Over on my facebook page someone asked …“If you had to explain what is autism in simple terms to a person who knew nothing about it what would you say? “
It was a great question and putting autism in simple terms… well that’s so hard because the word is misused for SO MUCH. For example among the conditions I identified in The Jumbled Jigsaw as part of an autism ‘fruit salad’ were… Read the rest of this entry »
Over on the 2009 online AWARES International Autism Conference the host there, Adam Feinstein, wrote:
What do you think of the latest study (from the University of Cambridge) showing that the brains of people with autism are less active when engaged in self-reflective thought. Read the rest of this entry »
Melanie Hadley is in her final year at Birmingham City University studying Textile Design. She is researching for her dissertation and is focusing on the benefits of art with children with disabilities, people on the autistic spectrum and adults. She asked me some questions about how art has affected my life and about my ARTism. Here’s our interview: Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to Autism 2009, the fifth online world conference to be held within the AWARES conference centre.
This conference opens on Monday, November 30, 2009, and runs for a week until December 7, 2009. Paper abstracts will be accessible from early November.
Speaker list includes*:
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
Donna Williams
Dr Susan Folstein
Dr Gary Mesibov
Professor Susan Leekam
Dr Wendy Lawson
Dr Manuel Casanova
Stephen Shore….
Read the rest of this entry »
I knew these things, but somehow ‘the advertising’ got in the way
but I’m awake now and I know, I’ve always known,
that being ‘needed’ is not being ‘loved’
and being ‘controlled’ is not being ‘cared for’
BUTTERFLIES by Donna Williams
if someone takes your disabilities and makes them your gilded cage
then you take charge of your disabilities like never before
for they are your fallibility, the keys to your cagea key you allowed someone else to call theirs
because they taught you this was love and caring
and in the light of day you realise it had nothing to do with youso you look in the mirror and say, wow, there’s a fool
and brush off the dust and say, ok, so the world is full of fools so I’m in good companyand you look at your life and say, wow, there’s an island
but islands can build bridgesand you look at your smile and say
wow, I’d forgotten I could wake up with thisand you look at your time and say
you ain’t Florence Nightingale, so follow that smile
because a heart shouldn’t be heavy
it should be light
because a heavy heart will never fly
and butterflies can.
Donna Wiliams
Musically supported by The Aspinauts Donna Williams performs How To Be A Boy and Mirror from the rock musical Footsteps of a Nobody. Filmed by Lindsay at The Guild Theatre in Oct 09, the show was well received and travels next to the USA in Jan 2010 before returning to Australia for a show in Geelong.
Info on upcoming shows can be found at http://www.aspinauts.com Read the rest of this entry »
Jame Jar, produced by Charlie Stuart for UK’s Channel 4 TV in association with Fresh Film UK and directed by Simon Everson, Jam Jar was filmed in Wales in 1995 about author, Donna Williams.
SYNOPSIS:
Bestselling author Donna Williams lives on a farm in rural Wales with her first husband, a man on the autistic spectrum.  Here they live according to a different culture and rules that are taken for granted in the world beyond their own. Donna becomes a tour guide showing us the person beyond the labels on the ‘jam jar’.  Poetic and artistic, Jam Jar explores Donna’s meaning deafness, meaning blindness in the context of autism and the social, emotional and communication bridges she uses to navigate with the world. Read the rest of this entry »
Win Win by Donna Williams 09
Compete, compete, I watch my feet, I watch my back, I watch the cracks.
Delete, delete, me from your Facebook, behind the curtain, steal my jacks. Read the rest of this entry »
This week Australia was again wrangling over asylum seekers headed for Australian shores. Whilst the Rudd government has not been as overtly racist as that of John Howard, it still fails to lead the Australian people in how to combine both warmth and sense in tackling ‘the asylum seeker issue’ and the media as still to self interested to address their use of loaded terms which fan the flames of racism and sell their papers. Read the rest of this entry »
When an artist has a condition there is always the question of how or if that condition influences their work. I was sent an interview about my relationship to sculpting, particularly the relationship of my autism to my sculpting. Thought I’d share it. 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 .