Embodied Imagination and Metaphor Use in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Zuzanna Rucińska, Thomas Fondelli, Shaun Gallagher
Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) February 13, 2021 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.3390/healthcare9020200 via PubMed
Summary
Imagination and metaphor in children with autism spectrum disorder are better understood through an embodied and enactive framework rather than a purely linguistic one. A case study from a systemic therapeutic session with a child with ASD illustrates how metaphors function in practice. The embodied-enactive perspective offers new theoretical insights into imaginative skills and suggests interactive interventions to improve metaphor understanding in these children.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | An embodied and enactive account of imagination and metaphor provides a more useful framework for understanding and enhancing imaginative skills in children with ASD than a standard linguistic framework. |
Abstract
This paper discusses different frameworks for understanding imagination and metaphor in the context of research on the imaginative skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In contrast to a standard linguistic framework, it advances an embodied and enactive account of imagination and metaphor. The paper describes a case study from a systemic therapeutic session with a child with ASD that makes use of metaphors. It concludes by outlining some theoretical insights into the imaginative skills of children with ASD that follow from taking the embodied-enactive perspective and proposes suggestions for interactive interventions to further enhance imaginative skills and metaphor understanding in children with ASD.