Making Meaning Together: Embodied Narratives in a Case of Severe Autism

Abstract

Shared understanding is generated between individuals before speech through a language of body movement and non-verbal vocalisation, expression of feeling and interest made in gestures of movement and voice. Human understanding is co-created in these embodied projects, displayed in serially organised expressions with shared timing of reciprocal actions between partners. These develop in narrative events that build over cycles of reciprocal expressive action in a four-part structure shared by all the time-based arts: "introduction," "development," "climax," and "conclusion." Prelinguistic narrative establishes the foundation of later, linguistic intelligence. Yet, participating in social interactions that give rise to narrative development is a central problem of autism spectrum disorder. In this paper, we examine the rapid growth of narrative meaning-making between a nonverbal young woman with severe autism and her new therapist. Episodes of embodied, shared understanding were enabled through a basic therapeutic mode of reciprocal, creative mirroring of expressive gesture. These developed through reciprocal cycles and as the relationship progressed, complete co-created narratives were formed resulting in shared joy and the mutual interest and trust of companionship. These small, embodied stories enabled moments of coregulated arousal that the young woman had previous difficulty with. These data provide evidence for an intact capacity for non-verbal narrative meaning-making in autism.

Disruption to embodiment in autism, and its repair

“…A focus for therapeutic intervention can be to improve intra-personal coherence and selfawareness of the different levels of processing, especially the difference between the rational, reflective analytic consciousness (Figure 1; tertiary kind) and a more ontogenetically primitive and core affective and embodied self (Figure 1; primary kind) that is able to integrate the rational thoughts from 'above' with the feelings and desires of the present moment, made real in active bodily expression. Strengthening this self-regulation can lead to gains in cooperative awareness if the emotional processes of inner, intra-personal sympathetic relating are enriched (Delafield-Butt et al, 2019;Delafield-Butt et al, 2020).…”

Dancing out for a voice; a narrative review of the literature exploring autism, physical activity, and dance

“…It is believed that these simple, non-verbal interactions in an enriching, trusting, and protected environment aids in the development of successful communicative relationships both during the DMT session and during usual social interactions (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004;Shuper Engelhard and Vulcan, 2021). This is further supported by the notion that shared understanding between individuals is generated ahead of speech, through body movements, physical responses, and non-verbal vocalisation (Delafield-Butt et al, 2020). As such, the paralinguistic and pragmatic features of an interaction establish the foundation of later, linguistic communication.…”

Re-defining silence in unvoiced dialogues in storying-play: The sound of affects

“…Attuned and responsive interactions without words can be vibrant, like oral communications (Delafield-Butt et al, 2020). Brooke did not know Qian's home language.…”