My Autism Diagnosis Upended My Sense Of Self, But One Gadget Is Helping Me Reclaim It

In hindsight, someone should have alerted a doctor when I started checking out stacks of computer programming manuals from the library at age 12. That’s what was running through my mind at age 30, as the psychiatrist read out her diagnosis. After analyzing the results from a six-hour battery of neuropsychological tests, the results were conclusive: autism with level one support needs, accompanied by inattentive type ADHD.

Suddenly, my entire life to that point had to be recontextualized, viewed anew through the lens of disability. All my life, I’d felt like I was missing something that others had naturally, though I couldn’t name it. I excelled in school despite bad study habits. I had an intuitive understanding of books and computers, but people confounded me. I was sensitive, too, overcome with emotion at the slightest provocation. It all made sense in the context of my diagnosis, a 22-page document sketching out the contours of my cognitive strengths and weaknesses with a clinical precision that would have felt highly satisfying were it not so personally devastating. The more sense it began to make, the more unmoored from myself I felt.

But one incredibly commonplace gadget has helped me regain some footing as I adjust to a new understanding of myself. As you no doubt saw coming, we’re here to discuss true wireless earbuds. These delightfully portable gadgets can be one of the most helpful everyday tools for people like me, and they’re only getting better.

Autism is a communication disorder, so it’s no surprise that a large number of autistic individuals also have auditory processing disorders. Some autistic people never learn to speak, while others are minimally verbal or have speech impediments. But even those like me with low support needs are sensitive to sound.

A neurotypical person’s brain naturally filters the sounds they hear, prioritizing important elements like human speech, whereas autistic brains like mine tend to treat everything equally. Walking into a grocery store feels like entering a war zone because unimportant sounds  — the squeak of cart wheels and the humming of cooler fans  — never fade into the background, drowning out my ability to think. I started becoming sensitive to noise in high school, and it had become an unmistakable problem by the time I started going to parties and bars in college. Good luck saying two words to me in a crowded area without being asked to repeat yourself.

Recent research published in Frontiers supports the idea that music can promote sensorimotor organization in people with autism. Think of the autistic mind like a marching band without a drummer, where every player is out of time. Give the band a steady beat, and it will begin to march in lockstep. It’s a likely explanation for my lifelong love affair with music, which started long before I became a part-time musician or an audiophile. When I was very young, I carried my portable cassette player everywhere, which later became a CD player, and then a string of MP3 players until the advent of the smartphone. In a piece of music, every sound works together harmoniously  — a wonderful relief from the discordant sounds of the world around me.

When autistic people become overstimulated, our bodies experience a phenomenon called sympathetic activation. It’s more commonly known as a “fight or flight” response, and it happens regardless of whether we are actually in danger. The average person does not enter fight or flight unless they encounter danger, but it can be triggered in an autistic person by something as ordinary as a sudden, loud noise or a Slack message from a boss. Thankfully, the solution can be just as simple. Get rid of the stimulus before things get too bad, and you stand a better chance of avoiding an autistic shutdown or meltdown. Unsurprisingly, research published in Frontiers has shown that active noise cancelling (ANC) can reduce sympathetic activation for autistic children.

I initially dismissed AirPods as yet another overpriced Apple gadget with horrible audio quality when they arrived on the market, preferring my trusty wired IEMs. But as headphone jacks disappeared from phones and the AirPods Pro ushered in the category of true wireless IEMs, I capitulated — and I’ve owned several of the true wireless buds since.

One day, overwhelmed in my local Target, I stuck the buds in my ears and turned ANC on. As the sounds of carts, fans, and customers faded away, I felt my nerves begin to relax. The fluorescent lighting didn’t seem as harsh as before, and I could shop without battling a constant stream of distraction and confusion. From then on, I started using my earbuds more often, but it was only a few weeks ago that they went from being a useful tool to something I don’t leave home without.

Shortly after upgrading to the excellent Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro last month, while in line at CVS, I delved into the accessibility settings on a whim. Last year, AirPods Pro were certified as hearing aids, specifically the AirPods Pro 2 and 3. Though they lack the same certification, some Galaxy Buds have roughly equivalent features. Tucked deep in a sub-menu is a setting called “Boost voices in front of you,” which amplifies speech while cancelling out other sounds. As I toggled it on, I was able to hear the pharmacist with perfect clarity. With the rest of the sounds in the store turned down, there was no need to read lips or struggle to guess what she said. Without a sonic barrier between us, I could just… talk with her. It was a perfectly normal interaction for her, but for me, it was life-altering.

When I got home, I was overcome with mixed emotions. Even after my diagnosis, I had struggled to see myself as disabled. Don’t get me wrong, disability wasn’t a dirty word to me, and I understood that even the fittest people are only temporarily able-bodied. Still, I hadn’t yet conceived of myself as less capable than others in any meaningful way. Nestled in my ears was the undisputed proof  — my life made better by an assistive technology. However elated I was to have discovered a new tool that made it easier to navigate daily life, I couldn’t help but wish I didn’t need it. The road to acceptance is a long one, and I’m grateful to have music for the drive.

These days, it’s rare to see big tech helping the little guy, but true wireless earbuds are a great exception. Modern earbuds combine the well-known benefits of music and passive noise isolation with newer technology like active noise cancellation, which makes them even more helpful. My freshly diagnosed disability opened my eyes to the ways life is made measurably better by the existence of these products.

I had been using earbuds as an assistive technology my entire life without knowing. Every time I couldn’t focus until I put on some music, I was coping with a disability. When I drowned out the world with noise cancellation, I was averting an autistic shutdown. A virtuous cycle often forms with products such as earbuds that have both mass market appeal and assistive potential. When companies innovate to make them better for the average consumer, they also become more useful for people with disabilities, and vice versa. The average person wants active noise cancellation, and when tech companies oblige, people like me benefit more than most from that market demand.

Even so, companies that go the extra mile to add accessibility features deserve kudos for those efforts. Apple and Samsung likely stand to gain very little by turning AirPods into hearing aids, and who knows how much money was spent developing those capabilities. To be clear, they’re expanding into the healthcare market and covering themselves legally when they do so, but the outcome is a positive one. It’s as close to altruism as multi-billion dollar companies may ever come, and it’s the sort of thing that renews my faith in the power of technology to improve people’s lives.