interactional synchrony
gol...@shani.net
in the womb, but is different for the autistic, may explain an
underlying cause of autism for many, including my own son Ben. I
recently researched this subject on the internet and I plan to post my
research here, in several messages. I look forward to your comments.
Arthur Golden
interactional synchrony #1
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/whatresearchCondon.asp
SPEECH AND MUSIC CONNECTION - SYNCHRONY
William Condon says:
"Your body's locked precisely with your speech. You can't break out of
this no matter what you do. Your eyes even blink in synchrony with your
speech." Movements appear to begin, change, or end on the same film
frame that a new vowel or consonant begins - within about
four-hundreths of a second in the new sound. "The synchrony of the
listener with the speaker is just as good as my own synchrony with
myself." An auditory-motor reflex in the central nervous system might
allow, even force, a listener's movements to synchronize with a
speaker's voice far faster than any conscious reaction time. "We're
almost in auditory touch. When I speak to you, my thoughts are
translated into muscle movements an and then into airways that hit your
ear, and your eardrum starts to oscillate in absolute synchrony with my
voice. In essence there's no vacuum between us - it takes only a few
milliseconds for a sound to register in the brain stem, 14 milliseconds
for it to reach the left hemisphere."
Condon, W. S. (1974). "Synchrony Demonstrated between Movements of the
Neonate and Adult Speech." Child Development 45: 456-462.
Condon, W. S. (1975). "Multiple response to sound in dysfunctional
children." Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 5: 37-56.
Condon, W. S. (1986). Communication: Rhythm and Structure. Rhythm in
Psychological, Linguistic and Musical Processes. J. R. Evans and M.
Clynes. Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas Publisher: 55-78.
Concerning autism, from Beethoven's Anvil [: Music in Mind and Culture
by William Benzon (October 2001)], pp. 25-27:
For over three decades, William Condon and his colleagues have been
studying the rhythmic structure of human speech communication. They
make films of people interacting and then do a frame-by-frame analysis
of body motions and speech sounds. They have discovered two kinds of
synchrony, self synchrony and interactional synchrony. Self synchrony
is the relationship between a person¹s speech patterns and their body
movements: head, shoulders, arm and hand gestures, and so on.
Interactional synchrony is about the relationship between the
listener¹s body and the speaker¹s voice.
It is not particularly surprising that self synchrony exists. After
all, the same nervous system is doing both the speaking and the
gesturing, and the cortical structures for speech and manipulation are
close to one another. But Condon found a close synchrony between
speakers and listeners as well. How do the listener¹s gestures become
synchronized with the speaker¹s vocal patterns? To be sure, the
synchrony isn¹t exact‹the listener¹s body movements lag behind the
speech patterns by 42 milliseconds or less (roughly one frame of film
at 24 frames per second), ³like a car following a continuously rapidly
curving road². That is a small enough lag to make one entertain
thoughts of mind-reading.
It¹s not simply that gestures move to the same basic pulse as speech.
That is easy enough to understand, at least superficially: the speaker
needs only to detect the pulse¹s period and adopt it for
herself‹all, of course, unconsciously. Synchrony, both self and
interactional, involves more than this. Speech is hierarchical.
Phonemes are organized into words, words into phrases, and phrases into
statements (see Figure 1).[Figure 1 deleted]
In both self synchrony and interactional synchrony this hierarchical
structure is reflected in the synchronized movements. Larger gestures,
perhaps of the whole arm, will track phrases while smaller gestures,
such as finger movements, will track words or phonemes. Furthermore,
infants exhibit near-adult competence at interactional synchrony within
20 minutes of birth. Since the human auditory system becomes active
three or four months before birth, we may become entrained to speech
patterns in utero.
Condon and others have also investigated interactional synchrony in
children suffering from various pathologies, including dyslexia and
autism. Here they find multiple entrainment. They have observed
dyslexic children whose the right side would entrain within the normal
42-millisecond period, while the left side would entrain with the same
sound at a delay of 100 to 266 milliseconds. Autistic children were
similar, except that it is the right side that is delayed.
The ability to match one¹s movements to another¹s seems to be a
condition of normal interaction with others. When this capacity is
hampered, as it is in dyslexia and autism, communication is
compromised. Synchrony creates a space of communicative interaction, a
coupling between two brains in which they can affect one another¹s
internal states.
Interactional synchrony is not conscious or deliberate; it is not
something one thinks about. It just happens, at least for most of us.
That interactional synchrony is working at birth implies that it is
mediated by core brain structures, structures that are phylogenetically
old, for only these structures are operative at birth. The newest and
largest brain structure, the cerebral cortex, is an uninsulated mass of
nerves incapable of coherent processing at birth. Its fibers become
insulated over the first several years of life. That is to say, tightly
synchronized interaction with others constitutes part of the
maturational environment for the cerebral cortex, just as the sounds of
adult speech penetrate the womb and thus become part of the
maturational environment for those neural structures active at birth.
Before we can see the external world and grasp objects, we hear sounds
and are able to kick and wiggle in response.
gol...@shani.net
Arthur Golden
interactional synchrony #2
http://www.isautism.com/index.html
Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI) is a non-profit
organization dedicated to furthering Dr. William S. Condon's research
into subconscious body movement in response to heard sound.
Dr. Condon's work in interactional synchrony discovered a different
response to sound that indicates delayed and echoing hearing. This has
profound implications on such a person's ability to learn cause and
effect, to interact with their environment, and with other people.
Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI) was founded in 1997 by
David Tremain to further the work of Dr. William S. Condon, now retired
from Boston University. ISSI is a United States 501(c)(3) not for
profit organization incorporated in Indiana.
Dr. William S. Condon serves on ISSI's Board of Directors, and is fully
supportive of the work and research of the organization.
Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI)
PO Box 15885
Fort Wayne, IN 46885-5885
USA
Telephone: 260-493-6050
E-mail: dtre...@isautism.com
http://www.isautism.com/waitaminute.html
Wait a Minute! (Or Maybe Two!)
by David Tremain
© 2000 David Tremain - All Rights Reserved
Author's note: This paper was presented at the Autism Society of
Indiana's New Century New Hope Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana on
November 4, 2000. A video was also shown at the presentation that
allowed the audience to see examples of the various items discussed in
the paper. This phenomenon does not lend itself to verbal description,
so the paper in itself is inadequate to gain a good understanding of
delayed and echoing hearing and its implications.
My special thanks go to Dr. William S. Condon for some of the footage
in the video and his constant encouragement, and to my family for their
sacrifices that allowed me the time to put this paper and presentation
together. My sincere wish is that this information be used to make the
world a better place for persons with autism. - David Tremain
Introduction
In the world of autism:
How many parents suspected early on that their child had a hearing
problem?
How many had a hearing evaluation done for their child?
How many children are slow to respond to what you say? Or don't respond
at all?
How many children seem to respond better to visual cues than to
auditory cues?
How many are visual learners?
How many of you feel there is a bright, intelligent person trapped
somewhere in your child that you just can't quite seem to reach?
Why are these elements so common in the autism community?
Interactional Synchrony
Several years ago, at a national autism conference, my wife and I
attended a presentation by Dr. William S. Condon, a psychology
professor at Boston College. For many years, Dr. Condon studied film of
his patients' therapy sessions. His research led him to two major
discoveries:
People's bodies move in rhythm with speech - both their own, and
someone else's.
People with autism have a different rhythm in their body response to
sound that indicates their hearing is delayed and echoing. I call this
different rhythm "Condon's Autism Anomaly" (CAA).
Response Window
Rhythm is such a basic part of life. From the start of our development
in the womb, our constant companion is the beating of our mother's
heart. We experience her every word, plus her rhythmic breathing as she
talks. Everything is choreographed in an incredibly detailed sequence
of events - coordinating sounds and body movements. We learn, even down
to our individual nerve cells, how long things normally take. We
develop a natural "response window" - a length of time after an event
when we expect a response. If no response is received within that
"response window", we presume there will be no response.
For instance, you walk out into the garage, where your spouse is
working on something. You call his or her name. You wait, lets be
generous here, about 1 1/2 seconds. If you don't get a response, you
call their name again, a little louder. Why? Because they obviously
didn't hear you, or they would have responded.
This "response window" is basic to the rhythm of living. It is an
absolutely necessary and critical part of interacting with others and
our environment. It makes conversation possible. It is so much a part
of how our bodies and psyche's work that we, for the most part, are
totally unaware of it.
Delayed & Echoing Hearing
Delayed hearing means that a person does not hear a sound until some
time after it occurs. This is not a big issue for most people. Life
experience has taught us that one hard object hitting another makes a
noise. For example, you know that a hammer hitting a nail makes a
sound. If you have ever observed someone hammering a nail from several
hundred yards away, you experienced delayed hearing. The sound of the
hammer hitting the nail did not reach you until the hammer was back up
in the air. We automatically reject the notion that any other part of
the hammer's motion causes the sound.
What if we had never experienced sound occurring at virtually the same
instant two objects hit? What if our only experience was hearing the
sounds after a delay? How would we ever figure out what was causing the
sounds?
Most of us have heard an echo. The same sound repeats over and over
again, softer and softer, until it fades away. Dr. Condon's
observations indicate that people with autism hear every sound that
occurs in an echoing fashion - first on their left side, then on their
right. Every sound. All the time. For them, this is NORMAL hearing.
They don't have a clue that everyone does not hear this way.
The concept of a delay between when a sound occurs and when it is heard
is crucial to gaining a better understanding of the world of autism.
This simple statement has profound implications - both for individuals
with autism, and for people working with them.
Bruno Bettelheim, an early pioneer in the field of autism, postulated
that a person with autism was unable to relate to those around them
because of a lack of emotional warmth and love. Parents rejected his
"refrigerator mother" theory because they knew they were acting in a
loving and accepting way with their children. Eventually, Bettelheim's
observations were dismissed as being incorrect. Unfortunately, for the
children with autism, no one thought to ask the question - were they
able to RECEIVE the love and acceptance that was being offered in the
same way as other children?
Picture a typical parent/toddler interaction. Mother calls junior's
name. Junior looks up at mother. Mother praises junior, smiles at him,
and the interaction continues.
Now, if junior has autism, Mother calls junior's name. Junior doesn't
respond while his mother is expecting a response. Mother "gives up" on
getting a response, and either starts doing something else, or starts
another attempt. Finally, after the delay, junior hears his mother's
voice, and looks at her. But because mother is no longer expecting his
response, she doesn't see it (or maybe just doesn't notice it). Junior
gets no positive feedback for his response. Therefore, junior misses
the opportunity for a pleasurable learning interaction with his or her
mother. Is this a "refrigerator mom"? No! It's just a mother unaware of
the difference in her child's ability to respond.
Anne M. Donnellan, Ph.D. and Martha R. Leary, MA, CCC-SLP state in
their book, Movement Differences and Diversity in Autism/Mental
Retardation, that staff were instructed to make a request of a person
with autism, then continue looking at them, and wait expectantly for an
answer until they responded. The staff discovered that most people with
autism did respond in those circumstances, but on average it took them
14 seconds to do so. Sit down. Look your watch. Say something. Then
wait silently and still for 14 seconds. Notice when your attention
starts to wander. Fourteen seconds is a LONG time in conversation! It
is definitely outside of our normal "response window".
Do not miss the key finding in their results. Given enough time, nearly
every individual did respond! This should tell us that people with
autism can, and probably want to, interact with others. But our world
of interaction moves too quickly for them to participate.
Can a child with autism receive the love and acceptance offered? Dr.
Condon's research seems to say, no, they can't - at least not within
the response window we normally use.
Sound, Events, and Learning
When two sensory inputs occur at virtually the same time, we associate
them. The one we perceive first is presumed to cause the one we
perceive next. This is basic to our ability to learn. It is crucial to
our ability to understand cause and effect. It helps us learn sequences
of events.
Another example. You drop a book on the table with a solid thunk, then
pick it right back up again. What does this same event look like to a
person with delayed hearing? The book falls, lands on the table without
a sound, and the person picks it up. As the book is back to about
shoulder height, the person hears the sound. What is happening visually
when they hear the sound? The book is moving smoothly through the air.
How can that cause sound?
Now, if you drop the book again, and just leave it on the table this
time, the individual with delayed hearing would see the book fall to
the table, land silently, and just sit there. A bit later, they would
hear the same sound they heard earlier, except this time the book isn't
moving - just sitting there on the table. From their perspective, there
is no pattern to what is happening visually when they hear the sound.
There is no way to be able to predict what will make noise.
You know how it feels to be startled by an unexpected sound. You look
around. Your heart races. You are ready for fight or flight. Now,
imagine that you do not have the ability to associate sounds with their
causes. You have no way to predict when a sound is going to occur. Many
sounds in your environment are unexpected, and startling. One has to
wonder how much of the time people with autism function in "fight or
flight" mode.
Since sound is such an unpredictable sensory input, it follows that
persons with autism tend to rely much more on their other senses. If
one sense is lost or damaged, the other senses strengthen to compensate
for the loss. It is no surprise, then, that most children with autism
are visual learners.
Condon's Autism Anomaly and Body Movement
Dr. Condon's research observed that people move their bodies in
synchrony with the sounds that they hear. Individuals with autism move
their bodies multiple times to the same sound, indicating they hear it
more than once.
Dr. Condon also discovered that some people with autism could not
distinguish between environmental noise and speech. Their bodies
responded to every sound. These individuals were in constant motion.
Attempting to extinguish excessive body movements through behavioral
intervention may be akin to trying to teach someone not to blink.
Further investigation into Dr. Condon's research and results led me to
form a non-profit organization, Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc.
(ISSI), to explore and confirm his work, and to do new research in this
area. I believe this work holds the potential of:
Early identification - at birth, or shortly after.
Objective identification - observation of consistent test data that
will indicate a person has autism without relying on subjective,
differing opinions.
Classifying Autism Spectrum Disorders by length of delay and pattern of
the echo. This would permit research and treatments to be targeted at a
specific group - providing reliable, useful treatments, and solid,
consistent, usable research results.
All of these are exciting possibilities.
What can be done?
As my wife puts it, "So what?"
EARLY intervention
Early intervention is about the only thing autism experts generally
agree on - the earlier the better. Currently, a diagnosis before 2
years of age is considered "early." Condon's Autism Anomaly may be
observable at birth, or shortly afterwards. Identification this early
would permit treatment and evaluation BEFORE the behaviors now
associated with autism emerge.
Special efforts could be made to micro-teach the basics - allowing for
the baby's sensory delays. Concentration on recognizing and rewarding
early communication attempts would mean the right behaviors would get
rewarded and encouraged. Who knows? It may be possible, starting early
enough, to have a child with autism exhibit virtually NONE of the
behaviors currently used as a diagnostic tool.
Special training methods could be devised to help the infant make
connections between causes and sounds. To teach the basics of cause and
effect. To prevent the accumulation of incorrect observations and
conclusions that form the foundation of all future learning for 18
months before we even become aware there is a problem!
New ability to build bonds
Early intervention is great, but it is never too late to begin building
new bonds. Persons with autism share all the common needs of people -
the need for acceptance, for love, to love, to connect with others, to
be valued. By understanding the limitations on their ability to respond
within a standard "response window" you can "go to them" - giving them
the time they need to receive and respond to you. You can build bonds
of understanding, interaction, and yes, love, with them.
Your child is "there"
You may have to start with the basics - but start! Reward anything you
see as being a step in the right direction - no matter how small. Give
them positive feedback. Interact with them, and WAIT for their
response. It will come. Your child can, and probably wants to, interact
with you.
Be sensitive to their delayed and echoing hearing. Sometimes they may
want it completely quiet. Other times, they may want a familiar pattern
of noise, sound, or speech. Don't stop at words. Communicate with touch
(if they like it). Some children like deep pressure when they can't
stand a lighter touch.
As my wife says, "His emotions don't have autism. His intellect doesn't
have autism." He is a real person, with real feelings and needs.
Practical suggestions
What can we do practically to compensate for these differences in
sensory processing?
Wait a minute. When you talk to someone with autism - don't let your
"response window" "time out" - deliberately and patiently wait for the
person to be able to hear what is said, and formulate a response.
Don't be frustrated by their lack of interactive feedback to what you
are saying. They may be unable, even if they are aware of the need, to
provide the subtle variations in responses we rely on.
Don't repeat too quickly. Again, this ties in with waiting, but one of
the most natural things to do is to repeat a communication attempt
after our "response window" is not met. This just provides the person
with autism more sensory input to sort through to figure out what is
going on. Say what you have to say. Then be quiet and wait.
If a person with autism is in danger, take physical action! Don't just
attempt to warn verbally. Someone with autism probably won't be able to
hear a warning and respond to it quickly enough to avoid harm. Place
yourself close enough to be able to act in a danger situation.
Don't expect a young child with autism to automatically make noise if
they are in danger - sound is so unreliable to them, it probably won't
occur to them to shout for help. Guard your little ones with your eyes
- not just your ears. This especially applies to swimming pools.
Think about what the person is doing in the context of delayed and
echoing hearing. Is the ability to see and hear the same sequence over
and over helping them understand something in their environment? While
the incessant replaying of the same part of a video may be annoying, it
may also serve a positive educational purpose, too. (Yes, I know it
drives YOU nuts. Me too.)
Never forget - this different sensory input is NORMAL for them. They've
never experienced the world in any other way. They don't even know you
can.
Conclusion
Dr. Condon's discoveries of interactional synchrony and the autism
anomaly broaden our understanding of the world of autism. The
exploration of delayed and echoing hearing provides a logical
explanation for many of the things we observe, such as poor social
skills, communication difficulties, visual learning, and high anxiety.
Hearing that is delayed and echoing affects the ability to learn. It
also makes it difficult to respond quickly enough to meet other
people's "response window" expectations. This discourages people trying
to communicate with the individual with autism, and prevents the person
with autism from receiving positive feedback. It also short-circuits
the understanding of cause and effect by hiding or making it difficult
to figure out what makes a sound.
By extending our "response window" to wait until persons with autism
are able to respond, we open new possibilities to connect with them.
Remember, their emotions don't have autism. They want to interact with
you, so when you talk to them, Wait a Minute! (long, long pause) (Or
Maybe Two!).
Appendix A - ISSI's Research
ISSI's current research project explores the correlation of Condon's
Autism Anomaly with the diagnosis of autism.
Double-blind Study
The research is a double-blind study - observations of the video are
made without knowledge of the person's diagnosis, and the research
participants will not be able to influence the observations.
Who Can Participate?
Anyone who can listen to someone talking can participate. Subjects of
all ages with autism (officially diagnosed) and without autism are
needed. Multiple subjects from the same family are welcome.
What do you need to do?
Participants in the research need to do the following:
Provide a short video (several minutes) of someone talking to the
subject. The video can be a copy of one you have from years ago, or one
you shoot tomorrow.
Provide information on the subject's diagnosis.
It's just that simple. Information on participating can be found at our
web site, www.isautism.com .
What is the Process?
The video is analyzed frame by frame for two things:
The boundary points of speech - where speech sounds, words, phrases, or
sentences start and stop.
Body movements - where body movements start, stop, or change direction
or speed.
These two observations will be combined to establish which rhythm is
present - a normal rhythm, or the rhythm characteristic of autism,
Condon's Autism Anomaly.
Correlation with Diagnosis
After the analysis is complete, the observed rhythm will be compared
with the diagnosis of autism. When the study is complete, we should
have good evidence of the accuracy of this method in identifying
individuals with autism.
Appendix B - Futures
This research holds the promise of many exciting future possibilities.
One of the most important of these is an objective approach to autism.
Early and Objective identification
Most of you probably know of someone whose child has been tested by
more than one professional, with varying diagnoses. The current process
of diagnosis depends on subjective observation - someone's opinion
about the presence and severity of behaviors. This system leaves too
much room for error.
Dr. Condon believes the rhythmic response to what one hears is present
and observable at or shortly after birth. Imagine the benefit of
knowing your infant has delayed and echoing hearing. You could train
yourself to extend your "response window" to accommodate your child's
delay. Special teaching methods could be used to compensate for the
lack of seeing and hearing things at the same time.
Most importantly, your baby would receive intervention before autistic
behaviors emerge. This could effectively prevent or eliminate the very
behaviors currently used as the primary diagnostic tool. The
possibilities are endless.
Improved research results
Cancer used to be thought of as one disease. We now know that there are
many different types of cancers that have different causes, and respond
to different treatments. The same holds true in the world of autism.
"Autism" has only recently become "Autism Spectrum Disorders" - the
first step in acknowledging the different types of autism under the ASD
label. Much work remains to be done in identifying meaningful ASD
subgroups. An objective measure of delay and echo that would correspond
to varying levels of severity of an ASD could provide a valuable tool
in this process.
Think about the various therapies and treatments for autism. They seem
to help some people, but are ineffective with others. I believe that
one of the reasons for this is that autism research is done using
individuals from different subgroups of autism. Being able to
accurately identify an ASD subgroup would permit research that would
show differences in the effectiveness of a treatment (for that
subgroup) and not just the individual differences between the ASD
subgroups.
Learning materials geared for specific delay/echo combinations
Learning materials could be prepared that address a specific delay/echo
combination. An example of this would be to advance the sound track so
the person could experience sound and action simultaneously.
Awareness of the difference for persons with autism
Technology exists to cancel or "quiet" sounds. It involves "playing"
inverted sound waves at the same time as the original sound. Lexus uses
this technique to quiet their cars' interiors. A similar process could
be used to suppress the echoed sounds, and give the person with autism
some sense of what the world sounds like to the rest of us.
We know that these individuals have great difficulty imagining how an
experience might appear from another person's point of view. Remember,
for the person with autism, they way they experience the world is
normal to them. That they are experiencing the world in a significantly
more complex way than other people is an idea that simply would not
occur to them. Yet, as they grow, they learn that there is something
wrong with them - but don't know what. They know they're different, but
don't know why.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to show a person with autism why they are
different? To have them understand that it is because of the excessive
sensory input they have to process? By understanding how they hear
differently from rest of the world, and learning how most other people
hear, they could learn to compensate for those differences. Once they
learned that, there would be no limits on what they could do.
Appendix C - Bibliography
2Bettelheim, Bruno; The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth
of the Self; The Free Press, New York / Collier-Macmillan Ltd., London,
4th ed.; 1969
3Anne M. Donnellan, Ph.D. and Martha R. Leary, MA, CCC-SLP; Movement
Differences and Diversity in Autism-Mental Retardation: Appreciations
and Accommodations People with Communications and Behavior Challenges;
D R I Press; 1994
Works by Dr. William S. Condon
Condon, W. S. (1985). Sound-Film Microanalysis: A Means for Correlating
Brain and Behavior. In Frank Duffy and Norman Geschwind (Eds.),
Dyslexia: A Neuroscientific Approach to Clinical Evaluation, Boston,
MA: Little, Brown & Co., 123-156.
Condon, W. S. (1996). Sound-Film Microanalysis: A Means for Correlating
Brain and Behavior in Persons with Autism. Proceedings of the 1996
Autism Society of America National Conference, Milwaukee, WI, July
1996, 221-225.
Condon, W. S. (1974) Cultural Microrhythms. In M. Davis (Ed.),
Interaction Rhythms. New York: Human Sciences, 1982.
Condon, W. S. (1971). Speech and Body Motion Synchrony of the
Speaker-Hearer. In D. L. Horton and J. J. Jenkins (Eds.), Perception of
Language, Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 150-173.
Condon, W. S. (1974). Multiple response to sound in autistic-like
children. Proceedings of the National Society for Autistic Children
Conference, Washington, DC, June 1974.
Condon, W. S. and Sander, L. W. (1974). Neonate movement is
synchronized with adult speech. Integrated participation and language
acquisition. Science 183:99.
Condon, W. S. (1963) Synchrony units and the communicational hierarchy.
Paper presented at Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinics, Pittsburgh,
PA
Other works relevant to Interactional Synchrony
Austin, A. M. and Peery, J. C. (1983) Analysis of adult-neonate
synchrony during speech and nonspeech. Percept. Mot. Skills 57:455
Beebe, B, Stern, D., and Jaffe, J. (1979) The Kinesic Rhythm of
Mother-Infant Interactions. In A. Steigman and S. Feldstein (Eds.), Of
Speech and Time. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, Pp. 23-24
Karo, T., et al. (1983) A computer analysis of infant movements
synchronized with adult speech. Pediatr. Res. 17:625.
Kendon, A. (1974) Coordination of Action and Framing in Face-to-Face
Interaction. In M. Davis (Ed.), Interaction Rhythms. New York: Human
Sciences, 1982.
Peery, J. C. (1980) Neonate-adult head movement: No and yes revisited.
Dev. Psychol. 16(4):245.
gol...@shani.net
interactional synchrony, posted back in 1998. Did I miss anything?
Arthur Golden
interactional synchrony #3
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.autism
From: Jean Ross <M...@AOL.COM> - Find messages by this author
Date: 1998/02/02
Subject: Re: Auditory processing...
In a message dated 98-02-02 01:23:58 EST, you write:
<<
The only other area where I still see differences in
Grace compared to her peers is in dance class, where she seems to move
behind (later than) everybody else. >>
****
Dear Susan,
In the current issue of THE COMMUNICATOR, the publication of the Autism
National Committee, appears an interesting article titled
Bio-modulation: The organization (and Disorganization) of Speaker and
Listener Behavior at the Micro-level and the Relevance for Autism , by
William S. Condon, PhD . If
you're interested I can mail you a copy. I'll just type in a few
excerpts.....
(Dr. Condon discovered ways to decode the communication of many people
with autism and concluded that people with autism may experience
multiple, echolike effects of sound.)
"Several years of intensive microanalysis of sound films of normal
human conversation led to the observation that behavior is
fundamentally organized...."
......"The frames on the sound films were numbered consecutively. This
provided a clock with the subjects embedded on it in order to determine
how
body parts moved in relation to each other and to
speech."........."the body of the listener moves in precise synchrony
with the articulatory structure of the speaker's speech."......."The
listener's body moves with the structure of the speaker's speech almost
as precisely as the speaker's body moves with his or her own speech.
This occurs within 50 milliseconds ......seems to be pan human and
occurs as early as two days following birth....."The response to sound
in autism and dyslexia (and some other disabilities) is
asynchronous...leading to major movement anomalies in the body as the
sides of the body move out of phase with each other...".......An
intensive study of 80 autistic and 30 dyslexic subjects using sound
film microanalytic methodology
revealed a marked disorganization of this precise modulation with
speech observed in normal speakers and listeners. .......as if the
sound is received in one ear and then after a delay it is received in
the other ear. Each side
is synchronized with the sound, but out of phase with each other,
leading to major movement anomalies in the body as the sides of the
body move out of phase with each other."......."The left side of the
autistic person moves with
sound and then the right side moves after a delay, suggesting that the
right hemisphere may be the initial or primary area of sound
processing, resulting in severe language difficulties. The
out-of-phase process seems to repeat in
333msec cycles of short duration in dyslexia but much more extended in
autism, as if the sounds were reverberating or echoing."...."Three
high-functioning, adult, autistic persons said they heard sound
echoing. One subject said the
sound echoed five or six times. When he was 15 the echoing stopped and
he was able to understand words. He said he came out of the fog. This
suggests that eliminating or reducing a possible distorted auditory
processing might be
helpful."......" The orienting response (listener turns toward a sound)
seems very delayed in some autistic persons and they turn in the wrong
direction. Later I will show a film segment of a 15-year old autistic
girl who does not talk and she orients toward sounds, usually in the
wrong direction, at a delay of 47 film frames or over one and one-half
seconds later (1566 msec after the onset of the sound of her name
compared to the 333 msec of the normal response)........"Dr. Condon
illustrated the incredible rapidity of a normal sound orienting
response, which may suggest why it is very difficult for us to relate
to someone with a delayed sound universe...."
Jean
Keith Moseley
<snip>
This is very interesting. It explains why my ears turn off when someone
is talking to me and I'm focusing my eyes on them at the same time. It
makes me feel kind of out of whack, too, if that makes any sense. I can
look at something other than the person who is speaking, though, and hear
just fine. When I'm responding, my vision goes kind of dim, too. I can
look and listen at the same time, but it takes a lot of effort, like the
kind of concentration I would apply to a really difficult math problem. If
there's a reasonable amount of background noise, it's virtually impossible
for me to hear everything that's being said.
--
Keith
gol...@shani.net
synchrony (not so specific to autism)
Arthur Golden
interactional synchrony #4
http://www.reiinstitute.com/rei-article.html
Rhythmic Entrainment Intervention: A Theoretical Perspective
By Jeff Strong
REI Institute Director
Originally published in Open Ear Journal, 2/98
Footnote 10 - Condon, W.S. "Multiple Response to Sound in Dysfunctional
Children". Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 5:1, 1975. 43.
http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/classics/preschool/ii.htm
William Condon of the Boston University Medical Center had been
studying interactional synchrony--bodily response to speech--in adults
for a decade when he decided to turn his attention to neonates. In 1974
he and his colleague Louis Sander published a by now well-known report
as a result of their research on sixteen babies from twelve hours to
two weeks of age.[1] They recorded on videotape or sound film several
hours of infants' activity while they were being exposed to adult
speech, to isolated vowel sounds, and to tapping sounds. The babies
reacted rhythmically to adult speech, whether in American English or in
Chinese and whether live or recorded, but not to the disconnected vowel
sounds or tapping noises. From their study the experimenters
hypothesized that:
If the infant, from the beginning, moves in precise, shared rhythm with
the organization of the speech structures of his culture, then he
participates developmentally through complex, sociobiological
entrainment processes in millions of repetitions of linguistic forms
long before he later uses them in speaking and communicating. By the
time he begins to speak, he may have already laid down within himself
the form and structure of the language system of his culture. (1974:
101)
1. Condon, William S,, and Louis W. Sander, "Neonate Movement Is
Synchronized with Adult Speech: Interactional Participation arid
Language Acquisition," Science, 183 (11 January 1974), pp. 99-101. See
also William S. Condon, "A Primary Phase in the Organization of Infant
Responding Behavior," in Studies in Mother-Infant Interaction, edited
by H. R. Schaffer, London, New York, San Francisco: Academic Press,
1977, pp. 153-176.
http://www.mail-archive.com/futur...@scribe.uwaterloo.ca/msg08443.html
THE DANCE OF LIFE
Chapter 9 of the book
The Dance of Life
by
Edward T. Hall
...
William Condon, whose work will be discussed shortly, might provide
some clues. It had to do with the delicate web of body rhythm that ties
us together-a break of some sort, the short-circuiting of an action
chain at a crucial point. The implications are almost beyond
belief-both for good and
for evil.
Condon says that when people are talking, the two central nervous
systems drive each other. Of course, there are certain people who
have a talent for breaking or interrupting other people's rhythms. In
most cases they don't even know it, and how could they? After all,
it's other people who
are having the accidents, breaking and dropping things, stumbling and
falling. Fortunately, there is the other kind of person: the one who
is always in sync, who is such a joy, who seems to sense what move you
will make next. Anything you do with him or her is like a dance; even
making the
bed can be fun. I know of no way to teach people how to sync with each
other, but I do know that whether they do or not can make a world Of
difference in a relationship.
...
10 Entrainment
Entrainment is the term coined by William Condon for the process that
occurs when two or more people become engaged in each other's rhythms,
when they synchronize. Both Condon and I believe that it will
ultimately be demonstrated that synchrony begins with the myelination
of the auditory nerve about six months after conception. It is at this
point that the infant
can begin to hear in the womb. Immediately following birth, the newborn
infant will move rhythmically with its mother's voice and will also
synchronize with the voice of other people, speak- ing any language!
The tendency to synchronize with surround- ing voices can therefore be
characterized as innate. Which rhythm one uses, however, is a function
of
the culture of the people who are around when these patterns are being
learned. It can be said with some assurance that normal human beings
are capable of learning to synchronize with any human rhythm, provided
they start early enough.
Clearly, something so thoroughly learned early in life, rooted in the
organism's innate behavior program and shared by all mankind. must be
not only important, but also a key contributor to the survival of our
species. In the future, it is entirely possible that synchrony and
entrainmentl will
be discovered to be even more basic to human survival than sex on the
individual level and as basic to survival as sex on the group level.
Without the ability to entrain with others-which is what happens with
certain types of aphasia-life becomes almost unmanageable. Boston
pediatrician Dr. Barry
Brazelton, who has spent years studying the interaction between parents
and children from the moment of birth, describes the subtle, multilevel
synchrony in normal relations and then states that parents who batter
their children have never learned to sync with their babies. Rhythm is
so much a
part of. everyone's life that it occurs virtually without notice.
Somewhere in the process of synchrony there is a link between the
normal experience on the conscious level and the so-called
metaphysical. Only a short step separates the rhythmic sea in which all
people are entrained and some of the
more contemporary theories concerning precognition.
Keith Moseley
> Following in the only message on usenet that I found on the subject of
> interactional synchrony, posted back in 1998. Did I miss anything?
>
It's the first I've heard of it, but I'm one of the less well-informed
people here on the subject (as far as scientific studies go, that is). I
suspect that if you wait a day or so, you'll get someone who knows
something about it.
--
Keith
gol...@shani.net
being an underlying cause of autism for many including my own son Ben,
the following excerpts from messages I posted to this group back in
July 2003 might be relevant to your situation:
first excerpt:
the "monotropic" cognitive processing for persons with
autism explained by Wendy Lawson in her article from April 2003
second excerpt:
At the Boston Higashi School (www.bostonhigashi.org), about 10 years
ago there was a public lecture by speech therapist Dr. Diane
Twachtman, who stated that verbal human communication is 85% "body
language" and from her professional experience, persons with autism
have varying degrees of difficulty with understanding "body language."
My own son Ben appears to be "monotropic" (as discussed by Wendy
Lawson) and during a verbal human communication he only receives
physical input through the physical sense of hearing and receives no
physical input from "body language."
Sarah
> Interactional synchrony, which exists in the neurotypical possibly even
> in the womb, but is different for the autistic, may explain an
> underlying cause of autism for many, including my own son Ben. I
> recently researched this subject on the internet and I plan to post my
> research here, in several messages. I look forward to your comments.
>
> Arthur Golden
>
> interactional synchrony #1
>
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/whatresearchCondon.asp
>
> SPEECH AND MUSIC CONNECTION - SYNCHRONY
>
> William Condon says:
>
> "Your body's locked precisely with your speech. You can't break out of
> this no matter what you do. Your eyes even blink in synchrony with your
> speech." Movements appear to begin, change, or end on the same film
> frame that a new vowel or consonant begins - within about
> four-hundreths of a second in the new sound. "The synchrony of the
> listener with the speaker is just as good as my own synchrony with
> myself."
I'd say this is true of me on a good day but sometimes I can't talk at
all and there are no words in my head either. I've probably missed the
point saying that though.
--
Sarah
Keith Moseley
Thanks. I don't have time to explore this stuff too in-depth, but I'll
definitely check it out in the next few days.
--
Keith
dobey the elf
How could you get physical input from a visual media like body
language?
Stephen Wilson
<gol...@shani.net> wrote in message
news:1110908504.3...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>Interactional synchrony, which exists in the neurotypical possibly even
>in the womb, but is different for the autistic, may explain an
>underlying cause of autism for many, including my own son Ben. I
>recently researched this subject on the internet and I plan to post my
>research here, in several messages. I look forward to your comments.
>Arthur Golden
Ah. The same Arthur Golden who promised that we would be unable to
communicate with each other after 8th January 2004 because something "big"
was going to happen in the world on 9th January 2004...
dobey the elf
ARthur Golden is a legend. On the other hand, I've never heard of
stephen wilson...
ares
ares
"Keith Moseley" <x_an...@REMOVEyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.03.15....@REMOVEyahoo.com...
Terry Jones
<pan.2005.03.15....@REMOVEyahoo.com>
It certainly looks interesting - Although as the author himself
suggests, perhaps only applicable to a sub-set of autism.
For example, is there any evidence that significantly *more* autistics
are visual thinkers than is the case in the general population? Or is
this just something "everybody knows" (the 'Temple Grandin Effect')
but which hasn't really been checked out?
We did a "straw poll" here a while back, and there seemed to be quite
a number of autistic posters who *weren't* primarily visual thinkers.
Another point is that the "filtering problem" - distinguishing the
relevant from the "background" / irrelevant can apply to other senses
too - visual or tactile or kinaesthetic (internal awareness).
And of course delay in responding may also result from problems with
processing / comprehension (you "hear" the words, but they just don't
make coherent sense), word retrieval, concept retrieval / expression
(you know what you want to say but can't put it into words),
attentional / concentration problems (you don't "hear", or you do, but
as you're processing your response your mind goes off down other
paths), etc..
And the "just wait" strategy isn't really appropriate for these -
although it would certainly be a lot less irritating / distracting
than the "repeat the question" approach.
Still, as long as the science is good, and it doesn't get
overgeneralised into *the* explanation / "solution", it looks to be
worth following up.
Terry
Keith Moseley
<snip my stuff>
>
> It certainly looks interesting - Although as the author himself
> suggests, perhaps only applicable to a sub-set of autism.
>
> For example, is there any evidence that significantly *more* autistics
> are visual thinkers than is the case in the general population? Or is
> this just something "everybody knows" (the 'Temple Grandin Effect')
> but which hasn't really been checked out?
>
> We did a "straw poll" here a while back, and there seemed to be quite
> a number of autistic posters who *weren't* primarily visual thinkers.
>
I kind of am, in that if I'm about to perform an action, I usually see an
image first. For instance, if I want to pour myself a cup of coffee, I
see myself doing it, then I actually do it. But I have no problem
thinking conceptually, either. It feels more natural to do things
visually, if that makes any sense.
> Another point is that the "filtering problem" - distinguishing the
> relevant from the "background" / irrelevant can apply to other senses
> too - visual or tactile or kinaesthetic (internal awareness).
>
I thought visual was part and parcel of what he was talking about?
> And of course delay in responding may also result from problems with
> processing / comprehension (you "hear" the words, but they just don't
> make coherent sense), word retrieval, concept retrieval / expression
> (you know what you want to say but can't put it into words),
> attentional / concentration problems (you don't "hear", or you do, but
> as you're processing your response your mind goes off down other
> paths), etc..
>
This makes sense.
> And the "just wait" strategy isn't really appropriate for these -
> although it would certainly be a lot less irritating / distracting
> than the "repeat the question" approach.
>
For sure.
> Still, as long as the science is good, and it doesn't get
> overgeneralised into *the* explanation / "solution", it looks to be
> worth following up.
>
I liked the idea of being able to diagnose right after birth. I think
that would be really beneficial, and this approach seems much less
haphazard than present diagnostic techniques. Still, as you say, the
science needs to back it up.
I still haven't found the time to explore this. Soon, I hope. Was this
new to you? It seems like Condon's stuff has been around a long time.
--
Keith
Keith Moseley
> It sounds like a bunch of double talk to me.
> ares
>
<grin>
--
Keith
gol...@shani.net
Please note in the latter part of this article how Dr. Ralph Maurer,
back in 1994, tied in interactional synchrony, through the sense of
touch, with Facilitated Communication! I think he was on to something,
but the FC proponents do not seem to have further explored the tie in
with interactional synchrony in the past decade. Also note how it
seems that interactional synchrony applies to all the senses, but it
might be that it can only be objectively observed with sound, as Dr.
William S. Condon did for about 40 years, including 28 years ago with
my then 5 year-old son Ben, who showed the multiple response to sound
Dr. Condon expected from a person with autism.
Arthur Golden
http://www.autcom.org/rethinking.html
Rethinking Autism/PDD
Conference Highlights Positive Approaches, Relationships
When a truly good idea appears in the world, you may know it by this
sign: that the dunces are all in a confederacy against it." -- Jonathan
Swift
Swift's words, lit by an overhead projector, were among the humorous
asides that brought laughter and recognition as Anne Donnellan, PhD,
Martha Leary, MA, OTR/L, and Ralph Maurer, MD joined parents and
professionals for the April 22-23, 1994 conference Rethinking
Autism/PDD, which was co- sponsored by the Autism National Committee
and Autism Support and Advocacy in Pennsylvania. No dunces were in
evidence as the 440 attendees, including a sizeable number of people
with autism, heard Dr. Donnellan de-bunk the pseudoscience of IQ
testing and decry the muddled concept of "mental retardation."
In an historical tour de force titled "Autism and Myths About Mental
Capacity," Donnellan traced the political factors and psychological
prejudices which cause many present-day practitioners to defend the
concept of retardation (i.e. emptiness, lack of capacity), to reject
out of hand the possibility of Facilitated Communication, and to accept
the use of aversive "treatments," to the legacy of 19th century
European racism and chauvinism. This legacy centers on the belief that
some kinds of humans are inherently childlike, morally inferior,
incapable of coherent thinking, don't notice or care about the
circumstances under which they are made to live, and don't really feel
pain. The particular humans in question have variously been identified
as non-Europeans, as southern Europeans, as women, as "the
feebleminded," and today as people with retardation or autism. The
subjects may change, explained Donnellan, but the modes of social
devaluation remain the same.
Martha Leary then joined Dr. Donnellan to demonstrate how the
"emptiness" or deficiency model of autism can be replaced by a view of
autism as a movement disturbance or difference -- that is, an
underlying problem with expressive movement and its regulation. This
positive approach credits the individual with competencies which may
not be directly apparent through observing performance alone.
Autism, they cautioned, is not a "thing" a person "has." Rather, it is
a collection of symptoms. The workings of those symptoms must be viewed
and interpreted in context, including their physiological context, and
not as isolated pieces of behavior in an artificial, standardized
testing situation. In observing behavior productively, it is essential
to resist the short-cut of labeling rather than describing.
For example, Dr. Donnellan noted the grim regularity with which the
label "self-stimulation" is applied to the behaviors of people with
autism. This label carries a great deal of baggage: the assumption that
the person wants to perform this behavior, is taking pleasure in it,
and intends by this activity to shut others out. Applying the
"self-stim" label without doing the homework of clinical description
precludes us from seeing that the behavior may be internally triggered
and non-volitional, may be necessary to the individual's physiological
self-regulation, or may be a necessary adjunct to the performance of
some other movement which the individual is trying to call forth.
When autism is viewed not as a lack of cognitive abilities but as a
movement disturbance, many of the behaviors associated with it appear
to reflect the workings of bodies which betray their owners in carrying
out volitional actions. Historically, noted Donnellan and Leary, one of
the tragedies of autism has been the frequency with which people who
manifest these behaviors are blamed and punished for things they cannot
control, or the purpose of which they cannot communicate.
Dr. Ralph Maurer, in collaboration with his colleague Dr. Antonio
Damasio, pioneered the research on autism as a movement disorder in the
late 1970s. In a far-ranging presentation titled, "Autism, the Brain,
Emotions, and the Dance of Relationships," Dr. Maurer explained that
autism seems to be caused by damage either in the basal ganglia of the
brain, which controls movement with feedback, or -- as Maurer feels is
more significant -- in the cerebellum, which provides a background of
awareness and synchronization of movement.
When a higher-order integrative function of the brain is damaged, as
with the cerebellar abnormalities in autism, the brain subsystems
become autonomous, with individual reflexes acting on their own. The
challenge for the person with autism becomes one of choosing which
actions to tune into and which to ignore. Confronted with an overall
experience of dysynchrony, the individual must struggle to keep body
movements in some degree of balance and control (self- synchrony) and
to meet the requirements of other human beings and of the environment
(interactional synchrony).
The difficulty of these struggles has serious consequences for the
experience of emotions and relationships. While the old myths held that
people with autism don't have emotions and are uninterested in others,
those inferences, drawn from observations of performance alone, missed
the real story. According to Dr. Maurer, the ongoing problem for people
with autism is one of synchronizing emotion with a partner, of making
connections in ways that allow emotions to be recognized and cultivated
by others.
Autism can be thought of as an "emotional dyskinesia" because the
physiological channels through which non-intimate relationships are
usually organized, vision and hearing, are impaired or closed. However,
Maurer emphasized that the capacity for relationship remains present.
Facilitated Communication may succeed because it connects through an
open channel involving movement or touch. However, because since it is
based on the forging of a relationship -- i.e. a complex
synchronization of interactions -- it doesn't work for every would-be
facilitator. Maurer has characterized a good facilitator as akin to an
Arthur Murray dance instructor: someone who can take a novice with two
left feet and waltz them around the room.
A crucial but overlooked obstacle to this "dance of relationships" is
that, in people with autism, the pulse of interactions tends to be
slowed down. The time frames and units in which we tend to organize and
recognize interactions may not apply to the behavior of people with
autism: we may miss the actual shape and size of their behaviors
because they are occurring on much longer wave-lengths which do not
synchronize with our own. Slowing down the interaction pulse may help
us to recognize and respond to pattern in what had previously appeared
random, and of such synchronies relationships and communication are
made.
At the conclusion of Dr. Maurer's presentation, he was addressed by a
young woman with autism who had been listening intently from a front
row. Speaking slowly and softly, in a voice newly emerging after an
initial breakthrough with Facilitated Communication, she thanked Dr.
Maurer for understanding.
Terry Jones
<pan.2005.03.17....@REMOVEyahoo.com>
>> We did a "straw poll" here a while back, and there seemed to be quite
>> a number of autistic posters who *weren't* primarily visual thinkers.
>>
>I kind of am, in that if I'm about to perform an action, I usually see an
>image first. For instance, if I want to pour myself a cup of coffee, I
>see myself doing it, then I actually do it. But I have no problem
>thinking conceptually, either. It feels more natural to do things
>visually, if that makes any sense.
Whereas for me, pouring a cup of tea (or imagining doing so) would
involve kinaesthetic "memory" / imagination.
I also think verbally, and also cognitively (a.k.a. "thinking in
thoughts" - a form which is neither visual, nor verbal, nor
kinaesthetic) - The closest I come to visual thinking is when I think
schematically / in "diagrams" - and that's basically in terms of the
links / relationships between factors, data, etc., not diagrams of
"things" as such.
Yet oddly enough, I "visualise" perfectly well when dreaming.
>> Another point is that the "filtering problem" - distinguishing the
>> relevant from the "background" / irrelevant can apply to other senses
>> too - visual or tactile or kinaesthetic (internal awareness).
>>
>I thought visual was part and parcel of what he was talking about?
From what I read, he seems to be talking about the *association*
between a visual event and the sound it makes. - What I'm talking
about is the direct effect of a "busy" or cluttered visual field
(independently of sound).
>> Still, as long as the science is good, and it doesn't get
>> overgeneralised into *the* explanation / "solution", it looks to be
>> worth following up.
>>
>I liked the idea of being able to diagnose right after birth. I think
>that would be really beneficial, and this approach seems much less
>haphazard than present diagnostic techniques. Still, as you say, the
>science needs to back it up.
The problem I'm concerned about is that if it does become accepted,
but only really applies to one sub-set of autism (as might be
indicated by some of the points discussed), then what's going to
happen to the rest of us? - Are we going to be treated as "not really
autistic" because we don't fit "*the* test"?
A problem which happens IRL with "professionals" who have their own
fixed ideas about autism.
>I still haven't found the time to explore this. Soon, I hope. Was this
>new to you? It seems like Condon's stuff has been around a long time.
No, I hadn't come across it before either.
Terry
gol...@shani.net
"The problem I'm concerned about is that if it does become accepted,
but only really applies to one sub-set of autism (as might be indicated
by some of the points discussed), then what's going to happen to the
rest of us? - Are we going to be treated as "not really autistic"
because we don't fit "*the* test"?"
I do wish to note that my now 33 year-old son Ben took "*the* test"
with Dr. William S. Condon 28 years ago at age 5 and showed the
multiple responses to sound that Dr. Condon expected from persons with
autism. Unfortunately, I never received any written report from Dr.
Condon. Until I thought about the test by Dr. Condon a few days ago
and intentionally looked for it on the internet (I did not even know
the research was called "interactional synchrony" which is present in
almost all babies at a very young age), I had not come across this
information on the internet after years of intensive research into
autism. It does not seem this approach is being readily accepted as
"*the* test" for autism or even one sub-set of autism. Dr. Condon only
did this microanalysis of movie films (were there videotapes back in
the 60s and 70s?) as pure research and as an actual test I understand
it might be quite expensive.
Arthur Golden
dobey the elf
Okay so this was a thing they researched pretty much in the seventies
and summarized in the eighties. William Condon's main work was 1974.
Its dated material. Her e is what he wrote:
"William Condon says:
"Your body's locked precisely with your speech. You can't break out of
this no matter what you do. Your eyes even blink in synchrony with your
speech." Movements appear to begin, change, or end on the same film
frame that a new vowel or consonant begins - within about
four-hundreths of a second in the new sound. "The synchrony of the
listener with the speaker is just as good as my own synchrony with
myself." An auditory-motor reflex in the central nervous system might
allow, even force, a listener's movements to synchronize with a
speaker's voice far faster than any conscious reaction time. "
www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/whatresearchCondon.asp
I have to disagree with this. My eyes don't blink in synchrony when I
speak or when anyone else speaks. Maybe if thee is a loud noise thing I
will blink but that is about it.
So it seems self synchrony or this interactional synchrony you are
talking about is a conjured up word. A pretense and not a fact. To then
tie it into FCing is sketchy at best.
> Arthur Golden
gol...@shani.net
> I have to disagree with this. My eyes don't blink in synchrony when I
> speak or when anyone else speaks.
Your quote from Dr. Condon only applies to neurotypicals!
You must have autism! (at least according to Dr. Condon "test")
Dr. Condon never tied in Facilitated Communication with Interactional
Synchrony, but Dr. Ralph Maurer did in a 1994 talk. As I already
wrote, Dr. Maurer seems to imply that Interactional Synchrony is
applicable to all physical senses but is missing with at least some
persons with autism for hearing but may be okay for touch, thus
allowing FC to work for those persons, such as my son Ben.
I think you need to be more careful to not oversimplify the information
in drawing your conclusions in your message which were:
dobey the elf
gol...@shani.net wrote:
> dobey the elf wrote:
>
> > I have to disagree with this. My eyes don't blink in synchrony when
I
> > speak or when anyone else speaks.
>
> Your quote from Dr. Condon only applies to neurotypicals!
>
> You must have autism! (at least according to Dr. Condon "test")
>
> Dr. Condon never tied in Facilitated Communication with Interactional
> Synchrony, but Dr. Ralph Maurer did in a 1994 talk. As I already
> wrote, Dr. Maurer seems to imply that Interactional Synchrony is
> applicable to all physical senses but is missing with at least some
> persons with autism for hearing but may be okay for touch, thus
> allowing FC to work for those persons, such as my son Ben.
>
> I think you need to be more careful to not oversimplify the
information
> in drawing your conclusions in your message which were:
and I think you might want to spend your time studying more
scientifically verifiable phenomena than synchrony. Synchrony is just
the scientific name for toe tapping to music by the way.
gol...@shani.net
"I think you need to be more careful to not oversimplify the
dobey the elf replied to me:
"and I think you might want to spend your time studying more
scientifically verifiable phenomena than synchrony. Synchrony is
just the scientific name for toe tapping to music by the way."
To which I reply that, as clearly stated in the subject of the thread,
I am writing about the very complex subject of "interactional
synchrony" as discovered by Dr. William S. Condon about 40 years ago,
and not the simple subject of just plain "synchrony" which I presume is
what you state it is. Dr. Condon took the time to view a four and a
half second film clip of a family conversation during dinner 1,300,000
times in order to make sure he had a "scientifically verifiable
phenomena" of "interactional synchrony" (not just "synchrony").
However, please realize that I am following the advice given by dobey
the elf, I am not spending any time whatsoever studying synchrony
(which is not directly relevant to what I am studying), but I am
studying "interactional synchrony." Actually, I am not personally
studying this subject, I am relying on the recent efforts of Dr. Ralph
Maurer, Dr. Anne Wiltshire and David Tremain (the parent of two
children on the autism spectrum).
Arthur Golden
gol...@shani.net
Arthur Golden
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uoc--alt032905.php
Public release date: 29-Mar-2005
Contact: Inga Kiderra
ikid...@ucsd.edu
858-822-0661
University of California - San Diego
Autism linked to mirror neuron dysfunction
Findings may lead to early diagnosis of the disorder and possible
therapies
Seeing is doing - at least it is when mirror neurons are working
normally. But in autistic individuals, say researchers from the
University of California, San Diego, the brain circuits that enable
people to perceive and understand the actions of others do not behave
in the usual way.
According to the new study, currently in press at the journal Cognitive
Brain Research, electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings of 10
individuals with autism show a dysfunctional mirror neuron system:
Their mirror neurons respond only to what they do and not to the doings
of others.
Mirror neurons are brain cells in the premotor cortex. First identified
in macaque monkeys in the early 1990s, the neurons - also known as
"monkey-see, monkey-do cells" - fire both when a monkey performs an
action itself and when it observes another living creature perform that
same action. Though it has been impossible to directly study the
analogue of these neurons in people (since human subjects cannot be
implanted with electrodes), several indirect brain-imaging measures,
including EEG, have confirmed the presence of a mirror neuron system in
humans.
The human mirror neuron system is now thought to be involved not only
in the execution and observation of movement, but also in higher
cognitive processes - language, for instance, or being able to
imitate and learn from others' actions, or decode their intentions and
empathize with their pain.
Because autism is characterized, in part, by deficits in exactly these
sorts of social interaction and communication skills, previous research
has suggested that a dysfunctional mirror neuron system may explain the
observed pathology. The current findings, the researchers say, lend
substantial support to the hypothesis.
The UC San Diego team collected EEG data in 10 males with autism
spectrum disorders who were considered "high-functioning" (defined as
having age-appropriate verbal comprehension and production and IQs
above 80) and 10 age- and gender-matched control subjects.
The EEG data was analyzed for mu rhythm suppression. Mu rhythm, a human
brain-wave pattern, is suppressed or blocked when the brain is engaged
in doing, seeing or imagining action, and correlates with the activity
of the mirror neuron system. In most people, the mu wave is suppressed
both in response to their own movement and to observing the movement of
others.
Subjects were tested while they moved their own hands and while they
watched videos of visual white noise (baseline), of bouncing balls
(non-biologic motion) and of a moving hand.
As expected, mu wave suppression was recorded in the control subjects
both when they moved and when they watched another human move. In other
words, their mirror neuron systems acted normally. The mirror neurons
of the subjects with autism spectrum disorders, however, responded
anomalously - only to their own movement.
"The findings provide evidence that individuals with autism have a
dysfunctional mirror neuron system, which may contribute to many of
their impairments - especially those that involve comprehending and
responding appropriately to others' behavior," said Lindsay Oberman,
first author of the paper and UCSD doctoral student working in the labs
of senior authors V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain
and Cognition, and Jaime Pineda, director of the Cognitive Neuroscience
Laboratory.
The current study, the researchers say, adds to understanding the
neural basis of autism and may point the way to early diagnosis and to
potential therapies.
A first step, Ramachandran said, might be to test those individuals who
seem to have a greater genetic likelihood of autism: the younger
siblings of those already diagnosed.
Though EEG is not at present designed to measure the brain rhythms of
low-functioning autistics - whose many repetitive movements confound
EEG signals and where mental retardation also plays a significant role
in behavioral deficits - it can be used as a tool for earlier
diagnosis of high-functioning autistics, whose disorder today is
typically not recognized until age 3 or 4 and often later.
Earlier diagnosis in turn could lead to earlier interventions. One
therapeutic possibility suggested by the study's findings is
biofeedback.
Pineda, who also works on a number of brain-computer interface
projects, says that the mu rhythm is one that we most readily learn to
control.
"We can learn to increase or decrease the strength of the mu signal at
will. By imagining action, subjects are able to move a paddle in a
computer game of 'Pong' after just four to six hours of practice," he
said. "Because this rhythm is one that we have access to volitionally,
it may prove useful in therapy."
Another possible therapy would involve ordinary mirrors. Ramachandran
has successfully treated amputees who experience pain or paralysis in
their missing, or "phantom," limbs by using a mirror reflection of
their healthy limb to "trick" their brains into believing that the
missing limb has been restored to pain-free motion. Since autistics'
mirror neurons respond to their own motion, the researchers say,
perhaps their brains can be induced to perceive their own reflected
movements as the movements of another human being.
"We have a long way to go before these therapeutic possibilities are a
reality, but we're that much closer now that we've linked autism to a
specific region of the brain," said Ramachandran. "More than just
documenting a brain anomaly in autism, we've been able to relate
symptoms that are unique to the disorder - loss of empathy and
imitative skills - to the function of a particular circuit, the
mirror neuron system."
Other authors on the study are: Eric Altschuler, former UCSD
postdoctoral researcher now at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New
York, who with Ramachandran and Pineda originally presented preliminary
findings on mirror neuron dysfunction in one autistic child in 2000;
Edward Hubbard, recent UCSD graduate now at the French National
Institute of Health (INSERM) in Paris; and UCSD graduate student Joseph
McCleery.
The team is now pursuing another, related line of research: Are mirror
neurons involved in the ability to understand metaphors? Autistic
individuals typically have difficulties with metaphors, often
interpreting them literally, and the researchers believe this too may
be connected to a dysfunctional mirror neuron system.
"Even as the clinical study of mirror neurons is giving us insights
into autism and other disorders," Ramachandran said, "it is also giving
us glimpses of a host of uniquely human - and elusive - mental
capacities: making metaphors and passing on proverbs, to name just
two."
Keith Moseley
> Do you think this is tied into interactional synchrony?
>
> Arthur Golden
>
> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uoc--alt032905.php
>
<snipped article>
It could be. It seems like early days yet in these inquiries, so I intend
to reserve judgment. I would have thought I would be more excited about
the potential of these studies, but for some reason I have very little
interest in it. I said I'd look into it, but have not. Sorry. Not that
I want you to stop posting or anything, but I feel guilty about not
responding very much, so I wanted to offer an explanation of sorts. I
think I'm too concerned with figuring out how to deal with my life right
now to worry about why it is the way it is.
--
Keith
Terry Jones
<1112173618.8...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>
That's really a quite interesting bit of work.
A couple of caveats though;
>The human mirror neuron system is now thought to be involved not only
>in the execution and observation of movement, but also in higher
>cognitive processes - language, for instance, or being able to
>imitate and learn from others' actions, or decode their intentions and
>empathize with their pain.
One common problem with communication (though not with *language* as
such), is the nominal use of language intended to "communicate" other
than what the words actually *say*. - I'm specifically not talking
about metaphor / analogy here but: "You should have *known* what I
meant", "You should have *known* that I didn't 'really' mean what I
said", etc., - IOW *not* language as such, but "mind reading".
And observation suggests that in this context there is not one single
universal human "language", but at the very *least* a series of
"codes", which vary from culture to culture, between genders, and
perhaps between age cohorts.
Another is the issue of *asymmetry* - empathy / "feeling what the
other is feeling" is all very well, but what about *legitimacy* and
*reciprocal* empathy? - Basically is the "feeling", the expectation,
the *demand* reasonable and legitimate?
Whether it's a child bawling because they can't have a sweet or an
expensive toy, and have it *now*, or a politician or a street punk who
is "offended" / "dissed" if someone actually *dares* to question their
behaviour and expectations. - Why should *their* emotions take
precedence over *other people's* objections? - That's what I mean by
asymmetry, consistently giving more "weighting" to the perceptions of
one "side".
>The team is now pursuing another, related line of research: Are mirror
>neurons involved in the ability to understand metaphors? Autistic
>individuals typically have difficulties with metaphors, often
>interpreting them literally, and the researchers believe this too may
>be connected to a dysfunctional mirror neuron system.
Actually that's not accurate either - Autistics appear to be able to
*use* metaphors (even children, as illustrated in the "cheese-o-phone"
& "water rope" thread). The problem is in understanding / "reading"
*other people's* metaphors - and perhaps only metaphors of certain
types (as for example in humour, many autistics seem to be quite happy
with wordplay and puns).
Talking about which, it's only a subjective perception, but the
impression I get is that fewer autistics enjoy pratfall type "humour",
items which depend on the embarrassment or suffering of others. Surely
this would be suggestive of *more* empathy rather than less?
Terry
Keith Moseley
>
> Talking about which, it's only a subjective perception, but the
> impression I get is that fewer autistics enjoy pratfall type "humour",
> items which depend on the embarrassment or suffering of others. Surely
> this would be suggestive of *more* empathy rather than less?
>
> Terry
>
Yes, exactly. It's not no empathy. It's being able to relate in a way
that is for whatever reason completely alien to you that is the problem.
The list of things *everyone* has felt or experienced doesn't really apply
to most auties.
--
Keith