Digital technologies and musical participation for people with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Barbara Adkins is a sociologist whose research focuses on the role of design in social and cultural life. She is an associate professor in the School of Design in the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia and was formerly education manager and researcher at the Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction Design.Jennifer Summerville is a sociologist specialising in participatory research and evaluation methods. She is currently the Research and Development Coordinator at the Health and Community Services Workforce Council and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology. Jenny is a keen advocate for building research capacity as a foundation for inclusion and continuous improvement. Her research interests centre on strategies and applications to support workforce planning and development in the health and community services industries.Marie Knox has an extensive background in disability studies research. She is currently a Visiting Fellow in the School of Public Health and Social Work at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Disability Studies affiliated with the University of Sydney where she leads the research program.Andrew Brown Andrew R. Brown is a computational artist, researcher and educator. He is Professor of Digital Arts at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University, in Australia and was previously the Research Manager for the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID). Andrew is an active computational artist working in music and visual domains. His research interests include technology 2 support for creativity and learning, computational aesthetics and the philosophy of technology.Steve C. Dillon Sadly, our colleague and friend, Dr Steve Dillon, passed away on April 1 st 2012. He was a singer songwriter, music educator and musicologist, and a senior lecturer in Music and Sound at Queensland University of Technology. He was director of save to DISC Research Network and project Leader of the Network Jamming Research Group. His research interests were meaningful engagement with music making and designing digital media technologies and relational pedagogies to provide access to cognitive growth, health and well being through music making. He leaves behind an important legacy in researching and developing tools to support participation in music making. AbstractResearch on the aspirations of people with intellectual disabilities documents the importance of alternative zones of inclusion where they can assert their own definitions of ability and normality. This stands in contrast to assumptions concerning technology and disability that position technology as 'normalising' the disabled body. This paper reports on the role of a digital music jamming tool in providing access to creative practice by people with intellectual disabilities. The tool contributed to the development of a spatio-temporal zone to enable aesthetic agency withi...

ICTs and Music in Generic Learning Disabilities

“…The research for this paper took place in two day centers in Brisbane, Australia, for adults with significant intellectual disabilities [9]. Jam2jam is a tool based on genera-!…”

“…The aim of this survey was the participatory possibilities of the jam2jam tool for people with intellectual disabilities based on the theoretical and conceptual considerations outlined above. Finally, questions are raised of the human"technology interrelations [9].…”

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“…The importance of this area also stems from the need to look for measures related to the practical implementation of the idea of inclusion as well as opportunities and barriers in this respect, and digital inclusion should constitute a major area of research into the presence of people with ID in the modern-day world. The need to search for "alternative zones of inclusion," where individuals with disabilities may explore their own definitions of ability and normality, have been pointed out by such authors as Adkins et al (2012).…”

“Musical co-creation”? Exploring health-promoting potentials on the use of musical and interactive tangibles for families with children with disabilities

“…Over time, this narrative structure will create expectations of potential future musical outputs with variations, so that the user can negotiate the shaping of the musical narrative and promote its musical interest at the same time. This is what makes the musical tangibles in RHYME more co-creative than other responsive interactive musical devices, such as Sound Beam and Midicreator (see, for example, Magee & Burland, 2008, www.soundbeam.co.uk) or the lesser-known Jam2jam tool (Adkins, Summerville, Knox, Brown, & Dillon, 2012). Therefore, when compared to traditional musical instruments, such as piano and drums, the CCTs in RHYME feature expanded roles (Cappelen & Andersson, 2011b).…”