Enhancing emotion recognition in young autistic children with or without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in Hong Kong using a Chinese App version of The Transporters.
Fifteen short daily episodes of the Cantonese Transporters App at home closed the emotion-recognition gap for autistic preschoolers, ADHD or not.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ka-Cheng et al. (2024) tested a free Cantonese phone app based on the BBC cartoon The Transporters. Parents of autistic 4- to 6-year-olds were asked to play one 15-minute episode each day for 15 days. Half the kids also had ADHD. The team used a randomized design and checked emotion recognition before and after the program.
All coaching was done through WhatsApp. No clinic visits were needed.
What they found
Kids who used the app scored far better on emotion tests after the two weeks. Their scores matched those of non-autistic peers. Gains held when new faces and voices were used, showing true learning.
Children with ADHD improved just as much as those without it.
How this fits with other research
Gev et al. (2017) ran a similar trial in England using the English DVD version. Both studies show the same cartoon works; Ka-Cheng et al. (2024) prove the idea still holds when the language is Cantonese and the format is a phone app.
Clarke et al. (1998) warned that kids with ADHD often misread facial fear. That paper saw a problem; Ka-Cheng et al. (2024) show the problem can be fixed. The older study tested children without any help, while the new one gave daily practice, explaining the different results.
Klein et al. (2024) also worked with autistic children who have ADHD, but they targeted working memory through eye-tracking games. Together the two 2024 papers suggest kids with both diagnoses can gain social or cognitive skills when the right tool is used.
Why it matters
You now have a low-cost, parent-led option that fits into snack time. Send the app link, set a 15-day WhatsApp check-in, and track emotion probes at baseline and day 16. The program needs no table, no toys, and no extra staff, making it perfect for wait-list periods or rural families.
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Text the free app link to the next Cantonese-speaking family, show the daily 15-minute schedule, and add pre/post emotion probe sheets to your data folder.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study was registered with the German Clinical Trials Register - Deutschen Register Klinischer Studien (DRKS) on 23 December 2018. The Trial Registration Number (TRN) is DRKS00016506. LAY ABSTRACT: The Transporters App is an intervention programme with 15 animated episodes that teach emotion recognition skills to autistic children between 4 and 6 years of age. Each episode contains a story depicting social interactions between characters in the form of a vehicle, with human faces grafted on to each of them. Each episode teaches a specific emotion in a story context. Autistic children watched at least three episodes at home for about 15 min daily for a month, with parental guidance. Its automated, home-based format is cost-saving and readily accessible. This study translated The Transporters to a Cantonese-Chinese version. Results showed a significant improvement in emotion recognition following viewing The Transporters in a group of Hong Kong Chinese autistic children, between 4 and 6 years of age, with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (n = 48) relative to a control group (n = 24). A non-autistic group (n = 23) showed that the autistic children scored lower in emotion recognition pre-intervention. Post-intervention, the autistic children had improved in emotion recognition to the level of the non-autistic children. The autistic children in the intervention groups also generalized their learning to novel situations/characters not taught within The Transporters. There was no dosage effect, with the standard recommended number of episodes viewed being sufficient to achieve significant improvement. This study confirms the effectiveness of The Transporters for Chinese autistic children and contributes to the literature/practice by expanding the range of applicability of The Transporters to autistic children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which is important given the high rate of co-occurrence between autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2024 · doi:10.1177/13623613231187176