Digital technologies and musical participation for people with intellectual disabilities

Research 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 ‘normalizing’ 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 within and beyond the contexts of deinstitutionalized care. The research identifies the interactions between tools, individuals and groups that facilitated participants’ agency in shaping the form of musical practice. Furthermore, we document the properties of emergent interaction − supported by a tool oriented to enabling music improvisation − as potentially resisting assumptions regarding normalization.

[1]  Jeff Hooper,et al.  A Review of the Music and Intellectual Disability Literature (1943–2006) Part Two—Experimental Writing , 2008 .

[2]  D. Biklen,et al.  Independence, Participation, and the Meaning of Intellectual Ability , 2001 .

[3]  Melanie Nind,et al.  Concepts of access for people with learning difficulties: towards a shared understanding , 2009 .

[4]  Pam Walker,et al.  From Community Presence to Sense of Place: Community Experiences of Adults with Developmental Disabilities , 1999 .

[5]  Chris Philo,et al.  Introduction to theme section on geographies of intellectual disability: 'outside the participatory mainstream'? , 2005, Health & place.

[6]  Keith R. McVilly,et al.  Ethics Guidelines for International, Multicenter Research Involving People with Intellectual Disabilities1,2,3,4 , 2004 .

[7]  Jennifer Stephenson,et al.  Music therapy and the education of students with severe disabilities , 2006 .

[8]  Paul Wehman,et al.  Transition From School to Adulthood for Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorders , 2009 .

[9]  R. Sawyer,et al.  Group creativity: musical performance and collaboration , 2006 .

[10]  David Schelly,et al.  Problems associated with choice and quality of life for an individual with intellectual disability: a personal assistant's reflexive ethnography , 2008 .

[11]  Deborah S Metzel.  Places of social poverty and service dependency of people with intellectual disabilities: a case study in Baltimore, Maryland. , 2005, Health & place.

[12]  Kenneth D. Keith,et al.  Cross-cultural psychology : contemporary themes and perspectives , 2011 .

[13]  Teresa Iacono,et al.  Ethical challenges and complexities of including people with intellectual disability as participants in research , 2006, Journal of intellectual & developmental disability.

[14]  Lawrence M. Zbikowski.  Music, language, and multimodal metaphor , 2010 .

[15]  Judith K. Voress.  Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities , 2008 .

[16]  Tia DeNora,et al.  After Adorno: Rethinking Music Sociology , 2003 .

[17]  Paul Ricoeur,et al.  The course of recognition , 2005 .

[18]  Jim Mansell,et al.  Deinstitutionalisation and community living: Progress, problems and priorities , 2006, Journal of intellectual & developmental disability.

[19]  Karin Renblad.  Persons with intellectual disability, social interaction and video telephony. An interview study , 2001 .

[20]  Peter Oakes,et al.  Reflections on Deinstitutionalization in the United Kingdom , 2008 .

[21]  Christoph Cox,et al.  Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music , 2004 .

[22]  Bo Wah Leung,et al.  School music and teacher education: A global perspective in the new century , 2006 .

[23]  Ingunn Moser,et al.  AGAINST NORMALISATION: Subverting Norms of Ability and Disability , 2000 .

[24]  Gerard Goggin,et al.  Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Disability in New Media , 2002 .

[25]  Hannah Thomas,et al.  Grandparent Support for Families of Children with Down's Syndrome: Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities , 2002 .

[26]  Carol Johnson,et al.  The Laws of Improvisation, or the Nuptial Destruction of Jazz , 1996 .

[27]  R. Keith Sawyer,et al.  Improvisation and the creative process : Dewey, collingwood, and the aesthetics of spontaneity , 2000 .

[28]  Cindy Lu Edgerton.  The Effect of Improvisational Music Therapy on the Communicative Behaviors of Autistic Children , 1994 .

[29]  Alex McClimens,et al.  People with intellectual disabilities as bloggers , 2009, Journal of intellectual disabilities : JOID.

[30]  N. Thrift,et al.  The automatic production of space , 2002 .

[31]  Christine Bigby,et al.  More than community presence : social inclusion for people with intellectual disability. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Roundtable on Intellectual Disability Policy. , 2010 .

[32]  Ioana Boghian.  Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste , 2013 .

[33]  Ingunn Moser,et al.  Disability and the promises of technology: Technology, subjectivity and embodiment within an order of the normal , 2006 .

[34]  Barbara Duffy,et al.  Role of Music Therapy in Social Skills Development in Children with Moderate Intellectual Disability , 2000 .

[35]  Jani Klotz,et al.  Sociocultural study of intellectual disability: moving beyond labelling and social constructionist perspectives , 2004 .

[36]  K. Clayton,et al.  Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers , 1959 .

[37]  P. Bourdieu.  Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste* , 2018, Food and Culture.

[38]  Bill Hughes,et al.  Being disabled: towards a critical social ontology for disability studies , 2007 .

[39]  Edward Hall,et al.  Social geographies of learning disability: narratives of exclusion and inclusion , 2004 .

[40]  Katrina McFerran,et al.  A Review of Current Practice in Group Music Therapy Improvisations , 2007 .

[41]  E. Fuente,et al.  The `New Sociology of Art': Putting Art Back into Social Science Approaches to the Arts , 2007 .

[42]  C Antaki,et al.  On not being noticed: intellectual disabilities and the nonvocal register. , 2007, Intellectual and developmental disabilities.

[43]  Steven C. Dillon.  jam2jam: Networked Improvisational Musical Environments , 2006 .

[44]  Jeff Hooper,et al.  A review of the music and intellectual disability literature (1943-2006): Part One - Descriptive and Philosophical writing , 2008 .

[45]  Andrew Scott.  “Sittin’ In:” Barry Harris's Use of the “Jam Session” as a Jazz Pedagogical Device1 , 2004 .

[46]  R. Kearns,et al.  Making space for the 'intellectual' in geographies of disability. , 2001, Health & place.

[47]  Jeff Hooper,et al.  The practical implication of comparing how adults with and without intellectual disability respond to music , 2010 .

[48]  Andrew R. Brown,et al.  Evolving interactions: agile design for networked media performance , 2009, OZCHI '09.

[49]  Maud Hickey,et al.  Can improvisation be ‘taught’?: A call for free improvisation in our schools , 2009 .

[50]  Eduardo de la Fuente.  The artwork made me do it: introduction to the new sociology of art , 2010 .