Gauging Moods and Interpreting Abstract Emotional States

Overview: This 20 page social pragmatic photo/question set is intended for children 7+ years of age, who have difficulty recognizing abstract emotional states of others (beyond the “happy, mad, sad” option) and appropriately gauging their moods.

There are on average 12-15 questions per each photo.  Each page contains a photograph of a person feeling a particular emotion.

Intended Audiences:

• Clients with Language Impairments
• Clients with Social Pragmatic Language Difficulties
• Clients with Executive Function Difficulties
• Clients with Psychiatric Impairments
  • ODD, ADHD, MD, Anxiety, Depression, etc.
• Clients with Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Clients with Nonverbal Learning Disability
• Clients with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
• Adult and pediatric post-Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) clients
• Clients with right-side CVA Damage

After the student is presented with the photograph, they are asked a number of questions pertaining to the recognition of the person’s emotions, mood, the reason behind the emotion they are experiencing as well as what they could be potentially thinking at the moment.

This activity is suitable for both individual therapy sessions as well as group work.

In addition to its social pragmatic component is also intended to increase vocabulary knowledge and use as well as sentence length of children with language impairments.

Areas covered in this packet:

1. Gauging Age (based on visual support and pre-existing knowledge)
2. Gauging Moods (based on visual clues and context)
3. Explaining Facial Expressions
4. Making Social Predictions and Inferences (re: people’s emotions)
5. Assuming First Person Perspectives
6. Understanding Sympathy
7. Vocabulary Knowledge and Use (pertaining to the concept of Emotional Intelligence)
8. Semantic Flexibility (production of synonyms and antonyms)
9. Complex Sentence Production
10. Expression of Emotional Reactions
11. Problem Solving Social Situations
12. Friendship Management and Peer Relatedness

To read a detailed post, which describes the importance of developing student’s emotional intelligence containing additional information about this packet click HERE.