This article offers some insight into the realities of neurodiverse students in Higher Music Education, particularly those on the autism spectrum, by focusing on insights from an interview with a young Romanian composer and student, who has been living, studying and composing for the past few years in the UK, and who by request wishes to remain anonymous and will be referred to as “L”.

Alongside the personal perspectives and insights gathered from the interview, there are survey responses from other neurodiverse students compiled from a questionnaire distributed online entitled “Music and Autism, What is your experience?”.

 

Introduction 

The culture of music conservatoires often prioritizes tradition, technical precision, and conformity, which are often beneficial and necessary aspects in the educational process, but they do present unique challenges for neurodiverse students. The expectations and pressures found in the realm of classical and professional musicianship can be exceptionally challenging for individuals who for one reason or another do not fit into these expected molds. For one such student on the autism spectrum, navigating these spaces has been a journey marked by personal challenges, significant growth both personally and professionally, and invaluable support from mentors and professors. However, this journey has also highlighted the pressing need for systemic reform and stronger advocacy to better support neurodiverse students in higher music education.

Diagnosed with ASD early in life and living with significant visual impairments as well as having other physical challenges, L’s experiences highlight both the obstacles and opportunities inherent in higher music education for a neurodiverse student, musician and composer. Their perspectives offer a great deal of insight into the areas in which higher music education institutions fantastically support their neurodiverse students, but also areas that still require more support and even change.

From Piano to Composition: Early Conflicts with Tradition

L’s musical journey began with the piano, but traditional teaching methods often conflicted with their learning style. “I’ve always preferred to learn by ear because my sight and honestly, my inability to focus wasn’t helping me much,” they explained. Teachers, however, insisted on rigid methods. “I used to learn by ear and I didn't learn how to read any music. And at one point when I was eight, I messed something up. I don't know what I was doing because I was memorizing all of the pieces. So, what my teacher would do is that she would play the entire piece, I would memorize it and I think the music got too complicated and I messed up and I improvised something. And she said, that isn't the music.”

These conflicts created a sense of disillusionment with the instrument. “What I was required to do was very technical and scales and reading music and just… performing what other people wrote, which I wasn’t enjoying because it was too rigid and too focused on technique.” 

Instead, composition offered a truer creative outlet. “Improvising and eventually composing was what I enjoyed doing,” they shared, forging a path defined by personal expression over conformity.

 

Survey Insights: Broader Challenges and Strengths

Survey responses from neurodiverse students in music conservatoires echoed many of these themes. Participants frequently cited challenges with sensory overload, rigid teaching practices, and a lack of understanding from faculty. As such, quiet, sensory-friendly study spaces emerged as one of the most suggested and hoped for accommodations.  Alongside such, many other chosen adaptations involved various forms of tailored support such as supplementary exam time, more compassion and understanding from staff and professors, visual aids, and various types of assistive technology such as noise-canceling headphones and fidget tools. As L said “One really interesting thing was that I have always struggled with writing essays. But luckily, in my third and fourth years, my head of department said that I could do all the or almost all the written assignments, the long ones, as presentations and that has worked out really well for me.”

One respondent described struggles with time management and multitasking: “I had to get extensions for nearly every assignment and was often late for classes.” Social isolation also surfaced as a recurring theme, with another student sharing, “The greatest challenge is when you feel left on the sidelines from groups and when you don’t have the same success.” 

At the same time, L highlighted the uniquenesses and strengths autism brings to their musical and creative endeavors. L emphasized how they had turned perceived imperfections or weaknesses into assets: “As a performer, I like to think that I am something of an anti-virtuoso. What I want to see and what I want to feel when I'm performing is that I have complete confidence to make whatever mistakes I can make. And so that's how I wrote most of my pieces during my degree. It’s like a challenge somehow, but still, you know, a challenge that would kind of further my attempts to really show myself.”

For L, performance became an opportunity to challenge conventions. “I was trying to subvert all of those traditional expectations or conventions in a way. And with one of my works the text that I was using was from this psychology book about group dynamics. And it was like, well, you know, I can do word painting without singing pretty. I can do word painting without speaking normally. I can do word painting by making weird noises. And you can't stop me!

 

Performing and Public Speaking: Breaking the Mold

Public speaking provided another avenue for expression. “I guess what I like about public speaking is that you don't have to be so formal. You don't have to... I mean, you can make yourself understood a lot easier. Because even if you say something that in written language might sound a bit stupid, because people, and the audience is putting a face to it, and they're seeing you and they're seeing how passionate you are. They're going to be a bit more forgiving when your language doesn't sound as academic. I would say, if anything, if you speak and your speech sounds a little bit too written, they're going to maybe think of you as a bit pompous. So that was an advantage in terms of public speaking.” L’s perspective on public speaking and conveyance of thought to others could be said to be potentially revealing of the sentiments and needs of many individuals with ASD, as it reflects the desire for honesty, frankness, and openness. It questions the traditional formalities and often hidden layers of meaning in academia, promoting a more open, clear, and inclusive approach to communication within the educational sphere.

 

Challenges and Support in Conservatoires

Like the survey respondents, L faced significant challenges early in their studies. “The more I learn about my autism, which had been diagnosed, but I don't think it had been properly managed. And especially as I hear about the crossover with ADHD, I'm starting to think that there's a little more going on. I'm suspecting at least some traits of ADHD, a lot of them actually. So, the issue was that one, I couldn't see. Two, I couldn't focus. And so, I would be reading the same thing over and over again, and then I wouldn't remember it. But if I had like something like an audio-visual sort of medium, like if I were to watch a video about the same topic, or if I were to listen to all my materials in the form of a podcast or someone reading it to me, I would have been able to retain it. And also, even if that wasn't available, if someone was able to do some body doubling with me, which didn't happen when I was in sixth form, that would have helped.”

L struggled deeply in their earlier studies in the UK before their undergraduates and was often discouraged by the lack of support, especially from teachers or staff. “I remember I came down to the office of the head of the boarding house. And I came to her crying, and I said, please, I need somebody, an adult to help me with my homework. I don't even need any practical help. I just need somebody to be there with me so that I don't lose my mind. And she said, “I treat all the kids equally. I can't give you special treatment.” And I couldn't do my homework. Half the time, I couldn't do my homework because I think I would disassociate because there were these moments when I would forget things, and I would not even forget, I just knew I was able to see, but I couldn't actually look at anything. And I knew I was able to hear, but I couldn't listen to anything. You know, I knew it was alive, but I couldn't perceive. It was like everything was just blocked out, even blacked out. So no, I could not focus on my homework. And there were also times when I couldn't focus in class either. Combine that with my visual impairment and… recipe for disaster.”

Despite these obstacles, meaningful forms of accommodation in later studies positively impacted L’s educational experience. “I had my study skills tutor to help me with things like organization, whatever executive functioning stuff like that. And then I had at some point I had this like mentoring thing.”

“I was able to make an application for Disabled Students Allowance… I had a study skills tutor who was also a musician, which was super helpful because they could give advice not just on organization but also on improvisation and my graphic scores.” Counseling and mentorship further supported their journey. “My mentor made me feel super comfortable asking for help, which I was ashamed to do before because I thought people would think I was stupid.”

Survey responses also underscored the importance of supportive educators. “I have very understanding teachers who always calm me and support me when they see that my nervous tics start,” shared one participant. “You have to be allowed a space to fidget or stim, like you have to have the space to feel safe. Going to socialize with other neurodiverse people and having like a box of squishy things. That would be useful, like all those sensory tools. Oh, and you have to be allowed to, you know, vocalize and whatever, because some people have stims that are a bit noisy.”

 

The Influence of Autism on Creativity

For many neurodiverse students, including L, autism serves as a wellspring of creativity. “Autistic people are more likely to be detail-oriented instead of big picture-oriented, and that’s interesting because a lot of my creative output has been very conceptual,” they noted. Their compositions frequently incorporate nontraditional methods, which reflect deeply personal ideas. “I want to write a piece that’s like another entry in my musical journal.” 

Similarly, a survey respondent described how their neurodiversity contributed positively to their musical practice in ways such as being able to rapidly memorize pieces, or even providing unique perspectives and interpretations in their artistic practice such as in L’s case: “There was always great tension between what I was “supposed” to do and what I actually wanted to do, and somewhere along the way I had lost the ability to ask myself what I truly wanted. However, my spirit of rebellion was never fully quashed, and finally, during my years at university, I embraced and refined a compositional/performance practice that is based on all the things that had previously outcast me and made me seem inferior to my neurotypical counterparts. Therefore, during my undergrad studies, I focused on using different combinations of text and graphic notation, or re-contextualizing elements of common practice notation as graphic symbols, in order to give performers the opportunity to express and reveal parts of themselves that they couldn’t showcase in other musical contexts”

 

Toward Inclusive Conservatoires

The voices of neurodiverse students reveal a clear roadmap for fostering inclusion. As L explained, “Cozy, flexible study spaces where stimming is accepted would make a huge difference. Executive functioning tasks like managing finances or planning meals are incredibly overwhelming for neurodiverse students, so having staff who can help with these would improve not just well-being but academic achievements.” 

Survey respondents similarly emphasized the importance of these spaces and of peer support groups, disability service coordinators, and tailored accommodations to meet sensory, social, and academic needs. By embracing these changes, neurodiverse students can become empowered in their learning environments and musical journeys, while enriching the diversity of their creative communities. 

Through ongoing research and the combined voices of neurodiverse students, the path to a more inclusive and supportive music education system becomes clearer, promising benefits for all who enter these spaces.

 

Andrea Lawrence,

The National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” Cluj-Napoca

 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the National Agency for Community Programs in the Field of Education and Professional Development. Neither the European Union nor ANPCDEFP can be held responsible for them.