Feelings and Faces
Boram Park
Facial expressions are necessary for smooth communication. Most people recognize others’ facial expressions well, but some of them do not. This project addresses a group of people that struggles with identifying facial expressions — people who have autism. For autistic people, in particular, it can be very diffi cult. There are many games, books, and toys to improve upon the skill, but while goods for ordinary kids are well-designed, products for autistic kids often have terrible graphics and packaging. Those aids are just focused on purpose of use, not design. The project has several parts: a six-page sticker book, a face sticker sheet, fi nger puppets with fi ve faces and ten objects, and twenty story cards. This sticker book with fi nger puppets uses easily distinguishable photographs for emotions such as happy, sad, angry, disgusted, and surprised. The subjects of the photographs are of three different races: Asian, White, and African American, emphasizing the importance of having practice in recognizing emotions of all races.