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The Subjective Experience of Music in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Author(s) -
Allen Rory,
Hill Elisabeth,
Heaton Pamela
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04772.x
Subject(s) - emotive , autism spectrum disorder , psychology , autism , mood , arousal , cognition , developmental psychology , thematic analysis , cognitive psychology , clinical psychology , qualitative research , psychiatry , social psychology , philosophy , social science , epistemology , sociology
Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 12 high‐functioning adults on the autism spectrum in order to examine the nature of their personal experiences of music. The analysis showed that most participants exploit music for a wide range of purposes in the cognitive, emotional and social domains, but the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group's descriptions of mood states reflected a greater reliance on internally focused (arousal) rather than externally focused (emotive) language, when compared with studies of typically developing individuals.