Faces & Feelings - Autism Spectrum - Coloring With Connection

Explore a fun and creative way to help kids and adults with autism to overcome social anxiety. Though these activities the student can become more aware of the the feelings of others and the meaning of various facial expressions.
These games and coloring activities will also help the student to become more comfortable with eye contact so that they can begin to engage more freely with their loved ones and new friends. There is no other book like this one!
A note from the author: As a child with Asperger’s Syndrome I was very uncomfortable with eye contact, faces, and conversation with kids my age. I liked babies, enjoyed talking to some adults, and had a strong connection with animals. I always avoided looking at people, and loved gadgets and spinning things.
I was constantly counting everything and was obsessed with patterns, space travel, genealogy and genetics. I was one of those kids who could solve Rubrics Cubes and logic puzzles in a flash, but was terrified of my classmates. I wore my hair over my eyes to keep out the fluorescent lights, and to keep people from seeing me. I pretended that I didn’t care what anyone thought of me.
Until I was 14 years old I refused to make eye contact and my symptoms of autism were much more severe than they are now. Something changed. I got interested in make up and portrait drawing. In the quiet of my room, with a stack of Seventeen Magazines I became fascinated by the beauty of the human face.
I started with magazine tutorials teaching step by step how to apply make up. Looking at models on a page wasn’t as uncomfortable as looking at people in real life. Eventually my passion led me to acting classes, photography, and modeling classes.
Once I was comfortable with looking at faces, I began to get curious about the color of everyone’s eyes. So I would look at people. I also began to draw pictures of people in magazines and would focus on eyes and expressions.
I didn’t know that I was overcoming a lot of sociable anxiety in the process.
Once I was willing to look at people’s faces, and even study people’s faces, I started to understand the connection between their words, tone of voice, feelings and facial expression. I didn’t have feelings of empathy until I started reading faces.
I want to help other people with autism to Aldo become comfortable with faces like I did. The goal of this book is to gently help the student to study faces, color they eyes, trace the faces and expressions, and identify the emotions of the person or animal in each picture. As the student engages in these activities they subconsciously begin to work through the feelings of resistance and anxiety that often accompany eye contact. Once the student becomes more familiar with faces they may begin to experience stronger empathy and feel more comfortable while engaging with others.