Faces for Feelings: A Workbook

For Children The purpose of this book is to improve the ability to recognize the feelings expressed on the faces of others. Although most children learn to do this on their own, the ability can be improved with practice. Practice is provided here by exercising certain intellectual skills that contribute to the development of intelligence. The book requires the child to exercise these skills in an active way on each page, in contrast to the passive way of listening that is typical for most children's books. For People with Asperger's or for anyone who can't tell what others feel. The reason that this book is a teaching-tool for people with Asperger's Disorder is that they usually can't tell what others feel from seeing the expressions on their faces. It is because they are "mindblind," which means that they are blind to the minds of others like a "colorblind" person is blind to certain colors. This idea of "mindblindness" can help us to understand behavior that is misunderstood most of the time. Since the expression on a person's face is an important social cue, blindness to this social cue impairs the ability to make friends. It can make the "mindblind" person seem odd to others when he misinterprets the feelings of others by punching a girl who is only flirting when she playfully pokes him with a finger. He needs extra practice at recognizing what others feel, practice that he can get in this book in a way that is easy enough for him to feel successful.

About the Author :
Aaron Noah Hoorwitz is a Ph.D. psychologist in private practice in Albany, N.Y., He has taught psychology in local colleges, has published in the professional literature, and worked for many years with the courts and with children as the Chief Psychologist in the Rensselaer County Mental Health Department. His purpose for developing this current book was that he wanted this kind of material to be available to help any child to improve in the ability to recognize people's feelings, including anyone who has difficulty with this ability. A short article he wrote on Asperger's Disorder can be accessed on the internet: When autism disorders can look like defiance and what to do about it. https: //docs.google.com/document/d/1OLQBLt6Jdxf-jwwL4fv-EbO7GBrEf3zZu0EmfQsfsP0/edit?hl=enUS or http: //www.helium.com/items/263976-aspergers-syndrome-what-it-is. More information is available at his website: http: //ahoorwitz.googlepages.com Co-author Andrea Sheerer modeled an extreme range of facial expressions in this book in order to illustrate many different feelings. Andrea graduated at SUNY Plattsburgh with a B.A. in Art History and currently lives in the Adirondacks. She is a manager at a national bookstore where she is able to express her love of books by teaching children the joys of reading. Andrea also grew up with learning and comprehension disorders, and, as a result, has personal insight into the struggle of children's understanding during the challenges of learning throughout the stages of intellectual development.