University of Salford and online – 5 September 2025 – Sign up
The aural diversity movement springs from the observation that the many differences in hearing/listening might be better represented by a concept of a diverse range of hearing types instead of a binary normal/impaired model.
Aural diversity has made significant progress since the term was first published in 2017. Following the first conference and concerts in 2019, the aural diversity network has held a series of workshops and meetings, Arup have published their aural diversity toolkit and the Welsh Government has included a section on aural diversity in its noise and soundscape plan. Aurally diverse thinking has started to influence the disciplines, with acousticians, musicians, psychologists and others questioning the default assumption of normal hearing and altering their practice accordingly.
This aural diversity conference is intended to be a friendly, single-track conference for people working in aural diversity from any disciplinary background. Contributions come from areas including acoustics, architecture, art, audiology, design, education, hearing science, music, psychology, sociology, soundscape, and more.
The event will be hybrid and live captioning will be available throughout. . There will no fee to participate or attend. Lunch and refreshments will be provided for those coming in person. Register for the event here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/universityofsalford1/1778102
Schedule
09:00 Arrival, registration, coffee
09:45 Welcome & introduction to the day’s event
Session 1
10:00 John Drever – The Emergence of Auraldiversity: “On Deaf Ears”
10:15 Noa Nishizawa – Can You See the Sound? Visual Communication/Elements in Brass Ensemble Performance for Inclusive Music-Making
10:30 Stefania Lacedelli* – “How Sound Makes Me Feel”: Towards an Aurally Diverse Practice of Sound Design in Museums
10:45 June Kuhn* – Entangled Listening: A Retrospective
11:00 Carmen Rosas-Perez* – Auraldiversity and neurodiversity in survey to noise sensitive people: what are the lived experiences of those for whom sound matters most?
11:15 Nicole Matthews* – Towards an acoustically accessible campus: a case study of collecting and using data about the acoustic conditions of an Australian university
11:30 Coffee break
11:45 Keynote – Professor Emerita Pamela Heaton – Autism, Neurodiversity and Musicality: Historical, Scientific, and Cultural Perspectives
12:45 Lunch and posters
- Lorenzo Bonoldi – Improving music mixing for audio engineers with hearing differences
- Addie Beckwith – Everyday music listening, emotion regulation, and mental health: a scoping review to determine how adults with hearing loss are represented within research.
- Steven Mitchell – Impact of Environmental Noise on Autistic Adults with Hyperacusis
- Silvia Castellano – Aural neurodiversity: Understanding transdiagnostic patterns in Autism and ADHD through music
- Valentin Bauer – Exploring hedonic sound features for non-verbal autistic children in collaboration with autism stakeholders
- Natasha Winge – Cochlear Diversity Beyond the Audiogram: Otoacoustic Emissions as Measures of Aural Diversity
13:45 Brief talks (5 minutes per speaker)
- Kathryn Chatburn – Experiences of Sonic Detachment within the Acoustic City Community
- Lise Tjellesen* – Aural Diversity in practice – How to approach Acoustic Design in real life
- Anisa Visram – Specialist interest stimuli and experiences of young autistic children in audiology clinics
- Paul Magrath – Mapping Aural Diversity: A Web-Based Platform for Spatial Soundscape Perception Using Ambisonics and Circumplex Modelling
- George Wright – The impacts of noise pollution on toddler cognition and behaviour
- Xsara Helmi – The Numinous Ear: Autistic Listening and Aural Diversity as a Gateway to the Divine and Sublime- Exploring Sonic Consciousness through Phenomenology, Panpsychism, and Process Philosophy
*Additional time reserved for brief Aural diversity updates from attendees*
14:45 Coffee break
Session 2
15:00 Timothy Leighton – Reference to the ‘average’ person fails to protect a minority from adverse effects when exposed to airborne ultrasound in public places without their knowledge
15:15 George Bendo – The SPAACE Project: Speech Perception by Autistic Adults in Complex Environments
15:30 Lola de la Mata – Quietly Anarchic Self-Noise
15:45 Onurcan Çakir* – The Need for Music-Free Spaces in Patients with Pain Hyperacusis
16:00 Fernanda Caldas-Correia* – Evaluation of classroom acoustical descriptors with focus on the accessibility of autistic students in the university context
16:15 Meri Kytö* – Background Music, Urban Soundscapes, and Small Listening
16:30 End of day summary speech and thank you
16:45 Move to socialise in a local bar
* Presenter will be online
Register for in person or online attendance here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/universityofsalford1/1778102