ORIGINAL PAPER
Avatar Assistant: Improving Social Skills in Students with an ASD
Through a Computer-Based Intervention
Ingrid Maria Hopkins
•
Michael W. Gower
•
Trista A. Perez
•
Dana S. Smith
•
Franklin R. Amthor
•
F. Casey Wimsatt
•
Fred J. Biasini
Published online: 2 February 2011
Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract This study assessed the efficacy of FaceSay,a
computer-based social skills training program for children
with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). This randomized
controlled study (N = 49) indicates that providing children
with low-functioning autism (LFA) and high functioning
autism (HFA) opportunities to practice attending to eye gaze,
discriminating facial expressions and recognizing faces and
emotions in FaceSay’s structured environment with inter-
active, realistic avatar assistants improved their social skills
abilities. The children with LFA demonstrated improve-
ments in two areas of the intervention: emotion recognition
and social interactions. The children with HFA demonstrated
improvements in all three areas: facial recognition, emotion
recognition, and social interactions. These findings, partic-
ularly the measured improvements to social interactions in a
natural environment, are encouraging.
Keywords Autism Á Intervention Á Emotion recognition Á
Facial recognition Á Social interactions Á Generalization
Introduction
The development of social competence is an important goal
for all children. However, some children are at risk for
challenges in social competence due to deficits in social
skills (Gresham 1981). Children with Autism Spectrum
Disorders (ASD) are particularly affected by this impair-
ment as evidenced by their difficulties in reciprocal social
interaction skills (American Psychiatric Association 1994).
Individuals with ASD display marked impairments in the
use and interpretation of nonverbal behaviors, such as eye-
to-eye gaze, facial expressions, body posture, and gestures
to regulate social interaction (Hobson 1986). In addition,
individuals with ASD often fail to monitor the effect of
their conversations or behaviors on other people. For
example, they frequently monopolize conversations or
walk away while others are trying to interact with them
(Bailey 2001). This may be the result of an inability to
interpret nonverbal communications provided in facial
expressions and body posture.
The ability to recognize emotions in others is a crucial
component of social development (Hobson 1986). Impair-
ment in this skill severely reduces one’s ability to partici-
pate in or interpret social interactions. In order to establish
the extent to which emotion recognition skills develop in
children with developmental disabilities, previous research
has tended to focus on children with ASD for whom
impaired social development is seen as a key feature.
Differences have been found between children with ASD
and typically developing children. For example, Baron-
Cohen et al. (1997) developed a theory of mind task where
the participants looked at photos of either an entire face or
just a region around the eyes to determine emotions. The
researchers found that individuals with autism performed
significantly worse on the task than age and IQ matched
participants without autism. In addition, individuals with
autism had marked deficits in their performance in the
eyes-only condition. These results support the idea that
emotion recognition deficits are key characteristics in
understanding the social deficits of individuals with ASD.
I. M. Hopkins (&) Á M. W. Gower Á T. A. Perez Á
D. S. Smith Á F. R. Amthor Á F. J. Biasini
Department of Psychology, University of Alabama
at Birmingham, 1300 University Blvd., CH 328,
Birmingham, AL 35924-1170, USA
e-mail: mhopkins@uab.edu
F. Casey Wimsatt
Symbionica, LLC, San Jose, CA, USA
123
J Autism Dev Disord (2011) 41:1543–1555
DOI 10.1007/s10803-011-1179-z