Donna Williams, public speaker

I have been an international public speaker since 1994. I have given lectures, workshops, question answer forums and motivational speeches in countries all around the world, appearing before both small intimate gatherings up to audiences of thousands of people.

My testimonials convey me as an informative, moving, entertaining, inspirational and seasoned public speaker and I have given lectures, workshops, forums and speeches in vastly different fields.

You can see a range of topics I currently speak on below, but you are free to suggest others.

General

  • Autism As A Fruit Salad; strategies when autism is actually not 'one' thing.
  • Autism: the myths, the diversity and where is the hope?
  • Autism Friendly communication, interaction, environments and opportunities
  • Constructively facing resistance, change and disappointment.
  • Improving information processing and managing meltdowns.
  • Low and no cost strategies and approaches.
  • Walking in Autistic Shoes
  • What the classroom can't teach you (and which other places can).
  • Working with challenging behaviors.

Co-occuring conditions

  • Mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders on the autism spectrum.
  • Dietary Wheelchair; the spectrum of gut, immune and metabolic challenges.
  • Exposure Anxiety; working with compulsive avoidance, diversion and retaliation responses.
  • Identity, personality and dissociative disorders on the autism spectrum.
  • Learned dependency and turning it around in people with developmental disabilities.
  • Relationships to food, eating, packaging and associations.
  • Working with attachment disorders in those on the autism spectrum.

Language, communication and interaction

  • Meaning deafness and meaning blindness; implications and strategies for communication.
  • The Concept of 'Social'; working with social communication problems on the autism spectrum.
  • When Words Get in the Way; communicating and socialising with non-verbal people.

Perception, learning and motivation

  • Battling learned helplessness and prompt dependency.
  • Battling with books; strategies for reading, retention and comprehension challenges.
  • 'Cat People' and 'Dog People'; why watching, waiting, wanting, can sabotage some learners.
  • Kinesthetic Learners; learning through physical patterning and the role of 'doing'.
  • Making use of diverse learning styles and sensory fascinations.
  • Making use of personality traits to achieve potential.
  • Meaning deafness, meaning blindness and body disconnectedness.
  • Not Thinking In Pictures; strategies for visual perceptual disorders.
  • System of Self and Other; when you can't hold a simultaneous sense of self and other.
  • System of Sensing: the Unlost Instinct; the world pattern, theme and feel.

Puberty and Adulthood

  • Creating and finding alternative employment.
  • Friendships, relationships and independent living.
  • Puberty on the spectrum.

Motivational

  • Donna's journey; a personal story of ability in disABILITY.
  • From Autism to Artism.
  • What the classroom can't teach you (and which other places can).
  • A patchwork quilt; living with Dissociative Identity Disorder.
  • I'd like to thank my immune deficiency.
  • Lessons from the street.
  • A Taoist's journey.