How Can You Teach Emotion Recognition And Labeling To Children With Autism

One of the main diagnostic characteristics of Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is difficulty in recognizing and understanding emotions. This includes challenges in identifying facial expressions, body language as well as voice tonality.

In this blog, we will review some useful and practical steps, for teaching emotion recognition and labeling to children with autism.

Step 1: For teaching emotions choose activities that are age-appropriate for children:

When it comes to teaching any new skill to a child, particularly if they have any neurodevelopmental delays, it is important to choose activities that enhance their development skills. However, having a robot from MOVIA Robotics can really help in achieving educational & therapeutic goals. 

This includes choosing the right stimulus and activity types as well as using the right communication method and vocabulary. 

Step 2: Focus on one emotion at the time:

This is very tempting to present the child with lots of information and practice materials to learn various emotions. But when it comes to teaching something as complex as emotions, it is critical to take small steps and make sure the child is able to absorb what you are trying to teach them.

It is often recommended to start only from basic emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. 

Step 3: Use visual cards and pictures to teach emotions to children with autism:

Often it is difficult to use dynamic expressions to start teaching emotions to a child with ASD. At first, we can use pictures and visuals with a very specific and often exaggerated expression to help children learn to recognize emotions. 

It is best to choose pictures that are showing only the face area on a white or blank background. In this way, children can only focus on the components and parts in the face that are creating the expressions.