
Autism Treatment Trust
Registered Charity Number SCO033523


Design: LA/ATT
Donna Williams
Edinburgh 16th of September 7-
Venue: St George's West Church
58 Shandwick Pl
Edinburgh, EH2 4RT
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Donna Williams was born in Australia in 1963. She was assessed at age 2 as psychotic, then labeled disturbed throughout childhood before being formally diagnosed as autistic in adulthood in 1990. Donna grew up with ‘dysfunctional language’ and came to understand sentences around the age of nine and by age 13 could speak in litanies. She failed early secondary education, leaving at age 15 after 4 high schools. She entered the workforce for three years and encountered unemployment and homelessness before returning to education and gaining an Honours Degree in Sociology, a degree in Linguistics and a postgraduate Diploma in Education.
Donna lives with a degree of both meaning deafness and meaning blindness (agnosia) and, unlike the 65% of the general population who ‘think in pictures’, describes herself as a systems and kinaesthetic and musical thinker for whom systems, movement, pattern, theme and feel and give definition to her world. As someone challenged with gut, immune and metabolic disorders, she is well known for raising wide public awareness regarding health as well as sensory perceptual, language processing and anxiety related issues effecting people on the autistic spectrum.
As well as being an artist, sculptor, composer and screenwriter, she is also an internationally
best-
Donna lives in Australia with her husband Chris Samuel where they established a free international self employment and networking service for people on the autistic spectrum at http://www.auties.org. Her website has online galleries featuring her paintings and sculptures at http://www.donnawilliams.net
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