As a child, Dawn Prince remembers her family’s abnormal behavior.

At the dinner table, her uncle would balance food on his head and recite pi out to 300 places. Her grandmother would sporadically quote scriptures throughout the day, while her grandfather would arrange his food in certain patterns before he ate it.

But it was not until elementary school that Prince noticed she had unusual behaviors, too.

Prince, an anthropologist, primatologist and ethnologist, spoke Tuesday night in Watson Theater about her experiences living with Asperger’s syndrome. Prince is now an author and lecturer who travels the world speaking about autism and ecology. She also spoke about how she discovered her disability through working with gorillas.

Prince said she realized she was different than the other students in school when she was young, but didn’t know her specific disability. Every sensory image to her — a bright light, a loud noise — captured her attention. She was quickly overwhelmed by her surroundings, which she called “a sensory nightmare.” As a result, Prince said she would often shut down in school and have meltdowns afterward at home.

“In school, there was nothing for me to do with all the sensory input I accumulated during the day,” she said. “Once I was home, I was able to take it all out.”

Little was known about Asperger’s syndrome, a variant of autistic disorder, when Prince was a child, she said, and her condition remained undiagnosed as she struggled through school.

When she reached high school, Prince said she decided to drop out and leave home. She lived on the streets for five years, using illicit drugs and alcohol as a type of “self-medication,” she said.

But one day, Prince found comfort in the gorillas at a zoo in Seattle.

“Suddenly, this world that had always been too fast and too bright slowed down,” she said.

For weeks, Prince would come to the zoo and sit in front of the gorillas for hours. Eventually, she was offered a job. At the zoo, Prince worked with a population of silverback gorillas and found inspiration in observing their behavior. When Prince was asked to observe one sick gorilla, her disability became a gift.

“In this context, I just rocketed, took pages of notes and was able to pinpoint where the gorilla was sick,” Prince said.

During a study session with the gorillas, Prince said she observed a gorilla using combined tools to catch a moth. This action was previously unheard of, and Prince immediately sent her findings to the Jane Goodall Institute.

From her findings, Prince was asked to write books on her research. After working with gorillas for 13 years, Prince returned to school to get her doctorate in interdisciplinary anthropology.

After she left the zoo, Prince’s disability became more apparent in her day-to-day life, affecting her relationship with her partner and her son. It wasn’t until then that she started researching her condition and realized she had Asperger’s syndrome. After that, she began speaking with others about her experiences living with autism

Brianna Silvestri, an undeclared freshman, said she was amazed at how Prince first learned to deal with her Asperger’s syndrome through her work with gorillas.

“It was interesting how Prince took her interactions with gorillas and applied it to humans,” she said.

During her lecture, Prince said she wanted to talk to other people not only about gorillas, but the importance of being connected.

“For me, the biggest blessing has been to go all over the world and hear people say your story is a human story,” she said. “It’s not a story about a disability or being a woman or being queer or gorillas. This is a story about what we all struggle with as we exist in the world.”

Published on April 20, 2010 at 12:00 pm