What makes Snapje not only a different but also a good product?

Snapje does not only give the children insight in emotions in relation to its context, it directly works in the everyday life of the child itself, whereas other products solely focus on emotion recognition or the context using examples. The children have to profit of the skills acquired in their own personal lives. Therefore Snapje does not ask to translate or generalise information that has been taught to apply it in their own lives, moreover because of the fact that children with autism find this very difficult.

Not only applicable photos can be chosen for the child, Snapje can also personalised to the needs and capabilities of the child. The game can be played in a open or a competitive manner and the level can be adjusted. This makes the game never too difficult for the child. Due to the fact that the children can repeat reviewing the photos and their preference to digital devices it will give them a feeling of being in control.

Because of the structure of playing-in-turns, the game stimulates playing together which is difficult with autistic children. Furthermore, it also gives the parent better insights, in the behaviour, thoughts and emotions of their child, since children with autism are not well capable of expressing this.

For the child as well as the parent it feels like a game instead of ‘work and practise’.

Emotion cartoon characters

In the current version of Snapje, the PrEmo characters are used. The PrEmo animations were originally developed by Dr. Ir. Pieter Desmet to measure emotions for product research and has been further developed by SusaGroup and the TU-Delft. PrEmo is a set of characters that are animated to each express a different emotion. Emotions are expressed through body posture, gestures, the voice and the face.

Snapje, an application to practice emotion recognition in a fun way!

To enable children to get skills in emotion recognition in relation to the context, Snapje has been developed. A parent can take photos of situations, that contain an emotional meaning. Photos can be taken of familiar people, but also from the child itself. On the one hand it will be very useful to learn from emotions of others in relation to the context. On the other hand, it is useful as well to learn the relation between the context and an emotion through own experiences of the emotion. Both positive and negative emotions can be addressed.

Later on, parent and child can play a game together using the photos that have been taken. This enables parent and child to discuss these situations at a relaxed moment that suites them. This makes it possible to discuss also negative emotions of the child, once the child is in a positive, calmer state of mind.

They both tag the photo with an emotion or multiple emotions. The emotions are represented by a set of animated cartoons, named PrEmo. When they both pick the same emotion, the PrEmo animation plays directly. Reviewing the photos and having the feedback of the animated character functions as a reward to the children, which makes the game playful and interesting for them. To gain extra structure in the game, both parent and child have to pick a colour that represents themselves. Snapje organises turns that stimulate playing together.

The children can play games by themselves using the photos and emotions as well. This is attractive to them since they like repetition. To make the child familiar with the emotions, he or she can also play games in which a PrEmo cartoon has to be matched with the word of the emotion it expresses. To make the product grow with the capabilities of the child, five different levels have been created, featuring a different amount of emotions.