Papers by Jonathan Delafield-Butt
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2021
Panpsychism is a metaphysical framework around which science can understand the nature of subject... more Panpsychism is a metaphysical framework around which science can understand the nature of subjective experience. It affords a scientific view of mind and body as a coherent mind-body unity, with agentive purpose. Fundamental to minds is motor control, a core aspect that combines sensory experience, its evaluation in choice of agent action, and extension into the public expression of intentional movement. This primary mind-body process appears disturbed in autistic individuals. Empirical analysis of the spatio-temporal properties of intentional movement in autism shows a disruption to the efficient prospective integration and control of movement, a core aspect of mind. This paper examines the capacity of a panpsychist metaphysic to explain mind as fundamentally constituted by units of mind-body sensorimotor agency, which can be understood as the basic building blocks of embodied experience. The implications of a post-Cartesian metaphysic in scientific understanding of minds allows for deeper consideration of the role of movement in subjective experience, and its disturbance in autism as a disturbance to the organization of conscious sensorimotor experience and agency. It's impact on modes of cognition and neural substrates is discussed.
Gait & Posture, 2014
The aim of this study is threefold: (a) to computationally determine perceptuomotor control varia... more The aim of this study is threefold: (a) to computationally determine perceptuomotor control variables employed in mother-infant interactions and the action patterns exhibited at different stages of development; (b) to determine cultural differences in motor style between Japanese and Scottish mother-infant pairs; and (c) to develop an automated kinematic model for reliable data analysis of mother-infant interaction.
Parent-infant co-regulation: Ethological, ecological, and cultural approaches
Infant Behavior and Development
BMJ Open
IntroductionRecent evidence suggests an underlying movement disruption may be a core component of... more IntroductionRecent evidence suggests an underlying movement disruption may be a core component of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and a new, accessible early biomarker. Mobile smart technologies such as iPads contain inertial movement and touch screen sensors capable of recording subsecond movement patterns during gameplay. A previous pilot study employed machine learning analysis of motor patterns recorded from children 3–5 years old. It identified those with ASD from age-matched and gender-matched controls with 93% accuracy, presenting an attractive assessment method suitable for use in the home, clinic or classroom.Methods and analysisThis is a phase III prospective, diagnostic classification study designed according to the Standards for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy Studies guidelines. Three cohorts are investigated: children typically developing (TD); children with a clinical diagnosis of ASD and children with a diagnosis of another neurodevelopmental disorder (OND) that is not ...
Frontiers in Psychology
We propose Rhythmic Relating for autism: a system of supports for friends, therapists, parents, a... more We propose Rhythmic Relating for autism: a system of supports for friends, therapists, parents, and educators; a system which aims to augment bidirectional communication and complement existing therapeutic approaches. We begin by summarizing the developmental significance of social timing and the social-motor-synchrony challenges observed in early autism. Meta-analyses conclude the early primacy of such challenges, yet cite the lack of focused therapies. We identify core relational parameters in support of social-motor-synchrony and systematize these using the communicative musicality constructs: pulse; quality; and narrative. Rhythmic Relating aims to augment the clarity, contiguity, and pulse-beat of spontaneous behavior by recruiting rhythmic supports (cues, accents, turbulence) and relatable vitality; facilitating the predictive flow and just-ahead-in-time planning needed for good-enough social timing. From here, we describe possibilities for playful therapeutic interaction, sma...
Most theoretical and empirical discussions about the nature of consciousness are typically couche... more Most theoretical and empirical discussions about the nature of consciousness are typically couched in a way that endorses a tacit adult-centric and vision-based perspective. This paper defends the idea that consciousness science may be put on a fruitful track for its next phase by examining the nature of subjective experiences through a bottom-up developmental lens. We draw attention to the intrinsic link between consciousness, experiences and experiencing subjects, which are first and foremost embodied and situated organisms essentially concerned with self-preservation within a precarious environment. Our paper suggests that in order to understand what consciousness is, one should first tackle the fundamental question: how do embodied experiences arise from square one? We then highlight one key yet overlooked aspect of consciousness studies, namely that the earliest and closest environment of an embodied experiencing subject is the body of another human experiencing subject. We pre...
Behavior Research Methods, 2022
This paper describes a smart tablet-based drawing app to digitally record participants’ engagemen... more This paper describes a smart tablet-based drawing app to digitally record participants’ engagement with the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure (ROCF) task, a well-characterised perceptual memory task that assesses local and global memory. Digitisation of the tasks allows for improved ecological validity, especially in children attracted to tablet devices. Further, digital translation of the tasks affords new measures, including accuracy and computation of the fine motor control kinematics employed to carry out the drawing Here, we report a feasibility study to test the relationship between two neurodevelopmental conditions: autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The smart tablet app was employed with 39 adult participants (18-35) characterised for autistic and ADHD traits, and scored using the ROCF perceptual and organisational scoring systems. Trait scores and conditions were predictor variables in linear regression models. Positive correlati...
Swipe kinematics differ in different aged children with autism spectrum disorders during smart-tablet gameplay
Learning embodied narrative patterns of meaning-making: Nurturing human nature in school / Μαθαίνοντας τα ενσώματα αφηγηματικά πρότυπα δημιουργίας του νοήματος: Καλλιεργώντας την ανθρώπινη φύση στο σχολείο
Education is participatory and embodied. It requires active participation from both teacher and l... more Education is participatory and embodied. It requires active participation from both teacher and learner to come together to co-create shared projects of discovery that allow meaning to unfold and develop between them as individuals. This paper advances theory on the intersubjective and embodied nature of meaning-making in teaching as constituted by narrative units. It considers the developmental progression of subjective meaning-making by the child from basic, exploratory movements first evident in the foetus and young infant, to the complex projects of serially organised movements in the young child. When made in intersubjective engagements, these projects develop meaning between individuals, generating cycles of learning within narrative episodes that incorporate affective, energetic, and intentional components. These schemas of engagement retain knowledge of their processes and become units, stories, held in the memory of their creators. After reviewing theory of intentional and ...
Background: It has been proposed that one of the early markers of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) ... more Background: It has been proposed that one of the early markers of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are abnormalities in the development of intentional movements, which can be observed from early childhood. New evidence suggests that disruption of motor timing and integration may underpin the disorder, providing a new potential marker for its identification. Objectives: In this study, we used widely available tablet devices (iPads) to identify differences in kinematics between children diagnosed with ASD and their typically developing (TD) peers. We also compared movement patterns of children diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders other than autism (OND) with movement patterns exhibited by ASD and TD children. We utilised tablet devices’ inertial sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, and touchscreen to record the movements children make while playing two educational games on a tablet. Methods: Ninety-six children (aged 3-6) diagnosed with ASD, 37 diagnosed with OND, and 387 TD childr...
This paper provides insight into the intersubjective nature of the nurture group experience for c... more This paper provides insight into the intersubjective nature of the nurture group experience for children in the early stages of primary school. The study investigates the psychological processes involved in the socio-emotional development of children in nurture groups and considers how they participate and make meaning through the relationships they build in the groups. A theory of narrative meaning-making guides the understanding of the ways in which children make sense of their nurture group experience and provides a methodological tool to explore this experience. Over one school year, the children’s interconnectedness with others is measured through their levels of involvement and participatory engagement with people and experiences in the nurture group. Patterns of embodied narrative engagement are studied to provide a ‘picture’ of the child’s lived experience, and its development over time.
Movement is prospective. It structures self-generated engagement with objects and social partners... more Movement is prospective. It structures self-generated engagement with objects and social partners and is fundamental to children’s learning and development. In autistic children, previous reports of differences in movement kinematics compared to neurotypical peers suggest its prospective organisation might be disrupted. Here, we employed a smart tablet serious game paradigm to assess differences in the feedforward and feedback mechanisms of prospective action organisation, between autistic and neurotypical preschool children. We analysed 3926 goal-directed finger movements made during smart-tablet ecological gameplay, from 28 children with Childhood Autism (ICD-10; ASD) and 43 neurotypical children (TD), aged 3-6 years old. Using linear and generalised linear mixed-effect models, we found the ASD group executed movements with longer Movement Time (MT) and Time to Peak Velocity (TTPV), lower Peak Velocity (PV), with peak velocity less likely to occur in the first movement unit, and w...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
Feeding involves communication between mothers and infants and requires precise synchrony in a sp... more Feeding involves communication between mothers and infants and requires precise synchrony in a special triadic relationship with the food. It is deeply related to their intersubjectivity. This study compared the development of mother–infant intersubjectivity through interactional synchrony in feeding between 11 Japanese and 10 Scottish mother–infant dyads, observed at 6 and 9 months by video. Japanese mothers were more deliberate in feeding at an earlier age, whereas Scottish mothers were significantly more coercive than Japanese mothers at an earlier age. Japanese mothers brought the spoon to infants with a pause to adjust the timing of insertion to match their infants’ readiness, whereas this pause was not observed in Scottish mothers. Isomorphic mouth opening between mothers and infants was observed. This empathic maternal display is an important element of intersubjectivity in infant feeding that differed between Scottish and Japanese mothers. Scottish mothers’ mouth opening alw...
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018
This chapter explores the emotional and embodied nature of children’s learning to discover biolog... more This chapter explores the emotional and embodied nature of children’s learning to discover biological principles of social awareness, affective contact, and shared sense-making before school. From mid-gestation, the fetus learns to anticipate the sensory effects of simple, self-generated actions. Actions generate a small ‘story’ that progresses through time, giving meaningful satisfaction on their successful completion. Self-made stories become organized after birth into complex projects requiring greater appreciation of their consequences, which are communicated. They are mediated first by brainstem conscious control made with vital feelings, which motivates a more abstract, cortically mediated cognitive and cultural intelligence in later life. By tracing the development of meaning-making from simple projects of the infant to complex shared projects in early childhood, we appreciate the embodied narrative form of human understanding in healthy affective contact, how it may be disru...
The motor system is becoming increasingly recognized as an important site of disruptions in autis... more The motor system is becoming increasingly recognized as an important site of disruptions in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, the precise nature of this motor disruption remains unclear with some conflicted reports between papers. A bottleneck in kinematic studies of children with ASD has been the use of laboratory-based motion tracking systems and experimental paradigms that require didactic instructions. Thus, we employed an attractive smart tablet gameplay methodology to engage children’s interest without complicated verbal instruction. Children’s movements on the touch screen were recorded as they engaged in gameplay of their own volition, enabling improved ecological validity in data capture. Swipe kinematics were computed from two games that afforded goal-directed and free-style scribbling, respectively. 82 children aged 2-6 years were tested, including 37 children with ASD and 45 typically developing (TD) children. Kinematic analyses revealed significant age, group, a...
Human narrative understanding is co-created in imaginative projects and experiences displayed in ... more Human narrative understanding is co-created in imaginative projects and experiences displayed in serially organised expressions of gesture and voice. Shared timing of reciprocal actions develop between two or more persons in narrative events that build over cycles in a four-part structure of ‘introduction’, ‘development’, ‘climax’, and ‘conclusion’. Pre-linguistic narrative establishes the foundation of later, linguistic intelligence. Yet, participating in social interactions that give rise to narrative development is a central problem of autism spectrum disorder. In this paper, we examine the rapid growth of narrative meaning-making between a non-verbal young woman with severe autism and her new therapist. Episodes of embodied, shared understanding were enabled through a basic therapeutic mode of reciprocal, creative mirroring of expressive gesture. These developed through reciprocal cycles and as the relationship progressed, complete co-created narratives were formed resulting in ...
Jaswal and Akhtar identify the necessary social nature of the human mind, even in autism. We agre... more Jaswal and Akhtar identify the necessary social nature of the human mind, even in autism. We agree with the authors and present significant contributory origins of this autistic isolation in disruption of purposeful movement made social from infancy. Timing differences in expression can be misunderstood in embodied engagement, and social intention misread. Sensitive relations can repair this.
Mind, Brain, and Education, 2016
Learning is participatory and embodied. It requires active participation from both teacher and le... more Learning is participatory and embodied. It requires active participation from both teacher and learner to come together to co-create shared projects of discovery that allow meaning to unfold and develop between them. This paper advances theory on the intersubjective and embodied nature of cognition and meaning-making as constituted by cocreated narrative units. Learning within embodied narrative episodes incorporate affective, energetic, and intentional components to produce schemas of engagement that structure knowledge and become units held in memory. We examine two cases of non-verbal narrative patterns of engagement between teacher and child within Nurture Group practice, a special pedagogy that attunes to the affects and interests of children. Analysis of these cases reveal patterns that established shared rhythm, affect, and body movement between teacher and child, which, on completion, generated shared joy and learning. Thus, we identify an embodied, co-created narrative structure of embodied cognition essential for learning and participatory meaning-making.
Nurturing children's social and emotional development in primary school : a pilot study
Collaborative Regulations of Vitality in Early Childhood: Stress in Intimate Relationships and Postnatal Psychopathology
Volume Two: Developmental Neuroscience, 2015
This chapter discusses stress in intimate relationships and postnatal psychopathology. It is part... more This chapter discusses stress in intimate relationships and postnatal psychopathology. It is part of a collection which features contributions from international expert researchers and clinicians who bring together an array of interdisciplinary work to ascertain how multiple levels of analysis may influence individual differences, the continuity or discontinuity of patterns and the pathways by which the same developmental outcomes may be achieved.