EmotiPlay is the initiative of Compedia, a leading educational technology company, and the Autism Research Lab at Bar-Ilan University, together with the Autism Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Cambridge and the Unit for Pediatric Neuropsychiatry in the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The multi-disciplinary research team included world-renowned researchers in the field of autism such as Professors Simon Baron-Cohen, Ofer Golan, and Sven Bolte, and experts in human-machine interaction, as well as ICT-based solution providers.
EmotiPlay doesn’t replace human interaction, it facilitates it. Kids use the platform together with a teacher, therapist, parent, or another significant adult. The engaging games, role plays, and hundreds of actor-performed examples make it easier for the adult to explain emotions to the child, and for the child to generalize the ideas into his/her daily interactions.
Teamwork and interpersonal interaction are the core of the program, so the more people that work with the child, the better. The minimal team is the child and one adult mediator but we recommend involving other people from the child’s environment, such as parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends, whether on a regular basis or only occasionally. Working with different people will help the child generalize the learned skills and utilize them in more situations.
EmotiPlay is designed to enhance and facilitate social interaction, and interaction requires a partner! Therefore, it’s important that children use the platform with a significant adult who can serve as a mentor and coach them on common norms and behaviors. As they play and explore together, the adult and child discuss emotions, adding depth to the learning experience. The adult is a change agent in the process, and essential to helping the child to generalize by relating what they learn to real life examples.
EmotiPlay was reviewed under the auspices of ASC-Inclusion, a large-scale EU study to investigate how technology can improve the inclusion of children with autism. The ASC-Inclusion study of EmotiPlay was conducted in partnership with Cambridge University in the UK, Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and Bar-Ilan University in Israel. World-renowned autism experts, including Professors Simon Baron-Cohen, Ofer Golan, and Sven Bolte, led the study. Read the research summary.
One of the key challenges for kids with autism is generalization—they have difficulty transferring skills to new situations and environments. Although a child may learn to recognize emotions on cards or other static examples, they struggle to transfer that knowledge to situations they encounter in their own life. EmotiPlay tackles this challenge by providing many different video examples for each emotion using over twenty actors of various ages, genders, and ethnicity. It also provides tools to recognize the emotion in different ways including facial expression, tone of voice, body language, and the integration of different cues, something that isn’t possible in a static format like cards. EmotiPlay also makes it easy for the therapist to monitor the child’s progress using the management app.
And there’s more! EmotiPlay includes group activities, sharing options, and gives the child and the adult working with him/her the option to add their own content, such as selfies and videos that they create, further enhancing their understanding.
EmotiPlay is covered in parts of Canada and in Australia through the NDIS.
EmotiPlay was tested in a clinical trial in the UK in partnership with Cambridge University, in Sweden in partnership with the Karolinska University, and in Israel in partnership with Bar Ilan University. Read the research summary.
EmotiPlay was developed for kids aged 4-10, but older kids enjoy it too.
The program is designed for high-functioning and medium-high-functioning children with Autism. No technical skills are required, nor are any reading/writing skills, since the child works together with an adult mediator.
Nope! EmotiPlay is a cloud-based platform. Just login with your user credentials and you’re set to go.
EmotiPlay is cloud-based, so you can use it on any device. Just login to your account and you’re ready to go.
Our team walks therapists and/or centers through the initial set up. Once you’re up and running, it takes less than a minute to add a child and build a customized program for him/her to get started with.
Before you start using EmotiPlay, our staff will set up a call to get to know you and understand your unique needs. We’ll also send you a link to training videos that will walk you through the platform’s features and show you how to use the therapist and management app.
You’ll also have an orientation with one of our professional team members. We’ll go over best practices, give you tips for sessions, and help you set up your system. We’ll also set up a training session for parents that will be using the platform.
Once you get started, the EmotiPlay team is available to help you make the most of what the platform has to offer and manage any issues you encounter.
Yes! As a therapist, you have access to a management app where you can track the individual progress of each child and see how each child is doing with each skill set so you can focus your sessions on the skills he/she is struggling with.
You can also give kids feedback on their progress and even create your own, unique content to share with the children you work with.
EmotiPlay includes hundreds of validated, actor-performed examples of facial expression, fun games, and hands-on tasks, and it also makes it easy for therapists to create their own, unique content. Just upload images or videos, add questions and tasks, and share them on the child’s profile.
