S3E14: Questioning the Claims of Normalizing Dyslexic Brains

Discover the unexpected emotional toll of dyslexia intervention strategies. Uncover the surprising cost of intensive remediation on a child's emotional well-being, and why it's crucial to advocate for dyslexic children in a whole new way. Stay tuned for a perspective that challenges the status quo and opens the door to a deeper understanding of dyslexia support.

The key moments in this episode are:

00:00:02 - Introduction and Hump Day Chatter 

00:00:31 - Importance of the Topic 

00:01:23 - Personal Experiences with Dyslexia 

00:03:13 - Lack of Dyslexia Education in Special Ed Programs 

00:08:40 - Lack of Support in High School for Dyslexia 

00:13:27 - Understanding Education System Challenges 

00:14:18 - The Business Side of Education 

00:15:08 - Tenured Teachers and Parent Advocacy 

00:16:36 - IP and 504 Meeting Challenges 

00:24:03 - Educating Teachers and Individualized Learning 

00:25:23 - The Importance of Education and Advocacy in IEP Meetings 

00:28:27 - Concerns with Dyslexia-Specific Brain Activation Study 

00:33:46 - Dyslexia Intervention and Emotional Toll 

00:36:33 - Impact of Remediation on Dyslexia 

00:38:01 - Cost-Benefit Analysis of Dyslexia Intervention 

00:38:50 - Parenting and Mental Strength 

00:39:56 - Understanding Dyslexia 

00:41:33 - Emotional Cost of Diagnosis 

00:43:31 - Remediation Strategies 

00:45:52 - Tailoring Support for Dyslexic Children 

00:51:15 - The Power of Education 

00:51:30 - Overcoming Adversity 

00:51:45 - The Importance of Awareness 

00:52:00 - Looking Ahead

 

Transcript:

00:00:02
Welcome back to Word Blindness, Dyslexia exposed. This is Juliet Hahn, and I'm here with my co host, Brent Sopel. Happy Wednesday Hump day. Yeah. Michael, Mike, Mike, Mike.

00:00:12
Michael. Hump day. My favorite commercial ever. Yeah, the elephant elephants.

00:00:21
We have good stuff to talk about. I mean, good. It's not good. Feels your definition of is good. Mine are completely different.

00:00:31
But, yes, we have a topic to discuss today. Important. I mean, good meaning, like it's really important and it's really annoying that it still is like this. But important, not like this is going to be like a good fun one. So sorry if anyone got, like, excited in that way.

00:00:47
No, no, no, no. Excited. It's not going to be that fun. It is. Why don't you start with the conversations that you just had?

00:00:56
Yeah, so I've had yo three interesting conversations over the last week. You know, we'll go back to, you know, back to the first conversation. I spoke to a girl who. Whose brother's dyslexic has been part of the foundation for five or six years now. He's graduating high school this year, night and day.

00:01:23
How different is now? He's taking AP classes and thinking about going to. Do you want D3 college for hockey. You really helped him. Like, why don't you.

00:01:31
Can. Can you set up and talk about, like you're rel. I don't want to open. Kind of leave that open ending what it is. Yeah.

00:01:39
Okay. His sister reached out to me, and she is in her junior year in college for, you know, special ed. So I think this is her last year in the classroom, and I think they do one year of student teaching. So she's. She's got a project.

00:02:01
So she reached out, wanted to see if she could interview me. And during the interview, she's asking me questions. I was kind of asking her questions about it to find out more about because we talk about obviously, you know, special at all time. They're the dictators of our 504s and IPS and things like that. So we talked about, you know, dyslexia.

00:02:21
She said that they cover zero nothing minute microscope about dyslexia. And she goes, obviously, I'm passionate because her dad's got it and her brother. She's like, I don't have it. But obviously, I lived in a household. I watched my parents trying to do that, all these extra things for.

00:02:44
For my brother. I try to help them. I'm personally connected to it. That's why I'm so passionate about being, you know, a special ed Teacher, she goes, you have no idea how many people I'm in class with that don't have learning disorders and have zero, absolutely sweet, no clue about us. And she said, she.

00:03:13
I think she's doing a minor in psychology and she learned more, more about, you know, kind of adhd, dyslexia, in the emotional side of things, from that zero from, from special. You know, so these are the individuals that you go get, you know, you're going to school and your kid's struggling. They want to give them a 504 and IP or they want to get them diagnosed. These are the people that are telling you what you need to do and they have no clue. You know, she was thankful for our conversation.

00:03:54
You know, we're going to get on, you know, more calls. But, you know, she's like, if I didn't have my brother, I wasn't part of that. I wouldn't have the grasp of what's going on. And a great percentage. She didn't say percentage.

00:04:08
She just said, a great percentage of the people in my graduating class or whatever that is, have zero clue. And that's who is in control of our lives, in control of our kids, futures of, you know, now if you're struggling, you know, obviously you were just like, they had zero fun clue. And this is why we kind of harp. You know, obviously we've covered this topic before, but it was just.

00:04:40
Again, actually, it was more of a real firm. I had never talked to somebody who was in the middle that, you know, towards. Towards the end of their, you know, special ed. She goes, obviously, sometimes our hands are tied.

00:04:54
Well, and I think, because even Colleen, that was on it, right? She stated that she didn't learn about it in it and she's in education, went to special ed. And then. And I think it's that same saying. You have to hear it sometimes a number of different times for it to click like we've heard it.

00:05:10
But it's also like, okay, maybe it's just that university, right? Maybe there's. Now we have also had conversations with others that are getting trained in dyslexia, but it is an offering in their university and it's sponsored by an organization that we don't really love and we still definitely need to get on that call and kind of dive in. Yo. Oh, and we will, right?

00:05:32
I've never had, you know, I don't think me, you know, I've talked to somebody who's in the middle of graduating from, you know, special ed program. We talk to people who have Graduated. Right. You know? Right, right, right in the thick of things.

00:05:43
You know, that was my first conversation with somebody. Right in the thick of things. So again, you're, you're absolutely right. You got to hear it sometimes two or three times, different ways, but it was just a fresher perspective because somebody is right in the middle of it as we speak. Right.

00:05:59
And it, it also just shows again why, you know, you run into people that are like, dyslexia is just about flipping your B's and D's. Oh, I didn't realize it was that big of a deal. And sometimes it's tiring. Right? We all have the ups and downs of life.

00:06:22
I mean, and there's times where it's like, oh my gosh, another lesson. Or I'm hearing this again. This is so frustrating. Why? Why, why, why?

00:06:29
Right. But there's also times that we know that we are going to be able to help and change things. And the more we know so the more conversations we have with people immersed in school, in education, outside education, you know, attached to learning or kids or whatever, it's just better to hear other people's perspectives because it gives us that sometimes that, oh my gosh, okay, this is not the first time we heard it. Now we. And I think, and this is something that we're going to be kind of diving into a little bit more.

00:07:03
There are some universities that do. Because someone might be listening to this and being like, no, I know my kids learning dyslexia. You guys are wrong. We're not saying that not every university is doing. Because there's.

00:07:12
How many universities around. There's going to be universities that have more, you know, tools or whatever. And I don't know, is it public? Is it, you know, certain states? So definitely we're going to be diving a lot more to.

00:07:26
It's not a one size fit all. And you go, it's not one rabbit hole. You know, to your point, I mean, to cut you off is we got a lot more digging to do. But it's scary that these conversations are being had. Well, it, it's one of these things that you're just like, I don't understand how learning disability, special ed, I mean, special ed is all of.

00:07:53
Is learning. So why in the world would you not learn details about every 5Ds, but not only 5Ds. And I'm going to say the word neurodiversity. Why wouldn't you say, like, why wouldn't you learn about all of it? Now, she stated that There were some things that she learned, right?

00:08:11
So they pick and choose what you learn. Well, you know, you know, this girl said, if you didn't have. I think it was a minor in psych. That's where she learned the most. That's where she learned it.

00:08:21
At most, it's all, again, I don't know, obviously, college, all that stuff. So if she didn't have that portion and if she didn't have her brother, she'd have no clue, you know. And this leads me into that second conversation I had with a mom who's a part of the foundation. Daughter's dyslexic. She's going to a school for learning disorders.

00:08:40
And from grade eight, she's like, I'm thinking about, you know, putting her back into high school mainstream and kind of, you know, same thing. You know, we've had this conversation many times. What's white? What's wrong? So she tuned to school.

00:08:51
She sat down with, you know, with high school, you know, the special ed director. And, you know, she would spend most of the day, you know, on the special ed, you know, wing. But she goes, okay, no problem. Tell me, like, she's obviously severely dyslexic. What do you guys do, you know, for dyslexia?

00:09:09
What reading programs, you know, what kind of stuff you. She was absolutely nothing. We don't do anything with dyslexia. We don't care about dyslexia. Now that's the head of special ed for a high school with 3,000 people.

00:09:22
She goes, calls her friend. Her friend's son goes to school in Illinois, one of the wealthiest. And they had the same experience, the same words were uttered by that. So we're talking about 8,000 students between those two schools. Ish, you know, six, seven, 8,000, you'll take your percentage.

00:09:42
They both said, we don't care. We do nothing. And the one district where she's from, and I told her, you know, I know people have had to sue the district, and I know the district has put gag orders on these individuals so they don't speak. So if we don't talk about this, like everybody looks at us. It's so crazy.

00:10:06
The words that we speak, you know, just about every day. Foreign. It's so crazy to think that the school doesn't have your kids best interest. And that's a hard pills of swallow. I know you had to put, you know, swallow that with Montgomery when you, oh, I'm friends with the teacher.

00:10:21
Oh, she, you know, they're not going to do this because we're very likable people. Why would anyone want to make us uncomfortable? It's got nothing to do with. Right. It's.

00:10:29
It's nothing to do with it. It's not you. It's got nothing to do with you as a person. It's a business. And, you know, I can tell another story, which, you know, some people close to me, kids got lice.

00:10:42
You know, they call the nurse nurses, and they're. We're going for treatment nurses, like, okay, no problem. You know, bring her back in the afternoon. Oh, yeah. Why?

00:10:53
Why? She's like, you know, freaking funny. We're talking. I said, why is. Because they need your money, so they need to make sure that you are at school for so many days.

00:11:05
Kind of just how they used to build in, you know, the snow days. Right? This is. It's not an illness. It's actually not an excuse, Abdul.

00:11:12
Now, if you're here for half the day, they get their money. So they don't. Back in the day, I think, you know, we used to get a lateral license. They don't, right? No, they don't do.

00:11:20
You can go to school with lice now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what. You know, so I had. I had to explain.

00:11:29
It's. It's all about the money again. Deals, especially, you know, those teachers, they don't care. You're in the door. They're getting their paycheck, their schools getting their money.

00:11:41
Especially now, obviously with government obviously going on, watching the Department of Education, all that jingle jang. But at the end of the day, your kid is a number. It doesn't matter, you know, what kind of family you are. Rich or poor, smart, black, white, purple, green, beautiful. Not like, whatever.

00:12:07
They don't care. Your kid is. It's like going to the deli, right? You're pulling your number off there. You're number 22.

00:12:14
That's what your kid is. It is. And it is. It's alarming when you think about, like, a university not teaching about dyslexia in special ed. And we're going to dive more into this because when you said about the psychology, I was like, of course.

00:12:31
Because I have to rationalize everything. Unicorn. Well, maybe. And maybe it is. Who knows?

00:12:38
But maybe because psychology and dyslexia, like, you have to get diagnosed dyslexia through a doctor, so maybe that's why it's not there. And special ed, maybe they talk about ADHD and all these things because you can be diagnosed from a pediatrician or someone that's not. Doesn't have an md. So I was like, I want to get to the bottom of that. Will get to the bottom of that.

00:12:58
And I have no idea. Speculations. I don't know why it's up, period. Because the special ed teachers are going in and, and we've also, you know, we've really talked about this. I think I sent you a clip or you sent me a clip.

00:13:11
And it was, I don't remember who sent it, but it's this, this guy, Jordan, He's a Canadian. Jordan Peterson. Yeah, I, and, and he says a lot of Outlander stuff, but there's a lot of stuff sometimes he says. And I'm like, totally makes sense, this guy. And he was talking about the education system.

00:13:27
Oh, that's the video I sent you. Yeah, you sent it to me. I don't be taking credit for that. That's a good Megyn Kelly, Elizabeth's best friend. Oh, yeah, you posted it.

00:13:36
Right. And not political. Like, that's one of the things I said. This is not anything political. Like, it is not political.

00:13:42
But what he said is really true. He said one thing, though, that I did not agree with because he was saying a lot of teachers are the bad students or something. And I was like, well, I don't agree with that, but there is a profile, like what my mom always used to say to kind of help me get through. Like, you know, honey, they don't understand you because they were good in school. They don't understand that someone couldn't be good in school.

00:14:04
And this is not a bashing, a teacher thing. This is not what we're doing. We're educating people so they can go in with eyes open because knowledge is power. And it's not like going in to yell at your teacher not for knowing. It's not their fault they're not being educated.

00:14:18
It's not their fault. They're going into education thinking they're going to make a difference whether school was easy or not easy for them. And they're not learning what a lot of people, not everyone, like the majority. And I, I, I'm not going to use numbers there, but a lot of people struggle in school and they don't understand it because they didn't or they did, but they're still not learning about themselves and how they learn. Dyslexic, you know, dyscalculo, whatever, dysgraphia, any of it.

00:14:42
Colleges is the biggest business. So it's so, you know, 70% of the funding goes to, you know, K through 8, you know, of states. Right. So it's a business, you know, it's the, the tag school is wrong. It's a business.

00:14:57
Right. You know, how can they, you know, how can they cut money? You know, how can they save money? They're not, you know, they're, they don't have the best interest kids. Right.

00:15:08
It's a business. Right. And it's hard to, to wrap around your brain around that. Right. It's hard to understand that most these people at, you know, for school.

00:15:25
Exactly. You know, in here in Illinois, you know, they just fired all non tender. They won't, won't renew all non tenured teachers. Right. So once you're tenured, you're, you're product, you're protected in the union.

00:15:42
Like how's that, is that good for the kid? You know your tenants, so you're there, right? So what are they going to try and try and bring all tenured teachers in, you know, so they're locked in. It doesn't matter how good they are, how bad they are, yo, so they just go do whatever. How is that good, you know, for, you know, for your kid in school?

00:16:06
It's not. Right, it's. You're walking in as a parent, you know, into this ip. And here's the business side of thing is, you know, here in Illinois, if you request a meeting, you know, for IP or 504, they got 30 or three months to respond. Once they.

00:16:27
Three months to respond. Now they don't take neuro sex in Illinois. They have to give their own testing. So they give their own testing. They won't release that information to you to three days before.

00:16:36
So they want you to come in blindsided. And the people that don't understand, they want to tell you what you're going to do. Yes. And also. Are you finished?

00:16:46
Sorry? Oh yeah, no, I'm not finished. No, I know, I just, I finished your thought. The other thing is if you think of human nature and humans in general, if you don't know something, you look for someone to be the expert and you trust them and have them guide you. It's the same in the medical world.

00:17:04
That's so up. We can go on tangents on that there. But this is not what this podcast is about. There's so many things that we look as to as, as humans to be like, okay, I want, you know, I need this. I know I need this.

00:17:20
I'm going to look to someone that has more education, more knowledge, more whatever. And you look to that person and you take what they say by face value. Because you're like, well why would they be trying to fuck me, right? Like, it's not, it's not that. And we have these conversations because we want to put the power back in the parents hands, back in the people's hands.

00:17:44
Because knowledge is power, which I say all the time. But questioning, there's nothing wrong with asking questions whether it's the medical world, whether it's this world, whether it's the neuropsych, whether it's education. But asking like if there's something that doesn't feel right, don't just be like, okay, well they know, so I'm just going to go with it. No, if something does not sit right, you need to be able to ask questions. And if you don't know what questions to ask because you're like, okay, this doesn't feel right, but I don't know what to do.

00:18:10
This is where you have to educate yourself and find the right information because there's a lot of fucked up information out there. And so it's, it's really confusing. It's really, really confusing, you know, and they have a certain playbook that they use every time yo, I came across this with somebody, you know, the kid was in preschool, I called out their playbook and he's like, how'd you know that? Right? So you know, as you're in these meetings now, you're asking for specifics or you're, you're kind of turning it back to, to, to ask points, they'll automatically flip it on you and say, hey, you know, are you questioning me?

00:18:50
I've been a teacher for 20 years. Or you know, I know what I'm talking about, I'm the expert, right? So as you, as you said to, to turn them and flip it on you as a parent. So they, how do I have the same narrative as a preschool, how do I call, you know, a preschoolers narrative out, you know, with the teacher rather than like that's what they do. So as you, so be prepared for these kind of things, right?

00:19:16
They're going to flip it back you and make you feel bad that they're the expert. I've been coaching for 10 years or 20 years, I'm the professional, I'm the one, you're listening to me, you know, and they get all defensive, right? Their ego, right? They don't have the answer. They're not good at what they do, you know, just because you've been, you know, a teacher for 20 years doesn't mean you're a great teacher.

00:19:36
So understand that don't get defensive, right? Know what they're going to do. It's, you know, again, we talk about this because, you know, the thought of. It's outlandish that we're having these conversations, that this is how it goes, right? Because we shouldn't.

00:19:51
It shouldn't be this way, but it is. And if we don't have this conversation a million times, because people think when we talk that it's absurd because it really technically really is. And that's why we have these conversations. And as we have reaffirmed and different conversations and different angles and hearing more for this. And how is it this the same like this, this and this.

00:20:18
How many teachers you came across who get an attitude, right? Your guidance counselor, right? We've had this conversation. It's all the same, right? So to what you said, you know, parents ask questions.

00:20:32
Yo, it's okay to say, you know what? Well, let's continue this conversation another day. Like, y'all don't. Don't let them back you in the corner. It's good to go.

00:20:44
You can go home, make some calls, reach out to people, you know, reach out to the foundation. That's why we do what we do, you know, weekly. That's why we have these conversations, is to go and find that information. And is that information right for my state? Is it right for my district?

00:20:58
Like, there's a lot of things in it, you know, back to handing out the results here in Illinois three days before. So they, as a parent, they're only going to give you three days to understand what this means in. So they want you to come in and blindside you. They want you to walk in as yourself, as yo, maybe, you know, a lot of times it's the mom, right? Because dad's, you know, working or whatever, not as you.

00:21:18
You spoke, you know, you did a lot of it because dad was not at. You're coming in blindsided. You know, you're walking emotional 1. Blindsided, meaning you don't realize how many people are going to be sitting across the table, kind of attacking you, telling you, you know, basically reframing you. You're the bad parent.

00:21:36
It was your fault. You're already feeling that in that classroom. You know, it's. That's why for myself, I go in and advocate for parents, you know, I know more than they do. So I go in there with them.

00:21:48
They can't turn me. I can turn them in, you know, into a bowl before they even know what happened. Right? They don't have the information. They don't understand the information, but they want to make you feel like the bad parents.

00:21:57
They want to corner you, they want to bully you to getting what they want for them. And the other thing is, there's a lot. And you touched on this, but there's a lot of terminology that we don't know. So like, they also. It's all this terminology that you're sitting.

00:22:15
This is a conversation I had with a parent just recently. And she was like, ah, you know, and she had two kids that have IEPs or 504s and she said, half the time I don't know what they're even saying. And so I feel dumb, so I don't even want to ask. But the thing is, again, knowledge is power. Staying curious and asking those questions, not to call them out and make it aggressive if you, you know, if you're not in that spot, because sometimes it happens.

00:22:42
But just being like, can you explain that? I really don't understand that. If you don't understand something, there's nothing wrong with asking the question. And it doesn't make you look dumb. It doesn't.

00:22:51
Like, they don't want you to ask the question. They want you to be like, okay, now trust me, I every, I mean, I'm, you know, doctors find me annoying, teachers annoying, but it's because they're like. And sometimes you find that they actually really don't know what they're talking about. And that's. I was going to jump in right there because you remind me of.

00:23:11
And she said, you know, the IPS are 504 get sent to teachers. She goes, they don't know what means. Then that's exactly, you know, so 100% exactly. What I was just going to say is these teachers aren't educated in special ed, so a lot of them don't even know what all this means. Right.

00:23:28
So, you know, we talk about, you know, I always say, right, take that binder, go talk to your teacher, don't email it because, you know, tell her what your kid needs because it's for her, it's copy paste, it's 20 pages or whatever. That wasn't her specialty. So most of the times they don't even know what, you know what that means. So you hated, you know, that's exactly where I was going with. Yeah, they don't, she said, like, they don't understand either.

00:23:54
Right. So special ed teachers tell them what to do. You do this, they don't know what that means. Big, big words, doctor terms. They don't even know what that means.

00:24:03
And each kid is different. So what does that mean to your kid? Right. And we are generalizing. We're not saying this is right for everyone.

00:24:12
We're just using general terms. We know that there's people out there that do know what they're talking about and want to help, and they went into education for, you know, the right reasons. And so we're not. If you're sitting there and listening to this, teachers weren't, you know, if you're a special ed teacher, you know, to. To, you know, to cover my special ed.

00:24:30
That's. That's the area you are. So if you're an English teacher, you. You didn't go to special ed to learn what an IEP means. You know, you know the terminology, but the nuts and bolts of it is.

00:24:42
Is what I mean that that was your specialty. Or if you're a history teacher, you know, history inside. No, you don't. You weren't over there doing all that stuff, you know, with special ed. So not saying.

00:24:52
You don't, you know, you weren't trained in it. So. Right. And there's nothing wrong. It's not like, Right.

00:24:57
If someone said to me, hey, can you go be a dentist for the day? I would say, probably not a great idea. You actually probably could because you've gone through. But no, like, so there's. There's things that we have, you know, talents and, and there are teachers that are innately good at teaching.

00:25:12
I mean, you're, you know, we've talked about this a lot. And so you could be listening to this and be like, no, I didn't have that experience because I had a good one. I had a good experience. And that's amazing. Thank God.

00:25:23
Amazing. Yeah. That's a unicorn. Wrap it up and amazing. Wish we had that.

00:25:28
Right, Exactly. And so, you know, the purpose of this podcast, which is always, is to educate and just give you guys different scenarios to make you think. Because so many times we talk to people and they're like, I didn't think of that, or I never heard of that, or I've never had experience. And you're right. I sit in the IEP meeting and I'm like, I don't want to ask questions because I don't want to feel dumb.

00:25:47
Right. Because usually one of the parents talk for terms, big words. Joe. Yeah. And read your talk.

00:25:53
Taurus Ross, you know, can't even say those words. Right. No. And Right. And.

00:25:57
And also, you know, there's. Sometimes you're the parent that either has dyslexia or has the same traumas that, that you're trying. So you're going in also uncomfortable emotion. Emotion. Right.

00:26:11
Oh, you're walking in emotional. Yes. You know, divorces are emotional. You know, I think I've, you've heard me use this terminology. Most people hate CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

00:26:23
Companies, they never make emotional decisions. It's educated. No, they're able to separate that. Right. And we hate them for it.

00:26:30
Right. Because, but you're making an emotional decision because your kids. So it's trying to take a step back, you know, absorbing the information. That's why I said, hey, we'll continue this meeting another day. Because you are emotional.

00:26:41
And when you're emotional, you don't absorb all the information. Blackout. Half the time I don't know what was said. Right. So it's always great to have somebody else with you at a meeting.

00:26:52
You're not going alone. Is that a friend, you know, is that a grandma's, a cousin to help you hear all that? Or, you know, here's the thing, is tape it. You've got, everybody's got cell phones. Yo, you don't have to tell them.

00:27:05
Right. It's pressing play on your cell phone. Right. And recording it. Voice memos and voice, voicemail, whatever that is, to bring home to your husband, to, to talk to him.

00:27:15
Because again, your emotions. So you're not going to process all the information. Oh, what? Oh, I didn't remember hearing that. Right.

00:27:21
So you don't have to tell them. It's not illegal because you're not using it in every way. It's, you're using for, for education purpose and educating yourself on your kid. You know, do that. Yep.

00:27:32
The other thing that we talked about is you sent me something that actually really angered me. Not, I wasn't angry at you, but. And I'm going to pull it up. It basically was stating there was a study done, and I think it was like 80 kids, they had intensive reading. It was like one of these million reading programs that are out there that we are always like all these things that are sent around that they're like, no, we know how to help dyslexia.

00:28:07
No, we know how. And here's, you know, $3,000 for you to, 10,000, $15,000 for you to, you know, save your kid. So this was a classroom teacher's guide to reading research. Okay. Do you want me to call out the company or.

00:28:27
No, no, it's, yeah, okay, I won't. I, I, I didn't know if you were like, yeah, go. You know I want to. I know, I know, I know. But you're.

00:28:34
You're so mature. Look at you. Okay, so it was a sample size. And there was a control group, a baseline level. Intense, intensive intensity of intervention, effective size and a bunch of other things.

00:28:54
And what the title said, which is why I was like, I need to read this more. Was dyslexia specific brain activation profile becomes normal following successful remedial training. Okay. And I was like, becomes normal. I was like, okay, and this is going where?

00:29:21
And then I was like, I read the title and then was like, and I think I was watching a movie. And I was like, okay, clearly wasn't watching the movie. Because then I started reading this and there's so much wrong to it. Because now. Yes.

00:29:38
And this is why we talk about the importance of getting diagnosed early and getting the intervention. Because, yes, you can make things easier and the kid can learn to read. For the most part, there's kids that. If you're severe. Severe dyslexic.

00:29:52
No, I mean there's kids in Montgomery School that were there four years before him and still couldn't read. Like, there's a severities of it, but for the most part, if you have this intensive reading. And I'm not going to go into what, what, you know, what program, because we know there's a lot of fucking people with their panties in a bunch right now over all that excuse that term, but whatever. And yes, reading can become better. It can become more streamlined.

00:30:21
Like, I know when Montgomery finished. Or in Gillingham, like, you know, he was very choppy, slow, and then was able to be more flow. You've heard us both read, you know, like, Brent's a little bit more choppy than I am, but I go a little, you know, we will go both go slow. But there is. When they say your brain becomes normal, that first of all is like that our brains are abnormal.

00:30:45
Which angers me in this, because what's normal? What's not normal? Go fuck yourself. Like, don't tell me my brain's not normal because you're so. That angered me.

00:30:52
I hated the person that wrote it. Remember, our brains are wired differently. Wired differently. Yeah. Doesn't mean it's it.

00:30:58
Right. They're different. But it's a normal. Whatever that's first. Wired differently.

00:31:02
That's it. Wired differently. So this is the whole thing, like, you know, with the. And we went through this. Oh, and I could tell stories.

00:31:12
God, brings me back to not a fucking fun time where we did the Eye therapy. Because that could help Montgomery with reading, right? They were like, oh, we have this great thing you do. And what's. It's not called eye therapy.

00:31:27
What is it called? And we went to an. I mean, I will never. The kids ate dinner in the car as Montgomery went inside and was tortured with this fucking had to hit. I mean it was poke and duck, whatever.

00:31:39
He would come out so tired and then he had all this homework to do and it was supposed to make his brain normal. And I just remember being like, we'll do anything to make school easier. Right? As a parent, you do whatever. Putting so much money out.

00:31:51
It was like the traffic. I mean, my two other kids were dragged in all of these fucking appointments and that did shit, you know, and good. I know you want to say something? No, again, it's our brain. I'll go back to.

00:32:06
Our brains are wired differently. So do you think yo, stuffing grapes down my throat is going to rewire my brain because you're stuffing words down my throat? Is that going to change it? No, I think, you know what I hear to that is I think I said tough love is tough death, yo. And well, that kind of leads into the conversation, the third conversation where I had where guy said, you know, I got a 12 year old daughter, she's living in.

00:32:43
My ex wife got a great opportunity in Mexico. They're living there. You know, she's speaking Spanish and her dyslexia is gone.

00:32:53
No, it's not a, you know, a piece of lint in your pocket where you can just, just, you know, just drop it or, you know, it's. It's not a broken nose or you have plastic surgery and now I got this cute little nose. No, that's not, not. That's not how it works. Right?

00:33:07
You still have it. You just found. Find ways to navigate it. Yes. And the reading.

00:33:14
Right. So intervention helped the kids be able to read. It doesn't mean that their brains are now wired the same as someone that doesn't have learning disabilities. And by the way, just because they can read better and more fluid and have understanding and maybe are comprehending it. Okay, and so that's what they're seeing with the testing, right?

00:33:34
They're like looking at all these markers. Okay, okay, okay. They're better than they were after they went to the intervention. I'm not arguing with any of that because yes, we know that helps. However, dyslexia is not just about reading.

00:33:46
It's not just at what cost did that happen? Right? How much? Right. Well, so.

00:33:52
And I know you're like thinking about the kid in the chair being fucking, right? And that's where the grapes came in. So. Right. You know, and to me, you know, again, there's more to dyslexia, right?

00:34:02
That's why we always focus on self esteem. And to that point, yo, there's a reading program called Reading Lane, Syracuse, New York, right? You and I talked about this, yo, I know it's made by non dyslexic them because guess what, if you suck at something, you know, now is that golf, is that, you know, I, I would say maybe basketball or soccer, but those aren't real sports. Or guitar or drum. Oh, nice.

00:34:30
Or whatever those are. If you suck at it, you're not joining a league. You may go do it casually, but you're not going to drink. So if I suck at bowling, I'm not joining, you know, a bowling league. So calling it the Reading League is so, you know, back, you know, and we're to your point is, you know, self esteem to what cost did that intense breeding?

00:35:00
What emotional scars, what emotional toll did that do on the kid? They're non dyslexic, so they don't even think about that. They don't, you know, I don't see that in the study. So, you know, emotional scars are maybe at one, I can promise you going through this thing would be maybe a 4, maybe a 5, maybe 6, maybe 7. Right?

00:35:25
So they're not, you know, they've got emotional trauma now because of stuff in the. I don't think anyone wants to grape stuff down their throat. You want to eat them, but they don't want them stuffed down their throat. So to your point, they may do this better, but at what cost? And does that outweigh that?

00:35:48
Yes. And I. This is very interesting. If a, if a doctor was listening, if a psychologist was listening to this, they would see and this is why this is very interesting. I know I'm smiling, but if you think about.

00:36:05
You saw my scars just come out and you just saw your scars just come out. And I want to tie this together because to me it was not that I didn't think of the kid because I'm like, if a kid can learn to read better, that's gonna, that's gonna be okay. I can do that better. But to your point, when, because of the word intensive, right? So like what Montgomery went through, they said intensive, but it was like an everyday school thing.

00:36:33
It wasn't like he was getting pulled out like, or after school or morning to us, like that's not, you know, somebody else is not intensive. Right. To us, that's intensive. Right, Right. Correct me if I'm not wrong.

00:36:43
No, totally. But then to be able to read better, right? It's like, okay, then you don't have certain scars there. But what you're saying is like this, what kind of study was this? You know, was it like, you know, you are diving into the emotional part of it, which is beautiful.

00:36:57
And it's what's wonderful about you. Because what I, where I got angry was, don't now like, make these kids feel like, oh, now, now you don't have dyslexia anymore. Because dyslexia is going to come out in many different ways. Whether you have remediation and things become easier and you don't have to work hard or in different ways because you still have to work hard. But it's gonna, it always is there.

00:37:25
And, and when we talk about like the lefts and rights and different things that have nothing to do with reading, you know, reading is hard enough. But then other things that come with dyslexia, that whole laundry list that we talk about that people are like, oh, I guess I do that too. Oh, I guess I do that too. Okay, I just. Yes.

00:37:43
Let me ask you a question. And so to that point, let's just play, you know, the game. Like, oh, what? Let's just say it did get rid of dyslexia, you know, to go off weather scene. At what cost did it take to get rid of dyslexia?

00:38:01
Now does that cost equal up, you know, better now, you know, did that, did you spend more money, more energy, more trauma to get there? So was it worth it? You know, you go and buy cheap airline tickets, you know, spirit airline, right? You know, cheap seat. You got 62 carry on bags.

00:38:30
It was 150 bucks, right? Or I could have bought a, you know, a night of chick for 500. Now was it worth it? It. Right, right.

00:38:37
Yeah. So that, that's, you know, at what cost? Again, it doesn't get rid of it, but let's just hypothetically say to at what cost do we get there? Right? You know, and yesterday Elizabeth was listening to Megyn Kelly.

00:38:50
She's like, you want to listen to this one? So it was a, I think it was a psychologist or, you know, psychologist or some doctor, you know, talking about parenting. And it said, yo, we baby can baby our kids too much, right? So he said, well, if a kid says, you're bored, say back, oh, you're bored, and just sit There, let them figure it out. You know, we want to raise strong mental people, you know, and then he says, yo, most of us parents are, you know, all stuck up in our.

00:39:27
So now I'm, now I'm flipping at dinner because now this is, you know, referred right back to dyslexia is. Most of us are in our own shit. We don't want to be there, but we don't even know, understand our own to get out of our own, right? So we want to raise strong kids, mentally strong kids. But if I am not, how can I raise one if I've got things going on and I don't understand them?

00:39:56
So there I am, we're getting dinner. I'm, you know, flipping a lid again because he's contradicting himself. We should be doing this. It's not, we're not capable and you know, the dyslexic world, we're not capable of fully understanding our dyslexic kid if we don't have it. Well, we can do all the research, we can understand the best, but we will never fully understand it if you don't have it.

00:40:22
So this guy's, I'm like, want to go over the counter and, you know, jump through the phone and you know, and you know, strangle this guy? That's the other side of the world where they think it's easy. You contradict yourself. Oh, just do this. Do you put yourself in the shoes of your patient?

00:40:41
Clearly not by making that comment. Right? So, okay, so I have a question for you because I think if I. Now I know where you're going with this, but if someone is to pick up and listen, and you're saying we need to detect dyslexia earlier because self esteem is the most important and it is helping the student be able to understand how they learn. Help them, you know, learn better.

00:41:09
All these different things. And then what you just said now is because of that study, like, what does it cost? Because, and I want you to, because I, I know what you're saying, but there's going to be people listening that are like, wait, I'm confused. I thought he wanted to like help kids with dyslexia and, and get a diagnosis and then help them get remediated. But what cost wasn't financial cost was emotional, right?

00:41:33
What I meant that. Yo, at what cost did you, did the emotional side, the self esteem side, take that hit? You know, you've heard me say on here, you know, think of a gas tank. So you start it up at full tank, you Know, if it's only half a tank, obviously it's quicker and cheaper half a tank than empty. So by doing that study, yo, did that kid's gas tank go to half a tank and now they can read better or did it go to empty and they can read better?

00:42:13
Now you tell me what you think would be better. You know, again, I'm not, you know, for each, each parent you parent your kid. That's why self esteem is so important to me. If you have self esteem, you can be successful in life no matter what. No matter what.

00:42:27
How you learn, no matter what is. But if you're in, you know, empty, right, Obviously, you know, you've heard me talk about this. You know, the one thing that plays in my head every day, all day long is, you know, suicide. Like, do you want that? That's, you know, so somebody's think, you know, a word that you think you thought of the most in your life.

00:42:46
Suicide. Right? So that's what I'm talking about. That's why. So the self esteem is so unfortunate.

00:42:51
So it wasn't financial to your point. It was emotional. What toll did that emotion take? And sometimes when you get so far so empty, you know, somebody almost just visual purposes, drills a hole in your gas tank and you can never get off empty because of that trauma. So.

00:43:11
Okay, and I love that you explained that, but now I also want to explain because. And I think it's because of the actual, this actual study. And you're talking about that, not overall. So, like, when someone's diagnosed, how do you feel they should be remediated? Like it's, it's.

00:43:31
Take us through a little bit of that, because that's what it's like. It. You're not saying, no, don't do it. Like, that's all you're saying based off of the, that study that we're talking about right now. Yeah, and I know that, but that's what I wanted to clarify because I know someone's gonna be like, wait, so it doesn't want anyone, you know, like, like, right, So I want you to explain that.

00:43:49
Yo, so that, that was just specifically for that intensive study, right, that you said you can't, you can't change something that you don't understand. So yes, that diagnosis is key. Once you have the diagnosis, the understanding, then you can figure out what your son or daughter needs. What that next step is, is after that, navigating that. Yo, I always say self esteem is always secondary.

00:44:19
You know, once that diagnosis for me, you know, I think that's why it's such. And we're such a different foundation is because if you are so dark, yo. And you hate going to school, it sucks, you're miserable. It doesn't matter what. You're not going to learn.

00:44:37
You're not going to learn no matter what kind of teacher. If it's the best teacher in history, the best teacher in the world, you're not going to learn. So that's why, you know, as a foundation, we approach things a little bit. That's why. Yeah.

00:44:48
Do I have emotional trauma? 100%, 120 million. You know, but it's, that's why, that's. Once you have that understanding. Okay, now I know it's not a label now.

00:45:00
It's a roadmap for your life. Right. So being okay with it can't be okay with something you don't understand. Yep. Then navigating what that ends up mean for your kid.

00:45:13
Because you, you said something. Yo, this severe dyslexia, right, yo, let's just use stage one is just a little bit. Stage five is the most severe. So, you know, again, doesn't work that way. But there's severity now how does that work for your kid?

00:45:25
Where does that fall in? You know, so. And that's why we're different. That's why I'm different. That's why my traumas came out there, you know, because that emotion.

00:45:35
No. Right. You put, you put yourself, you put yourself in there. And I think another thing that's really important that I want people to hear is, and it's so important that every kid is different. And when you are diagnosed and the school brings things up and we've talked about this probably more behind the scenes.

00:45:52
I don't think we've actually talked about this more. And we can get into, into it on our next episode more if people are interested. But someone might say like, okay, so my kids diagnosed. What do you think is like, I know I hear you guys talking about the self esteem. You know, there's a number of different things people can get tutored.

00:46:08
Right. We've talked about this. Like, I did not do any tutoring for Montgomery after school because I knew that kid was done and he needed to go play sports and he needed to go do something he was good at. Right. And so finding that thing that your kid is good at and don't take that away to substitute with with tutoring, like after a long day, most kids do not want to get tutored.

00:46:29
Or like, I mean, that's like. And I knew because I Was like, I would, I would lose my. So I didn't even like. So people would say to me, well, you know, he's dyslexic. What are you doing about it?

00:46:40
And I'm like, well, this. And this is when I was like, well, the school. He's, you know, he does get pulled out. Now Montgomery actually did not mind getting pulled out because it was a break for him. He was like, oh, thank God.

00:46:50
But a lot of the kids, between some kids or not, that's 100%. And a lot of kids even like. So there was kids that were gifted that would get pulled out to do gifted stuff. So in his school, it was actually like, okay. Now the problem was that they would pull him out sometimes during like math, which is Calcula, which, you know, same thing.

00:47:09
Her mouth is terrible. So it's. Yeah, it's what works for your kids. Some kids don't want to be pulled up. All right, you'll, you know, Lila, we had her, you know, before school.

00:47:19
School, right. You know, and I had one mom say to me, brent, why is my dyslexic senior in high school going to bed at 9pm and my non dyslexic, yo, sophomore is going to bed at 2am because that's how much extra, how much harder we have to work in our brain. I think. You know, remember when I took that coaching job, yo. Oh, you were, you were so spent.

00:47:42
It was the first time in my life that I've had to use my brain for three months. I would come home and I couldn't pick my head up. I would sleep for days and days because that was me using my brain. So in a different way for me, just because the school year day is the same amount. But they, you know, I guess they say that we use triple amount of brain power to get through that day.

00:48:08
So think of it that way. When you leave, okay, you have to work triple as hard. Okay. Now you're going to put them into, you know, tutoring or whatever it is. Yeah, triple heart.

00:48:19
So it. On the outside we look okay, but the inside is where we're not. And that's where I care about. And that's. We don't have that.

00:48:30
But that's why communication with your kid is so important. Even if they're little, like talking through things now, there's going to be some stuff that it's like, okay, I know you hate this, but you're going to have to do it right. That's just life. But really checking in with them every time. So like, we.

00:48:45
Every year and every, like, couple months, I'd be like, okay, you're still like, you know, getting pulled out. That's amazing. That's fine. It's fine. But it.

00:48:53
And then he obviously went to the school and we were, you know, we've talked about that a million times, but that was a blessing for us. It doesn't mean it would be a blessing for everyone. It just worked with our schedule. It worked. We made it work.

00:49:05
And so having the knowledge. And that's why, again, go to sopalfoundation.org one of the things is people always ask how they can help donating. You know, even if it's a couple dollars, it doesn't matter. That's a great way. And then as we continue to grow, there's going to be slots where we're going to have, you know, times for people that really believe in our mission and really believe what we're doing, that we can do that.

00:49:27
But right now, if you just go, it's. There's so many things happening. Golf event we know is happening in September. Do we have that date? You have that date?

00:49:36
September 15th. September 15th. Sponsorships are going to be coming out. So, like, last year, we had to close it. So if it's something that you're like, oh, wait, I really wanted to be a part of that, you got to get your fucking shit together.

00:49:47
So not that you can start doing it now, but put it in your calendar, and there's a lot of really, really amazing things that are going to be happening. And we're just happy that people are listening and still care what we say. Listen to us blab. Yeah, but you know what? We give good information.

00:50:09
We make people think. And that's. I love making people think. You know, it's just. It's such a different perspective.

00:50:15
Right. You know, obviously, the foundation we talk about, you know, there's only a couple foundations that are dyslexic, advocating for dyslexic. So that, you know, one that's different. But this is a perspective that I've never seen anybody else talk. You know, I'm not saying we're better or I'm better.

00:50:32
You know, just kind of like hockey, you know, they call your coaching. I'm like, I don't. I'm not saying I'm a better coach. You know, I just coach differently because of my traumas. And that's the same thing as the foundation.

00:50:43
I, you know, I run this foundation and try and grow this foundation, you know, in a different way. Dyslexia has been around for 100 years, hasn't been fixed, so I think we might not be doing something right. I'm gonna leave it at that. You know what I say every single time? Like, rate, review, and share.

00:50:58
Because you do not know who needs to hear this. You do not know who is, you know, getting diagnosed or who is thinking that there's dyslexia in their family. I mean, we just had someone reach out to us that's 67 years old and is like, I didn't even know what dyscalculate and dysgraphia was. Wait, I don't know. I think I have all of it.

00:51:15
And I'm like, oh, that's hard. It's hard if you've lived a life. But educating is power. Knowledge is power, and that's what we're here to do. So we'll see you for another episode of word blindness.