Autistic listening

Davies, WJ

Abstract

Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition diagnosed by differences in social interaction and communication. Most autistic people also experience atypical sensory processing (e.g., a heightened sensitivity to sound or texture). Nearly all autism research uses a deficit model, where differences between autistic and non-autistic people are characterised as impairments of the autistic people. In contrast, a handful of researchers have sought and found evidence of autistic superiority. For example, Remington and Fairnie (2017) reported autistic adults to have a greater auditory perceptual capacity: they could keep track of more simultaneous sounds than their non-autistic counterparts. Moreover, anecdotal accounts from autistic people suggest that there may be much more to be discovered about autistic perceptual organization, if a deficit model is abandoned. Lay language reports from individuals suggest strengths in aural awareness, in extracting structure and patterns, in sensitivity to small changes at different scales, in identifying sounds, places and processes, and more. Exercising these abilities is sometimes associated with pleasure and a heightened sense of embodiment. This paper will briefly review anecdotal and structured evidence of autistic listening, from the perspective of an autistic psychoacoustics researcher. Future research directions and possible experiments will be suggested.

Citation

Davies, W. (2019, November). Autistic listening. Presented at Aural Diversity, Leicester, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Aural Diversity
• Conference Location: Leicester, UK
• Start Date: Nov 30, 2019
• End Date: Dec 1, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Nov 15, 2019
• Publication Date: Nov 30, 2019
• Deposit Date: Feb 7, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 7, 2020
• Journal: Aural Diversity Conference 2019
• Publisher URL: http://auraldiversity.org/conferences.html
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference