Like most children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Matthew has some trouble reading facial expressions. It is something we have been working on in his Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) program and he has gotten much better at recognizing emotions. Some studies have shown that ASD children focus on the mouth instead of the eyes when looking at people and this may be why they do not develop the ability to discern visual cues for emotions. This impairment has significant impact in their ability to read social settings and to determine meaning from ambiguous sentences, or to understand sarcasm later in life. We have spent a significant amount of time helping Matthew understand and recognize the four basic emotional facial expressions; Anger, Happiness, Sadness, and Surprise.
Recently I found a wonderful tool to help with exactly this type of emotion recognition program; it is a felt story board. The story board is called “If You’re Happy and You Know it” and it contains a felt story board with five distinctly emotional faces. They are one happy child, one sad child, one mad child, one surprised child and one sleeping child.
Taren, of TeachableMoments, hand makes each flannel board story. She has been making them for over 10 years and had started using them when she was teaching preschools classes. She noticed that children, even those with attention problems, were more drawn to the story boards and it was perfect for those children that could not sit through a whole story. It is also wonderfully interactive for the children and some of her other story boards could easily be used for teaching children sequencing along with focusing their attention.
Taren has made the “If You’re Happy and You Know It” flannel board story available as a gift to one of my readers for Autism Awareness Month. It will come with the five faces and a light blue felt background with grommets to allow it to be hung on a wall.
Mandatory Entry: All you need to do to enter is go to TeachableMoments and take a look around. Come back to Matthews Puzzle and leave a comment telling me which other board story you would like and why. Please remember to leave a valid email address, your blog address or some way to contact you if you win!
For extra chances to win simply do any or all of the following, just remember to leave a comment for each one you do, but you must fulfill the Mandatory Entry first.
- Tweet about this contest
- Blog about the contest and add a link to Matthews Puzzle and the Sponsor
- Add Matthews Puzzle’s Button to your site OR to your blog roll
- Follow Matthews Puzzle publicly using the button in the left-hand sidebar.
Contest Ends May 1st at 11:59 PM EDT. If the prize is not claimed within 48 hours a new winner will be chosen. I will email the prize winner and also post winners names here on this post. Winner will be chosen at Random – I will use Random.com to select the winner. Contest is open to US residents only.
As an aunt of an autistic nephew, I find your efforts quite inspiring and I commend you for taking the time to educate others because I know that you barely have time to comb your hair some days:-0
All the best
I did visit the dokedo website and looooove the Gumball Burst. I only wish I knew about this before my son’s bday this saturday. I would have ordered the party combo.
God bless
Terhas
oops I forgot to add my email address
‘terhasb@yahoo.com’
VERY NICE ACTIVITY! FOREVERMCANDBC@YAHOO.COM
I like the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom board!
katie72404@yahoo.com
I tweeted this giveaway!
katie72404@yahoo.com
I follow Matthew’s Puzzle!
katie72404@yahoo.com
I like the old lady who swallowed a fly its my son’s favorite book. The emotions faces would be perfect for us! My son has a terrible time reading facial expressions as he dosn’t make eye contact very often!
the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom board!
sounds like the most fun. mverno@roadrunner.com
I like the Recycle, Reduce, Reuse Felt Board Flannel Board Story.
Great for helping/teaching kids to go green
luckydolls123[at]verizon[dot]net
Blog follower
luckydolls123[at]verizon[dot]net
I would like to have the Chicka Chicka Boom Alphabet Flannel Board Felt Board Set because my daughter has the hardest time with letters and there is so much we could do with this board.
I would like The Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly.
I would love the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom because it helps teach letter recognition
I think this is neato: Chicka Chicka Boom Alphabet Flannel Board Felt Board Set.. my son loves the alphabet!
I would love to win this, would give to my sister to use at children church.
I just found your blog through a post on the MomDot forum–I’m a former autism specialist and now a school psychologist. In my line of work, I still work closely with children with autism, so these products are great to share with parents!
Here’s my entry–I love the chicka chicka boom boom alphabet board. What a cute way to bring a story to “life!” and teach letters too!
I’m a follower
I would love the ABC’s Uppercase and Lowercase Felt Board Flannel Board Set. I am working with my boys on the alphabet and having such a great visual teaching tool would be wonderful. My speach delayed boy is very much a visual learner
wow this is realy cute and well i love to try and win this for my girl add me on in i got you on my feed list right now untell i can get over to feedblitz then over there thay have a thing where you can take any web page and well have it sent to your mail box. useing the feed list too much it will make your pc run realy slow
I love the recycle for earth day
I like five little monkeys and also Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!
My son is SPD and really loves his felt stories!
onlycancan ta hotmail tod com
I would pick Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We love that book.
i like the 5 little monkeys!!
elkesten at yahoo dot com
I like the ice cream colors felt board.
Tonda at zombychyk@msn.com
well Zach says “this one” to the rainbow trains.
chicka chicka boom boom for sure so cute!
I think it would have to be Chicka Chicka Boom Boom because that is one of my daughters favorite books.
I like the ABC’s Uppercase and Lowercase Felt Board Flannel Board Set
I follow publicly
I would love to have the Five Little Speckled Frogs Felt Board Flannel Board Story because it is such a fun story!
I tweeted. http://twitter.com/susanlanai/status/1601741008
i like the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom board.
I would love to win the Five Little Aliens Flannel Board Felt Board Story. renski17@comcast.net
Count me in 🙂
ktgonyea at gmail.com
I like the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom board. It’s cute and looks like fun.
i like the Chicka Chicka Boom Alphabet Flannel Board Felt Board Set
My son loves % Little MOnkey’s Jumping on the Bed, so I know he would love this felt board story! Thanks for the chance!
countrygirl1823@aol.com
I would love the chance to win, thanks.
erma.hurtt@sbcglobal.net
I love the Five Little Fire Trucks Flannel Board Felt Board Story. It’s something my kids are learning right now and this looks like something they would think is fun 🙂
I like Five Little Puppies.
donna444444@yahoo.com
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