The Transporters - British version (2006)

The Transporters consists of fifteen short clips that run from five to six minutes. After each episode is the option for either an easy or hard quiz that contains ten questions. The child or adult will need to use the remote control to respond with the arrows. You are prompted to try again if the response was wrong. When the answer is corret there are words of encouragement.

The Transporters is based on the idea that children with autism may find faces confusing because they are unpredictable, because the autistic brain cannot cope with unpredictability. In Baron-Cohen's theory, children with autism are strong 'systemizers' and faces are hard to systemize. In contrast, children with autism have a preference for predictable systems. The Transporters therefore focuses on mechanical vehicles that only travel along tracks, because they are highly predictable systems. Grafted onto these animated vehicles are human faces. In this way, social skills teaching takes place in an autism-friendly format.

A study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders found that after watching the DVD for 15 minutes a day for four weeks most children with ASC (autistic spectrum condition) caught up with typically developing children in their ability to recognise emotions on four different tasks.

The Transporters DVD consists of 15 five-minute episodes, each featuring a key emotion. There are also 30 interactive quizzes and an accompanying booklet to reinforce learning. The series features eight animated toy vehicles. Each has an actual human face so that viewers learn to recognise real rather than cartoon expressions. All the expressions were verified by an independent panel before they were included in the series.

For more info see: http://www.thetransporters.com & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transporters












Additional technical info:

• Format: PAL
• Studio: Catalyst Studios
• ASIN: B002NXY3GE