Do I Know you? The Connection Between autism and facial blindness.

Ashley Petersen Author

04/05/2020 Added

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2020 ASD State Conference Breakout Session

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[00:00:00.960]And it looks like it's going,
[00:00:02.120]so thank you guys for being here.
[00:00:05.340]All right, hi everybody.
[00:00:06.810]I am Ashley Peterson and this session
[00:00:09.040]is called, Do I know you?
[00:00:11.360]The connection between autism and prosopagnosia,
[00:00:14.540]or you might also hear prosopagnosia.
[00:00:17.000]I'm gonna get my PowerPoint started here.
[00:00:24.510]Okay, so just a little bit about myself.
[00:00:28.370]I work for Lincoln Public Schools.
[00:00:30.960]I've been working in early intervention
[00:00:33.940]as a special education teacher for about 10 years,
[00:00:36.820]and just this year, working at a high school
[00:00:38.730]for students with mental health concerns,
[00:00:41.370]intellectual disabilities, and significant behaviors.
[00:00:45.410]I was diagnosed with prosopagnosia myself
[00:00:47.650]about seven years ago and we'll talk a little bit more
[00:00:50.663]of that in a little bit.
[00:00:56.050]So today, we're gonna talk about the connection
[00:00:57.974]between autism and this facial blindness or prosopagnosia,
[00:01:02.496]learn how people process and recognize faces,
[00:01:06.021]be able to recognize if someone is struggling
[00:01:08.640]with facial recognition,
[00:01:10.325]have some strategies for either at home or in the classroom,
[00:01:13.751]and know where to get some more information about that.
[00:01:17.550]So today, we're gonna start about,
[00:01:18.690]I'm gonna talk about what is prosopagnosia
[00:01:21.616]and go a little more in depth
[00:01:24.130]about the connection between autism and prosopagnosia.
[00:01:27.172]We'll talk a little bit about the brain
[00:01:28.970]and how the brain recognizes faces,
[00:01:30.935]we'll talk about how to get a diagnosis
[00:01:32.692]or a screening for facial recognition difficulties,
[00:01:36.014]we'll talk about what we use other than faces
[00:01:39.020]to be able to recognize people,
[00:01:40.670]and then finally some strategies and accommodations.
[00:01:45.760]Okay, so first of all, I want you to take a look this photo,
[00:01:49.220]give you a few seconds to look at it.
[00:01:51.990]Now, I want you to close your eyes.
[00:01:54.070]What can you picture about the photo that you just saw?
[00:01:57.260]Try to think about the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the hair.
[00:02:02.890]Okay, so open your eyes again.
[00:02:04.494]Now if you haven't figured it out
[00:02:06.568]with my video cam, that is me.
[00:02:12.060]So this is just a little exercise
[00:02:13.585]to see how you do at recognizing faces.
[00:02:16.750]Are you able to remember the face
[00:02:18.220]that you just looked at when you close your eyes?
[00:02:20.102]Someone with facial blindness difficulties
[00:02:22.270]when they close their eyes after looking at someone
[00:02:24.750]or looking at a photo, a lot of times,
[00:02:26.680]they can't form that mental picture
[00:02:28.359]of what someone looks like.
[00:02:32.490]Oh, and then before I get much into it,
[00:02:34.566]I was going to ask you guys if you could use the chat box
[00:02:38.270]and let me know what your role is
[00:02:40.450]working with individuals with autism,
[00:02:42.130]whether you have autism yourself,
[00:02:43.113]you're a parent, you're a special education teacher,
[00:02:47.320]if you could just type that into the chat box,
[00:02:49.430]I'd like to see who I'm talking to.
[00:03:09.700]All right, looks like we got a lot
[00:03:10.920]of early childhood special education teachers,
[00:03:12.912]special education teachers, some BCBAs, some parents
[00:03:20.460]lots of SLPs and psychologists.
[00:03:23.256]Thank you, guys.
[00:03:30.208]Okay, so what is prosopagnosia?
[00:03:32.910]A prosopagnosia is also known
[00:03:34.930]as facial blindness or face blindness,
[00:03:36.832]and so which is a whole lot easier
[00:03:39.816]to pronounce than prosopagnosia.
[00:03:41.940]So a lot of people just call it face blindness.
[00:03:45.230]But it's a neurological condition,
[00:03:46.568]something that occurs in the brain
[00:03:48.040]that is gonna affect someone's ability
[00:03:50.130]to be able to recognize familiar people,
[00:03:52.000]whether it's friends, family members, well-known people.
[00:03:56.490]And there's two different kinds,
[00:03:57.794]there's acquired prosopagnosia.
[00:03:59.582]This is something that occurs
[00:04:02.315]due to usually a head injury or a stroke.
[00:04:05.960]And often, they found that it's due to a brain injury
[00:04:10.890]in the right side, lower part of the brain.
[00:04:15.560]And then there's developmental prosopagnosia.
[00:04:18.220]This is facial recognition difficulties
[00:04:20.670]that you've had from birth.
[00:04:23.382]And they suspect that this affects one in 50 people.
[00:04:28.480]So think about your classrooms, think about your caseload,
[00:04:31.910]think about your community,
[00:04:34.650]other groups that you participate in,
[00:04:36.590]one in 50 people struggle with facial recognition,
[00:04:39.504]and yet, very few people have heard of this condition.
[00:04:44.390]Myself, I didn't realize that I had facial blindness
[00:04:49.310]until after college.
[00:04:50.889]I started realizing in college
[00:04:52.481]that something was a little bit different.
[00:04:54.860]I went to a small, a fairly small college
[00:04:58.117]and I would walk across campus
[00:05:00.540]and people would run up to me and say hello,
[00:05:03.199]passing on the campus.
[00:05:05.990]I'd be walking with my roommates
[00:05:07.013]and people would come up and they'd be like,
[00:05:09.567]"Hey, Ashley, how are you?"
[00:05:10.710]And I'll look at my roommates, I'm like,
[00:05:12.497]"I have no idea who these people are."
[00:05:15.033]So my roommates started helping me out
[00:05:17.160]by telling me who the people were that I kept running into.
[00:05:23.120]And then finally, after college, I saw a 60 Minutes special
[00:05:27.750]and later we're gonna watch a little clips from this
[00:05:29.757]and discovered facial blindness and prosopagnosia.
[00:05:33.750]I'm like, "That is me.
[00:05:34.947]"This is what I've been struggling with my entire life."
[00:05:38.410]And looking back on my childhood,
[00:05:39.750]I can see a little clues here and there,
[00:05:41.735]where I wasn't recognizing faces as well as other people.
[00:05:46.930]The one in 50 people comes from,
[00:05:48.638]started with a study done in Germany
[00:05:51.710]where they took a whole bunch of people
[00:05:54.357]and tested their facial recognition abilities
[00:05:57.321]and this study has been duplicated elsewhere.
[00:06:02.015]And I like to think of it, it's a common disorder
[00:06:06.170]but very much unrecognized.
[00:06:08.208]If you think of dyslexia,
[00:06:10.320]when dyslexia was first discovered in the school system,
[00:06:14.000]it's a fairly common condition,
[00:06:15.930]but for a long time it went unrecognized and undiagnosed.
[00:06:21.180]They also believe that prosopagnosia is autosomal dominant.
[00:06:25.510]So if you have facial blindness
[00:06:27.760]or somebody in your family has facial blindness,
[00:06:29.465]it's very common for others in your family
[00:06:31.430]to have it as well.
[00:06:34.840]Okay, so hopefully this video will work.
[00:06:37.470]This is just a short clip.
[00:06:38.700]This is the 60 Minutes episode that I watched
[00:06:42.210]that taught me a little bit about facial blindness.
[00:06:51.440]Okay, when you did the share,
[00:06:53.070]there's a little button that you have
[00:06:54.970]to do that says for audio.
[00:06:57.710]So just pause again, go back into your share.
[00:07:00.030]We might have to disable for a second your share
[00:07:02.390]so you can see that button again.
[00:07:06.770]Oh, share computer sound.
[00:07:09.430]Okay, let's try this again.
[00:07:13.782]Most of us take for granted
[00:07:15.016]that we can instantly recognize people we know
[00:07:18.356]by looking at their faces.
[00:07:20.264]It's so automatic, it almost sounds silly to even say it.
[00:07:23.876]Friends can put on a hat, cut their hair,
[00:07:26.811]and still we know them by their face.
[00:07:29.769]We can do this for thousands upon thousands of faces
[00:07:32.949]without ever giving it a moment's thought.
[00:07:35.842]But imagine for a second what life would be like
[00:07:38.242]if you couldn't, if your wife or husband
[00:07:41.091]looked like a stranger, you couldn't tell your kids apart,
[00:07:45.348]couldn't recognize yourself in a mirror.
[00:07:48.521]Well, that's what life is like for people
[00:07:50.780]who suffer from a mysterious condition
[00:07:52.516]called face blindness or prosopagnosia
[00:07:56.880]that can make it nearly impossible
[00:07:58.359]to recognize or identify faces.
[00:08:01.346]If you've never heard of face blindness, you're not alone.
[00:08:04.928]Chances are your doctor hasn't either.
[00:08:08.330]It's been unknown to most of the medical world
[00:08:11.010]until very recently.
[00:08:13.340]Hearing about it can feel a little
[00:08:15.150]like entering the Twilight Zone.
[00:08:17.220]But for people who are face blind,
[00:08:20.010]the condition is very real.
[00:08:25.250]Brad Duchaine is a professor at Dartmouth College
[00:08:27.917]who's been studying face blindness for nearly 15 years.
[00:08:32.060]He says the hardest thing to understand
[00:08:34.001]is how people can see a familiar face,
[00:08:37.640]but not recognize it.
[00:08:40.320]So he created a demonstration to give me a little taste,
[00:08:43.398]faces turned upside down.
[00:08:46.580]So here are some famous faces.
[00:08:48.678]You're gonna be tempted to twist your head but don't do it.
[00:08:51.140]Okay.
[00:08:52.101]Now, can you identify any of these people?
[00:08:54.740]I was completely at a loss.
[00:08:57.435]You think I'd know all of these people?
[00:08:59.970]You've seen them all a lot.
[00:09:02.890]I don't know any of these people, I really don't.
[00:09:06.910]You want to see 'em upright?
[00:09:07.950]Sure.
[00:09:09.690]It was astonishing, with just that click,
[00:09:12.212]they became recognizable people before my eyes.
[00:09:16.380]I know John Travolta, I know Morley,
[00:09:18.930]and there was Denzel Washington, Jennifer Aniston,
[00:09:22.380]Sandra Bullock, but the one that really got me
[00:09:25.290]was the young woman on the lower right, my daughter,
[00:09:29.310]I didn't know my own daughter?
[00:09:30.760]Yeah.
[00:09:31.593]I didn't know my own daughter.
[00:09:33.697]So there she is.
[00:09:35.473]Wow, so is this, am I getting a feeling
[00:09:38.750]for what people with face blindness have?
[00:09:41.750]This is, when you look at that,
[00:09:43.251]there's a face there.
[00:09:44.717]There are parts, their eyes, there's mouth,
[00:09:46.921]but you just can't put it together.
[00:09:48.850]Wow, that's stunning.
[00:09:50.900]I feel terrible for them now.
[00:09:52.990]Yeah, it's really difficult.
[00:09:54.470]And largely unknown.
[00:09:56.450]World-renowned neurologist
[00:09:57.670]and writer, Dr. Oliver Sacks.
[00:09:59.250]We asked Dr. Oliver Sacks,
[00:10:00.654]the famous chronicler of fascinating
[00:10:03.440]and bizarre neurological conditions,
[00:10:05.449]who wrote about face blindness in his latest book,
[00:10:08.707]"The Mind's Eye".
[00:10:09.920]This is with our faces that we face the world.
[00:10:13.140]How do you explain that the medical world
[00:10:15.770]that did not identify this problem?
[00:10:17.930]It is not usually a complaint of people.
[00:10:20.690]People do not bring it up.
[00:10:22.800]Many people who are color blind do not know of that
[00:10:26.110]until they take an army medical.
[00:10:29.150]One sort of assumes that other people are the way one is.
[00:10:33.310]It never ever, ever in my life occurred to me
[00:10:37.100]that people would look at a face and just get it like that.
[00:10:39.820]I believe that I was not good with people.
[00:10:42.140]But, no, I do have the reason, I just thought I was stupid.
[00:10:48.160]All right, so I have a little exercise for you.
[00:10:51.378]I put a face up here.
[00:10:52.937]I'm gonna let you look at it for just a minute,
[00:10:55.890]and then I'm gonna have you try
[00:10:57.020]to find the face in this picture.
[00:10:59.930]Just give you a few more seconds.
[00:11:04.460]All right, in the chat box, if you find the face,
[00:11:08.240]go ahead and maybe just type yes.
[00:11:16.220]Okay, now for those of you who might be struggling,
[00:11:18.360]I'll give you a little clue.
[00:11:22.040]Give you a few more seconds.
[00:11:25.410]And if you're still not sure, there he is right there.
[00:11:29.840]Now we're gonna try this again with this face.
[00:11:35.970]Give you a few seconds to to look at it.
[00:11:40.920]Okay, now when you find the face,
[00:11:44.013]go ahead and type yes in the chat box.
[00:11:50.130]I'm noticing the chat box is much slower
[00:11:53.070]than it was last time.
[00:11:55.970]Some of you have it, some of you no.
[00:11:58.970]Okay, here's a clue.
[00:12:00.200]See if this helps you make it a little bit easier.
[00:12:06.950]Give you a few more seconds.
[00:12:09.820]And the answer is that one right there.
[00:12:14.950]So our brains are wired to see human faces
[00:12:19.320]and with someone with facial recognition difficulties,
[00:12:22.090]it's not that you can't see a face,
[00:12:23.988]it's just that you're not able to recognize it.
[00:12:26.530]Seeing something and recognizing something
[00:12:28.630]are two completely different things.
[00:12:30.912]And that can be hard for people
[00:12:32.440]who automatically recognize faces,
[00:12:35.700]it can be hard for them to understand
[00:12:37.050]how someone can see a face and not recognize it
[00:12:39.920]even though it's a familiar face.
[00:12:44.310]So there's a couple different types of prosopagnosia.
[00:12:46.716]The first one is apperceptive prosopagnosia.
[00:12:49.374]This is where you have deficits in facial processing.
[00:12:54.320]Very severe cases of this, you don't recognize faces at all.
[00:12:57.850]So you can see the picture on the right there,
[00:13:00.300]the little broom man.
[00:13:01.880]Most of us will be able to see
[00:13:03.200]that it's kind of a grumpy face there.
[00:13:05.760]Someone with apperceptive prosopagnosia,
[00:13:08.470]a more severe case would not be able to see a face in this.
[00:13:11.611]Oliver Sacks who was briefly shown in the video
[00:13:15.254]we watched a few minutes ago,
[00:13:17.039]he wrote a book called
[00:13:19.567]"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat"
[00:13:21.750]and other clinical tails.
[00:13:23.050]So in this book, there was a man,
[00:13:24.821]he reached out to put on his hat,
[00:13:27.220]tried to grab his hat and grabbed his wife's face instead.
[00:13:30.700]So he didn't even recognize that his wife's face
[00:13:32.750]was in front of him.
[00:13:34.780]There's also associated prosopagnosia or sometimes,
[00:13:38.130]you hear this called prosopamnesia,
[00:13:40.810]and this is deficits in memory and recognition of faces
[00:13:43.938]and specifically that connection
[00:13:45.556]between perceiving a face and memorizing it.
[00:13:48.910]Most studies suggest that facial processing
[00:13:52.270]in individuals with autism is intact,
[00:13:54.375]while it's the deficits and the ability
[00:13:56.439]to recognize and remember faces
[00:13:59.572]and also to recognize emotion.
[00:14:01.920]So individuals with autism will often struggle
[00:14:03.999]with these associative prosopagnosia
[00:14:06.850]and remembering those faces.
[00:14:13.670]Studies have shown that individuals with autism
[00:14:16.085]are gonna have some specific deficits in ability
[00:14:18.813]to memorize faces that discriminate
[00:14:21.823]between eyes and to recognize emotions.
[00:14:25.445]This is very common in an individuals with autism.
[00:14:28.585]The percentages aren't quite clear.
[00:14:30.540]This research is still very new for prosopagnosia.
[00:14:34.472]I've seen some show facial recognition difficulties
[00:14:37.987]in individuals with autism up to 60% or 70%
[00:14:41.130]of individuals with autism who struggle with this.
[00:14:44.010]And they discovered that these deficits
[00:14:45.867]are specific to faces so they ruled out
[00:14:49.350]any difficulties in communication
[00:14:51.880]or in the demands of the task or in other memory tasks.
[00:14:56.020]It's very specific to faces.
[00:14:58.475]There's also a correlation between an individual's ability
[00:15:01.498]to recognize faces and the severity of the autism.
[00:15:04.147]I'm not saying that one causes the other,
[00:15:06.480]but there is a correlation between them.
[00:15:09.350]And autism and prosopagnosia can occur comorbidly
[00:15:13.041]so they can occur together,
[00:15:14.725]or they can often be misdiagnosed as each other.
[00:15:17.870]So someone with autism, diagnosed with autism
[00:15:21.710]might actually have a very severe case
[00:15:23.426]of being able to recognize others,
[00:15:26.073]which causes many difficult social situations.
[00:15:29.930]And someone with prosopagnosia
[00:15:31.500]might actually have autism instead.
[00:15:35.955]I got the chance to meet with Temple Grandin
[00:15:39.330]at a conference a few years ago, we had lunch together.
[00:15:41.935]In the picture here, you can see me on the left,
[00:15:44.369]Temple Grandin on the right,
[00:15:46.047]and for those of you who are not familiar,
[00:15:49.060]Temple Grandin is a famous person with autism.
[00:15:53.670]She's written many different books.
[00:15:55.163]She's a professor at, I think,
[00:15:56.990]it's Colorado State University
[00:15:59.160]and does a lot of presentations.
[00:16:01.760]I got the chance to ask her about prosopagnosia
[00:16:04.230]and that this is something that she struggles with
[00:16:06.224]and she said she does and we got a chance
[00:16:08.914]to talk together about the difficulties
[00:16:10.758]of going to a conference
[00:16:13.254]when you struggle with facial recognition.
[00:16:15.390]One benefit with doing this conference online
[00:16:18.094]is I don't have to worry too much about facial recognition
[00:16:21.355]since everybody's name appears
[00:16:22.783]in the little boxes on the screen.
[00:16:25.722]But here's a little quote from her book,
[00:16:28.037]"Thinking in Pictures."
[00:16:29.410]She says, "I often get into embarrassing situations
[00:16:32.682]"because I do not remember faces
[00:16:34.543]"unless I have seen people many times,
[00:16:36.627]"or they have very distinct facial features
[00:16:39.027]"such as a big beard, thick glasses, or strange hairstyle.
[00:16:42.587]"Barbara Jones, a woman with autism told me
[00:16:45.167]"that to remember a face,
[00:16:46.247]"she has to see the person 15 times."
[00:16:52.030]I wanted to give you guys a few quotes
[00:16:54.286]from individuals with autism and prosopagnosia.
[00:16:57.950]You'll notice in these quotes that prosopagnosia
[00:16:59.784]is often shortened to just proso,
[00:17:03.600]just so you can get an idea of what it's like
[00:17:05.196]to have both prosopagnosia and autism.
[00:17:09.320]So the first one as an adult with proso
[00:17:11.437]and also on the spectrum,
[00:17:13.067]"I'd say that proso just adds to the alienation
[00:17:15.927]"and feeling of not belonging or not having a clue
[00:17:19.387]"of what's going on.
[00:17:21.900]The next person says, "I'm a proso autistic,
[00:17:24.011]"it's a neurodivergency, not a deficit
[00:17:27.167]"because autism and proso are not inherently negative.
[00:17:30.504]"Society just isn't built for us
[00:17:33.137]"and the solution is to change society,
[00:17:35.127]"not neurodivergent folks.
[00:17:37.036]"So don't focus on making someone better
[00:17:40.037]"at recognizing faces, make people around them
[00:17:42.167]"more accepting of differences."
[00:17:44.040]That was by Lindt Schmitz.
[00:17:46.020]And finally, Kate Fox, "As an autistic prosopagnosiac,
[00:17:50.913]" I suppose there's an issue around negotiating
[00:17:52.747]"and navigating the social awkwardness
[00:17:55.217]"of failing to recognize someone.
[00:17:56.618]"It can be excruciating to try
[00:17:59.667]"to get through a conversation with someone
[00:18:01.884]"when I have no idea who they are."
[00:18:05.826]These all come from a Facebook support group
[00:18:08.960]for individuals with prosopagnosia.
[00:18:11.430]And as part of that group, I found out
[00:18:14.290]that there's many individuals
[00:18:15.600]that have both prosopagnosia and autism.
[00:18:19.940]So you have to ask yourself, what comes first?
[00:18:23.150]It's the whole chicken or the egg question.
[00:18:26.070]Does prosopagnosia, can that cause autism?
[00:18:28.740]Can autism cause prosopagnosia?
[00:18:30.320]What's the connection between the two?
[00:18:32.730]Well, we know that individuals with autism
[00:18:34.620]often have poor eye contact or mutual gaze,
[00:18:37.811]they might have differences in gaze patterns
[00:18:39.940]or social interest.
[00:18:41.282]On the right there, you can see a study
[00:18:43.850]where they looked at the gaze patterns
[00:18:45.605]of individuals with autism and a control group.
[00:18:48.880]And you can see the control group,
[00:18:50.210]often has this nice triangle between the eyes and the mouth.
[00:18:53.880]Whereas the autistic group, it's not.
[00:18:57.290]It's more erratic, with the eyes gaze patterns are.
[00:19:00.960]So the research is still trying to figure out if it's this,
[00:19:06.980]the eye gaze and looking at faces,
[00:19:09.371]if that eventually causes prosopagnosia later in life,
[00:19:14.189]there was a study done with infants
[00:19:17.419]with congenital cataracts.
[00:19:19.630]So these are infants that for a period in their life,
[00:19:22.970]they were unable to see.
[00:19:24.645]Later in life, most of these infants
[00:19:27.100]then developed prosopagnosia.
[00:19:28.720]So not being able to see at a critical point in their lives
[00:19:33.048]led to them not being able to recognize faces later in life.
[00:19:36.840]So with autism, is it these children
[00:19:39.622]who maybe aren't looking at faces or making eye contact,
[00:19:42.518]is that causing facial recognition difficulties
[00:19:45.220]later in life?
[00:19:46.053]That part, we're not so sure about yet,
[00:19:48.250]that's still being researched.
[00:19:51.813]Next, I wanna show you another little video.
[00:19:53.477]This is another perspective of someone
[00:19:55.845]with autism and prosopagnosia.
[00:19:58.404]This is by Amethyst Schaber
[00:20:00.653]and she has a video blog called Ask an Autistic.
[00:20:07.031]♪ I wanna write a song to shine a light ♪
[00:20:10.463]♪ Be the change we want some things right ♪
[00:20:13.442]♪ Even waiting in the dark for so long ♪
[00:20:19.110]Hi everyone, I'm Amethyst and welcome to Ask an Autistic.
[00:20:22.670]In today's episode, I'm going to be talking
[00:20:23.928]about a pretty interesting neurological phenomenon
[00:20:27.504]that, while not exclusive to autistic people,
[00:20:31.190]does occur more often in autistic people
[00:20:34.530]than in non-autistic people and that is prosopagnosia.
[00:20:39.090]I have prosopagnosia so a lot of what I'm saying
[00:20:41.715]in this video is gonna be coming from my own experiences.
[00:20:45.200]Lots of people will forget somebody over time
[00:20:48.677]and lots of people might see someone out in public
[00:20:51.358]a stranger that they think is someone else.
[00:20:53.708]And those are normal like mix-ups or misrememberings
[00:20:57.162]but people with face blindness
[00:20:59.317]either I can walk by a family member
[00:21:01.542]and if they had changed their hairstyle and their outfit,
[00:21:04.015]I would not be able to recognize them.
[00:21:06.378]Even Marvin, who I see every day
[00:21:09.320]and spend quite a bit of time with and whom I love dearly,
[00:21:13.660]when I'm looking at him, I could describe his face to you,
[00:21:16.590]I could look at the individual features,
[00:21:18.561]I could describe the shape of his nose
[00:21:20.720]and the color of his eyes and how thick his eyebrows are.
[00:21:23.094]But I can't later recall what he looks like.
[00:21:26.804]And when I remember things,
[00:21:28.221]there aren't really faces in my memories.
[00:21:30.779]Growing up with prosopagnosia, as you can imagine,
[00:21:33.731]can cause quite a few misadventures or mix-ups.
[00:21:37.530]Children with prosopagnosia are gonna be very confused.
[00:21:40.973]If their parents don't know
[00:21:42.570]that that's what's going on with them,
[00:21:43.829]and if the child doesn't know what's going on with them,
[00:21:47.043]people are going to think that the child is rude
[00:21:48.975]or that they're just lazy or that they need
[00:21:52.780]to work harder remembering and putting names to faces
[00:21:55.680]when working harder won't do a thing
[00:21:57.990]because your brain doesn't work in that way.
[00:22:01.250]People with prosopagnosia can be perceived as rude
[00:22:03.823]because there can be a moment of hesitation
[00:22:05.733]if someone says hey to us when we're out
[00:22:08.080]and we don't recognize them,
[00:22:09.063]or there's a moment where we're using secondary
[00:22:12.258]and tertiary clues about a person's appearance
[00:22:15.184]to figure out who they are,
[00:22:16.658]and I found that people actually can get kind of offended
[00:22:19.832]if you don't remember who they are.
[00:22:22.509]I've used all kinds of phrases to try to explain to people
[00:22:27.242]without actually explaining or pulling out
[00:22:29.461]big science-y neurological type words.
[00:22:31.911]Like, "I'm sorry, I'm really bad with faces," or,
[00:22:34.446]"Oh, I just, I didn't see you there,"
[00:22:36.350]or "Oh, I didn't recognize you, your hair is different,"
[00:22:39.941]but people sometimes push
[00:22:42.074]and then it gets awkward to explain.
[00:22:50.930]So our brains are wired to see faces
[00:22:53.250]like I talked a little bit ago,
[00:22:55.530]we tend to see faces in a lot of different things.
[00:22:57.620]So here's a couple examples
[00:22:59.930]of things that people have seen faces in.
[00:23:04.733]I often see faces in cars or in electrical outlets.
[00:23:11.600]And even from birth,
[00:23:12.890]we show signs of this facial recognition.
[00:23:14.970]So from three to four days old,
[00:23:16.619]babies will show signs of facial recognition.
[00:23:19.695]However, this might be very broad shapes
[00:23:24.830]as they found that if they cover up a mother's face
[00:23:27.640]with a scarf or hat, sometimes that makes it difficult
[00:23:31.633]for a baby to recognize that as a person.
[00:23:34.456]By six months old, a baby can start to discriminate
[00:23:38.605]between different human faces
[00:23:40.360]and also between different primate faces.
[00:23:42.960]This is also when they start recognizing their caregiver.
[00:23:46.400]At nine months old, that ability
[00:23:48.551]to recognize different faces
[00:23:51.800]narrows to just being able
[00:23:53.340]to discriminate between human faces,
[00:23:55.940]and babies will tend to look more at pictures
[00:23:58.430]of faces than any other patterns.
[00:24:00.700]And then by age two, a young child
[00:24:02.835]can recognize many different human faces.
[00:24:04.952]But this is limited to what they're exposed to.
[00:24:07.850]So you'll find a child that is maybe not exposed
[00:24:11.910]to a very diverse population,
[00:24:13.824]they might be able to only recognize one cultural group
[00:24:18.050]of faces and have a difficult time discriminating
[00:24:19.988]between faces from other cultures.
[00:24:26.750]I'm not gonna go into too much detail here,
[00:24:29.320]but there's a few areas of the brain
[00:24:31.050]that I wanted to specifically mention
[00:24:33.000]with regards to facial recognition.
[00:24:35.393]The first is a fusiform face area,
[00:24:37.511]that's the blue area on this brain.
[00:24:39.906]And then the occipital face area,
[00:24:42.766]which is the purple area on the brain.
[00:24:45.560]These are areas of the brain that are specifically activated
[00:24:49.770]when looking at up at faces and particularly upright faces.
[00:24:57.370]The brain has different parts of the brain
[00:24:59.183]that react depending on what you're looking at,
[00:25:01.500]so parts of the brain are responsible
[00:25:03.020]for object recognition, color recognition,
[00:25:06.650]facial movements, facial expressions,
[00:25:08.810]and, like I said, faces.
[00:25:14.270]The research, we're still trying to figure out,
[00:25:16.390]for prosopagnosia, exactly what is affected
[00:25:19.740]when someone fails to recognize a face.
[00:25:22.750]The fusiform face area and the occipital face area,
[00:25:25.340]those parts of the brain are less activated
[00:25:27.580]when looking at a face for someone
[00:25:28.910]with facial recognition difficulties.
[00:25:31.270]And they're still trying to figure out
[00:25:32.320]if exactly how we process faces,
[00:25:35.033]if we're processing them as a whole
[00:25:36.975]or if we're processing them as individual pieces.
[00:25:41.330]Some very new research is showing
[00:25:43.550]that we even have some specific cells in our brain
[00:25:46.111]that will light up based on certain geometric patterns
[00:25:50.040]that we see in faces.
[00:25:50.950]So depending on how far the eyes are apart,
[00:25:53.220]and that triangle between the eyes and the mouth,
[00:25:57.110]there are specific parts of the brain
[00:25:57.987]that will react to those.
[00:26:01.483]And here's another view of the brain.
[00:26:03.800]Again, the green areas,
[00:26:04.712]both the dark green and the light green
[00:26:06.400]are are that fusiform face area and the red areas,
[00:26:08.743]the occipital face area.
[00:26:12.820]And you can see here, that individuals
[00:26:15.153]with facial blindness, those face specific areas,
[00:26:19.980]activate less than someone
[00:26:21.500]who is able to recognize faces very well.
[00:26:24.650]But it doesn't affect things like objects,
[00:26:28.430]the ability to recognize objects or other things,
[00:26:30.288]it's very specific to faces.
[00:26:34.200]Okay, here's a little test of our own,
[00:26:37.160]just like in the 60 Minutes video that we just watched.
[00:26:40.040]Try not to turn your face.
[00:26:41.347]I wanna see if you can recognize some of these faces.
[00:26:47.190]In the chat box, why don't you put a number
[00:26:48.880]for how many faces you can recognize?
[00:27:01.200]Okay, now I'm going to turn them over
[00:27:02.530]and I want you to see if it's any easier
[00:27:04.180]to recognize these faces.
[00:27:14.493]So what I'm showing you here is the facial inversion effect.
[00:27:18.841]These pictures when they're upside down,
[00:27:21.070]they still contain all the same information.
[00:27:22.618]You could still see the eyes and the nose and the face
[00:27:25.450]and some of you could still recognize all these faces
[00:27:27.381]even when upside down.
[00:27:29.480]But something happens when we turn 'em right side up.
[00:27:32.480]It's much easier to recognize these faces for most people.
[00:27:36.090]So those parts of the brain that are responsible
[00:27:37.602]for recognizing faces,
[00:27:39.630]it's specifically activated when faces are upright.
[00:27:43.550]And this is very unique to faces, objects,
[00:27:48.243]like my water bottle here,
[00:27:50.750]it doesn't make a difference even if it's upside down
[00:27:52.740]or sideways or right side up,
[00:27:54.100]we can still recognize that just fine.
[00:27:56.330]There's something very specific to faces
[00:27:58.619]that in order for our brains
[00:28:02.148]to be using all those different pieces have to be upright.
[00:28:06.570]Another interesting effect that we see,
[00:28:08.629]I'm gonna show you the Thatcher effect here.
[00:28:11.453]So we have some faces here.
[00:28:13.970]Now watch what happens when I turn 'em upside down.
[00:28:16.020]And I'm going to tell you I did nothing
[00:28:17.410]to change these faces,
[00:28:18.440]I'm just gonna turn 'em upside down.
[00:28:22.020]Did anybody recognize that when they were still upside down?
[00:28:28.940]So you might not have noticed when they were upside down,
[00:28:30.980]but you can see when the right side up,
[00:28:31.957]there's something very different about those faces,
[00:28:35.570]something odd about their eyes
[00:28:37.130]and something about their nose, sorry, about their mouth.
[00:28:42.770]So when the pictures are upside down like this,
[00:28:45.440]we tend to see these individual pieces of the face,
[00:28:48.450]we can see the eyes, we can see the mouth,
[00:28:50.260]but for some reason, we're not able to process
[00:28:52.097]that face as a whole.
[00:28:53.930]When I turn it around, you're able to process
[00:28:55.404]those faces as a whole and all of a sudden,
[00:28:57.700]you can see that there are things
[00:28:59.735]about that upside down faces that we couldn't see
[00:29:01.923]when they were upside down.
[00:29:07.780]Here's another thing that I think can help you understand
[00:29:11.226]why it is that you can see something
[00:29:13.723]but yet not understand it and not process it.
[00:29:16.640]So I want you to look at the sentence
[00:29:17.903]and see if you can figure out what the sentence means.
[00:29:21.990]If you got to figure it out,
[00:29:23.140]go ahead and type yes in the chat box.
[00:29:33.720]Someone's got it figured out, few people.
[00:29:38.130]So for most of you, you can see all the words
[00:29:40.767]but without the punctuation, the sentence has no meaning.
[00:29:44.200]So let me add in some punctuation and I'll read it to you.
[00:29:48.340]That that is, is.
[00:29:50.550]That that is not, is not.
[00:29:53.457]Does the sentence make more sense now?
[00:29:57.290]So for someone with prosopagnosia,
[00:29:59.127]they can see all the features of that face
[00:30:02.010]just like in that sentence, you could see all the words,
[00:30:03.871]but it's like the punctuation is missing in a face,
[00:30:06.560]we're missing something that allows us
[00:30:08.850]to process that face and in the sentence,
[00:30:11.287]without that punctuation, you weren't able to understand it.
[00:30:16.550]So person with prosopagnosia,
[00:30:17.825]it's like looking at a face without any punctuation.
[00:30:23.040]A little history of prosopagnosia
[00:30:24.633]and I'll just go into this briefly.
[00:30:27.470]In 1800s, they started to recognize
[00:30:29.621]that some people would have difficulties recognizing people
[00:30:32.943]that they should recognize maybe a close friend
[00:30:35.313]or a spouse after a stroke.
[00:30:39.143]But it wasn't until 1947 that someone actually came up
[00:30:42.517]with the term prosopagnosia,
[00:30:44.530]which literally means face forgetting.
[00:30:50.657]So, this was discovered in World War II
[00:30:54.270]when soldiers would go acquire a head injury
[00:30:57.754]in World War II, then come home
[00:31:00.040]and be unable to recognize
[00:31:02.030]their spouse or their children.
[00:31:04.150]At the time, other professionals thought this was crazy
[00:31:08.210]that there couldn't be a part of the brain
[00:31:11.195]that only looked at faces.
[00:31:13.473]Why would our brain be specialized to faces?
[00:31:16.560]But in the 1980s, with the development of the CT scan
[00:31:19.956]and MRI technology, they started to identify
[00:31:23.050]those parts of the brain that we talked about already,
[00:31:25.540]like the fusiform face area that were specifically activated
[00:31:28.651]when doing facial recognition tasks.
[00:31:32.070]It wasn't until 1990s that they discovered
[00:31:34.533]that someone could be born with this condition.
[00:31:37.490]And it wasn't until 2014 that prosopagnosia
[00:31:39.904]was added to the list of national health service conditions.
[00:31:43.950]So this is one reason why even though
[00:31:46.030]this is a fairly common condition,
[00:31:47.500]very few people know about it,
[00:31:48.790]and even doctors and neurologists
[00:31:50.804]haven't heard of this condition in many cases
[00:31:53.180]because it is still very new
[00:31:54.800]and the research on this is still very new.
[00:32:00.630]Prosopagnosia is a spectrum disorder.
[00:32:03.490]Someone with very severe prosopagnosia
[00:32:05.700]is not gonna be able to recognize their children,
[00:32:09.000]their wife, their co-workers,
[00:32:11.420]and may never be able to recognize them.
[00:32:14.594]To someone who maybe has inconsistent recognition
[00:32:18.521]or they can recognize close family members and friends
[00:32:21.478]but acquaintances or co-workers, they might struggle with.
[00:32:25.472]For myself, I kind of fall somewhere in the middle.
[00:32:27.750]I can usually recognize family members and close friends,
[00:32:31.659]but every once in a while, even that fails.
[00:32:35.566]So an individual with prosopagnosia,
[00:32:37.513]first of all, they may be unaware
[00:32:40.055]that they have any difficulty recognizing faces.
[00:32:43.350]They may have developed many different coping skills
[00:32:46.260]and not realize that the way they perceive faces
[00:32:50.190]and recognize people as any different
[00:32:51.820]from people around them,
[00:32:53.200]and they can still maybe recognize family members,
[00:32:55.833]teachers or other familiar people,
[00:32:58.050]especially if people are in a familiar context,
[00:33:01.950]and they may have developed many different coping skills
[00:33:04.300]so you might not even see any negative effects
[00:33:06.934]of this facial recognition difficulties.
[00:33:10.460]An interesting story, I mentioned that prosopagnosia
[00:33:14.170]often runs in the family.
[00:33:15.820]Well, after I got tested with prosopagnosia,
[00:33:17.434]my dad also did some testing
[00:33:18.869]and found out he struggles with facial blindness.
[00:33:22.115]In college, my dad and my mom only got together,
[00:33:26.390]I come to find out because of my dad's facial blindness.
[00:33:29.870]My dad was helping out at a freshman orientation
[00:33:32.592]where he would go up to different freshmen
[00:33:34.670]and help them during the orientation
[00:33:37.008]while he ended up going up to my mom three different times,
[00:33:40.385]not realizing it was the same person.
[00:33:43.130]My mom interprets that as,
[00:33:44.707]"Hey, this guy really likes me," and here I am today.
[00:33:51.909]So here are some signs and symptoms
[00:33:54.170]of someone with prosopagnosia.
[00:33:56.020]First of all, I'll show you this little joke.
[00:33:57.760]You had this guy looking at a mirror
[00:33:59.480]and he says, "Fantastic beard and hat, you old chap.
[00:34:02.812]"Let's be friends."
[00:34:04.430]He's not recognizing himself in the mirror.
[00:34:07.340]Now these signs and symptoms,
[00:34:08.299]they're not gonna be true of every person
[00:34:10.920]with facial recognition difficulties,
[00:34:12.184]but I wanted to give you an idea of some of the things
[00:34:14.740]that you might see if someone is struggling
[00:34:17.046]with facial recognition.
[00:34:20.924]This person, they might have friends
[00:34:22.802]who all have very distinctive characteristics.
[00:34:25.533]In school and in camps, I would always tend to gravitate
[00:34:29.994]towards individuals who are from different cultures
[00:34:33.530]or have very unique features
[00:34:35.120]because I could reliably recognize them
[00:34:37.787]out of everybody else.
[00:34:41.850]This person might get confused when watching TV shows
[00:34:44.600]or movies 'cause they get characters confused.
[00:34:47.450]They might recognize familiar people
[00:34:49.182]but maybe inconsistently.
[00:34:52.430]They might walk by you without acknowledging you.
[00:34:56.170]They might go up to strangers.
[00:34:59.160]They might have difficulties recognizing themselves
[00:35:00.924]in the mirror and photo.
[00:35:02.940]So you can see some of these,
[00:35:05.060]you can see can be very common with individuals with autism.
[00:35:08.080]So you gotta wonder, is it the autism
[00:35:10.756]causing some of these difficulties,
[00:35:12.162]just those difficulties with social interactions?
[00:35:15.020]Or are there maybe some facial recognition difficulties
[00:35:18.044]going on as well?
[00:35:20.850]Some more signs and symptoms,
[00:35:22.177]they might struggle to recognize photos of familiar people.
[00:35:25.809]Maybe they won't recognize famous people.
[00:35:28.909]They might react poorly.
[00:35:30.890]If someone has a physical change in appearance,
[00:35:33.040]maybe someone cut their hair
[00:35:34.222]or lost a lot of weight recently.
[00:35:38.216]They might have high anxiety in social situations.
[00:35:41.701]They might avoid using names
[00:35:43.847]or maybe they only know a few names of their classmates.
[00:35:47.843]And they might prefer to be around teachers
[00:35:49.720]rather than classmates because it's easier
[00:35:51.940]to find that one or two adult in the classroom
[00:35:54.910]versus one of the 15, 20, 25 children in the classroom.
[00:36:01.287]One thing that happened to me to show me that yes,
[00:36:05.380]this is something I have.
[00:36:06.348]I ran into a co-worker at a park a few years ago.
[00:36:09.708]This is a co-worker that I thought I could recognize.
[00:36:12.587]I ran into almost every day.
[00:36:15.286]And then at the park, she had her hair up
[00:36:17.172]and had a ball cap on, started talking to me,
[00:36:20.267]and I was like, "I have no idea who this person is."
[00:36:22.944]But I have my dog with me and she recognized my dog.
[00:36:25.429]So I'm like, "Well, she obviously knows me
[00:36:27.517]"'cause she knows my dog."
[00:36:28.760]So I walked with her, I sat down with her.
[00:36:31.419]About 15 minutes later, I finally figured out who she was.
[00:36:35.470]I tried to run through, I thought maybe with the ball cap,
[00:36:38.750]maybe she was a softball player.
[00:36:40.020]So I was running through all the people
[00:36:41.010]I play softball with, and then I was running through,
[00:36:43.150]well, maybe she's from my church,
[00:36:44.017]and it was running through all the people from my church.
[00:36:46.160]Finally, it was her voice that clicked for me
[00:36:48.537]and I figured out who she was
[00:36:50.070]and we had a good laugh about it when she was like,
[00:36:52.157]"You follow me and you had no clue who I was?"
[00:37:00.010]Other things, another thing in college
[00:37:03.610]that I noticed is teachers would often put us in groups.
[00:37:06.445]If we could stay in that room in groups, I was fine.
[00:37:08.577]But if she had the group's go into other areas,
[00:37:11.607]go outside the room to work together.
[00:37:13.724]As soon as we left the room,
[00:37:15.800]if I didn't keep an eye on my group members, I lost them.
[00:37:18.190]I had no clue who the group members
[00:37:20.090]that I was just assigned to with were.
[00:37:23.050]However, there's some nice positives
[00:37:24.844]about having facial recognition difficulties.
[00:37:26.900]One thing it's very, very hard for me
[00:37:28.996]to form a bad first impression of someone.
[00:37:31.600]Even if I do have a bad first impression of someone,
[00:37:34.467]likely I'm not gonna remember it the next time we meet, so.
[00:37:40.970]And then, oh, and reluctance to join groups.
[00:37:46.630]There's also some research and this is the part
[00:37:48.870]they're still trying to figure out
[00:37:50.016]is if facial blindness also might occur
[00:37:52.760]with some other conditions.
[00:37:54.740]Specifically, they're looking at navigation and topography.
[00:37:58.611]A lot of individuals who struggle with facial blindness
[00:38:01.070]might have difficulties with that, maybe body perception.
[00:38:03.980]They might be sensitive to movement
[00:38:06.170]especially facial movement,
[00:38:07.840]differentiating between left and right.
[00:38:10.427]And the identification of race or color.
[00:38:13.042]Some new things that they're looking at
[00:38:15.360]is maybe individuals with facial recognition difficulties
[00:38:18.702]might also sometimes have aphantasia,
[00:38:23.780]I think I'm saying that right, which is an inability
[00:38:25.880]to make any visual picture in your mind.
[00:38:29.830]And some new research that they're trying to see
[00:38:32.270]if there's any connection between synesthesia,
[00:38:36.520]where you experience one sense as another.
[00:38:38.760]So for example, my niece experiences numbers
[00:38:42.979]as having colors as well.
[00:38:49.490]So I wanted to give you a perspective
[00:38:50.979]of a child with facial blindness
[00:38:52.986]since many of you work with children.
[00:38:55.856]13-year-old Tim McDonough from Boston
[00:38:58.410]who is severely face blind.
[00:39:00.890]So can you describe what it feels like?
[00:39:03.818]When someone comes up, you know,
[00:39:07.010]you're supposed to know who they are.
[00:39:08.700]I usually just say, "Hi, nice to see you."
[00:39:11.219]So you sometimes pretend?
[00:39:13.350]Yeah. You fake it.
[00:39:14.520]I fake it, yeah.
[00:39:15.989]You think it's not your mom?
[00:39:17.476]Yeah. Okay.
[00:39:19.280]So that actually, it was your mom.
[00:39:21.340]Tim is working with the Harvard team
[00:39:23.250]to see if they can help him learn
[00:39:24.680]to recognize his mother's face.
[00:39:26.930]Is this one your mom or not?
[00:39:31.150]Yes, we can start at the top.
[00:39:32.250]We could do eyebrows, eyes, nose.
[00:39:35.060]You could even use the cheeks there.
[00:39:37.300]It's part of a pilot program
[00:39:38.952]to see if face blindness might someday be treatable.
[00:39:42.891]It's a little bit harder.
[00:39:44.880]So far it's not.
[00:39:46.090]I don't know.
[00:39:47.920]I just hope that nobody tries to talk to me
[00:39:52.272]because if they do, they--
[00:39:55.730]They wanna talk about something you've done with them.
[00:39:58.150]Yeah, and I don't know who they are.
[00:40:02.640]So it must be really hard to make friends.
[00:40:05.400]It is, yeah, takes me a while to make friends.
[00:40:14.345]So I wanted to go over
[00:40:15.730]some common facial recognition errors that you might see.
[00:40:19.330]First of all is twinning,
[00:40:21.010]and this is where you don't realize that a person
[00:40:23.720]in two different contexts is actually the same person.
[00:40:26.575]So in my case, the person sitting next to me at church,
[00:40:30.079]it took me I think about a year, year and a half
[00:40:32.880]to realize that same person sitting next to me in church
[00:40:34.845]was the same person I played handbills
[00:40:36.940]with on Wednesday nights.
[00:40:39.210]Merging is thinking that two or more people
[00:40:41.146]are the same person.
[00:40:43.040]This happened to me.
[00:40:44.210]I worked early intervention for a number of years
[00:40:47.309]and would go into homes and was working with a mom
[00:40:50.504]on providing interventions for her child for a while
[00:40:53.710]and then all of a sudden,
[00:40:55.280]I was talking to who I thought was mom
[00:40:57.627]at an intervention visit, and mentioned something
[00:41:01.543]and the person was like, "I'm the sister."
[00:41:05.670]And she got pretty offended that I confused mom
[00:41:07.977]with the sister and I had no idea
[00:41:11.000]when that person changed to the sister,
[00:41:13.030]if it was just for that visit
[00:41:14.300]or if I'd been working with a sister for a number of weeks,
[00:41:16.700]and it was very confusing and awkward.
[00:41:20.830]Blending is where you confuse people
[00:41:22.045]that share similar identity traits.
[00:41:26.580]This happened to me working on early intervention team
[00:41:30.220]where the occupational therapist
[00:41:32.160]and the physical therapist both had long blonde hair,
[00:41:35.689]similar body types, and to this day,
[00:41:38.183]I still can't tell 'em apart,
[00:41:40.220]so we just came up with a system
[00:41:42.940]where I combine their names together
[00:41:44.260]and they both respond to the same name.
[00:41:47.410]Non-recognition is where you just don't recognize a person.
[00:41:52.240]Last summer, this happened to me with a close family member.
[00:41:55.311]I was on a bike ride with my nieces and nephews
[00:41:57.985]and I stopped with my nephew to fix a bike.
[00:42:00.369]My niece had ridden back to see if we were okay,
[00:42:03.150]and she was wearing a helmet and she came back.
[00:42:05.417]"Hey, you guys need any help?"
[00:42:07.000]And I thought it was a complete stranger.
[00:42:08.830]I was like, "Hey, no, we're fine."
[00:42:10.711]And a few minutes or about 30 seconds later,
[00:42:14.695]the voice connected and I realized that was my niece.
[00:42:17.384]And that was really hard,
[00:42:19.060]someone I thought I had no problems recognizing
[00:42:21.127]a family member who I love
[00:42:22.797]and not be able to recognize them.
[00:42:25.840]And then finally, a mistaken identity
[00:42:28.190]where you think a person is someone else entirely.
[00:42:30.402]And this happened to me about two years ago at a funeral.
[00:42:34.621]I was at a funeral for someone at church
[00:42:37.838]and then all of a sudden, a man comes walking by
[00:42:41.273]and I had thought that was the person
[00:42:43.331]I was there for the funeral and so I was like,
[00:42:46.637]"Oh my gosh, did this person just raise from the dead
[00:42:49.577]"or what is going on here?"
[00:42:50.750]I confuse the two people,
[00:42:52.823]I mistaken the guy walking around as the person
[00:42:56.900]whom the funeral was for.
[00:43:01.537]There's a couple different ways
[00:43:02.815]to get screened or diagnosed
[00:43:04.753]with facial blindness difficulties.
[00:43:06.996]There's a few informal online tests.
[00:43:09.420]The first is the Famous Faces Test
[00:43:12.190]and I'm gonna show you an example of this in a little bit.
[00:43:15.200]There's also the Exposure Based Memory Test,
[00:43:17.286]and a Prosopagnosia Index,
[00:43:19.420]which is just a 20 question questionnaire
[00:43:22.440]that you can take online and there's links to here
[00:43:25.000]and in my handouts.
[00:43:25.880]You should be able to recommend,
[00:43:27.590]you should be able to follow.
[00:43:29.612]There's also some diagnostic tests that you can take.
[00:43:34.100]Usually, you're gonna have to go
[00:43:35.410]through a neurologist for these.
[00:43:36.820]Your school psychologist might have access
[00:43:38.446]to the Kaufman assessment kit,
[00:43:40.330]which has a facial recognition section for children.
[00:43:43.340]Other tests that you might see,
[00:43:44.603]the Benton Facial Recognition Test
[00:43:46.255]or the Cambridge Face Memory Test is very common as well.
[00:43:51.790]So here is an example of the famous faces tests,
[00:43:54.890]you'll be shown some pictures of a famous individual.
[00:43:58.460]So in this case, you have to decide
[00:44:00.530]which face is Oprah Winfrey.
[00:44:02.820]And it gives you a checkbox if you don't know
[00:44:04.790]who that person is at all, and then you get a score.
[00:44:07.960]So you can see I put an example my score there.
[00:44:12.020]I got 19 wherein the average score is 30,
[00:44:14.270]and I scored higher than zero
[00:44:15.422]out of every 10 people on this test.
[00:44:20.140]The Cambridge Face Memory Test,
[00:44:21.500]this is a test often used by university studies.
[00:44:24.680]So in this case, you memorize a face shown
[00:44:26.940]from a couple different angles,
[00:44:28.158]and then you have to figure out which face is that face
[00:44:32.777]when shown an array of faces.
[00:44:36.707]And there's also a place to take this test online as well
[00:44:38.968]and then you can also contact researchers
[00:44:42.292]to participate in studies
[00:44:43.790]if you do have facial recognition difficulties.
[00:44:49.160]Finally, there is this Exposure Based Memory Tests,
[00:44:52.740]and in this test, you are shown a face,
[00:44:55.230]and then you're showing another face,
[00:44:56.880]and you have to decide if that new face is brand new
[00:44:59.520]or if it's a face you've seen before.
[00:45:01.709]So on this test, you can see I got 48
[00:45:05.910]out of 75 questions correct.
[00:45:07.467]This says, scores below 40 may indicate prosopagnosia.
[00:45:11.130]I think, one reason I scored better on this
[00:45:12.395]is because I had many more clues I could use like the hair.
[00:45:17.920]It wasn't just the face.
[00:45:22.090]You can also do some informal assessment.
[00:45:25.806]You can ask a child some questions about a person in a photo
[00:45:30.083]especially if the person in the photo
[00:45:31.879]is not wearing familiar clothes or in a familiar context.
[00:45:36.829]You can also maybe cover the hair of someone
[00:45:39.360]while showing the photo.
[00:45:41.850]You can also take pictures on your phone
[00:45:44.610]and crop the pictures so you can just see the face
[00:45:46.656]or maybe use Photoshop so you're just showing the face.
[00:45:49.926]Taking pictures, pictures of familiar people
[00:45:52.413]wearing funny hats or maybe new clothing
[00:45:56.130]so that you can rule out
[00:45:57.200]if they're using other recognition strategies.
[00:46:00.520]Another fun one is to use the online virtual hair salon
[00:46:02.946]so you can use this for familiar people or famous people
[00:46:06.250]and completely change their hair
[00:46:08.319]and see if the person can still recognize the individuals.
[00:46:12.620]Like we mentioned earlier, someone who struggles
[00:46:14.380]with facial recognition might not realize
[00:46:16.700]that they struggle with this.
[00:46:22.640]Some places to get tested.
[00:46:23.715]You can get a referral to a neurologist.
[00:46:28.060]This can be a little difficult
[00:46:29.480]'cause there are still many doctors
[00:46:30.780]who have not heard of facial blindness.
[00:46:33.030]Other places that you can go to is some of the universities
[00:46:36.116]who are currently doing studies in this.
[00:46:38.743]So Bournemouth University,
[00:46:41.570]the Prosopagnosia Research Center,
[00:46:43.140]which includes Dartmouth, and Harvard,
[00:46:44.910]and the University of London,
[00:46:46.690]or the Carnegie Mellon University.
[00:46:49.240]This is where I was tested with facial blindness
[00:46:51.458]a number of years ago.
[00:46:55.810]Okay, I'm gonna show you another little video here.
[00:46:59.000]Hilary Doyle was the exploring facial blindness,
[00:47:01.460]and at the end of this video,
[00:47:02.570]there is a little test that she does with this person.
[00:47:06.820]So I'm curious to see how you guys will do.
[00:47:08.644]Ironically, when I did this test,
[00:47:10.430]I got it wrong the first time and then a couple days later,
[00:47:12.800]I'll watch the video again,
[00:47:13.902]getting ready for this presentation
[00:47:15.600]and I got it wrong again, so we'll see how you do.
[00:47:20.840]We always had an awareness
[00:47:21.897]that I didn't recognize faces very well.
[00:47:25.356]I would say that I see it holistically.
[00:47:27.870]I'm told that subconsciously,
[00:47:29.330]I break it down into geometric shapes.
[00:47:32.030]I basically have categorized people
[00:47:33.898]to certain numbers of faces in the world.
[00:47:37.280]And I automatically put somebody in a slot.
[00:47:40.690]There would be middle aged, balding man,
[00:47:44.030]slim, attractive, dark-haired women.
[00:47:45.834]I group them together and automatically
[00:47:48.068]put them in one area.
[00:47:49.960]If I was to leave and to come back with another woman,
[00:47:51.634]do you think you could distinguish my face from hers?
[00:47:54.235]Absolutely.
[00:47:55.420]Let's test it out.
[00:47:56.360]Bring it on.
[00:47:57.613](upbeat techno music)
[00:48:04.080]It's tougher than I thought,
[00:48:05.970]and I'm going to say Hilary is the one on my left.
[00:48:09.170]I would say that is Hilary,
[00:48:11.550]mostly think it's Hilary because of the smile.
[00:48:13.992]And I think I remember the smile.
[00:48:16.500]You're wrong, Jeff.
[00:48:17.995]I'm so sorry. (laughs)
[00:48:19.341](laughs) I can't believe it.
[00:48:23.173]All right, I thought that'd be a little fun.
[00:48:26.230]We always had an awareness that--
[00:48:29.060]And if you discovered through the course
[00:48:30.530]of this presentation that you are struggling
[00:48:31.981]with some of these activities on facial recognition,
[00:48:34.740]talk to me afterwards,
[00:48:35.573]I'd love to talk to you and help you out.
[00:48:38.900]So a person doesn't just rely on facial clues
[00:48:42.140]to recognize someone.
[00:48:43.110]So look at the picture on the right there,
[00:48:44.975]I want to see if you can recognize
[00:48:46.899]the three men in those pictures, in that picture.
[00:48:55.690]So when you look at that picture,
[00:48:57.120]you're probably using a number of clues.
[00:48:58.200]You're probably looking at their clothing,
[00:48:59.894]you're looking at their hairstyle,
[00:49:01.720]getting an idea of their age.
[00:49:02.936]You can see the American flag on the side.
[00:49:05.306]You can see this stately building
[00:49:07.872]that they're walking next to.
[00:49:09.217]So even without faces, many of you have probably realized
[00:49:12.940]that you're looking at a picture of George W. Bush,
[00:49:15.407]Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton in that picture.
[00:49:18.930]So we use lots of things to figure out, to recognize people.
[00:49:25.050]A big one is clothing that people wear.
[00:49:28.790]Problem with this is clothing changes usually every day.
[00:49:32.320]So if you're trying to remember someone
[00:49:34.448]based on their clothing, it can be really difficult.
[00:49:37.350]I did this a lot as a child.
[00:49:39.570]And I remember at a sports camp,
[00:49:41.940]I finally figured out if I memorize
[00:49:43.729]the other children's shoes.
[00:49:45.500]The shoes at a sports camp generally don't change
[00:49:48.170]from day to day.
[00:49:49.370]So if I could remember their shoes,
[00:49:50.283]I could find that same child the next day.
[00:49:54.100]Voice is another big one that individuals
[00:49:55.846]who struggle with facial recognition rely on.
[00:49:59.330]Just last week or a couple weeks ago
[00:50:02.397]before this whole coronavirus thing,
[00:50:04.500]I was in Walgreens standing in line,
[00:50:07.650]I did not recognize the person in front of me
[00:50:09.201]until she talked to the cashier
[00:50:10.939]and I figured out that she is someone
[00:50:13.333]that I've done some music things with before.
[00:50:17.383]Hairstyle's another big one.
[00:50:19.114]So be careful if you ever change your hairstyle.
[00:50:21.427]My boss, a couple months ago,
[00:50:23.527]she usually wears her hair down
[00:50:25.227]and she put her hair up in a ponytail.
[00:50:27.740]I couldn't find her.
[00:50:28.660]I think I walked by her three times
[00:50:30.290]before I figured out that that was my boss standing there.
[00:50:35.090]Other ones facial hair, marks or scars, distinctive jewelry,
[00:50:39.995]the overall body shape, the person's gait or behavior,
[00:50:44.470]their race, they might wear consistent perfume,
[00:50:47.910]it might be the context you always run
[00:50:50.350]into this person at work or tattoos.
[00:50:53.890]The problem is is these non-facial identity clues
[00:50:56.886]are not as reliable as facial recognition.
[00:51:00.357]So a person who struggles with facial recognition
[00:51:02.934]might be using all these clues
[00:51:04.456]and might be using them pretty automatically,
[00:51:06.650]but you can still have failures
[00:51:08.500]because these aren't as reliable.
[00:51:11.670]But it's because of these clues that many individuals
[00:51:13.438]who do struggle with facial recognition
[00:51:15.610]might not even realize it.
[00:51:23.231]All right, so some strategies for going out together.
[00:51:27.430]This is specifically, if you can recognize faces,
[00:51:30.469]but you're going out with someone
[00:51:31.991]who struggles with recognizing faces.
[00:51:34.600]First of all, greeting anyone you've come across
[00:51:37.016]by name and giving those context clues.
[00:51:39.537]"Hey, Joe, it's so great seeing you
[00:51:41.327]"at music class the other day."
[00:51:45.230]Using names each time when seeing another person,
[00:51:48.870]helping them identify characters or movies and TV shows,
[00:51:53.180]wearing familiar clothing,
[00:51:55.550]reestablishing yourself after being out of sight.
[00:51:57.669]So if you go to the bathroom and you come back,
[00:51:59.902]you might just say hey, "It's Ashley again,"
[00:52:03.690]and making a plan for where you're gonna sit or meet.
[00:52:07.821]So I have a picture here on the right.
[00:52:11.090]One of my co workers recently got a haircut
[00:52:13.780]and she was worried that I wouldn't be able
[00:52:15.020]to recognize her with the haircut,
[00:52:17.270]so she sent me a picture of her bracelet here
[00:52:19.270]and she texted me,
[00:52:20.166]"Hey, Ashley, I wanted to warn you
[00:52:22.577]"that I cut all my hair off.
[00:52:23.767]"I will be wearing my black bracelet that I always wear."
[00:52:28.644]So letting the person know
[00:52:29.880]what you will be wearing is very helpful.
[00:52:33.430]Being very specific about where you will meet,
[00:52:36.950]greeting the person first,
[00:52:38.050]so don't wait for them to recognize you,
[00:52:39.576]go ahead and say, "Hey, so and so."
[00:52:43.910]Wearing something distinctive like the bracelet
[00:52:45.850]my coworker wore,
[00:52:48.390]printing out a photo or sending a text message
[00:52:50.352]of what you're wearing that day,
[00:52:53.820]and maybe studying a picture of someone
[00:52:56.492]that you're gonna be seeing over the in a few days.
[00:53:00.240]So an example here, this is by Sheila Carney.
[00:53:04.420]She is a mother of a young boy with autism
[00:53:07.108]who is nonverbal and struggles with facial recognition.
[00:53:11.350]So I'm just gonna read this to you guys.
[00:53:14.317]"If I knew that Grandma and Grandpa
[00:53:15.787]"were coming over on Saturday,
[00:53:17.187]"we started on Monday night the week before
[00:53:19.037]"looking at pictures of them and labeling them.
[00:53:21.027]"Every night, I point to a picture and say, 'Who's this?'
[00:53:23.809]"'Grandma.'
[00:53:25.157]"He was not yet vocal, but enjoyed pointing
[00:53:27.757]"at all the faces repeatedly so I would tell him their name.
[00:53:31.377]"When Saturday came around, he was less likely to be upset
[00:53:33.970]"that Grandma showed up.
[00:53:35.667]"He was familiar with the concept of Grandma
[00:53:37.517]"and had seen her face all week.
[00:53:39.427]"After months of doing this activity,
[00:53:41.297]"he would go to her when she arrived
[00:53:44.211]"rather than running in the opposite direction."
[00:53:49.720]So if you have prosopagnosia,
[00:53:51.850]if you struggle with facial recognition,
[00:53:53.310]here's a few tips for you.
[00:53:55.046]First of all, if you're gonna meet someone, get there first.
[00:53:57.612]Let the other person find you.
[00:53:59.497]What I like to do get there first and maybe get out a book.
[00:54:01.909]That way, you're not expected
[00:54:03.357]to recognize the people walking by.
[00:54:07.290]Consider explaining to your friends and family
[00:54:09.018]the struggles you have.
[00:54:10.640]They can be a huge help to you.
[00:54:13.363]Making notes about people
[00:54:14.853]that you're gonna run across again,
[00:54:16.870]but you have to be very careful
[00:54:17.978]'cause some people can be a little sensitive
[00:54:21.214]if you start pointing out
[00:54:23.100]some of their distinctive features.
[00:54:25.960]I would often do this when I would go
[00:54:28.460]in early intervention and work in day cares.
[00:54:31.520]Usually, there's three or four adults in the room
[00:54:32.802]and a bunch of children.
[00:54:34.414]So I started writing down the teacher
[00:54:37.920]that I was working with, she had short blonde hair,
[00:54:40.550]and earrings, and she parted her hair on the side.
[00:54:43.750]Then the next time I go there,
[00:54:45.710]I could look at all the adults in the classroom
[00:54:47.480]and narrow down who it is I was supposed to talk to.
[00:54:51.481]Just remembering the clothing of your party
[00:54:54.010]especially if you're gonna be going into a crowd.
[00:54:57.180]Avoid using names or just going with the,
[00:54:59.930]"What was your name again?"
[00:55:03.270]I use this one all the time,
[00:55:04.680]letting others introduce themselves
[00:55:06.056]or just introduce the person that you're with that you know.
[00:55:09.239]I always say to people,
[00:55:11.337]"Oh, I always forget to introduce people."
[00:55:13.340]And nobody ever knows the difference, I hope.
[00:55:17.970]Smiling and using a friendly nod with everyone
[00:55:20.060]is an overall good strategy.
[00:55:23.483]If you're trying to find someone specific
[00:55:25.174]ask someone of the opposite sex.
[00:55:27.230]So if you're trying to find a male, maybe Mike,
[00:55:29.559]asking a female to help you find Mike is helpful
[00:55:32.950]because then you don't accidentally
[00:55:34.490]ask Mike himself to find Mike.
[00:55:38.370]And then take a friend with you.
[00:55:39.530]Friends are very helpful for helping you find who you need.
[00:55:44.230]And lastly, there's some technology that's coming out.
[00:55:47.111]I haven't had a chance to use it myself
[00:55:49.089]but Google Glass or there's something new called OrCam MyMe
[00:55:53.660]that I'm interested in trying out
[00:55:55.310]and I have a little video to show you what that looks like.
[00:56:00.700]Your time at work and at play
[00:56:02.123]can be super competitive and demanding.
[00:56:05.270]Oftentimes, you'll not get a second shot
[00:56:07.102]to make the most of an opportunity.
[00:56:09.244]This is why OrCam invented the MyMe,
[00:56:11.872]a tiny wearable device that focuses
[00:56:14.120]on people you encounter and will encounter.
[00:56:16.967]Whether you're an entrepreneur or an art teacher,
[00:56:19.680]MyMe is relevant for you and your many circles of people.
[00:56:23.204]This one time purchase will support you
[00:56:25.248]for unlimited events, meetings, and people details
[00:56:28.509]that are helpful and meaningful for your life.
[00:56:31.290]This sophisticated piece of technology
[00:56:32.867]is equipped with high definition camera
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[00:57:17.760]All right, then I wanted to go over
[00:57:18.990]a few classroom strategies and I just wanted to remind you,
[00:57:22.108]if one in 50 people struggle with facial recognition
[00:57:25.091]and have prosopagnosia, it's probably pretty likely
[00:57:28.740]that someone in your class might struggle
[00:57:31.180]with facial recognition, so keep some of these in mind.
[00:57:35.390]First of all, at the beginning of the year,
[00:57:37.010]if you're playing get to know you games,
[00:57:38.750]try to choose ones that don't require you
[00:57:41.170]to remember faces or use names.
[00:57:44.807]Name tags or desk labels can be helpful
[00:57:47.210]and think about where you place those desk tags
[00:57:52.570]so that individuals who have facial blindness
[00:57:55.090]can see him as well,
[00:57:55.923]so maybe put them on the side of the desk,
[00:57:57.523]not just on top of the desk.
[00:58:00.952]Having assigned seating so that way,
[00:58:03.010]you always know that Joe sits over here
[00:58:05.133]and John sits over here.
[00:58:08.040]For older children, you might wanna print out
[00:58:09.348]a seating chart so that they can refer to that
[00:58:12.114]in the classroom.
[00:58:14.793]Giving clues, especially if you're gonna be doing
[00:58:17.535]some group projects.
[00:58:18.897]Maybe have the child who doesn't have prosopagnosia
[00:58:22.180]find the child with prosopagnosia
[00:58:24.375]or giving those clues like,
[00:58:25.817]"Why don't you go sit over there with Johnny
[00:58:27.797]"who has that wonderful shirt on today,
[00:58:30.257]"wonderful blue shirt on today?"
[00:58:33.742]using intentional grouping, so maybe consider groups
[00:58:36.573]that have children that maybe have different hair colors
[00:58:40.240]or hairstyles or maybe that are wearing
[00:58:42.020]different colored shirts that day.
[00:58:45.270]Small groups are always helpful,
[00:58:47.600]that way you only have a few people
[00:58:49.110]that you have to try to remember who they are.
[00:58:54.394]Photos can be helpful but not always.
[00:58:56.740]So myself, I find photos helpful.
[00:58:58.883]However, I have really hard time matching up
[00:59:01.697]the still photo with the live person.
[00:59:05.710]I have to kind of hold the photo up to the person
[00:59:08.330]and look back and forth and it might take me a few minutes.
[00:59:11.390]It sometimes takes me much longer than that
[00:59:13.900]to figure out if that's the same person or not.
[00:59:18.370]If you have children pass out papers,
[00:59:19.816]have this child handout blank papers
[00:59:22.019]instead of passing back papers with names on it.
[00:59:26.370]And then just structuring up some activities,
[00:59:28.587]thinking of structured activities during recess times,
[00:59:31.757]maybe doing lunch buddies or table topics,
[00:59:35.048]thinking about school clubs to help that individual
[00:59:38.153]meet up with others with similar interests.
[00:59:42.040]And then teachers and other professionals in the building,
[00:59:44.051]maybe think about wearing some unique consistent items,
[00:59:46.769]maybe some jewelry that you wear everyday
[00:59:49.840]or scarf or wearing the same shoes every day.
[00:59:54.020]And then just using the names of classmates frequently
[00:59:56.305]while gesturing and keeping in mind
[00:59:58.566]that not all children will be able
[01:00:00.784]to follow a point or a gesture.
[01:00:02.960]So again, you might wanna use those clues
[01:00:06.340]like what color shirt they're wearing
[01:00:08.340]or things like that when doing that.
[01:00:13.440]In PE, wearing the colors of teammates,
[01:00:17.310]so making sure you're wearing those jerseys.
[01:00:19.225]I remember in junior high PE, we didn't wear jerseys
[01:00:22.910]and I ended up throwing the ball
[01:00:24.390]to someone on the other team,
[01:00:26.470]and my coach was very mad about that.
[01:00:30.710]Playing to the child's strengths,
[01:00:31.860]so figuring out what are they using to recognize people?
[01:00:34.730]Are they using voice?
[01:00:35.990]Are they using clothes?
[01:00:36.980]And building on those strengths
[01:00:38.340]to help them recognize others?
[01:00:40.540]And then teach them to use
[01:00:41.470]those other recognition strategies.
[01:00:43.070]So if they're using clothes right now,
[01:00:45.070]maybe teach them to listen to voices
[01:00:46.930]or teach them to look at hairstyles.
[01:00:49.290]Audio books can be a great way to help a child
[01:00:51.452]learn to start distinguishing between voices
[01:00:56.710]and then social skills instruction,
[01:00:58.742]which we're already doing for our kids with autism,
[01:01:01.248]but you might include teaching them
[01:01:03.900]how to ask questions that fish for information
[01:01:05.950]to try to figure out who the person is
[01:01:07.636]but keeping the questions general enough so that,
[01:01:13.040]so that they're not...
[01:01:17.080]Sorry, so they're not revealing the fact
[01:01:20.540]that they're not recognizing the person
[01:01:22.160]and then just teaching them to be able to initiate
[01:01:24.390]and respond to greetings appropriately.
[01:01:27.520]And then specific instruction on recognizing emotions,
[01:01:29.803]considering not just the facial features,
[01:01:32.870]or the emotions, which a lot of times,
[01:01:34.090]I think we focus on as special educators,
[01:01:36.254]but also the non-facial clues.
[01:01:37.883]So when someone's mad, you might see their fist tense up,
[01:01:41.010]their shoulders might kind of tense up,
[01:01:42.719]you might see wrinkle.
[01:01:44.032]So considering not just facial clues
[01:01:46.880]but whole body clues of emotions.
[01:01:51.500]Another piece of software
[01:01:53.574]which shows really interesting promise,
[01:01:56.610]especially for children with autism
[01:01:58.320]in recognizing whole faces is a scheme called Face It.
[01:02:02.063]This is an app that you can get on your iPad
[01:02:03.868]and it's a free app.
[01:02:05.975]Children with autism showed better holistic face recognition
[01:02:10.326]and also eye recognition after playing this
[01:02:12.740]completely on their own.
[01:02:14.103]But there still needs to be more research on it
[01:02:15.903]because the research wasn't showing much help
[01:02:19.473]with being able to match faces
[01:02:21.440]if they changed in expression or orientation
[01:02:23.980]or to remember faces over time.
[01:02:26.207]But I wanted to kind of show you a little bit
[01:02:28.320]of what this looks like.
[01:02:29.620]I took pictures of my family members
[01:02:30.950]doing various expressions and also in different contexts.
[01:02:35.175]So the left side of the screen is gonna show the games
[01:02:37.720]that where you have to identify the person
[01:02:39.970]and the right side of the screen
[01:02:40.829]is where you have to identify the motion.
[01:02:43.250]So the first one is just to choose which one it matches.
[01:02:47.640]This one, you have to pop the bubble.
[01:02:49.541]On the left side, you had to find grandma,
[01:02:51.730]on the right side, you had to figure out
[01:02:53.720]which face looked mad.
[01:02:56.325]This one was a just a matching one.
[01:02:58.608]So on the left side, you had to find me.
[01:03:01.210]On the right side, you had to match the emotions.
[01:03:04.850]So different people might have a mad face,
[01:03:06.719]so you have to recognize that mad face
[01:03:08.175]across different faces.
[01:03:11.130]And this one where you fused together.
[01:03:13.030]So on the left side, you had to find Grandma's eyes
[01:03:16.000]and Trinity's mouth and on the right side,
[01:03:17.990]you had to find excited eyes and a sad mouth.
[01:03:24.510]Then finally, I just wanted to specifically put out there
[01:03:27.978]some ideas for parents to consider,
[01:03:30.621]especially some of those school and safety considerations.
[01:03:34.702]If your child has struggles with facial blindness,
[01:03:38.810]most of the school personnel will have never heard
[01:03:41.200]of facial blindness or prosopagnosia.
[01:03:43.210]So thinking about how you're gonna inform school staff.
[01:03:46.860]There is a great Facebook's support group out there
[01:03:49.808]for parents of children with prosopagnosia.
[01:03:52.449]And on that Facebook group, a parent has posted a handout
[01:03:56.211]that they give to their teachers
[01:03:57.560]at the beginning of every school year.
[01:03:59.590]So I encourage you to check that out.
[01:04:02.760]You're also gonna need to have some safety considerations
[01:04:04.569]for pickup and drop off time.
[01:04:06.490]How is your child gonna find you
[01:04:07.700]when you pick them up at the end of the day
[01:04:09.500]so they don't go home with a stranger?
[01:04:11.660]And having those safety things
[01:04:12.700]in place for emergency drills and field trips,
[01:04:16.920]you might wanna write something into their IEP
[01:04:18.531]about someone being with them during emergency drills
[01:04:22.060]so they don't go off and get lost.
[01:04:25.290]Bullying can also be a big concern for someone
[01:04:28.120]with facial blindness because the child might not be able
[01:04:30.810]to identify a bully if present.
[01:04:34.320]And this can cause the child to maybe feel like everyone
[01:04:37.260]is picking on them because they can't identify
[01:04:39.229]who specifically is picking on them.
[01:04:42.510]And then finally, does your child need a 504 and IEP plan
[01:04:45.690]to address some accommodations
[01:04:47.150]for facial recognition deficits?
[01:04:48.609]Or if your child has an IEP already,
[01:04:51.074]what accommodations for facial recognition difficulties
[01:04:53.796]might be necessary for your child?
[01:04:58.160]Then I wanted to put a few
[01:04:59.130]of my favorite resources out there.
[01:05:03.000]Facebook has many great support groups,
[01:05:04.820]so I put the parent one right there.
[01:05:06.990]Reddit also has a good one.
[01:05:08.662]One of the best books I found specifically for children
[01:05:11.527]who struggle with facial recognition
[01:05:13.348]is "Understanding Facial Recognition Difficulties
[01:05:15.750]"in Children," by Nancy Mindick.
[01:05:18.639]A few websites and these are also some of the same ones
[01:05:21.032]where you can get some of the testing done.
[01:05:23.254]And then there's a link
[01:05:24.700]to the 60 Minutes facial blindness video.
[01:05:29.690]All right, so what questions do you have?
[01:05:32.777]I don't mind at all if you are asking questions
[01:05:35.248]about my facial blindness, that is fine with me, so.
[01:05:54.890]This is the part where it's really hard
[01:05:56.366]not to see the faces 'cause we don't know
[01:05:58.520]if somebody has a question.
[01:05:59.600]Okay, there coming in, they're coming in. (laughs)
[01:06:02.780]So about pets, I would say my recognition of pets
[01:06:06.181]is probably just about as good
[01:06:07.730]as anyone else's recognition of pets.
[01:06:09.902]Your own pet, you're gonna be pretty good at recognizing
[01:06:12.702]even amongst similar species,
[01:06:14.547]but I find pets are usually pretty good
[01:06:17.137]at having very distinct characteristics anyway.
[01:06:21.360]So I think, like that picture I showed earlier with.
[01:06:24.188]I think they were meerkats,
[01:06:25.821]I think everybody's gonna struggle with those
[01:06:27.803]but with things like dogs and cats, I have no problems.
[01:06:36.080]Someone asked about what this might look like
[01:06:37.753]for a student who has facial recognition difficulties
[01:06:42.410]but no autism.
[01:06:45.380]I don't know if it would fall
[01:06:46.260]under the other health impaired category,
[01:06:48.160]but I think you could do a 504 plan in those cases
[01:06:52.190]because in this case, it's just a few accomodations
[01:06:56.468]that they would need to be successful
[01:06:59.339]in the classroom environment, but they wouldn't necessarily
[01:07:01.925]need any educational accommodations.
[01:07:04.374]So I would talk to the school about maybe a 504 plan
[01:07:07.191]or maybe start with your doctor
[01:07:09.037]about getting it diagnosed so that goes easier.
[01:07:16.950]Let's see, do you think we have a high number
[01:07:19.580]of children with facial blindness?
[01:07:21.550]I do, the studies have been pretty consistent
[01:07:25.300]in that about one in 50 children ratio.
[01:07:28.270]So I think about right now,
[01:07:29.709]I'm working at East High School here in Lincoln,
[01:07:31.954]which has 2,400 students, so if that ratio holds true,
[01:07:36.700]and now, I gotta do math on the spot, but that'd be, okay,
[01:07:41.350]I can't do the math on the spot, I'm too nervous.
[01:07:43.180]But there that would mean there's a lot of children
[01:07:45.820]in that high school who struggle with facial recognition.
[01:07:48.230]So think about your elementary schools,
[01:07:50.040]how many children in that?
[01:07:51.830]If one in 50 children struggle with facial recognition,
[01:07:54.672]there's probably children in your classrooms,
[01:07:57.810]in your community, that struggle with this,
[01:08:00.206]but probably don't even realize it
[01:08:01.670]and their families and teachers don't even realize it.
[01:08:07.740]Okay, let's see.
[01:08:12.410]Would someone has to know about this
[01:08:13.750]to recommend for testing?
[01:08:15.127]I think, as a parent or as an advocate for child,
[01:08:21.300]if you suspect this, I think,
[01:08:24.480]sharing that information with individuals
[01:08:26.620]who are doing the testing or sharing those resources
[01:08:28.365]to find out more about it, it's hard to...
[01:08:35.930]In the school setting, it might be up to the parent
[01:08:39.308]or the family advocates to really push
[01:08:41.239]for some facial recognition testing.
[01:08:44.460]And like I said, there might not be
[01:08:46.227]a whole lot out there available for children.
[01:08:48.950]That Kaufman test, maybe schools have it.
[01:08:51.240]So your best bet is to go through a neurologist
[01:08:53.128]or the universities that have testing.
[01:08:57.652]However, it it will be hard for children
[01:09:00.597]because the research is still new.
[01:09:02.261]Most of those tests are normed for adults,
[01:09:05.140]so it's gonna be difficult.
[01:09:07.209]But hopefully we can raise awareness
[01:09:09.494]and make that testing more common.
[01:09:14.610]Okay, let's see.
[01:09:18.700]I often put peer's pictures on iPads
[01:09:20.357]for some of the children I work with that have autism.
[01:09:23.146]What are some other ideas to help them learn peers
[01:09:26.250]in the class if I think they are struggling with this?
[01:09:30.320]So I think using that Face It application could be good,
[01:09:34.520]and then also using pictures of peers in other contexts.
[01:09:38.080]I'm not just having the one picture of the peer
[01:09:40.161]'cause that might be hard for them to generalize
[01:09:43.630]to other contexts, but showing that peer
[01:09:45.628]with different facial expressions
[01:09:46.984]in different contexts, and then maybe play matching games
[01:09:52.146]with those pictures.
[01:09:55.013]Other things is kind of teaching the child
[01:09:57.230]what to look for in those pictures.
[01:09:58.780]So "Oh, we're trying to Johnny,
[01:10:00.497]"Johnny has short curly hair,"
[01:10:02.349]or "We're trying to find Susie who has long blonde hair."
[01:10:07.000]And giving the child those specific things
[01:10:09.270]to look at identify classmates.
[01:10:12.300]I'm gonna do one more
[01:10:13.300]just because there is a quick session that starts at 3:30
[01:10:16.760]for people who need to find out
[01:10:18.150]about the Thursday certificates.
[01:10:20.368]There's one in here that says,
[01:10:21.897]"At what age would you expect kids
[01:10:23.017]"to have a good handle on facial recognition?
[01:10:24.834]"And at what age would you start having concerns?"
[01:10:26.728]I think that that's important to know developmentally
[01:10:28.899]when is this really an issue?
[01:10:32.030]So at age two, a child generally
[01:10:34.870]has fairly decent facial recognition,
[01:10:38.640]at least of familiar people.
[01:10:41.880]Generally, you're not gonna be able to get a diagnosis
[01:10:44.131]of this until they're older but some of those big ones,
[01:10:46.970]you'll realize, if young children go up
[01:10:49.163]to mommies that aren't their mommy
[01:10:52.720]or walk by you without recognizing you.
[01:10:56.683]There are signs, I think I saw one in my nephew
[01:11:00.210]where he would always cry
[01:11:01.623]when his mommy or daddy wasn't holding him,
[01:11:04.430]and then my brother, his uncle held him
[01:11:07.700]who looks a lot like my brother, his dad,
[01:11:09.750]and he didn't have a problem with that.
[01:11:11.920]So I wonder if my nephew might have
[01:11:13.880]a little case of facial blindness.
[01:11:15.740]But generally, you're gonna start maybe seeing signs
[01:11:19.770]around two and three, but maybe not be able
[01:11:23.720]to really diagnose it until they're a fair amount older,
[01:11:27.770]maybe school age.
[01:11:39.641]All right, I'm going to stop the recording
[01:11:41.199]and then if anybody else had any other questions
[01:11:43.653]and don't need to go for the session
[01:11:45.950]about the extra, how do you get your certificate
[01:11:49.680]if you only attend on Thursday.

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Do I Know you? The Connection Between autism and facial blindness.

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