Thesis Terms

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Ar(au)tistic – This term is made up. It is a play on words stemming from a joke that my husband made. When I received my autism diagnosis and I asked him how he felt about it he responded “Oh, I already knew you were artistic.” The term Ar(au)tistic blends two of my identities, as an artist and as being autistic, both of which are important parts of who I am in life, how I operate as a practitioner, and is the essence of this project.

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ARTifacts – This term refers to artworks, poetry, recordings, and writing which make up the products of my research for this project.

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Authentic embodiment – In cognitive science, embodiment refers to the physical relationship an individual has to their environment which is inextricably linked to their internal, emotional, and cognitive experience. To experience authentic embodiment is to live in the physical world in a way which is harmonious with one's individual internal, emotional, and cognitive existence. Though every individual's authentic embodiment is unique, one may find others who have similar experiences of authentic embodiment due to similarities in lived experience, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, neurocognitive function, etc. (Vaisvaser, 2021; Walker, 2018, p. 89-119)

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Neurodiversity – This is a term coined by autistic activists in the 1990’s in an email list known as Independent Living and popularized by autistic scholar, Judy Singer (Botha et al., 2024). Neurodiversity refers to the diversity amongst human minds, similar to how individuals are diverse in terms of any other part of their genetic make-up.

 

Neurodivergent – A person who is neurodivergent is someone whose cognitive relationship to the world around them differs from the cultural norm. The term neurodivergent was coined by Kassiane Asasumasu around 2000. A neurodivergent person may be diagnosed as autistic, ADHD, as having FASD, a traumatic brain injury, or as one or more other neurocognitive conditions. (Walker and Raymaker, 2021)​

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Structural spaces – For the purposes of this thesis, I defined structural spaces as places where there are often unwritten rules and/or exceptions for individuals to operate “successfully” within. These spaces fall into two categories: physical (work, school, etc.) and social (inter-personal relationships, public spaces, etc.)​

 

Research

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Arts-based research – Uses art to explore an idea or research question in order to come to a new understanding that could not be arrived at by conventional means. (Kapitan, 2018)

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Autoethnography – “Autoethnography is an autobiographical genre of academic writing that draws on and analyzes or interprets the lived experience of the author and connects researcher insights to self-identity, cultural rules and resources, communication practices, traditions, premises, symbols, rules, shared meanings, emotions, values, and larger social, cultural, and political issues.” (Poulos, 2021, p. 4)

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Oral research – For the purposes of this thesis, I defined oral research as similar to both and somewhere in-between an oral source and oral history. Oral history has been defined as “… a method of conducting historical research through recorded interviews between a narrator with personal experience of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of adding to the historical record. Because it is a primary source, an oral history is not intended to present a final, verified, or 'objective' narrative of events, or a comprehensive history of a place... It is a spoken account, reflects personal opinion offered by the narrator, and as such it is subjective. Oral histories may be used together with other primary sources as well as secondary sources to gain understanding and insight into history” (Oral history research and resources, n.d.). For the purposes of this thesis, the word history is replaced with the topic of neurodivergent authentic embodiment in structural spaces.

 

Disability

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Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) –  Applied Behavioural Analysis is a group of techniques meant to help autistic children gain skills that they are not acquiring naturally and reduce unwanted behaviours. ABA is the main form of therapy approved by insurance companies for autistic children because, historically, it has been the only form of therapy quantitatively researched as a treatment for autism. When performed in a person-centred way, ABA can be beneficial for many people. However, this form of therapy has been widely criticized by autistic self-advocates for the way it is used by some practitioners, its intensity, and large number of autistic adults who have reported their experience of ABA as traumatic. (Lord, 2023).

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Echolalia – Also known as a vocal stim, echolalia is the repetition of words, phases, or sounds that feel/sound nice or interest a neurodivergent individual in some way. Echolalia is also used by small children as they learn language.

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Hyper fixation – When a neurodivergent person is invested in and/or has an intense interest in something, they may experience periods of hyper fixation on a subject that crowds out or makes it difficult to focus on anything else. 

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Monologuing – When a neurodivergent person talks at length about a topic that’s of great interest to them, specifically when there is a lack of back-and-forth conversation.

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Neurotypical – A person who is neurotypical is someone whose style of neurocognitive functioning falls within the range of what is considered normal by society. (Walker, 2021, p. 40)​.

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Special interest – A topic or subject that is of particular interest to a neurodivergent person which they spend a great deal of time engaging or participating in. A neurodivergent individual may have many special interests throughout their life. Some may be short lived while others can be lifelong.

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Stim – To stim is to engage in repetitive physical movements or other actions in order to provide sensory stimulation. In this way a person may self-regulate by releasing energy through sound or movement. All humans stim, but neurodivergent individuals do so more noticeably (Walker, 2021, p. 104-108)​​​.

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Time blindness – “‘Time blindness’ refers to the inability to recognize when time has passed or to estimate how long something will take.” (Cleveland Clinic, 2023)​.

 

Therapy and Theories

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Art Therapy – “Art therapy combines the creative process and psychotherapy, facilitating self-exploration and understanding. Using imagery, colour and shape as part of this creative therapeutic process, thoughts and feelings can be expressed that would otherwise be difficult to articulate” (Canadian Art Therapy Association, n.d.).

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Expressive Art Therapy – “Expressive Arts Therapy is an intermodal arts-based approach to therapy that engages and supports the client through a process of creative expression to help them reconnect with their inner resources. Expressive Arts Therapists offer interventions that integrate the use of visual arts, creative writing, drama, music, voice and movement as catalysts for personal inquiry, discovery and growth” (Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association, n.d.).

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Medical vs social model of disability – “The medical model understands disability as a condition that exists inside an individual person’s body or mind. If you’re disabled, you personally have a problem that must be identified, diagnosed, and then either treated or cured. The purpose of medicine and psychiatry is to identify what is wrong with people and prescribe some kind of intervention that will make the symptoms of that wrongness go away.” (Price, 2022, p. 229)

“Enter the social model of disability, originally coined in the 1980s by disabled academic Mike Oliver. In his writing, Oliver described disability as a political status, one that is created by the systems that surround us, not our minds and bodies. A clear-cut example of this is how most educational institutions exclude Deaf students. There are entire school systems and communities run by Deaf people, for Deaf people, where everyone uses sign language and access to audio captioning and other resources are provided as a matter of course. In this context, being Deaf is not a disability. In fact, a hearing person who doesn’t know sign language is the one who would be marginalized, if they were living in a Deaf-centred world.” (Price, 2022, p. 230)

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Person-centred approach – “The client-centred or person-centred approach… emphasizes the therapist’s role as being empathetic, open, honest, congruent, and caring as she listens in depth and facilitates the growth of an individual or a group. This philosophy incorporates the belief that each individual has worth, dignity, and the capacity for self-direction” (Rogers, 1993, p. 3).

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The Bodymind Model – “…the bodymind model is designed to emphasize and tap in to individual’s strengths and restore an embodied sense of self that is not necessarily related to illness or tragic life circumstances. The holistic and developmental aspects of the model are geared to emphasize that the body and mind operate as one and that art therapy operates in a dynamic epigenetic fashion” (Czamanski-Cohen and Weihs, 2016)​​.