New Video Game Helps Kids With Autism

A boy practices his facial expressions using FaceMaze. Image courtesy of FaceMaze.

An amazing new “video game” is helping kids withautism* show their emotions in their facial expressions.

Autism affects the brain’s development of social and communication skills. People with autism typically have difficulty recognizing facial expressions and emotions.

The new video game, called FaceMaze, was developed to help kids with autism recognize what certain emotions look like, and what they mean—for instance, smiling, frowning or looking sad.

The game was developed by scientists at two universities: the University of Victoria in British Columbia and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

The video game looks and plays a lot like Pac-Man, a popular video game from the 1980s.

In FaceMaze, kids guide an avatar that looks like face through a maze to collect “candies.”

An example of SmileMaze. Image courtesy of FaceMaze.

In order to get through the game and reach new levels, players have to look at the expression on a computer “face” and then try to make that expression themselves. It might be a happy face, a sad face, or a mad face.

A camera pointed at the player compares the player’s expression with the expression in the game. If they match, the player scores points.

The game is not only fun for kids, but it helps them to practice their emotions; how it looks and feels to smile, and what message it sends to people when someone smiles.

The people who developed the software also intend to develop an iPad application that people can use at home. That application will use pictures of real people’s faces (for instance, the player’s mom or dad) instead of avatars.

*In this article, we have used the term “autism,” but it’s even more accurate to use the term, “autism spectrum disorders (ASD).” The term ASD reflects the fact that people may be mildly, or severely affected by autism—or somewhere in-between.

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Two Canadian Political Parties In Hot Water Over Use Of Technology

Bob Rae. Image taken on January 11, 2007 by Will Pate.

During elections, people often get a recorded message on their telephone that reminds them to vote and tells them where to go, to vote.

These messages, which use pre-recorded voices, are known as robo-calls.

Canada’s federal Conservative party is being accused of using robo-calls to mislead the public, during last year’s election.

The RCMP and Elections Canada (the group that makes the rules for elections), are looking into accusations that some robo-calls steered voters to the wrong polling station, or to polling stations that didn’t even exist, which would be illegal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn’t know anything about the illegal robo-calls.

One member of Harper’s Conservative party, Michael Sona, has been accused of setting up the calls, but he denies doing it. Sona has quit his job because of the pressure of the accusations.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are also in hot water.

They used Twitter (a “social media” website) to spread some personal information about a Conservative MP.

Bob Rae, who is the interim leader of the Liberals, apologized to the MP in the House of Commons this week.

Although it was Rae’s staff member who did the tweeting, Rae took full responsibility; he said the party’s leader is always responsible for what his staff and party members do.

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