Learn about the rhythmic structure of human speech communication, speech and music connection and Interdisciplinary Social Rhythm Researchers.

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LITERACY | BACK TO THE JOURNEY

Speech and Music Connection Interdisciplinary Social Rhythm Researchers

William Condon says: "synchrony is the main channel of awareness of sociality."

"Your body's locked precisely with your speech. You can't break out of this no matter what you do. Your eyes even blink in synchrony with your speech." Movements appear to begin, change, or end on the same film frame that a new vowel or consonant begins - within about four-hundreths of a second in the new sound. "The synchrony of the listener with the speaker is just as good as my own synchrony with myself." An auditory-motor reflex in the central nervous system might allow, even force, a listener's movements to synchronize with a speaker's voice far faster than any conscious reaction time. "We're almost in auditory touch. When I speak to you, my thoughts are translated into muscle movements an and then into airways that hit your ear, and your eardrum starts to oscillate in absolute synchrony with my voice. In essence there's no vacuum between us - it takes only a few milliseconds for a sound to register in the brain stem, 14 milliseconds for it to reach the left hemisphere."

LITERACY | SPEECH AND MUSIC CONNECTION - SYNCHRONY

Concerning Autism:
For over three decades, William Condon and his colleagues have been studying the rhythmic structure of human speech communication. They make films of people interacting and then do a frame-by-frame analysis of body motions and speech sounds. They have discovered two kinds of synchrony, self synchrony and interactional synchrony. Self synchrony is the relationship between a person¹s speech patterns and their body movements: head, shoulders, arm and hand gestures, and so on. Interactional synchrony is about the relationship between the listener¹s body and the speaker¹s voice.
It is not particularly surprising that self synchrony exists. After all, the same nervous system is doing both the speaking and the gesturing, and the cortical structures for speech and manipulation are close to one another. But Condon found a close synchrony between speakers and listeners as well. How do the listener¹s gestures become synchronized with the speaker¹s vocal patterns? To be sure, the synchrony isn¹t exact‹the listener¹s body movements lag behind the speech patterns by 42 milliseconds or less (roughly one frame of film at 24 frames per second), ³like a car following a continuously rapidly curving road². That is a small enough lag to make one entertain thoughts of mind-reading.
It¹s not simply that gestures move to the same basic pulse as speech. That is easy enough to understand, at least superficially: the speaker needs only to detect the pulse¹s period and adopt it for herself‹all, of course, unconsciously. Synchrony, both self and interactional, involves more than this. Speech is hierarchical. Phonemes are organized into words, words into phrases, and phrases into statements (see Figure 1).[Figure 1 deleted]
In both self synchrony and interactional synchrony this hierarchical structure is reflected in the synchronized movements. Larger gestures, perhaps of the whole arm, will track phrases while smaller gestures, such as finger movements, will track words or phonemes. Furthermore, infants exhibit near-adult competence at interactional synchrony within 20 minutes of birth. Since the human auditory system becomes active three or four months before birth, we may become entrained to speech patterns in utero.
Condon and others have also investigated interactional synchrony in children suffering from various pathologies, including dyslexia and autism. Here they find multiple entrainment. They have observed dyslexic children whose the right side would entrain within the normal 42-millisecond period, while the left side would entrain with the same sound at a delay of 100 to 266 milliseconds. Autistic children were similar, except that it is the right side that is delayed.
The ability to match one¹s movements to another¹s seems to be a condition of normal interaction with others. When this capacity is hampered, as it is in dyslexia and autism, communication is compromised. Synchrony creates a space of communicative interaction, a coupling between two brains in which they can affect one another¹s internal states.
Interactional synchrony is not conscious or deliberate; it is not something one thinks about. It just happens, at least for most of us. That interactional synchrony is working at birth implies that it is mediated by core brain structures, structures that are phylogenetically old, for only these structures are operative at birth. The newest and largest brain structure, the cerebral cortex, is an uninsulated mass of nerves incapable of coherent processing at birth. Its fibers become insulated over the first several years of life. That is to say, tightly synchronized interaction with others constitutes part of the maturational environment for the cerebral cortex, just as the sounds of adult speech penetrate the womb and thus become part of the maturational environment for those neural structures active at birth. Before we can see the external world and grasp objects, we hear sounds and are able to kick and wiggle in response. from Beethoven's Anvil, pp. 25-27:

Interactional Synchrony
Several years ago, at a national autism conference, my wife and I attended a presentation by Dr. William S. Condon , a psychology professor at Boston College. For many years, Dr. Condon studied film of his patients' therapy sessions. His research led him to two major discoveries:
* People's bodies move in rhythm with speech - both their own, and someone else's.
* People with autism have a different rhythm in their body response to sound that indicates their hearing is delayed and echoing. I call this different rhythm "Condon's Autism Anomaly" (CAA).

William Condon: Non-verbal communication

The Tomatis Method
A Biography of Dr. Tomatis and the overview Good learners are good listeners. In the attached pages, we will explore why. You will see why many learning disabilities are in fact listening disabilities. The good news is that we can tune up your ears, so that you can attain your full learning potential.

William Condon Writings

ERIC 2 citations
1. Multiple Response to Sound in Dysfunctional Children N/A
Condon, William S. 1975-00-00 EJ122659
2. Synchrony Demonstrated between Movements of the Neonate and Adult Speech Condon, William S.; Sander, Louis W. 1974-00-00 EJ099934

* Condon, W. S. & Sander, L. W. (1974a) Synchrony demonstrated between movements of the neonate and adult speech. Child Development 45: 456-62.

Condon, W. S. & Sander, L. W. (1974b) Neonate movement is synchronised with adult speech: interactional participation. Science 103: 99-101.

Condon, William S. (1970). “Method of micro-analysis of sound films of behavior.” Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 2(2), pp 51-54.

Condon, William, "Cultural Microrhythms", in Interaction Rhythms, Ed. ?, 1972, pp. /??

This phenomenon of social harmony arising from the void has been proven scientifically to exist cross-culturally by Paul Byers of Columbia University as well as Boston scientist William Condon. Berendt, The World Is Sound , p. 116.

Condon, W. S. (1974). "Synchrony Demonstrated between Movements of the Neonate and Adult Speech." Child Development 45: 456-462.

Condon, William S. & Louis W. Sander Louis. (1974).
“Neonate movement is synchronized with adult speech: Interactional participation and language acquisition.” Science, 183 (4120), pp 99-101.

Condon, W. S. (1975). "Multiple response to sound in dysfunctional children." Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 5: 37-56.

Condon, W. S. (1986). Communication: Rhythm and Structure. Rhythm in Psychological, Linguistic and Musical Processes. J. R. Evans and M. Clynes. Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas Publisher: 55-78.

Condon, William S. (1999). Personal communication. June 10.

For information indicating the probability of related forms of synchrony, see:

Hall, Edward T., The Silent Language, Doubleday, 1959.

Hall, Edward T., The Hidden Dimension, 1964

Hall, Edward T.,(1977). Beyond culture. New York: Anchor Books, pp 72-77. Several others have independently arrived at similar conclusions about the ability of shared activity to bond humans.

Hall, Edward T., The Dance of Life, 1983.

Hall, Edward T., Cultural Misunderstandings: The French, Germans, and Americans

Psychologist Howard Rachlin has called the process “functional bonding,” and historian William McNeill has called it “muscular bonding.” (Rachlin, Howard. (1995). “Self and self-control.” In The self across psychology: Self-recognition, self-awareness, and the self concept, p 89; McNeill, William H. (1995). Keeping together in time: Dance and drill in human history. Cambridge, MA, p 4.)

Krams, M., M.F. Rushworth, M.P. Deiber, R.S. Frackowiak, & R.E. Passingham. (1998). “The preparation, execution and suppression of copied movements in the human brain.” Experimental Brain Research, June, pp 386-98; Lundqvist, L.O. “Facial EMG reactions to facial expressions: a case of facial emotional contagion?” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, June, pp 130-41.

Expressive Micro Timing Explained - Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), 1750 Arch Street, Berkeley, CA 94720

While researching communication between mothers and newborn babies at Boston University Medical College, DR. WILLIAM CONDON INSPECTED HIGH- SPEED MOVIIE FILM FRAME - BY- FRAME UNDER A MICROSCOPE TO DISCOVER THAT SUBLIMINAL MUSICAL HARMONY IS THE PHYSICAL CONNECTION ESTABLISHING ALL INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION. Twenty years later, Condon's story is published in the November, 1987 issue of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.

Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI)

Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI)
http://www.isautism.com/index.html

is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering Dr. William S. Condon's research
into subconscious body movement in response to heard sound.

Dr. Condon's work in interactional synchrony discovered a different response to sound that indicates delayed and echoing hearing. This has profound implications on such a person's ability to learn cause and effect, to interact with their environment, and with other people.
Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI) was founded in 1997 by David Tremain to further the work of Dr. William S. Condon, now retired from Boston University. ISSI is a United States 501(c)(3) not for profit organization incorporated in Indiana.
Dr. William S. Condon serves on ISSI's Board of Directors, and is fully supportive of the work and research of the organization.

Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI)
PO Box 15885
Fort Wayne, IN 46885-5885
USA
Telephone: 260-493-6050
E-mail: dtremain@xxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.isautism.com/waitaminute.html

Wait a Minute! (Or Maybe Two!) by David Tremain © 2000 David Tremain - All Rights Reserved

Author's note: This paper was presented at the Autism Society of Indiana's New Century New Hope Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 4, 2000. A video was also shown at the presentation that allowed the audience to see examples of the various items discussed in the paper. This phenomenon does not lend itself to verbal description, so the paper in itself is inadequate to gain a good understanding of delayed and echoing hearing and its implications.
My special thanks go to Dr. William S. Condon for some of the footage in the video and his constant encouragement, and to my family for their sacrifices that allowed me the time to put this paper and presentation together. My sincere wish is that this information be used to make the world a better place for persons with autism. - David Tremain


Introduction

In the world of autism:

How many parents suspected early on that their child had a hearing problem?
How many had a hearing evaluation done for their child?
How many children are slow to respond to what you say? Or don't respond at all?

How many children seem to respond better to visual cues than to auditory cues?
How many are visual learners?
How many of you feel there is a bright, intelligent person trapped somewhere in your child that you just can't quite seem to reach?
Why are these elements so common in the autism community?

Interactional Synchrony

Several years ago, at a national autism conference, my wife and I attended a presentation by Dr. William S. Condon, a psychology professor at Boston College. For many years, Dr. Condon studied film of his patients' therapy sessions. His research led him to two major discoveries:
People's bodies move in rhythm with speech - both their own, and someone else's.

People with autism have a different rhythm in their body response to sound that indicates their hearing is delayed and echoing. I call this different rhythm "Condon's Autism Anomaly" (CAA).

Response Window

Rhythm is such a basic part of life. From the start of our development in the womb, our constant companion is the beating of our mother's heart. We experience her every word, plus her rhythmic breathing as she talks. Everything is choreographed in an incredibly detailed sequence of events - coordinating sounds and body movements. We learn, even down to our individual nerve cells, how long things normally take. We develop a natural "response window" - a length of time after an event when we expect a response. If no response is received within that "response window", we presume there will be no response.
For instance, you walk out into the garage, where your spouse is working on something. You call his or her name. You wait, lets be generous here, about 1 1/2 seconds. If you don't get a response, you call their name again, a little louder. Why? Because they obviously didn't hear you, or they would have responded.
This "response window" is basic to the rhythm of living. It is an absolutely necessary and critical part of interacting with others and our environment. It makes conversation possible. It is so much a part of how our bodies and psyche's work that we, for the most part, are totally unaware of it.

Delayed & Echoing Hearing

Delayed hearing means that a person does not hear a sound until some time after it occurs. This is not a big issue for most people. Life experience has taught us that one hard object hitting another makes a noise. For example, you know that a hammer hitting a nail makes a sound. If you have ever observed someone hammering a nail from several hundred yards away, you experienced delayed hearing. The sound of the hammer hitting the nail did not reach you until the hammer was back up in the air. We automatically reject the notion that any other part of the hammer's motion causes the sound.
What if we had never experienced sound occurring at virtually the same instant two objects hit? What if our only experience was hearing the sounds after a delay? How would we ever figure out what was causing the sounds?
Most of us have heard an echo. The same sound repeats over and over again, softer and softer, until it fades away. Dr. Condon's observations indicate that people with autism hear every sound that occurs in an echoing fashion - first on their left side, then on their right. Every sound. All the time. For them, this is NORMAL hearing. They don't have a clue that everyone does not hear this way.
The concept of a delay between when a sound occurs and when it is heard is crucial to gaining a better understanding of the world of autism. This simple statement has profound implications - both for individuals with autism, and for people working with them.
Bruno Bettelheim, an early pioneer in the field of autism, postulated that a person with autism was unable to relate to those around them because of a lack of emotional warmth and love. Parents rejected his "refrigerator mother" theory because they knew they were acting in a loving and accepting way with their children. Eventually, Bettelheim's observations were dismissed as being incorrect. Unfortunately, for the children with autism, no one thought to ask the question - were they able to RECEIVE the love and acceptance that was being offered in the same way as other children?
Picture a typical parent/toddler interaction. Mother calls junior's name. Junior looks up at mother. Mother praises junior, smiles at him, and the interaction continues.
Now, if junior has autism, Mother calls junior's name. Junior doesn't respond while his mother is expecting a response. Mother "gives up" on getting a response, and either starts doing something else, or starts another attempt. Finally, after the delay, junior hears his mother's voice, and looks at her. But because mother is no longer expecting his response, she doesn't see it (or maybe just doesn't notice it). Junior gets no positive feedback for his response. Therefore, junior misses the opportunity for a pleasurable learning interaction with his or her mother. Is this a "refrigerator mom"? No! It's just a mother unaware of the difference in her child's ability to respond.
Anne M. Donnellan, Ph.D. and Martha R. Leary, MA, CCC-SLP state in their book, Movement Differences and Diversity in Autism/Mental Retardation, that staff were instructed to make a request of a person with autism, then continue looking at them, and wait expectantly for an answer until they responded. The staff discovered that most people with autism did respond in those circumstances, but on average it took them 14 seconds to do so. Sit down. Look your watch. Say something. Then wait silently and still for 14 seconds. Notice when your attention starts to wander. Fourteen seconds is a LONG time in conversation! It is definitely outside of our normal "response window".
Do not miss the key finding in their results. Given enough time, nearly every individual did respond! This should tell us that people with autism can, and probably want to, interact with others. But our world of interaction moves too quickly for them to participate.
Can a child with autism receive the love and acceptance offered? Dr. Condon's research seems to say, no, they can't - at least not within the response window we normally use.
Sound, Events, and Learning
When two sensory inputs occur at virtually the same time, we associate them. The one we perceive first is presumed to cause the one we perceive next. This is basic to our ability to learn. It is crucial to our ability to understand cause and effect. It helps us learn sequences of events.
Another example. You drop a book on the table with a solid thunk, then pick it right back up again. What does this same event look like to a person with delayed hearing? The book falls, lands on the table without a sound, and the person picks it up. As the book is back to about shoulder height, the person hears the sound. What is happening visually when they hear the sound? The book is moving smoothly through the air. How can that cause sound?
Now, if you drop the book again, and just leave it on the table this time, the individual with delayed hearing would see the book fall to the table, land silently, and just sit there. A bit later, they would hear the same sound they heard earlier, except this time the book isn't moving - just sitting there on the table. From their perspective, there is no pattern to what is happening visually when they hear the sound. There is no way to be able to predict what will make noise.
You know how it feels to be startled by an unexpected sound. You look around. Your heart races. You are ready for fight or flight. Now, imagine that you do not have the ability to associate sounds with their causes. You have no way to predict when a sound is going to occur. Many sounds in your environment are unexpected, and startling. One has to wonder how much of the time people with autism function in "fight or flight" mode.
Since sound is such an unpredictable sensory input, it follows that persons with autism tend to rely much more on their other senses. If one sense is lost or damaged, the other senses strengthen to compensate for the loss. It is no surprise, then, that most children with autism are visual learners.
Condon's Autism Anomaly and Body Movement
Dr. Condon's research observed that people move their bodies in synchrony with the sounds that they hear. Individuals with autism move their bodies multiple times to the same sound, indicating they hear it more than once.
Dr. Condon also discovered that some people with autism could not distinguish between environmental noise and speech. Their bodies responded to every sound. These individuals were in constant motion. Attempting to extinguish excessive body movements through behavioral intervention may be akin to trying to teach someone not to blink. Further investigation into Dr. Condon's research and results led me to form a non-profit organization, Interactional Synchrony Studies, Inc. (ISSI), to explore and confirm his work, and to do new research in this area. I believe this work holds the potential of:
Early identification - at birth, or shortly after.
Objective identification - observation of consistent test data that will indicate a person has autism without relying on subjective, differing opinions.
Classifying Autism Spectrum Disorders by length of delay and pattern of the echo. This would permit research and treatments to be targeted at a specific group - providing reliable, useful treatments, and solid, consistent, usable research results. All of these are exciting possibilities.
What can be done? As my wife puts it, "So what?"
EARLY intervention

Early intervention is about the only thing autism experts generally agree on - the earlier the better. Currently, a diagnosis before 2 years of age is considered "early." Condon's Autism Anomaly may be observable at birth, or shortly afterwards. Identification this early would permit treatment and evaluation BEFORE the behaviors now associated with autism emerge.
Special efforts could be made to micro-teach the basics - allowing for the baby's sensory delays. Concentration on recognizing and rewarding early communication attempts would mean the right behaviors would get rewarded and encouraged. Who knows? It may be possible, starting early enough, to have a child with autism exhibit virtually NONE of the behaviors currently used as a diagnostic tool.
Special training methods could be devised to help the infant make connections between causes and sounds. To teach the basics of cause and effect. To prevent the accumulation of incorrect observations and conclusions that form the foundation of all future learning for 18 months before we even become aware there is a problem!
New ability to build bonds
Early intervention is great, but it is never too late to begin building new bonds. Persons with autism share all the common needs of people - the need for acceptance, for love, to love, to connect with others, to be valued. By understanding the limitations on their ability to respond within a standard "response window" you can "go to them" - giving them the time they need to receive and respond to you. You can build bonds of understanding, interaction, and yes, love, with them.
Your child is "there"
You may have to start with the basics - but start! Reward anything you see as being a step in the right direction - no matter how small. Give them positive feedback. Interact with them, and WAIT for their response. It will come. Your child can, and probably wants to, interact with you.
Be sensitive to their delayed and echoing hearing. Sometimes they may want it completely quiet. Other times, they may want a familiar pattern of noise, sound, or speech. Don't stop at words. Communicate with touch (if they like it). Some children like deep pressure when they can't stand a lighter touch.
As my wife says, "His emotions don't have autism. His intellect doesn't have autism." He is a real person, with real feelings and needs.
Practical suggestions
What can we do practically to compensate for these differences in sensory processing?
Wait a minute. When you talk to someone with autism - don't let your "response window" "time out" - deliberately and patiently wait for the person to be able to hear what is said, and formulate a response.
Don't be frustrated by their lack of interactive feedback to what you are saying. They may be unable, even if they are aware of the need, to provide the subtle variations in responses we rely on. Don't repeat too quickly. Again, this ties in with waiting, but one of the most natural things to do is to repeat a communication attempt after our "response window" is not met. This just provides the person with autism more sensory input to sort through to figure out what is going on. Say what you have to say. Then be quiet and wait. If a person with autism is in danger, take physical action! Don't just attempt to warn verbally. Someone with autism probably won't be able to hear a warning and respond to it quickly enough to avoid harm. Place yourself close enough to be able to act in a danger situation.
Don't expect a young child with autism to automatically make noise if they are in danger - sound is so unreliable to them, it probably won't occur to them to shout for help. Guard your little ones with your eyes - not just your ears. This especially applies to swimming pools.
Think about what the person is doing in the context of delayed and echoing hearing. Is the ability to see and hear the same sequence over and over helping them understand something in their environment? While the incessant replaying of the same part of a video may be annoying, it may also serve a positive educational purpose, too. (Yes, I know it drives YOU nuts. Me too.) Never forget - this different sensory input is NORMAL for them. They've never experienced the world in any other way. They don't even know you can.
Conclusion
Dr. Condon's discoveries of interactional synchrony and the autism anomaly broaden our understanding of the world of autism. The exploration of delayed and echoing hearing provides a logical explanation for many of the things we observe, such as poor social skills, communication difficulties, visual learning, and high anxiety.
Hearing that is delayed and echoing affects the ability to learn. It also makes it difficult to respond quickly enough to meet other people's "response window" expectations. This discourages people trying to communicate with the individual with autism, and prevents the person with autism from receiving positive feedback. It also short-circuits the understanding of cause and effect by hiding or making it difficult to figure out what makes a sound.
By extending our "response window" to wait until persons with autism are able to respond, we open new possibilities to connect with them. Remember, their emotions don't have autism. They want to interact with you, so when you talk to them, Wait a Minute! (long, long pause) (Or Maybe Two!).

Appendix A - ISSI's Research

ISSI's current research project explores the correlation of Condon's Autism Anomaly with the diagnosis of autism.

Double-blind Study

The research is a double-blind study - observations of the video are made without knowledge of the person's diagnosis, and the research participants will not be able to influence the observations.

Who Can Participate?

Anyone who can listen to someone talking can participate. Subjects of all ages with autism (officially diagnosed) and without autism are needed. Multiple subjects from the same family are welcome.

What do you need to do?

Participants in the research need to do the following:

Provide a short video (several minutes) of someone talking to the subject. The video can be a copy of one you have from years ago, or one you shoot tomorrow.

Provide information on the subject's diagnosis.
It's just that simple. Information on participating can be found at our web site, www.isautism.com .
What is the Process?
The video is analyzed frame by frame for two things:
The boundary points of speech - where speech sounds, words, phrases, or sentences start and stop.
Body movements - where body movements start, stop, or change direction or speed.
These two observations will be combined to establish which rhythm is present - a normal rhythm, or the rhythm characteristic of autism, Condon's Autism Anomaly.
Correlation with Diagnosis

After the analysis is complete, the observed rhythm will be compared with the diagnosis of autism. When the study is complete, we should have good evidence of the accuracy of this method in identifying individuals with autism.
Appendix B - Futures

This research holds the promise of many exciting future possibilities. One of the most important of these is an objective approach to autism.
Early and Objective identification

Most of you probably know of someone whose child has been tested by more than one professional, with varying diagnoses. The current process of diagnosis depends on subjective observation - someone's opinion about the presence and severity of behaviors. This system leaves too much room for error.
Dr. Condon believes the rhythmic response to what one hears is present and observable at or shortly after birth. Imagine the benefit of knowing your infant has delayed and echoing hearing. You could train yourself to extend your "response window" to accommodate your child's delay. Special teaching methods could be used to compensate for the lack of seeing and hearing things at the same time.
Most importantly, your baby would receive intervention before autistic behaviors emerge. This could effectively prevent or eliminate the very behaviors currently used as the primary diagnostic tool. The possibilities are endless.
Improved research results
Cancer used to be thought of as one disease. We now know that there are many different types of cancers that have different causes, and respond to different treatments. The same holds true in the world of autism.
"Autism" has only recently become "Autism Spectrum Disorders" - the first step in acknowledging the different types of autism under the ASD label. Much work remains to be done in identifying meaningful ASD subgroups. An objective measure of delay and echo that would correspond to varying levels of severity of an ASD could provide a valuable tool in this process.
Think about the various therapies and treatments for autism. They seem to help some people, but are ineffective with others. I believe that one of the reasons for this is that autism research is done using individuals from different subgroups of autism. Being able to accurately identify an ASD subgroup would permit research that would show differences in the effectiveness of a treatment (for that subgroup) and not just the individual differences between the ASD subgroups.
Learning materials geared for specific delay/echo combinations Learning materials could be prepared that address a specific delay/echo combination. An example of this would be to advance the sound track so the person could experience sound and action simultaneously.

Awareness of the difference for persons with autism

Technology exists to cancel or "quiet" sounds. It involves "playing"
inverted sound waves at the same time as the original sound. Lexus uses this technique to quiet their cars' interiors. A similar process could be used to suppress the echoed sounds, and give the person with autism some sense of what the world sounds like to the rest of us.
We know that these individuals have great difficulty imagining how an experience might appear from another person's point of view. Remember, for the person with autism, they way they experience the world is normal to them. That they are experiencing the world in a significantly more complex way than other people is an idea that simply would not occur to them. Yet, as they grow, they learn that there is something wrong with them - but don't know what. They know they're different, but don't know why.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to show a person with autism why they are different? To have them understand that it is because of the excessive sensory input they have to process? By understanding how they hear differently from rest of the world, and learning how most other people hear, they could learn to compensate for those differences. Once they learned that, there would be no limits on what they could do.
Appendix C - Bibliography
2Bettelheim, Bruno; The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self; The Free Press, New York / Collier-Macmillan Ltd., London, 4th ed.; 1969

3Anne M. Donnellan, Ph.D. and Martha R. Leary, MA, CCC-SLP; Movement Differences and Diversity in Autism-Mental Retardation: Appreciations and Accommodations People with Communications and Behavior Challenges; D R I Press; 1994

Works by Dr. William S. Condon

Condon, W. S. (1985). Sound-Film Microanalysis: A Means for Correlating Brain and Behavior. In Frank Duffy and Norman Geschwind (Eds.), Dyslexia: A Neuroscientific Approach to Clinical Evaluation, Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 123-156.

Condon, W. S. (1996). Sound-Film Microanalysis: A Means for Correlating Brain and Behavior in Persons with Autism. Proceedings of the 1996 Autism Society of America National Conference, Milwaukee, WI, July 1996, 221-225.

Condon, W. S. (1974) Cultural Microrhythms. In M. Davis (Ed.), Interaction Rhythms. New York: Human Sciences, 1982.

Condon, W. S. (1971). Speech and Body Motion Synchrony of the Speaker- Hearer. In D. L. Horton and J. J. Jenkins (Eds.), Perception of Language, Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 150-173.
Condon, W. S. (1974). Multiple response to sound in autistic-like children. Proceedings of the National Society for Autistic Children Conference, Washington, DC, June 1974.

Condon, W. S. and Sander, L. W. (1974). Neonate movement is synchronized with adult speech. Integrated participation and language acquisition. Science 183:99.

Condon, W. S. (1963) Synchrony units and the communicational hierarchy. Paper presented at Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinics, Pittsburgh, PA


Other works relevant to Interactional Synchrony

Austin, A. M. and Peery, J. C. (1983) Analysis of adult-neonate > synchrony during speech and nonspeech. Percept. Mot. Skills 57:455
Beebe, B, Stern, D., and Jaffe, J. (1979) The Kinesic Rhythm of Mother-Infant Interactions. In A. Steigman and S. Feldstein (Eds.), Of Speech and Time. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, Pp. 23-24

Karo, T., et al. (1983) A computer analysis of infant movements synchronized with adult speech. Pediatr. Res. 17:625.
Kendon, A. (1974) Coordination of Action and Framing in Face-to-Face Interaction. In M. Davis (Ed.), Interaction Rhythms. New York: Human Sciences, 1982.
Peery, J. C. (1980) Neonate-adult head movement: No and yes revisited. Dev. Psychol. 16(4):245.