On this page you will find references for further reading and information about the makers.
Four specialists have been
asked to contribute references based on the issues raised by Kyle's
story.
Pamela Heaton from the field of neurodevelopment
disability and music suggests:
(1) This link below is a very good parents'
account of echolalia in two children with autism.
The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) is the
instrument considered to be the current gold standard… Echolalia is the
repetition of words, phrases, intonation, or sounds of the speech of others.
(2) This link is to Kanner’s original paper describing autism. He
alludes to musical obsessions in a couple of the case studies.
Leo Kanner’s 1943 paper on autism – SFARI.org
(3) This is a paper showing good music skills in children
with autism.
Heaton, P. (2009). Assessing musical
skills in autistic children who are not savants. Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society B. 364,
1443-1447.
(4) This paper talks about sensitivity to
musical emotions and autism.
Allen, R. & Heaton, P. (2010). Autism, Music and the Therapeutic Potential of
Music in Alexithymia. Music Perception, 27, (4), 251-261.
(5) This
paper is about the way that music and language are not so
differentiated in autism as in TD (typically developing) children.
Heaton, P., Davis, R.,
& Happe, F. (2008). Exceptional Absolute Pitch Perception for spoken words
in an able adult with autism. Neuropsychologia. 46, 2095–2098
Robyn Steward, Autism Consultant and Author suggests:
This is a website by
Landon Bryce author of Loving My Autistic
Self, also be a useful reference. The website contains comment and
information about autism from an insider’s perspective.
Asperger’s
United is a magazine written for and by people on the spectrum.
3. Unstrange
Minds, Richard Roy Grinker, Da Capo Press, 2008.
A book by a USA
anthropologist that contains stories from around the world, although of course
written from an outsider’s perspective looking in, since he is a neurotypical writing
about autism.
Sound Station offers a
online music studio you can collaborate with others via gooogle hangout.
In
My Own Language - a video by Amanda Baggs who communicates non-verbally.
Audacity is a free
program, which you can download to record and add effects to make your own
music on your computer. It is very simple, it also provides waveforms when you
record, in this way you can explore your own voice or that of those around you.
7. Citizen Autistic is a film critiquing Autism
Speaks, an influential USA charity set to ‘cure and prevent’ autism. They
spend their money mostly on research instead of giving people better support. The film will be released on DVD and Vimeo on demand.
AASCEND is
an organisation based in San Francisco, California, who set an example of how
advocacy can be collaborative between neurotypicals (= non-autistic people) and
people on the spectrum.
Pat Walsh from the field
of Ethics suggests:
1. S. Rubin et al:
Independence, Participation and the Meaning of Intellectual Ability, Disability and Society, 16:3 (2001) 415-429
An autistic woman’s
perspective on her non-verbal past and the implications of communication
abilities for participation in the world.
2. I Hacking: Making Up People
A philosopher’s reflection
on how we categorise people.
3. S. Murray: Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination, Liverpool University
Press, 2008.
4. How Autism has been
represented in popular culture and in the media
5. T. Dyches et al:
Multicultural Issues in Autism, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol 24, No 2, April 2004
Tim Wharton from the field of Linguistics suggests:
1. D. Sperber (1995) How do we communicate? In Brockman, J. &
K. Matson (eds) How things are: A science toolkit for the mind. New
York : Morrow, 1995. 191-199
A short, non-technical introduction to some of the insights that
underpin modern pragmatic theory. In a nutshell, linguistic communication is
about much more than coding and decoding language: it is about reading the
minds of others.
2. Wilson, D. & T. Wharton (2006)
Relevance and prosody. Journal of Pragmatics : 38: 1559-1579.
Two linguists propose a theoretical pragmatic framework for the
analysis of prosody. The paper includes discussion of the relationship between
prosody, communication and mind-reading: a problem with the latter is often
regarded as central to the kind of communicative difficulties experienced by
those with autism.
3. Chevallier, C. et al. (2011) What's in a voice? Prosody as a
test case for the Theory of Mind account of autism. Neuropsychologia,
49(3) 507-517.
https://sites.google.com/site/coraliechevallier/Publications (scroll
down to 2011)
A psychological study which suggests that autistic people recognise
more from tone of voice than has generally been thought. If this is so, the
study concludes, educational and therapeutic strategies need to be rethought.
4. Brattico, E. & M. Pearce (2013) The neuroaesthetics of music. Psychology
of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, 7, 48-61.
A technical but fascinating exploration of how we might deepen our
understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in how we respond emotionally
to music.
About the makers
Laura Malacart
Laura Malacart developed this project via her Wellcome Trust Art Award 'Diagnosing Normality, an Autistic Perspective on the Neurotypical World'. Her cross-disciplinary visual arts projects are conceived as cultural analysis aiming to contribute to public debate.
Her practice is anchored to the notion of voice, simultaneously conceived in its physical manifestation, as well as in the political notion of 'having a voice'. In 2011 Laura Malacart was awarded a PhD in Fine Art on this subject where she formulated the notion of 'the ventriloquial object'.
Daniel Locke is a UK based illustrator and cartoonist. His practice makes use of the comic book form to record narratives found at the fringes of things. He is currently working on his first full length graphic novel.
www.daniellocke.com