Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology

Research on autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly describes autistic individuals as displaying: i) a preoccupation with the world of objects and ii) a withdrawal or detachment from the world of subjects. In her insightful and persuasive article, Sofie Boldsen argues that we should not fall into the trap of viewing the world of objects and the world of subjects in isolation from one another. Drawing from her qualitative and phenomenological study on social interaction in ASD, Boldsen urges us to recognize how interacting with material objects can scaffold, facilitate, and regulate different forms of social connectedness in ASD. In doing so, the distinction between the “social” and “non-social” dimensions of ASD is problematized, and a robustly situated and embedded understanding of ASD is presented.

Excerpts from both observational and interview-based data are used to illustrate ways in which social interaction in ASD is mediated via interaction with the material world. Line and Helene engage with one another through their mutual attention to a guitar; Ina and Viola dance together, guided by a virtual dance partner; Hanna and Mads connect while playing a board game. Boldsen argues that through engagement with material aspects of the environment various social possibilities are opened; social possibilities that are importantly experienced as less uncertain and overwhelming.

Boldsen suggests two ways in which material mediation regulates and grounds social interaction. First, through their sensible nature, objects can scaffold social co-ordination and attunement. The rhythmic structure of music, for example, is socially supportive; it entrains our bodily movements both in time with the music and, in turn, with others also dancing. As such, the music provides a shared structure in which bodily movement and attunement unfolds, guiding and delineating when and how to act. Second, Boldsen highlights how objects can make normative rules and expectations explicit. As such, they not only provide a structure which shapes the spatio-temporal [End Page 209] dynamic of an interaction but facilitate an understanding of how to act appropriately in a particular situation. Board games, for instance, come with a clear set of rules about turn-taking and actions. This brings a confidence about what to do oneself, as well as making the actions of others predictable, thus helping to alleviate the pervasive uncertainty that many autistic individuals experience in social situations.

Using material objects is an efficient and effective way of grounding a social interaction in a specific framework that not only makes appropriate forms of interaction more salient, but importantly reduces the kinds of action that might arise. Engaging in a specific materially mediated activity, then, carves out a more manageable space of meaning in the world. Indeed, we might be reminded, here, of Alfred Schutz’s notion of “finite provinces of meaning” (Schutz, 1962). Schutz describes how we can enter certain worlds which operate along their own codes of conduct and logic (e.g., the world of theater, poetry, games). In such worlds, aspects of the everyday world are temporarily rendered irrelevant or non-salient and meaning is constituted within the limited framework of that particular world. If the everyday world is experienced as overwhelming and chaotic, entering the explicitly codified world of, say, a game might be experienced as a relief.

Note, though, that material objects offer up different styles and structures of mediated engagement. This point could be made more explicit in Boldsen’s analysis. Music prompts a different rhythmic interaction and set of normative expectations than playing a board game together. Even within the sub-category of games, different games promote very different forms of social engagement—think of the difference between playing chess (a game with highly structured moves, sometimes a specified response time, and which structurally unfolds in a near-identical manner across games and players) and a role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons (a game with more diverse and creative game styles that alters across games and players). I am, therefore, left curious about the differences between materially mediated social encounters. To use the Schutzian terminology, it would be interesting to explore how different finite provinces of meaning and engagement are created...