Belinda is a student doing the last year of a professional doctorate in clinical psychology. She has already completed a bachelor in behavioral neuroscience and postgraduate diploma in psychology. Her research project is investigating relationships and attraction among individuals with an Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). The focus of her study is to explore attraction between those with an ASD and non-spectrum people to establish:

– What non-spectrum individuals find attractive in partners with an ASC
– What differences exist in the ratings of initial attraction between non-spectrum individuals with an ASC partner versus non-spectrum individuals with non-spectrum partner
– What individuals with an ASC find attractive in non-spectrum partners

I’ve invited her to send me 5 questions based on her research interest.  Here’s that interview: Read the rest of this entry »

    Around 80-90% of adults on the autism spectrum have no full time employment.  Even of those whose only spectrum issue is having an obsessive-compulsive personality, being a mono-track or details oriented type thinker, or having social emotional agnosia so they struggle to read facial expression or body language, one of the only easier places they get employment is in the geekville of I.T.

I directly employed spectrum adults where I can. Over the years, 9 of them, 2 of them in full time Read the rest of this entry »

THE BUTTERFLY CLUB
presents…Donna & The Aspinauts play at The Butterfly Club, Melbourne’s swanky home of camp kitsch, in an evening of irreverent avant-garde poetry and flamboyant musical surrealism with a satirical bent.

Dare to be there.

Wednesday 4th March 2009
8pm-9pm
Cost: $22

The Butterfly Club
204 Bank St, South Melbourne

For bookings, email: info@thebutterflyclub.com
other enquiries: phone (03)9690 2000

http://www.thebutterflyclub.com/

   OK, so you’re face blind, a little meaning deaf, maybe you have social-emotional agnosia and can’t read facial expression or body language to save your life or are as literal as a real life Mr Spock.  Would you be a little socially phobia?  Have a little social anxiety?  Struggle socially in the mainstream?

Well, how do a bunch of autistic people with this stuff rock up to a popular live music venue in the inner city and hang out among a crowd of potentially largely non-autism-spectrum people?  Read the rest of this entry »

  I’ve run 48 hour poetry challenges for over a year and they were really popular.  But many people didn’t get their challenges in in the 48 hour window.  So for 2009, I’m doing it differently.  You now have 30 days to send in your poetry challenges.  So of you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and in the next 30 days, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.   Come on, give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »

  Hi friends, colleagues and enthusiasts!

It’s Christmas and what a year! Read the rest of this entry »

  A forum recently started a thread called ‘I hate’.
I went on a bit of a bender but I can promise my ‘I love’ list is much longer than my hate list. Read the rest of this entry »

  This is a little clip I did last Christmas.

Enjoy.

Donna Williams *)

http://www.donnawilliams.net

  We all get them, year after year….those PR ‘Christmas cards’ which remind us that a company is thinking of us (and their potential future capacity to profit from us).  Read the rest of this entry »

  Sacha Vais, editor and founder of Irked Magazine, contacted me with an exciting interview opportunity.  I was to be their Melbourne correspondent covering the International Homeless World Cup which had come to Melbourne this week.  Here’s the scoop.