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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Idiots Savants, Retarded Savants, Talented Aments, Mono-Savants, Autistic Savants, Just Plain Savants, People With Savant Syndrome, And Autistic People Who Are Good At Things: A View From Disability Studies, Joseph N. Straus
Publications and Research
People identified as idiot savants have long comprised an identifiable group (a high level of skill in the context of perceived mental deficiency) whose story has mostly been told by psychiatrists and psychologists within a medicalized model of disability that assumes deficiency and seeks remediation and normalization. More recently, people identified as savants have become common figures of literary and cinematic representation. Both of these narrative frames have enfreaked them as alien Others, whose gifts and disabilities place them outside the normal run of human intelligence and creativity. With a focus on music, this article tries to see through these …
Music Therapy And Autism: A View From Disability Studies, Joseph N. Straus
Music Therapy And Autism: A View From Disability Studies, Joseph N. Straus
Publications and Research
Music therapy has positioned itself squarely within the medical model of disability, arguing that many sorts of human variability should be understood as illnesses, diseases, or other sorts of pathological medical conditions, and offering music as a source of normalization, remediation, and therapy toward a possible cure. But for many human conditions, including autism, cure is neither possible nor desirable. Instead of seeking to normalize autistic people, music therapy might instead acknowledge their distinctive sorts of musical interests and attitudes and offer to enhance their indigenous culture in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Instead of normalization and cure, music therapists …