The Transporters is an animation series produced by Catalyst Pictures Ltd designed to help children with autism aged between two to eight years old recognise and understand emotions.
It was developed by the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge by a team led by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen and including Dr Ofer Golan.
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.
Read more about The Transporters: Evaluation, The Series, See Also