Embodied Imagination and Metaphor Use in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Zuzanna Rucińska, Thomas Fondelli, Shaun Gallagher
Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) February 13, 2021 DOI: 10.3390/healthcare9020200 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1 |
| Population | Child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) |
| Keywords | Affordances Autism spectrum disorder Embodied cognition Enactivism Imagination Metaphors |
| Citations | 11 |
| Key points | Argues that an embodied and enactive perspective provides a more accurate account of imagination and metaphor in children with ASD than standard linguistic frameworks. |
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.