Practicing phonomimetic (conducting-like) gestures facilitates vocal performance of typically developing children and children with autism: an experimental study
Emelyne Bingham
Abstract
Emelyne Bingham is an American conductor, professor, and autism self-advocate. In this keynote address, she discusses growing up in an economically disadvantaged and rural community well before a diagnosis for autism existed. Bingham relays how her early experiences with music eventually shaped not only her musical career but also her research involving music, gesture, and autism.
Music is a unique, multi-modal stimulus that involves simultaneous processing of sensory information. To investigate the role of musical gesture in children’s ability to process the intersections of these modalities, Bingham uses a visuo-motor to auditory mapping task designed to investigate the perception of musical features in gesture and the effect of a motor training intervention on those perceptions in neurotypical children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Bingham will describe how she combines gestural practice with principles of embodied cognition to strengthen music-related crossmodal associations. Finally, she will discuss the implications of her work in the context of music education.