ABA Flash Cards & Games Emotions: 7 Powerful Ways To Teach Feelings (Most Parents Miss #4)

Teaching Emotions With ABA Doesn’t Have To Be Complicated

If you’re looking up ABA flash cards & games for emotions, you probably want one thing:

“I just want my kid to understand and express feelings better… without a battle every time.”

Totally get it.

The good news? You don’t need a giant box of laminated cards and a full therapy room. You can turn your phone into a super flexible, always-available emotion-teaching tool using an app like Flashrecall:

👉 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashrecall-study-flashcards/id6746757085

Flashrecall lets you make instant emotion flashcards and games from:

• Photos of real people (including your child and family)
• Drawings, PDFs, and worksheets
• Short videos or YouTube clips
• Your own text or voice

And then it automatically builds in active recall + spaced repetition, so your child sees the right cards at the right time — without you tracking anything manually.

Let’s walk through how to use ABA-style flashcards and games for emotions in a way that’s actually fun and realistic for busy parents, therapists, and teachers.

Why Emotion Flashcards Work So Well In ABA

In ABA, we usually break emotion learning into smaller skills, like:

• Emotion recognition – “Show me happy.” “Who looks sad?”
• Labeling emotions – “How does he feel?” “What’s this feeling?”
• Matching emotions – Matching two “angry” faces, or picture to word
• Perspective taking – “Why is she mad?” “What might he say?”
• Self-awareness – “How do you feel right now?”

Flashcards and simple games are perfect for this because they:

• Are predictable and structured (great for many autistic kids)
• Can be repeated without feeling like a lecture
• Are easy to fade from pictures → real life with the right examples

The trick is: don’t just drill. Turn it into short, playful reps that you can sprinkle through the day.

That’s where a flexible app like Flashrecall helps — you can mix in photos, words, audio, and games instead of one static deck.

Step 1: Build An Emotion Deck That Actually Looks Like Real Life

Classic ABA emotion flashcards are often stiff stock photos: one “happy,” one “sad,” one “angry.”

Helpful, but not enough.

Instead, try building a richer emotion deck in Flashrecall:

What to include

Create cards for:

• Basic emotions: happy, sad, mad/angry, scared, surprised
• Next-level emotions: frustrated, proud, excited, worried, bored
• Your child’s frequent states: “overwhelmed,” “tired,” “silly,” “calm”

Make them using Flashrecall

In Flashrecall, you can quickly create cards like:

• From images
• Take photos of yourself, your child (if they’re okay with it), siblings, favorite characters making different faces
• Import images from your camera roll, or screenshots from cartoons/YouTube clips
• Flashrecall can turn those images into instant flashcards in seconds
• From text
• Type:
• Front: “How does he feel?” + picture
• Back: “Angry” + a simple sentence: “He is angry because someone took his toy.”
• Or word-only cards:
• Front: “Worried”
• Back: “When you think something bad might happen.”
• From audio
• Record yourself saying: “She is excited!”
• Or record your child saying the emotion word — super powerful for practice

Flashrecall works on iPhone and iPad, and it’s free to start, so you can build a full emotion deck without buying a box of physical cards.

👉 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashrecall-study-flashcards/id6746757085

Step 2: Use ABA-Style Teaching — But Make It Playful

You can absolutely use standard ABA teaching methods, just with a more relaxed vibe.

1. Discrete Trial Style (But Short & Fun)

Set up a quick “round” of 5–10 cards in Flashrecall:

• Show a card: “How does she feel?”
• Wait for response
• If correct: praise + maybe a tiny reward or high-five
• If not: model the answer, have them repeat, then move on

Because Flashrecall uses active recall, your child is always trying to remember, not just tapping through pictures.

2. Errorless Learning For New Emotions

For brand-new words (like “frustrated”):

• First, say the word and have them repeat
• Show the card and immediately tell them: “He is frustrated.”
• Ask simple choice questions: “Is he happy or frustrated?” (with the answer being very obvious)
• Gradually fade help as they get it right

You can even add hints in the back of the card in Flashrecall like:

“Frustrated = when something is not working, like a stuck zipper.”

Step 3: Turn Your Deck Into Simple Emotion Games

Here are some easy ABA-style games you can run with your Flashrecall emotion cards.

Game 1: “Find The Feeling”

• Open your emotion deck in Flashrecall
• Show 2–3 images on separate cards (you can swipe between them)
• Ask: “Can you find happy?”
• Or: “Point to worried.”

You can also:

• Say a situation: “He lost his toy.”
• Then ask: “Which face matches how he feels?”

Game 2: “What Happened?”

Use cards that show an emotion + a short scenario on the back.

• Show the emotion picture
• Ask: “How does she feel?”
• Then: “Why might she feel that way?”

(You can peek at the back for a simple explanation if you need a prompt.)

This builds perspective-taking, which is a big ABA goal.

Game 3: “Match My Face”

• Pull up an emotion card in Flashrecall
• Ask your child to copy the face: “Show me your ‘angry’ face.”
• Then switch: you copy the card and let them guess your feeling

You can even snap a quick photo of their face and add it as a new card right inside Flashrecall — instant personalized deck.

Step 4: Use Spaced Repetition So Emotions Actually Stick

Most people do emotion flashcards for a week… then forget.

The child forgets too. Totally normal.

Flashrecall fixes this with built-in spaced repetition:

• It automatically schedules cards your child is still learning to appear more often
• Cards they know well appear less often
• You don’t have to track anything — the app handles it

There are also study reminders, so you get a nudge like:

“Hey, time for a 5-minute emotion review.”

This fits perfectly with ABA goals:

• Short, regular practice
• Consistent review
• Gradual generalization over time

Step 5: Generalize Emotions To Real Life (The Part Most People Skip)

One big ABA goal is generalization — using the skill outside of the teaching setting.

Here’s how to use Flashrecall to bridge from cards → real life:

Use real photos from your child’s world

• Take pictures of:
• Your child at the park, at school, at home
• Family members showing different emotions
• Real-life situations: crying, laughing, waiting, sharing
• Add them to Flashrecall as new cards:
• Front: photo
• Back: emotion word + short explanation

Now when you practice, it’s not just “random stock boy is sad,” it’s:

• “This is you when your tower fell. You felt frustrated.”

Ask “How did you feel?” after real events

Later in the day, open Flashrecall and:

• Show a photo from earlier (or a neutral card)
• Ask: “How did you feel when we left the playground?”
• Have them pick from a few emotion cards or say the word

This connects past experiences → emotion language.

Step 6: Use The “Chat With The Flashcard” Feature When They’re Unsure

One unique thing about Flashrecall:

You can actually chat with the flashcard if you or your child are unsure.

Example:

• You’re on a card that says “anxious”
• You’re not sure how to explain it in kid-friendly language
• You can open the chat and ask something like:
• “Explain ‘anxious’ to a 7-year-old.”
• “Give me 3 kid-friendly examples of feeling anxious.”

This is super helpful for:

• Parents who aren’t sure how to phrase things
• Older kids who want more detail
• Building deeper understanding, not just rote labels

Step 7: Use Flashrecall Alongside Physical Games (Best Of Both Worlds)

You don’t have to choose between:

• Physical ABA flash cards & board games

and

• A digital tool like Flashrecall

Do both.

Example combo routine

1. 5 minutes on Flashrecall

• Quick review with spaced repetition
• Mix of recognition + labeling

2. 5–10 minutes of a physical game

• Board game where you act out feelings
• Emotion bingo
• “Feelings charades”

3. 1–2 minutes of wrap-up

• Ask: “Which feeling did we practice most today?”
• Open that card in Flashrecall and review one more time

Because Flashrecall works offline, you can do this in the car, waiting rooms, or before bed — no WiFi drama.

Why Use Flashrecall Instead Of Just Traditional ABA Flash Cards?

You can absolutely use paper cards. But Flashrecall gives you a few huge advantages:

• Instant card creation
• From images, text, PDFs, audio, YouTube links, or just typing
• No printing, cutting, laminating
• Spaced repetition built in
• Auto reminders so you don’t forget to review
• Cards show up right when your child is about to forget them
• Highly personalized
• Real photos from your child’s life
• Custom scenarios that match their triggers and wins
• Active recall by design
• The app is built around asking and answering, not just flipping pictures
• Works for everything, not just emotions
• Language learning
• School subjects
• Exams, university, medicine, business vocab
• Any ABA targets you want to turn into flashcards
• Fast, modern, easy to use
• Runs on iPhone and iPad
• Free to start, so you can try it without committing

Grab it here and build your first emotion deck in a few minutes:

👉 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashrecall-study-flashcards/id6746757085

Quick Starter Plan (If You Want Something You Can Use Today)

If you want a simple, no-overwhelm plan, use this:

• Make 10 basic emotion cards in Flashrecall (happy, sad, mad, scared, excited, tired, frustrated, proud, worried, calm)
• Do 5 minutes of practice, twice a day

• Add 5–10 real-life photos from your child’s world
• Start asking simple “Why do they feel this way?” questions

• Add one small game:
• “Find the feeling”
• “Match my face”
• Let Flashrecall’s spaced repetition handle which cards to show

In a week, you’ll have:

• A personalized emotion deck
• A routine your child recognizes
• Real progress toward ABA emotion goals — without needing a suitcase of materials

If you’re working on ABA flash cards & games for emotions, Flashrecall basically turns your phone into a powerful, customizable emotion-teaching toolkit you can use anywhere.

Try it while you’re reading this — build 3 cards and see how fast it feels:

👉 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashrecall-study-flashcards/id6746757085

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the fastest way to create flashcards?

Manually typing cards works but takes time. Many students now use AI generators that turn notes into flashcards instantly. Flashrecall does this automatically from text, images, or PDFs.

Is there a free flashcard app?

Yes. Flashrecall is free and lets you create flashcards from images, text, prompts, audio, PDFs, and YouTube videos.

How do I start spaced repetition?

You can manually schedule your reviews, but most people use apps that automate this. Flashrecall uses built-in spaced repetition so you review cards at the perfect time.

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