About Linda Bonner

Through speaking, writing, workshops, resources, and community partnerships, Linda works to bridge the gap between awareness and action. She believes that understanding leads to acceptance, acceptance creates belonging, and belonging opens the door to greater opportunities for everyone.

Whether you are a parent seeking guidance, a professional supporting individuals with disabilities, a business leader exploring inclusive practices, or a community member who wants to make a difference, Blessed with Extraordinary offers practical tools, meaningful insights, and a pathway toward building a more inclusive world.

Coaching
Public Speaking

  • Building understanding around disability, dignity, belonging, and inclusion while helping communities move beyond awareness into action.

  • Supporting families as they navigate emotions, expectations, advocacy, and building a fulfilling future.

  • Practical guidance around independence, transition planning, advocacy, life skills, and preparing for the future.

  • Exploring how access, assumptions, and community design shape opportunities for inclusion and belonging.

Linda Bonner is an author, speaker, disability advocate, artist, and founder of Blessed with Extraordinary, the Advocacy & Education Studio of Linda Bonner Studios. Through her work, Linda helps families, professionals, organizations, businesses, and community leaders move from uncertainty to understanding and meaningful action that creates opportunity, belonging, and dignity for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

As the parent of an adult son with Down syndrome, Linda understands both the challenges and the possibilities that come with navigating disability. Her work is grounded in lived experience, practical guidance, and a deep belief that every person deserves to be valued, included, and given opportunities to contribute and thrive.

Linda is the author of the revised edition of Blessed with Extraordinary: Empowering Families and Advancing a More Inclusive World. This comprehensive resource provides support, tools, and encouragement for families raising children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, while also helping communities, educators, employers, nonprofits, and service providers better understand how they can create environments where everyone belongs.

Drawing from more than three decades of personal experience, advocacy, research, and community engagement, Linda shares practical strategies that help families navigate everyday life, future planning, self-advocacy, education, employment, relationships, caregiving, and community participation. Her approach combines real-world resources with hope, helping families focus not only on challenges but on building meaningful and fulfilling lives.

SIGNATURE TOPICS

Linda offers speaking presentations, workshops, and educational sessions including:

  • Challenging assumptions and helping families and communities recognize possibility and potential.

  • Helping organizations, leaders, and communities move from good intentions to practical action that creates meaningful inclusion.

  • Topics including future planning, social connections, self-advocacy, resources, and building a meaningful life.

  • Exploring how creativity and shared experiences can strengthen relationships, reduce isolation, and build belonging.