Abstract
Facial expressions play an important role in everyday communication. For effective communication,
the ability to recognize subtle, momentary changes in facial expressions is essential. However, children with
autism spectrum disorder （ASD） experience diffi culty in understanding rapidly changing facial expressions,
and their directed attention to human faces is weaker than that of typically developing children, which may
lead to social communication disorders in children with ASD. Thus, this study aimed to train children with
ASD in comprehending facial expressions that change rapidly using live-action videos of expressions that
the children are likely to encounter in their daily life. After the training, we examined whether the children
could understand facial expressions in everyday situations and whether they could communicate eff ectively.
Specifi cally, by slowing down the playback speed of the videos, we extended the presentation time of facial
expressions and helped the children understand these expressions. As a result, one of the two participating
children directed increased attention to the facial expressions of their interlocutors in conversational situations
after the intervention and showed more concern for the emotions of others. Based on these results, it can
be concluded that the video-based training helped the children acquire the necessary skills to pay attention
to their interlocutors’ faces and to understand changing facial expressions in interpersonal communication.
However, video-based interventions require simultaneous and constant attention to auditory and visual
stimuli. Participants with attention defi cit hyperactivity disorder were found to require extensive behavioral
adjustment to perform the task; thus, conducting this training for these participants was a major challenge.
Additionally, further improvement was necessary to generalize the skills acquired during training to daily life,
for example, by gradually shifting video-viewing from the training setting to everyday life settings.
