Learning while Teaching

Learning to Read Faces: A Sorting Task

Everyday, typically developing students and adults absorb and interpret thousands of pieces of data. Students in special education classes absorb these data too, but oftentimes have a great deal of difficulty interpreting their meaning. This, in turn, makes daily communication a chore for most students. Furthermore, not knowing how to interpret the data received often leads to awkward and/or embarassing social moments.

Students in my resource room, perhaps especially noticeable in students with and ASD, have deficits in communication, play, social skills and relating to others (Rao & Gagie, 2006 membership to Council for Exceptional Children may be required to access full text). A significant portion of my time is spent in developing ways to help these children communicate their needs, their feelings, their wants, their frustrations, and, in some cases, just to say something as fundamental as the ABCs or 123s. 

In response to the need to generalize an understanding of facial expressions among my students, I developed this sorting task. Originally, this task had four categories the student would sort, but in this latest iteration I chose to excise the 'shy' category given that it was too obscure. Then we went with only three categories: sad, happy, and angry as shown below. 

These three categories are at the top of the board and a line separates them. Down the columns, as you can see, are pieces of Velcro. The students attach pictures of faces to these. In the next picture, you see the faces. These faces have been cut from old magazines, shaped, and laminated in order to preserve them for many uses (we also have a bunch of extras we keep separate).

In the original design of this task, the faces were all cut to the same shape. What I found is that this was just a bit confusing at times and offered little in the way of self-correcting strategies. In this revised version of the task, we cut the faces into one of three shapes: triangle, circle, or square. These three shapes then correspond to one of the three emotional categories: sad, happy, angry. 

    

This is a very simple sorting task and costs virtually nothing to create. Any piece of cardboard will do; any face from a magazine or google search will do; and you can decide which categories you wish to use. Sometimes it is difficult to find more categories and the pictures can oftentimes be rather difficult for the students to interpret--due to their subtle nature. I work with elementary students so these three categories are easiest to find and the easiest with which to work. 

When the student is finished working with the task, simply fold it up and put it away! I use this task to help students learn the subtleties of facial expression and the varieties of ways people show happiness or anger or sadness. But I also hope that the students will learn to generalize these categories--so I'm kind of working backwards in a sense. 

It also seems important that the pictures we use are in a rotation too. So I have another bag of faces and we are always in the process of looking through magazines for more. Again, ask your librarian for magazines that are about to become garbage. It keeps them out of the landfill and they are useful for creating wonderful games. 

This is a very simple task to create, you get to recycle, and it is flexible enough that the categories can be altered or adjusted for age appropriateness.  Let me know what you think or what sort of alterations you make to improve this idea. Thanks. 

Edit: I came across an article at Psychology Today written by Lynne Soraya called Empathy, Mindblindedness, and Theogy of Mind that I found very helpful and pertinent to this blog post. From her conclusion:

In her article "Who cares? Or: The Truth about Empathy in Individuals of the Autism Spectrum," researcher Isabel Dziobek outlines her study on the subject of empathy.  Through the course of the study, more than 50 subjects on the spectrum were evaluated against neurotypical control subjects.  The results? To quote Ms. Dziobek - "More generally speaking, our data shows that people with Asperger syndrome have a reduced ability to read other peoples' social cues (such as facial expressions orbody language) but once aware of another's circumstances or feelings, they will have the same degree of compassion as anyone else."

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Sorting task

Cereal boxes, breakfast bars, etc: Reuse, Re-purpose, Recycle, pt 3

Recycle, Reuse: Country Time Lemonade Containers & Film Containers

I have a book called Tasks Galore and the task I will share in this post is, to be sure, a riff on a task found in that book. Credit where credit is due and all that. I have modified my taks and made it a little sturdier and, as always, I have used recycled materials to accomplish my task. 

The task is a simple sequencing or sorting task--it just depends upon what you want to accomplish with your students. It is flexible and can easily be modified to suit your needs. Here is a picture of the completed task.

The materials you will need are as follows:

1. One shoebox

2. Three Countrytime Lemonade containers (minimum)

3. At least six empty film containers w/lids

4. Six plastic counting bears (or other manipulatives of your choice. I used six because that is the six basic colors available.)

5. A few brass fasteners; rubber cement; tape.

Step one is to wrap the plastic film canisters in colorful paper that matches the color of the manipulatives you have chosen. That's why I use the counting bears. There are six basic colors which makes choosing colors easy. 

Next, you will want to secure the lids of the lemonade canisters to the lid of the shoebox. I turn the lids upside down and using the rubber cement to secure them to the shoebox. While they are securing, I punch a hole in the center and addd another layer of security by pushing a brass fastener through. Now, I push the brass fastener from the top of the shoebox so that the part that gets folded down is actually inside the lemonade lid. Note: only fasten two of the lids to the shoebox lid. The third lemonade lid will remain loose so it can be screwed back on top of the lemonade containter where you will store all of your manipulatives when the task is not in use. 

In the above picture you can see the fasteners attached to the outside of the lid. At this point, your project should look like the picture below.

The third step is to wrap the larger part of the lemonade container with a picture of a 'stop' sign. It's not terribly difficult. You can see the sample in the first picture. This will alert the students to the fact that 'this is where the task ends.' You can use different words besides 'stop'. 

That's about it as far as assembly is concerned. When it's all assembled, you can store all manipulatives and parts inside the shoebox. In the picture below you can see how everything fits nicely inside the shoebox for easy storage. (You can also see the brass fasteners. For an extra layer of protection, I cover the fasteners with tape.)

The final step, then, is simply to open up the task and let the students get busy working. What I like about this task is that it is easily manipulated to form other sorting or sequencing tasks. Here is how the task is set up:

 You can't see them very well, but in the third lid is the smaller lids for the film canisters. The task follows three steps:

1. Choose a colorful canister.

2. Choose a matching colorful bear.

3. Put the bear inside the film canister.

4. Put the smaller lid on the canister.

5. Place the canister inside the 'stop' container. 

It's a simple task that I use with my students who have autism or other developmental disabilities. And again, you can alter the task to suit your needs: create less steps; create more steps; change colors; etc. 

This is a fun task for students and it also manages to find a way to recycle stuff that might otherwise end up in a local landfill. 

Thanks to Tasks Galore for the inspiration. Enjoy the task. If you use it and make modifications, please let me know what they are so I can incoporate them into my own version of the task.