Intentionality of autistic individuals expressed while engaged in the creative music making process.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to learn more about intentionality of autistic individuals while engaged in creative music making. Central to the problem of intentionality in autism is that it is concerned with mind phenomena that have been noted to be distinct from those found in ordinary or non-autistic persons. Intentionality of autistic individuals in creative music making, therefore, is a problem that pertains both to cognitive features of autism and emotional experiences of each autistic individual.; The research concludes that the distinctive intentionality of the research clients emerging while they have been engaged in music-making was characterized by the ego-less self-centrism expressed through the non-social intrinsic-centered aestheticism of their actions. This conclusion was reached through a research process that evolved based on the following assumptions: (1) autism is a distinct form of mind, i.e., other mind, that involve a distinctive cognitive style mediated by a distinctive neurological mechanism; (2) one's intentionality can be observed and described through the regularities (patterns) of object-directed behavior emerging through his or her direct engagement in the surroundings.; The other mind notion of autism approached from a perspective of enactive mind adds to the client-centered and music-centered humanistic approach of music therapy in that it contributes to expanding the scope of therapy, in which the meanings and mechanisms of the clients' mind and behavior can be understood and helped to be realized in a way that is truer to them.; Further clinical studies involving a wider spectrum of autistic clients and musical contexts should add to what substantiates the "otherness" of their musical and relational behavior. One of the possible focuses of those studies can be on exploring more deeply into the connection between the emotional meanings and the cognitive mechanisms involved in autistic clients' behavior emerging within the therapy process. Meanwhile, further investigations could be undertaken to discover the cognitive and neurological mechanisms and their functional basis involved in the connection between emotional rewards and higher information processing in the brains of autistic individuals.