As I write this article, I am watching two of the kids under my care as they play with the cards from the MK games feelings. When they grab each card, they are able to talk about what the feeling is all about, who they say with the feeling as well as mimic it. I can assure you that other than having fun, they are learning a lot and have come a long way if how they came into the center is anything to go by.
The MK Feelings game has 20 matching pairs of cards that is specifically designed for kids with autism spectrum disorder to help them learn how to match cards with similar facial expressions, be able to identify feelings and know when someone they see has that feeling so that they may learn to react. As we have said in an earlier post, most kids on the spectrum do not have empathy. In fact, we have a phrase for that; we say that they lack the theory of mind that enables you to know how to react to people and how to speak with them by first putting yourself in their shoes so that you can be able to treat them appropriately.
MK Games feelings card have expressions all the way from sad, angry, happy, anxious, worried and tense. For each feeling, there is a pair of cards that bears a picture of a person expressing it. Your child is supposed to identify those cards as similar and pair them together. So when you buy the game, all the cards are jumbled up and it is up to the kid to identify and match them together.
Designed by two occupational therapists Meital Karni and Keren Strolovici, the game is designed to help your kid to start acknowledging both verbal and nonverbal communicative cues that will help them interact healthily with their peers as well as with older people in the society.
Features of MK Feelings Game
- Contains 20*2 colorful matching cards that have different facial expressions
- Encourages talk about each of the feeling
- Kids are able to recognize each of the feeling
- Designed by an occupational therapist and a special needs educator.
What we loved about the MK Games Feelings
- The game encourages recognizing of facial expressions and talk about the said feelings. This encourages your autistic kid to start learning and implementing both verbal and nonverbal communication
- The game which can be played by more than one person would encourage social interaction so that your child becomes chattier and interact with others.
- The game is designed by an occupational therapist and special needs educator. This are the right people to be able to handle such program for kids on the spectrum
- Using the game, I have seen remarkable progress in nonverbal autistic kids being able to interact well with others as well as encourage both verbal and nonverbal communication.
What could be improved about the game?
- We really felt that the game could do with some improvement on adding names that could be used to describe the feelings displayed on the emotion cards.
- Some of the feelings were confusing even for us the adults and fellow educators that I work with at the center. They should maybe get scrapped off to avoid unnecessary confusion.