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

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 by a team led by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen

Simon Baron-Cohen

Simon Baron-Cohen FBA is professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is the Director of the University's Autism Research Centre, and a Fellow of Trinity College...

 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.

Evaluation

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 series

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. In 2007, the series was nominated for a BAFTA award.

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.

There are two versions of the DVD, with different accents and vocabulary. The North American version is voiced by Kerry Shale

Kerry Shale

Kerry Shale is a UK-based actor, writer and voice-over artist. He is married to Suzanne Shale, a former Oxford University law don, now a specialist in the field of medical ethics.-Theatre:...

 and the British English version is voiced by Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...

.

The Transporters was originally commissioned by Culture Online, which was part of the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport.