expressions arise. This is a way to ease them into reading faces.”

Alison Tepper Singer, Executive Vice President, Autism Speaks, USA hopes, “The Transporters DVD...will help children on the autism spectrum recognize and understand emotions.”

Although levels of academic intelligence among autistic kids vary, autism in any condition is considered a social disability. Autistic children often struggle to make eye contacts, have difficulty in understanding feelings and recognize emotions as well as expressions on other’s faces.

Additionally, autistic children suffer from poor verbal communication skills and repetitive behaviors such as head banging. Hence, they need multiple types of treatments including speech and behavior therapy and medicines depending upon the symptoms, unlike those suffering from chronic conditions other than autism.

The DVD enables autistic children recognize such emotions like happiness, anger and sadness. The man behind the important breakthrough is Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University who also happens to be a cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen, the comedian behind the characters Ali G and Borat.

Baron-Cohen’s interest in autism dates back to the 1980s. His experiences while teaching children affected with autism made him wonder, “Why should social interaction be so difficult for a child who has very good skills in other areas like memory or an attention to detail?”

Autism is a condition in which people remain oblivious to other people and their feelings, but they can perceive systems and patterns. The DVD uses eight track-based vehicles with human faces grafted on them to help autistic kids practice focusing on human features and observe expressions. Their on-screen adventures are aimed to instill empathy in such kids.

“To teach autistic children something they find difficult, we needed an autism-friendly format,” Baron-Cohen said. Parents of autistic children have observed for years that their kids have a special liking for Thomas, the Tank Engine.

Uta Frith, an emeritus professor of cognitive development at University College London, stated her views about this video saying, “Autistic children are often puzzled by faces, so this video helps focus on them in a way that makes it very appealing and soothing.”

The results of the study based on 20 autistic children between ages 4 and 7 revealed that autistic children who watched the video for 15 minutes every day for a period of one month reached normal levels of emotional recognition.

“They had caught up to the same level as a typically developing child on tests of emotional recognition. They are preliminary but very exciting results - even with a very short intervention, children with autism can look at faces and start picking up the relevant information,” Baron-Cohen stated.

Practice can bring in more positive results for autistic children by providing them with opportunities to practice social skills. Frith felt the DVD provided the autistic kids with an opportunity to learn social skills just like the other kids learn math or a foreign language.

Even though, the DVD can help kids recognizing emotions, it cannot be a replacement for working and playing with real people. Baron-Cohen cautioned the parents, “This is not some kind of miracle cure. It just shows that if you have the opportunity to practice these social skills, you can improve.”

The DVD includes interactive quizzes for kids and a booklet for parents and teachers. It is currently available for $57.50