Questioning the money spinners and the stereotypes they perpetuate.

Sure, I’m an author in that field, I’ve been a consultant for 12 years in that field, a lecturer for 14 years and I put the word autistic in association with my name which I feel humanises the condition and raises its public profile, paving the way hopefully for the belief in the potential of others with the same diagnosis. So when is autism being exploited for business purposes? Its a good question and a majorly important one.

Many of the rural communities here in Australia who are offered big name public speakers are already communities with virtually no funding for respite or special Ed services and many of the families are severely financially effected by the drought. I’m sure these struggles are echoed around the world.

Yet there are public speakers coming to cash-strapped cities and towns who are charging $95 PER TICKET to hear them for an hour. Some public speakers charge up to $4000 per event to attend and appear for only an hour. Most of these speakers have based large amounts of their work on the first person accounts of people on the autism spectrum and some first person speakers talk only about their own case which is one in an ocean of diversity of presentations of ASD.

Alpha Autism has trained public speakers who are on the autism spectrum whose speaker’s fees are around $50 to hear their stories first hand and www.auties.org has public speaker’s on the autism spectrum world wide who are equally highly affordable.

hmmm, $4000 or $50? It ain’t rocket science to see a major discrepancy.

Sure, credentials and experience matter, as does the quality of someone’s public speaking, but most rural communities don’t need to be stripped of $4000 per lecture or $95 per head. They need information, and preferably from those with compassion for their lives living with people on the spectrum and the poor services and costliness that often entails.

I have generally avoided being a speaker at conferences which charge excessive fees for those coming
and I love speaking for smaller organisations who might, at most, charge people $5-$15 per attendee to hear up to 2 hours of my blah blah. I’ve stuck to this in the UK, where I’ve been lucky enough to have a wonderful speaker’s agent who keeps ticket costs wonderfully low (around £5-£15 per person in spite of having to help me cover the international flight). I charge $60 for hour long consultations ($85 if I also have to cover room hire). I haven’t increased my charges for 10 years and don’t intend to. I’m also one of the most famous people with autism in the world and a qualified teacher. In my world, that doesn’t have to make me think like a cash register. I’d rather be an embarrassing measuring stick than a highly paid public speaker knowing my earnings detract from services and support systems.

As author of 9 books in the autism field who has worked with over 600 people on the spectrum, I hope to represent some of that diversity by drawing on examples of many different lives of people with autism, only one of which mine own. So if you are invited to pay big bucks to hear one life story, don’t be afraid to ask ‘what’s in it for me and my family’. Ask for strategies, not just anecdotes. Make sure your public speaker’s are USEFUL and that their suggested strategies are affordable, not ‘infomercials’ for high cost products and programs posing as lectures which you’ve been charged to hear.

I’m not sending this out in order to get bookings. A quick look at my events page and you’ll see I already have four international tours this year (and I have plenty of local work as it is and prefer my work in arts to actively pursuing autism related work). I’m telling you this because you need to gage what you’re booking, who you’re hiring and that a your own belief in yourselves shouldn’t be undermined or overshadowed by someone else bandying about the word ‘expert’.

Where are the hearts of ‘experts’ in relation to the autism community? Some are deeply committed to people on the spectrum and their families. Some, through their excessive fees are proving they are really only committed to themselves. They don’t have to work for peanuts and lecturing and consulting is work and often involves hours of travel and I certainly have seen the horrors of exploitation of people on the spectrum exhausted by endless questions without anyone thinking for a moment of that persons humanity and isolation (Marc Segar 1974-1997 is certainly a well known example). But listening to a lecture should be priced around the cost of going to a movie. After all they both involve folks in seats attending for up to 2 hrs and if you do the maths, 50-100 people paying $5 to attend is $250-$500 and a perfectly good days wage for most people even factoring in a few hours of travel. If you come away from a movie only entertained and not informed and armed with affordable, even low or no cost strategies, you won’t mind. If you come away from an autism related lecture feeling only entertained and no better armed to manage living with autism or those with it, then you spent your hard earned $5-$15 at the wrong lecture.

If a public speaker is coming to your community or charity, ask them how they might help fundraise rather than merely strip the funds of your organisation. Dare to question, regardless of their status and standing and always look further than the gloss, the fame or the letters next to their name. Most of all never underestimate your own creativity, instincts and resources in working with people with autism who are all very individual and don’t forget the library has free books you can gain lectures from in your own time, at no cost.

Never forget that carers are experts too.
The best therapist I ever met was an innovative nutter with a second grade education who could barely read or write.
He was my dad.

Take care, and believe in yourselves.

Warmly,

Donna Williams
www.donnawilliams.net