Anne M. Donnellan (1943–2024): a tribute to an autism legend, mentor, and friend

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Kapp, S. K. (2024). Anne M. Donnellan (1943–2024): a tribute to an autism legend, mentor, and friend. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 18, 1469778-1469778. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2024.1469778

Publication date: 22 Oct 2024 Added to AutiHub: 6 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
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Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)
  1. Steven K. Kapp *

Abstract

Anne Donnellan was a powerful advocate, researcher, educator, mentor, and friend to many, a pioneer for the rights and dignity of autistic people and others with disabilities. She started one of the first preschool programs for autistic children when the field tended to dismiss us as unable and unmotivated to learn and relate to people, publishing a guide on how to develop such programs (Donnellan-Walsh et al., 1977). While she was trained in behavioral psychology and from the beginning promoted positive approaches to aggressive and self-injurious behaviours, she became increasingly alarmed about potential harms of ABA and led an influential book against aversives called Progress without Punishment (LaVigna and Donnellan, 1986; Donnellan et al., 1988). She supported inclusion from the classroom to the community, and actively supported disinstitutionalization (including successfully for our friend Joaquin Carson: Carson, 2017). To paraphrase Anne (Donnellan, n.d.), from her early days as a practitioner she became acquainted with all the major advocates and writers at the time. She entered and rose the ranks in academia to become Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She exercised her privilege, for example co-editing the influential, original Handbook of Autism (Cohen et al., 1987). Ever the progressive thinker and a strong voice, she rocked the establishment. This led to some professional fallout with former collaborators, but she continued to climb, later becoming Provost of the University of San Diego and Director of its Autism Institute. A private Catholic university with a mission to foster ethical and compassionate leaders, the University of San Diego appealed to Anne – a child of Irish Catholic immigrants – because it kept her grounded with loved ones (her son John Walsh and his family lived nearby) while nurturing her feisty appetite for making life better for people. Frustrated with restraints through behavior (including punishments and seclusion) and chemicals (overmedication), Anne became an advocate of augmentative and alternative communication. She valued that behaviour might be communication (Donnellan et al., 1984) but also that autistic people may struggle to control our bodies and need support (Donnellan, Sabin, and Majure, 1992). For example, with the support of quality relationships (Donnellan et al, 1992; Robledo and Donnellan, 2008, 2016), autistic people may manage their stress to initiate actions (Donnellan, Leary, and Robledo, 2006). Anne wrote about and discussed invented knowledge (Donellan, 1999), pairing it with her critical idea of making the least dangerous (and most helpful) assumption so that the person has the likeliest chance of functioning as well as they can (Donnellan, 1984). This means presuming competence (especially but not only about non-speaking people), empowering people with the opportunity to relate and grow that patronizing interpretations might deny. Anne relatedy distinguished between capacities to speak and think, and actively opposed dehumanization, isolation or seclusion, and abuse. She valued the self-advocacy of autistic people and understood the true meaning of reciprocity, the role of communication partners for supportive relationships: working with, not on, people (as she put it: USD News Center, 2008). Together with Anne’s work with Martha Leary on movement differences (Donnellan and Leary, 1995), Anne’s body of work helped to explain how some autistic people may be unable to speak but can communicate in other ways (such as through language and typing). Anne illuminated how the neurodiversity movement most urgently applies to non-speaking people and autistic people with high support needs who may have intellectual disabilities. I first encountered Anne’s work in 2007 shortly after learning about the neurodiversity and disability rights movements, through my research for a paper for an undergraduate anthropology class on Native Americans in American public life. Anne’s work led by her former PhD student Jeanne Connors on people with developmental disabilities in Navajo society most inspired my argument that their traditional inclusive, pragmatic approach may fare better for autistic people than Western society’s medical model. (This later developed into my first published paper: Kapp, 2011.) From the next year (2008 to 2013) I attended and to my pleasant surprise presented at Anne’s autism conference co-organized with her former PhD student Jodi Robledo; Anne respectfully welcomed speakers ‘behind the scenes’ at the conference and into her home. Anne’s simple act of inviting me to the panel in 2008 was my first academic presentation and felt authentic. Anne invited autistic and parent bloggers from the progressive Autism Hub and leading presenters on the various aforementioned topics and beyond, combining important concepts with applications to practice. Twenty years after co-founding the first social justice organization for all autistic people (AutCom), Anne (with Martha Leary and David Hill) in 2010 published her first main theoretical paper on the sensory-movement account of autism, it forming the only psychological or biological theory in the first special issue on autism and neurodiversity featuring mostly leading activists and scholars (Savarese and Savarese, 2010). Soon after in 2012 Anne and Martha’s second book on this topic came out (Leary and Donnellan, 2012), and in 2013 she of course co-edited (Torres and Donnellan, 2015b) a Research Topic on Autism: The Movement Perspective (Torres and Donnellan, 2015a) with Liz Torres here in Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience with two important contributions on the theory (Donnellan et al., 2013) and perspectives (Robledo et al., 2012) of autistic people. This account encompasses not only motor and sensory issues, but flexibility, attention, and emotion (differences or difficulties in starting, switching, and stopping). Of course, these differences can also bring strengths or joy, such as from stimming (Kapp et al., 2019) or appreciating sensations such as colors and certain textures. It was also a delight to present on my connected paper (Kapp, 2013) at Jodi’s and her conference to further clarify such nuance, and to be but one of the countless lives she touched. Anne Donnellan’s expertise and values have proven ahead of her time, with science, policy, and practice helping autistic people to have fulfilling lives in the community.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Bibliography inclusion overview

These indicators describe the cited bibliography imported for this publication. Cited-reference metrics use the cited-reference total as denominator. Cited-author metrics state whether they use all cited-author occurrences or only occurrences linked to authors already integrated in the AutiHub database. They use cached links between cited authors and authors integrated in the AutiHub database. Last computed: 16 Aug 2026 11:30.

Cited references
27
Total cited references integrated for this publication.
Cited references with an identified autistic author
3 / 27 (11.1%)
Cited author occurrences identified as autistic
4 / 44 (9.1%)
Among occurrences linked to AutiHub author records: 4 / 10 (40.0%). Distinct cited authors identified as autistic: 2 / 30 (6.7%).
Cited author occurrences linked to AutiHub author records
10 / 44 (22.7%)
Distinct linked cited authors: 8 / 30 (26.7%)
Linked cited-author occurrences not identified as autistic
6 / 10 (60.0%)
Among linked cited-author occurrences only. Across all cited-author occurrences: 6 / 44 (13.6%). Distinct linked cited authors not identified as autistic: 6 / 8 (75.0%).
  1. Anne M. Donnellan , Patricia L. Mirenda , Richard A. Mesaros , Lynette L. Fassbender (1984). Analyzing the Communicative Functions of Aberrant Behavior . Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, 9(3), 201-212. SAGE Publications.
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  2. (n.d.). CarsonD. Walking with Joaquin. 2017
    Type: Other
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  4. Anne M. Donnellan (1989). Progress Without Punishment: Effective Approaches for Learners with Behavior Problems .
    Type: Book OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W616458503
    Crossref OpenAlex
  5. Cohen (1987). Handbook of Autism and Developmental Disorders . Handbook of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
    Type: Other
    Crossref
  6. Ralph James Savarese (2009). Neurodiversity and Caregiving: A Roundtable with Parents and Siblings of Children with Autism . Disability Studies Quarterly, 30(1), 43. The Ohio State University Libraries.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.18061/dsq.v30i1.1061 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W1483132600
    Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
  7. Jeanne L. Connors , Anne M. Donnellan (1993). Citizenship and culture: the role of disabled people in Navajo society . Disability, Handicap & Society, 8(3), 265-280. Informa UK Limited.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.1080/02674649366780271 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2077334631
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  8. Torres (2015). Autism: The Movement Perspective . Frontiers Media SA.
    Type: Book DOI: 10.3389/978-2-88919-509-1 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2496116981
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  9. Anne M. Donnellan (1984). The Criterion of the Least Dangerous Assumption . Behavioral Disorders, 9(2), 141-150. SAGE Publications.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.1177/019874298400900201 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W1737176839
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  10. Connors (1998). Walk in beauty: western perspectives on disability and Navajo family/cultural resilience . Resil. Native Am. Immigr. Fam, 2, 159.
    Type: Other
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  11. Anne M. Donnellan , David A. Hill , Martha R. Leary (2013). Rethinking autism: implications of sensory and movement differences for understanding and support . Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 6, 124-124. Frontiers Media SA.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2012.00124 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2164421678
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  12. Anne M. Donnellan (1999). Invented Knowledge and Autism: Highlighting Our Strengths and Expanding the Conversation . Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, 24(3), 230-236. SAGE Publications.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.2511/rpsd.24.3.230 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W1964190350
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  14. Anne M. Donnellan , Laural A. Sabin , L. Ann Majure (1992). Facilitated communication . Topics in Language Disorders, 12(4), 69-82. Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health).
    Type: Article DOI: 10.1097/00011363-199208000-00007 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2090694639
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  15. Steven K. Kapp * (2011). Navajo and autism: the beauty of harmony . Disability & Society, 26(5), 583-595. Informa UK Limited.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2011.589192 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2008125484
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  16. Elizabeth B. Torres , Anne M. Donnellan (2015). Editorial for research topic “Autism: the movement perspective” . Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 9, 12. Frontiers Media SA.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2015.00012 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2017844623
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  17. Anne M. Donnellan , Martha R. Leary , Jodi Patterson Robledo (2006). I Can't Get Started . In Stress and Coping in Autism (pp. 205-245). Oxford University Press.
    Type: Book chapter DOI: 10.1093/med:psych/9780195182262.003.0009 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2509321208
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  18. Donnellan (1995). Movement Differences and Diversity in Autism/Mental Retardation: Appreciating and Accommodating People with Communication and Behavior Challenges . Movement Differences and Diversity in Autism/Mental Retardation: Appreciating and Accommodating People with Communication and Behavior Challenges.
    Type: Other
    Crossref
  19. Jodi Robledo , Anne M. Donnellan , Karen Strandt-Conroy (2012). An exploration of sensory and movement differences from the perspective of individuals with autism . Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 6, 107-107. Frontiers Media SA.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2012.00107 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2077661128
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  20. Jodi A. Robledo , Anne M. Donnellan (2008). Properties of Supportive Relationships From the Perspective of Academically Successful Individuals With Autism . Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 46(4), 299-310. Informa UK Limited.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.1352/1934-9556(2008)46[299:posrft]2.0.co;2 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2107336603
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  22. Donnellan-Walsh (1977). Teaching Makes a Difference: A Guide for Developing Successful Programs for Autistic and Other Severely Handicapped Students . Teaching Makes a Difference: A Guide for Developing Successful Programs for Autistic and Other Severely Handicapped Students.
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  23. Jodi Robledo , Anne Donnellan (2016). Supportive Relationships in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Perspectives of Individuals with ASD and Supporters . Behavioral Sciences, 6(4), 23. MDPI AG.
    Type: Article DOI: 10.3390/bs6040023 OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2547337266
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  24. Gary W. LaVigna (1985). Alternatives to Punishment: Solving Behavior Problems With Non-Aversive Strategies .
    Type: Book OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2998849966
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  25. Leary (2012). Autism: Sensory-Movement Differences and Diversity. Autism: Sensory-Movement Differences and Diversity..
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  26. (n.d.). Summer Autism Conference. 2008
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  27. (n.d.). Anne Mary Donnellan: 1943 to 2024. 2024
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