In the wake of Kanner (1943) and Asperger (1944) establishing autism as a diagnostic category, many clinicians sought to theorize its pathology and etiology. In research from the 1940s to the early 1970s, we find case studies with detailed psychological portraits of autistic subjects that included rich descriptions of musical behavior and experience. In fact, at this time it appears that autistic musicality was interpreted as a telling manifestation of autistic pathology, as a form of expression that could reveal the depths to which autism penetrated the subject’s psyche and lifeworld.
The various ways in which these musical autists were described broadly reflects the fragmentation of psychological theory at the time. Among psychoanalysts, we can observe a split between Freudians (Bergman and Escalona, 1949) and object relations theorists (Despert, 1947; 1951; Rank, 1949) who suggest that autism results from trauma caused by cold, emotionally distant parenting in infancy: according to the latter, autistic fixation on and absorption in music is compensation for this deprivation. Goldstein (1945) adopts a modified- Gestalt approach positing that an impairment in abstract reasoning could have cascading effects on musical development, leading to specific endowments and deficits. Bosch (1962) applies a phenomenological approach to autistic language to illustrate how a subject’s mathematically-inspired musical world substitutes for intersubjective experience. Rimland (1964) posits a neuro-cognitive understanding of autism and describes how the study of autistic musical savants can unveil the sensory-perceptual- cognitive world of autistic subjectivity. Lastly, clinicians sought to actively shape autistic music- making with the understanding that musicality and pathology are deeply intertwined (Nordoff and Robbins, 1965; O’Connell, 1974): music-based therapy has potential to unlock personality change.
When Sherwin (1953) asks if “musical reactions might provide further clues to the psychopathology” of autism, today we can answer: yes, studying autistic musicality indeed helps us better understand its nature. But it is also true that the descriptions of autistic musical experience can help us understand the historical unfolding of psychological theory. Musical autists reveal how psychoanalytic, Gestalt, phenomenological, and neuro-cognitive approaches all competed to best explain the new phenomenon of autism.

Musique et maladie : jour 1