`Musick is a tonick to the saddened soul’- Robert Burton (1577-1640)
Autism is a developmental disability of the brain. Though many autistic people tend to function as mentally retarded, they are frequently quite intelligent. It is estimated that 1.5% of the human population suffers from one or other sort of autism.
The symptoms of autism vary among individuals as it ranges in severity across a wide range of conditions. While some people are affected more by one symptom, the others may be by another. Autistic Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, and “Atypical” Autism (also referred to as a form of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, not otherwise specified) are all referred to as autism. Though there are some differences between these conditions, those who have them experience many of the same difficulties in life.
While discussing such difficulties here, we are also looking into certain musical characteristics, found in music, especially in the context of Indian music, by associating which one could expect certain relief from such systems.
Developmental Disability
We all know that a raga consists of a pleasant combination of notes (swara), which creates pleasant flavour in the listener’s mind (“ranjayati itih ragaha”).
The process of developing a raga involves certain patterning, which are comparable to those developmental processes involved in our thinking. Right choice of notes, placing them at the right place and in the right moment involves a juggler’s skill and an acrobat’s acumen. Thus, with an exposure to raga training (to start with simple exercises such as sarali varisai, jantai varisai etc), the mental processes of the autistic could be to a great extent, realigned to the healthy pattern involved in music. Meaningless verses or fun-rhymes composed in proto-ragas (the undeveloped ragas which have less than 4 swaras) interwoven with simple, straight, definitive beats, to be played by the patient on a tin or a plate (no drum is necessary!) could be the first lesson in raga training to begin with. Over a period of time, however, there is every hope that the healthy pattern could be absorbed and adopted, with which one could achieve great relief. What perhaps medicine could not achieve, music promises!
Unusual Sensory Experiences
Unusual sensory experiences are something the autistic people tend to experience. Such experiences are based on real experiences like in the case of normal people. However, for the autistic the experience may sound different, as they have difficulties in interpreting them in a healthy way. The unhealthy pattern involved in such experiences seems to be made good by the healthy and powerful pattern (as emerging in selected Indian ragas) as in the course of musical training, severity of such problems tends to lower down in a significant manner. The re-patterning, though time-consuming, can be adopted by adopting (religiously) a pattern of sounding every day. The ancient practices of repeated and intense chanting such as Gregorian chants, vedic chants, japa, Gurbani, Islamic prayers every day at least for 30 minutes — necessarily with the surrendering feelings of love to all the beings around us and devotion to God – can help in re-patterning one’s thought processes from unhealthy orientation to a healthy and socially-productive orientation.
Heightened Sense of Touch
What is taken as a ‘gentle touch’ sometimes hurts or even shocks some autistic people. Some experience confusion, due to difficulty interpreting the sensation of touch. Yet another symptom relating to autism is `misinterpretation of touch’: as a gentle touch may feel like an electric shock, a firm and aggressive hold contact may appear normal. This could be a reason why some autistic people do not feel pain as they fail to notice injuries.
To overcome these disadvantages, an active training in musical beats and loud thuds seem to be of much help than passive listening to any music. For this purpose, the patient is given a ‘make-shift drum’ and a stick and is asked to beat his way to a fast number played in the background as loud as possible. This exercise which lasts for 5 minutes has to be followed by shavasana in silence at least for 10 minutes repeating such drumming twice more. During savasana patients may be asked to focus their minds on the subtle and delicate aspects of life (e.g. Visualization of a garden full of flowers, imagining the tasting of the most favourite dish by a patient etc.) by appropriate yoga nidra assertions.
Heightened Sense of Hearing
As in the case of sense of touch, autism may also result in ‘misinterpretation’ of ‘unhealthy’ interpretation of sounds. While noises may never bother them, some soft music may not be liked by them. Even in talking most of them have difficulty in processing sound. This trait also calls for re-orientation in music taste.
For this purpose, initially a music therapist is expected to align with the patient by offering certain noisy and unconventional music and slowly with the passage of time shifting towards melodious and harmonic music in uplifting ragas such as Gitams, Kritis, Khayal etc which are woven in a definitive pattern conductive for mental health.
“Face Blind” or Prosopagnosic
Yet another handicap in autism is the difficulty in recognizing peoples faces quickly. Called Prosoponosic (“face blind”) such people tend to analyse the faces they come across rather than recognizing them automatically. As such the normal effects of seeing a person may be absent. It is found that through music training this difficulty could be overcome to a considerable extent. The secret is there are various Ragas in the Indian Classical Music. The patient is made to listen to 10 ragas over a period of – say 1 month – every day for at least 30 to 60 minutes. While doing so, the patient is asked to identify the name of a particular raga he or she is currently listening to. This musical exercise can start with one raga, later on to 2,3,4, 5 10 etc. as one advances with time.
I find that pentatonic ragas, which have only 5 notes and which are not fully developed like sampoorna ragas are ideal to start with this musical exercise. Apart from being easily responded to by the patient’s mind, such ragas (e.g, Mohanam or Bhoop; Hindolam or Malkauns etc) are capable of attracting the minds without much disturbance. Music can thus exercise the minds of the autistic to be trained towards recognizing the things and events without going for too much analysis resulting in distortion.
Communication Difficulties
As autistic people have difficulty with verbal communication, repeated chanting as referred to above earlier could be of great help in making them more articulate and expressive. The raga practices with an emphasis on alapana could expand the mental horizon to new areas and thereby create avenues for expressions.
Difficulty in Handling Multiple Stimuli
This problem could only be addressed in raga training, as here one is trained to focus one’s attention with more than one thing at a time. For instance, vocal singing involves adherence to a raga structure and to its emotional outcome, which remains ‘cacultie’ about the talas or beats. To overcome such problems it is necessary to go for active forms of music therapy such as singing, playing musical instruments and even dancing so that the whole system is capable of handling multi-assignments at a given point of time. This raga training can provide avenues to overcome this issue as well in an effective and admirable way.
This article was published in Mystic India – October 2007 – Pages 18 and 19.
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, July 16, 2021