Review of "Therapy, Sensory Integration and the Autistic Child" by DS. Berger

Innumerable animal species produce noises of different kind and many of them sound musical to us – human beings – eliciting a variety of emotional feelings, as the frogs' chants in a rainy night, or the wild birds' songs in a sunny morning perhaps mixed with our finch's joyful trills from its small cage, or the deep thrilling whales' hissing who very few have had the chance to listen (as I once did in Colombia). Most likely, they all are just communication ways, perhaps to let the other guy know that the male is there, waiting for the female to come and meet it, because usually only males sing. Is all that really music? I do not think so, for music is unique to man and woman and only we, human beings, get together either in small or large groups just to listen to music or to make music. Music conveys a message, which only the human being can decipher in his/her own fashion; as in animals, it is no doubt a communication means. The isolated man or woman, the Robinson Crusoe, is essentially non-existent. Music is a natural human need, almost at the level of the basic biological ones (self and species preservation).