 I have done consultations with those who fit Exposure Anxiety since 1996 and still do online consultations with those wanting to manage this highly problematic condition. This is a snip from an upcoming abridged version of my book, Exposure Anxiety: The Invisible Cage.
If there were a diagnostic criteria for EA it might fit this: Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s art work is titled ‘‘At The Typewriter“.
And it was at the typewriter that I began to find I could express something more than echoed speech. I was about 9 years old when a typewriter was left in my room for my discovery. Being a child with extreme Exposure Anxiety, I was reticent about it. Surely it was an attempt to test me out, to get me to accept it, and clearly it was of ‘their world’, not mine. Read the rest of this entry »
 Once upon a time Romans forced gladiators to fight wild animals for the audience’s blood lust. Then we had Nazi Germany where regular Germans turned a blind eye to persecution or considered their own part in it minimal for they were only doing what ‘others had already done’. And we had football but it became so corporate people lost ownership of it. Today we have celebrity bashing as the new football and those who get the boots in will often say “I wasn’t the first”, “I’m only doing what others had already done” and that he or she ‘deserved it’ by ‘making themselves a public person’.  When haters call for new recruits, I find this lust for shared hatred sociologically fascinating but also calls to my spirituality as a Taoist. Why do people crave such imbalance? Read the rest of this entry »
 I recently got a comment on one of my blogs. It was from a staunch supporter of a psychoanalytic approach to autism, an approach which held that autism was caused by trauma in the womb or due to a difficult birth (and could be treated through ‘rebirthing‘ and the debunked 1970s autism treatment of ‘holding therapy‘. This ‘primal pain’ theory includes the idea that the autistic child has become autistic from things as vast as chemical assaults by smoking and substance abusing mothers, by mothers experiencing mental illness or abuse or other trauma during pregnancy or who feel negativity or indifference about the child they are carrying or were effected by mother’s suffering post natal depression. He wanted to raise with me the idea that I was actually a “broken normal”. This is our conversation: Read the rest of this entry »
 At the age of 25 I scored just under 70 on an IQ test. That’s in the mildly mentally retarded range. But by then I already spoke 4 languages, could scan volumes of books, play instruments, and could recite back long auditory strings outside of the ability of most humans.
I also already had an honors degree in Sociology, a degree in Linguistics. So how could I score so low? Read the rest of this entry »
 Christophe Pillault produces some of the most moving art by people with autism in the world. Severely autistic, functionally non-verbal and with extremely limited self help skills he produces faceless, figurative works of soulful figures interacting. The works are full of movement, passion, yet also great grace Read the rest of this entry »
If art expresses the cognition, perception, social emotional, communication and personality states of the artist, what are we learning from artists with autism? Are we learning about autism at all through their art, and if so, which facets of their autism? Are we in fact learning more about the diversity of autism through the array of works by people with autism and how does this stir up fiercely defended old and new stereotypes? Read the rest of this entry »
 I’ve been an international public speaker since 1994. So I found it so amusing recently when someone posted that I earn $1000 a lecture plus a nice hotel. Wow, so I could potentially be earning $365,000 a year at that rate. Goodness, I could buy my own hotel!  So how true is the fantasy that as an autistic person working as a public speaker that I might live a decadent life of luxury? Read the rest of this entry »
Lisa Niehoff works for Mainstream Living, Inc which provides services to the disabled in Iowa. She is editor of the company’s monthly newsletter, ‘The Insider’ which profiles disabled artists. She asked if I could write a profile piece for her magazine so instead I invited her to pose me some interview questions, and rather personal they were. Here’s our interview: Read the rest of this entry »
It was 1996, a time when the rate of autism was still thought to be 1 in 10,000 people, high functioning people with autism were still thought to be rare and it was still believed that around 70% of people with autism were severely mentally retarded.  In that year my honors year that the Sociology lecturer mentioned in my first book, Nobody Nowhere, story writer, Dr Chris Eipper of La Trobe University, got involved with journalist, Kathy Gollan at ABC radio with a story. With no qualification in child development, psychology or psychiatry (nor any medical qualification whatsoever), he was going to deliver to her people who would dispute my formal diagnosis of autism by one of Australia’s leading autism specialists, Dr Lawrie Bartak. To back himself up, he would: Read the rest of this entry »
Donna Williams is an Australian born adult with autism who was assessed as psychotic at the age of 2 in 1965, labelled disturbed in the 1970s and diagnosed as autistic in her 20s in 1991.
She acquired functional speech in late childhood and went on to become a qualified teacher with an honors degree in Sociology and a degree in Linguistics. She is the author of two international bestselling autobiographies and has 10 published books including 4 text books widely used in autism education and two books of poetry and prose.
As a screenwriter, she wrote the screenplay to “Nobody Nowhere”, the first book in her 4 book autobiographical series. That screenplay is currently under option to become a Hollywood film. She is an professional artist, singer-songwriter and published poet as well as a world renowned public speaker on autism now living with her husband in Australia. In her presentations she draws not only on her own experiences but on international experience as a professional autism consultant since 1996.
Donna’s is a speaker in demand around the world due to her unique perspective and ability to share her feelings and experiences on a very personal level. More information about her and her life’s work can be found on her website at http://www.donnawilliams.net .