Reading facial expressions

[jb1964]

My daughter has always found it difficult to 'read' peoples facial expressions. We have worked on this for quite a while now and although she sometimes gets my 'guess the face quiz' wrong she really has done well on the basics. As she's 12 ideally I would like to work on the more subtle facial expressions now - especially the cheesed off look when talking about any of her specialised 'subjects'.

 

I did think about making a book as I've read that this can help - although taking a photo of one of the family doing a subtle expression somehow makes me think it'll look a bit!!! exaggerated. Anyone seen a already made kind of version.

 

Thanks.

Edited January 31, 2006 by jb1964

[smallworld]

there's quite a basic range of expressions on the do2learn.com website, but you can alter the faces yourself so may be able to make up more subtle facial expressions. it's quite good fun !

HTH,

 

wac

[jb1964]

Thanks waccoe will take a look.

[Kathryn]

Hi,

 

My daughter has difficulties in this area too. This interactive guide has been highly recommended to me but as you can see from the price it's quite an investment.

 

K

[Ian Jordan]

Will be demonstrating techniques in this area and explaining it (at parents level) at lecture in NE in March for autism in mind

Contact carole on this site for details.

Few tickets left, so be quick if you want to go

[Guest flutter]

did the ones on the do to learn site and dd got them all

so was confused till salt told me that she dont get mine cos i moving

[baddad]

Here's the link for that do2 learn site mentioned above:

 

 

 

http://www.do2learn.com/

 

thanks for the heads up, waccoe

[smallworld]

ta, baddad for the link

 

wac

[Zemanski]

something to check - does your daughter also have problems recognising people?

 

ask her what she sees when she looks at your nose - how much of the rest of your face can she see?

 

a lot of ASD kids have faceblindness and cannot see a complete face when they look at you, they can sometimes see complete faces on paper but not in 3D/reality. We have just discovered Com has this and it is a major barrier to social skills and learning to read emotion, it's called prosopagnosia and if you use the search tool you will find threads with more information

 

 

 

Zemanski

[jb1964]

Ian Jordan

Will be demonstrating techniques in this area and explaining it (at parents level) at lecture in NE in March for autism in mind

Contact carole on this site for details.

Few tickets left, so be quick if you want to go

 

Thanks Ian - although when you say NE does that mean NorthEast? just that we live in S.Wales - anything nearer?

 

Zemanski

Something to check - does your daughter also have problems recognising people?

 

ask her what she sees when she looks at your nose - how much of the rest of your face can she see?

 

a lot of ASD kids have faceblindness and cannot see a complete face when they look at you, they can sometimes see complete faces on paper but not in 3D/reality. We have just discovered Com has this and it is a major barrier to social skills and learning to read emotion, it's called prosopagnosia and if you use the search tool you will find threads with more information

 

Yes she does actually - very often I've noticed she seems to be very slow in recognising someone (I will try this tonight). I've also noticed that sometimes I've asked who was she walking/talking with (if someone comes over to talk to her etc and this may be just minutes later when I ask this) - when she answers what did she look like and I say well she was with you and there wasn't anyone else and she'll say what kind of face did she have? - I say I can't tell you that because I didn't see her although I may have seen the colour of her hair and she'll then get very upset so we usually leave it.

Edited February 2, 2006 by jb1964

[Ian Jordan]

Sorry none planned

Last time I did a lecture in Wales (around 6 months ago) every school educational facility, dyslexia, autism society in Cardiff area etc was circulated with knowledge of venue (it was a sponsored presentation and therefore no charge, so cost was not a factor)

Result

6 people attended! - the smallest audience I have ever had. Only one teacher (and that was because of family reasons) Over a hundred and fifty schools circulated. As a relatively well known lecturer in the field of visual dyslexia / perception it was obvious that apathy is the order of the day in this area and why should I bother if no one else does!!! Sad, particularly as visual perception change is THE most effective area for achieving results in so many conditions.

In ASD prosopagnosia is probably one of the biggest causes of problems to children. Treatment is immediate and results are impressive (and obvious). Effects include ability to read emotion, interaction and facial recognition. The effects can be emotional - e.g. this week I saw a man who has been married 20 years see the whole of his wife's face at the same time - for the first time! The smiles from both of them were enormous. It is also so common the assumption should be ALL children with ASD exhibit this condition unless shown otherwise.

 

I am having to reduce numbers of speaking engagements due to research and other commitments and consequently cannot afford the time to give talks to small numbers (even though I prefer intimate workshops to more formal presentations).

But - happy to speak if invited to a sufficiently large conference.

[sue1957]

Over a hundred and fifty schools circulated. As a relatively well known lecturer in the field of visual dyslexia / perception it was obvious that apathy is the order of the day in this area and why should I bother if no one else does!!!

 

Ian, a group of complementary therapists I'm involved with has contacted 300 local schools, and 500 childminders to date with details of 4 workshops, including one on nutrition for ADD/ADHD/AS, stress management for children, massage therapies for children, (including those with sensory problems). So far the results are nil.

 

After what you've said, I think I'll give up marketing any more today and go back to bed

[jb1964]

Sorry none planned

Last time I did a lecture in Wales (around 6 months ago) every school educational facility, dyslexia, autism society in Cardiff area etc was circulated with knowledge of venue (it was a sponsored presentation and therefore no charge, so cost was not a factor)

Result

6 people attended! - the smallest audience I have ever had. Only one teacher (and that was because of family reasons) Over a hundred and fifty schools circulated.

 

Somehow this doesn't surprise me - our daughter has only recently been diagnosed so it's all new to us - I was shocked to learn that there is no form of NHS support or help around this area and the school my daughter goes to seems to think they no absolute everything about AS and don't need any books or leaflets that I have offered to provide (and as you can imagine they no so little!!!!!).

 

Thanks anyway.

 

 

Zemanski

 

Your question caused great laughter in our house last night (which we don't very often have!!!!).

I asked her to look at my nose and tell me what she saw - after a few seconds she burst into laughter and couldn't stop for nearly half an hour - whatever she saw she thought was hysterical - when I kept asking her why she had to keep covering her eyes over and saying stop it, followed by bursts of 'eeew', and then the trump remark 'I never realised your nose was so butt ugly!!!!'.

 

Tried several times during the evening to get any sense but she couldn't even look at me without going into hysterical laughter again (which you can imagine did get on my nerves just a tad!!!!).

 

None the wiser........

Edited February 3, 2006 by jb1964

[Zemanski]

you could ask her how much of her face she can see in the mirror - maybe her own nose won't be so humorous she may be able to see herself in a mirror but still not process real faces, mind.

 

have you tried telling her what you are trying to find out? Com cooperated really well when I explained that most people can see a whole face, like in a picture, when they look at somebody but that some can't - he then became fascinated, he had never realised that other people saw what he saw in a picture when they looked at a real person.

 

just to complicate matters though, some people can't see faces in a picture either, I think - Ian is the man to tell you just how many variations on the theme there are!

 

Zemanski

 

PS her comments about hair are pretty typical

Edited February 3, 2006 by Zemanski

[jb1964]

Zemanski

 

Tried again tonight but still no joy - laughing at first but when I tried to be serious she just won't join in the conversation really - explained to her why I was asking her and she replied 'are you asking if I'm just seeing a nose in mid air' - couldn't grasp at all what I meant.

 

Thanks anyway.

[Ian Jordan]

there are a lot of things she might be seeing that can cause problems with facial expression recognition.

 

The most common are:

 

when she looks at part of the face - she cannot see other parts clearly without moving her eyes. They may be blurred, bleached out or distorted (sometimes extremely). It may be like looking down a narrow tunnel at part of the face. It is very difficult to recognise expression without the ability to see the eyebrows / eyes / mouth as part of the same picture.

In other cases the face may appear to completely disappear - sometimes leaving the hair but not always

In other cases colour may disappear from the face and it will blur

In other cases the face appears different in one eye (often significantly larger) and to centre it she would have to view by looking to one side

In other cases the image can be seen but some of the information causes physical pain (due to them trying to analyse information) and the child will look away

movement and internal 3D mapping can also be a problem when rotating the head

 

There may also be problems with image refreshment i.e. when looking at a face each "picture" superimposes itself on the previous image thereby causing visual persistence difficulties. There are a number of other visual perceptual effects that are also found commonly in addition and these can complicate matters - eg synesthesia - where other sensory systems interfere with visual processing

 

hope this helps

[Zemanski]

it does sound like her visual perception, at least, needs investigating and probably other senses too

 

Ian, as always on this kind of topic, is the man with the information on how to go about that. You could also talk to your GP and consultant and see if there are referals that can be made but be aware that there are few people who understand these perceptual differences and referals can take a very long time.

Some OT specialists will do a general sensory assessment with a view to sensory integration but they concentrate on touch, sound, smell and the more physical vestibular and proprioceptor systems and usually only touch the surface on visual perception, most OTs I have met have never heard of prosopagnosia and certainly wouldn't know how to identify or help someone with it.

 

Zemanski

[Zemanski]

it does sound like her visual perception, at least, needs investigating and probably other senses too

 

Ian, as always on this kind of topic, is the man with the information on how to go about that. You could also talk to your GP and consultant and see if there are referals that can be made but be aware that there are few people who understand these perceptual differences and referals can take a very long time.

Some OT specialists will do a general sensory assessment with a view to sensory integration but they concentrate on touch, sound, smell and the more physical vestibular and proprioceptor systems and usually only touch the surface on visual perception, most OTs I have met have never heard of prosopagnosia and certainly wouldn't know how to identify or help someone with it.

 

Zemanski