Musicophilia (Oliver Sacks) considers those whose neural underpinnings, with regard to processing musical perception, are disordered. It also brings light those who are prone to have a non typical neural processing response to everyday sounds. The book also mentions that sensory limbic hyper connection might be the basis for the emergence of the unexpected artistic, sexual, mystical, or religious feelings that sometimes occur in people with temporal lobe epilepsy.
As far as sound perception and non typical response to it, this is something that is displayed in the autism spectrum. Additionally, autism affected individuals display unexpected talents that are described as savant skills -- these are akin to unexpected ability in those with profound developmental challenges. Lastly, many in the autism spectrum have seizure disorders.
Sound Perception: Where sound is concerned, my own autistic daughter displayed off the charts negative response to public address systems at about 21/2 years old. Yeah, the blue light special just was not so good for our Sarah. Going to see fighter jets at a local base found my daughter covering her ears for a significant duration, even before the rest of us heard the jets and then saw them. She perceived that her dad's cell phone was going to ring, before it did. She actually covered her ears in preparation for the first ring, and the phone was not set to vibrate. We were in disbelief, that she might hear the ring before it happened.
As Sarah became a little older the public address system and other sounds at school or at stores continued to adversely affect her; because of this she began to use ear protectors. While in kindergarten she self-regulated the use of her ear protectors. These protectors did not inhibit her ability to hear classroom goings on. She had a better than expected kindergarten year as all considered her moderate to severe autism label and what was usually expected of children with that label. In spite of the pretty successful kindergarten year, the school's experts began to prohibited use of her ear protectors once my daughter started the first grade.
The school experts' idea was that my daughter would learn not to be discomforted from -- or have non typical neural response to -- the differing sounds. Theirs was a mindset that insisted that Sarah might be behaviorally modified from the sounds that had a physically assaultive affect upon her. The school's team decided that they were going to teach Sarah that the sounds were not bad, but good. Maybe they thought that constant exposure to the sounds that negatively affected her would desensitize her extreme response to them.
It was obvious to me that Sarah was physically affected by the sounds. In that, there was something very adverse going on in her head. Her body would also heat up when she was exposed to environments where prolonged or continued use of public address occurred -- even as I allowed her to wear the ear protectors in these environments.
A little later in her life I was able to discern that sound quality had a lot to do with it. If there was something loud on high quality speakers it did not bother her. However, anything at any volume on low quality speakers was just terrifying to her -- like she was being tortured in some way. I even figured out that the treble quality to sound was a big culprit.
I experimented with how FM radio versus AM radio affected her. No AM radio, since there is usually a dissonance to the sound that is not usually present in FM. After that I was able to figure out that she could not listen to music with that treble, scratchy or dissonant quality. She became able to communicate her dislike with regard to sound quality and sometimes for instance -- she stated that "Jeremy Camp is too scratchy" and then turned off the radio when he was on. Sorry Jeremy.
It might be important for those who are school experts to consider that sound sensitivities are not always a concern of volition or behavioral psychology and are many times a hardwired condition of non typical neurological functioning.
Savant Syndrome: With regard to sensory limbic hyper connection: Sarah had -- what I consider -- a savant type ability for artistic expression that was compulsive but agreeable. She so enjoyed engaging in hours upon hours of art. She acted upon her artistic impulse as most artists would. Her enjoyment and compulsive engagement in art ceased upon her worsening from autism to profound schizophrenic like psychosis.
Once psychosis entered in, she tried to do her art but it took her over in a negative way instead of being a pleasing adventure. Therefore, the art ceased because she needed the blank slate...so to speak. I guess since the art usually had subjects that had associations that lead her toward psychotic thought -- she needed to stay away from it in order to get better.
Seizure, Catatonia: Dr. Sacks' Musicophilia describes seizures that manifested as musical hallucination (aural music). One subject felt that he must not pay too close attention to the aural music, as he might not be able to escape the song -- like quicksand or hypnosis. It seemed to exert a frightening and almost dangerous spell on him, so that he was deeper and deeper into it. Further describing: A strange alteration of time and consciousness -- compared to dreams from which one would awaken. While in such a state the subjects could perceive what was going on around them but could not respond; described as a doubling of consciousness. (Dr. Sacks)
While trying to work through remedies for psychosis, doctors have felt Sarah to have a sleep state dissociation -- and have also proposed her to have a rare variant of catatonia in context of her autism. They have seen her absence spells and automatism. I would compare both of these to being taken over as described by the persons considered in the above. Like quicksand or hypnosis.
As my daughter was being treated for her psychosis over several years there came a point that she was able to ask me for help. She started asking for a "tug", so that my encouragement and our combined wills could stave off the episodes. I figured out that Sarah felt we were winning if she could be distracted from the episodes. One time, I softly tackled her upon a couch that she stood by as she engaged in an episode. Immediately after I did that, she looked at me with amazement and said "Good job Mom. We did it!" (It was a playful tackle.)
Another time, while she was an inpatient I distracted her with a stuffed frog from the gift shop that made the "ribbit" noise. She had been engaged in an episode for quite some time when the frog successfully distracted her. She looked over at me and said "Yes" her eyes lighting up from a previously vacant stare and her face breaking into a smile. Those at the hospital who had been alongside her and quite worried became pleased at the successful distraction. At that time I think they feared malignant catatonia.
Musicophilia also makes mention of Musicogenic Epilepsy; epileptic seizures induced by music. The type of music that can provoke the seizures varies. Some patients are said to react to only particular instruments or noises. Atypical response to certain noises is certainly evident in autism and as I wrote previously, not a concern of volition -- but neurology.
About our journey with autism... At the very beginning I figured, no big deal, we'll get our daughter normalized in no time and pretty soon she would be asking for the car keys. It didn't quite work out that way and as my entire family and I continued to work through the ebb and flow of her unique walk, we fell madly in love with her in all her glory. This articles are just an outreach in case the information is helpful to anyone. For a real life look at one case of severe autism, just Google "Hello, Dr. Wells". It is a sixteen year account of autism that turned to schizophrenic like psychosis.
No comments:
Post a Comment