THE NEUROSCIENCES AND MUSIC III—DISORDERS AND PLASTICITY The Subjective Experience of Music in Autism Spectrum Disorder Rory Allen, Elisabeth Hill, and Pamela Heaton Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Psychology, New Cross, London, United Kingdom Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 high-functioning adults on the autism spectrum in order to examine the nature of their personal experiences of music. The analysis showed that most participants exploit music for a wide range of purposes in the cognitive, emotional and social domains, but the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group’s descriptions of mood states reflected a greater reliance on internally focused (arousal) rather than externally focused (emotive) language, when compared with stud- ies of typically developing individuals. Key words: music; autism; arousal A number of recent experimental studies have explored an association between autism and absolute pitch, autism and savant skills in mu- sic, and autistic traits in musicians with absolute pitch. 1,2 However, these focused on the devel- opment of special or unusual skills, and did not investigate the nature of musical experience in the wider population with autism spectrum dis- order (ASD). Some studies have explored sensitivity to emotion in music in a broader ASD group. 3 However, such designs test the ability to make conventional musical associations, and provide only limited insights into the na- ture of the participants’ personal experience of music. Recent findings based on interviews and other self-report measures of the value of music to typically developing (TD) people 4–6 suggested that it would be fruitful to use an alternative, nonexperimental, and qualitiative approach to studying musical engagement in persons with ASD. Address for correspondence: Rory Allen, Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Psychology, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK. R.Allen@gold.ac.uk Method Participants Twelve high-functioning adults (10 men and two women; ages 21–65, mean 41, SD 16) with diagnoses on the autism spectrum (nine with Asperger’s syndrome, three with autism) took part in the study. Design We used a semi-structured interview format to explore the nature of the musical experience in autism, covering the early development, as well as the current nature, of participants’ musi- cal experience. Responses to the questionnaire were analyzed using a qualitative data tool, NVivo7. 7 The method of analysis was mod- eled on Grounded Theory, as developed from the work of Glaser and Strauss. 8 Results Development of Musical Interests The questionnaires and interviews sug- gested that with a couple of exceptions, the The Neurosciences and Music III—Disorders and Plasticity: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1169: 326–331 (2009). doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04772.x c  2009 New York Academy of Sciences. 326