Are you working with students who need help with identifying emotions in themselves, others or awareness of their emotions?

Working with students with Autism, the need for emotional awareness in themselves and of others is important. Often a struggle with students with autism, identifying emotions can require direct instruction for students to gain awareness and identification of those emotions.

One of the tools I have used in the past was a hard copy work sheet with numerous emoticon pictures on it ranging from excited to depressed that a student could point to express their emotions or feelings.

For the particular student I was working with, the emoticon pictures were provided first thing in the morning so he could express his feelings and any concerns of the morning. This routine helped staff understand his thoughts and help him move forward to the days events. The morning session allowed for review of social stories and well as his identification of emotions as he started his day. The student appeared to enjoy this time and forewarned us of perseverative thoughts, concerns or emotions that would need to be dealt with during the day. So are there any apps out there available for the iPad or iPod that would help with gaining emotional awareness but be portable – one of the many wonderful features of the iDevices?

I found several apps that would provide learning opportunities on the topic of emotions suited for primary aged students. Here is a listing of the apps I found:

GE Healthymagination created an app called Moody Me. It reminded me of the emoticons worksheet I had used the elementary aged student I mentioned above.  Moody Me app provides a range of emotion icons to help identify and describe your feelings. The app also provides a feature to take a picture to help you remember why you felt the chosen emotion. You have an option of saving the picture of the event for later review.

The app gathers the date and the time of your response:

You can gather your daily mood in the calendar provided. It also reports an average of the moods in the past 7 days. A handy, free app for iPad and iPod, this app could be used for kids to identify their moods, take a picture of their face or event as available with an iPad2 or iPod 4th Gen camera to help them understand their moods. Taking pictures of them selves or others could  also help identify facial characteristics of  various moods and track their moods all on the iPad or iPod. The information can be synced to the apps website with a Moody Me account.

Alligator Apps and Grasshopper Apps have two emotion apps that I intend to customize for a primary aged student that is working on basic emotions (happy, sad, etc.) as a part of his special education program. With the customize features of the Grasshopper and Alligator apps I can choose certain emotion pictures be presented and also the mode or type of activity appropriate for the student.

• Touch and Learn – Emotions app provides verbal instructions to choose a correct answer given  4 pictures of adjectives or nouns (see picture below).

Customization in settings provides the options of selecting the play mode (nouns only, adjectives and nouns only, verbs and nouns only, progressive difficulty), concepts, sound, labels, and pictures presented. I will be able to choose specific emotions or specific nouns (boys, girls, men and women) being worked on with as needed for a student using the customization features. What a great option to help support the individual of our students!

• Alligator Apps’ ABA Flash Cards & Games Emotions  has flash cards and games showing real pictures of children and adults faces with different emotions. Like Grasshopper Apps, opportunities to customize content is available. Setting options include choosing learning or game mode as well as choices of reading or listening with basic and advanced levels. There are numerous other methods of customizing how content is presented such as font size, color and customizing the pictures and sound of the flash cards. Cleanly presented with great pictures of real adults and children, ABA Flash Cards & Games Emotions app supports development of identification of feelings with games and quizes.  Free!

Kindergarten.com produces a flash card app Emotions. This app provides real pictures of adults and children depicting different emotions. Setting are provided which provides choices of  turning on/off shuffling cards, voice audio, chime sound and music reinforcement. Free.

Touch & Say for the iPad is a simple activity app for early development in children. It presents six different emotions in a graphic format that requires only a single touch to the screen. Activated by a single touch to the iPad screen, this cause and effect app can be used for individuals working on developing basic skills. Free.

Any of the apps that might assist your students emotional development? Please leave a comment if you have one to share!

Carol