Name:Elise Ruggiero

School/Affiliation:Florida State University

Co-Authors:Advisors: Daniel Stevens, Matthew Mauriello, Maria Purciello

Virtual or In-person:Virtual

Short Bio:

Elise is a first year masters student in musicology at Florida State University, where her main research interests are music and disability studies and music cognition. She is specifically interested in examining how to make music learning, performing, and therapy more accessible for neurodiverse children who may process sound differently than their neurotypical peers. She graduated the University of Delaware last spring with an Honors Degree with Distinction in Viola Performance and a degree in Psychology. Her most notable work is on uCue, a modular music device constructed by an interdisciplinary team from the University of Delaware School of Music and Computer and Information Science Department. Work on uCue was recently presented at the Interaction Design and Children conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, this past summer. In her spare time, Elise likes to play her viola, go on hikes, and play with her dog, Kody.

Abstract:

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder where many individuals experience auditory sensitivities that make them susceptible to experiencing a sensory overload, which is often painful or uncomfortable. While many people with ASD resonate with music despite these sensitivities, others may steer away from musical settings altogether to avoid perceiving agonizing stimuli. Although people with ASD have varying perceptions of music and sound, music therapy and intervention for children with ASD have been shown to lead to positive impacts, such as facilitating preference expression, and communication.
To better understand children with ASD’s auditory preference, I developed a survey featuring 30 discrete sound samples varying in envelope (attack, decay, sustain, release) level, pitch register, and source type, taken by 11 children, 3 with ASD and 8 without ASD. Results indicate that while children with and without ASD have similar general musical preferences, such as acoustic over ambient and synthesized sounds, children with ASD show a stronger preference for slow decays, long sustains, and slow releases. Additional differences between the groups were observed in response to sharp and weak attacks, slow decays, long sustains, extreme release speeds, high pitch registers, and non-acoustic sound sources.
This study contributes to the growing body of interdisciplinary ethnomusicological research regarding musical accessibility. Its findings may guide music therapists and educators in tailoring musical experiences that align more closely with the auditory preferences of children with ASD, thereby fostering more positive and effective outcomes in therapeutic and educational contexts.