Training facial expression production in children on the autism spectrum.

Gordon et al. (2014) tested a 15-minute computer game called FaceMaze.

Kids with autism copied happy and angry faces while a webcam watched.

The game gave instant green or red squares to show if the smile or frown looked right.

Eight boys and girls, played once and then posed faces for photos again.

After the short game, the children’s posed happy and angry faces looked as good as typically developing peers.

Trained raters scored the photos without knowing which were before or after.

No extra table-top drills, no therapist prompts—just the game feedback did it.

Ren et al. (2023) pooled 25 digital-game studies for kids with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Their meta-analysis backs Iris: short game sessions can reliably lift social skills.

Simmons et al. (2016) used a phone app to teach prosody; gains were smaller and took eight weeks.

The difference is feedback type: FaceMaze gave real-time video of the child’s own face, while SpeechPrompts gave delayed adult ratings.

That instant visual mirror may be why FaceMaze worked in minutes, not months.

You can add FaceMaze or any webcam game with live facial feedback to your toolbox.

Try it as a warm-up before peer sessions or video modeling.

One quick round may give you photos that look typical—useful for social stories and parent demonstrations.