EmoStory

Abstract

Children's emotional skills are important for their success. However, children with Autism Spectrum Disorders have difficulties in understanding social contexts and recognizing and expressing facial expressions. In this paper, we present the design of EmoStory, a game-based interactive narratives system that supports children's emotional development. The system uses animation and emotional sounds to teach children six basic emotions and facial expressions in various social contexts, and also provides multi-level games for children to systematically practice the learnt skills. Through using facial expression recognition technique and designing animated visual cue for important facial movement features, the system helps children to practice facial expressions and provides them with explicit guides during the tasks.