Speaker 1: Good evening.
Speaker 2: My name is Turette's is a poem called the New
Speaker 2: New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Terrees otherwise known as Dominic Hoey novelist, poet, playwright.
Speaker 2: And with the graffitist commission. None of the fights are
Speaker 2: worth winning. No one cares about your life, just what
Speaker 2: you do for a living.
Speaker 3: Publisher, rapper and profoundly dyslexit for you.
Speaker 2: And other day jobs. He work that no one else
Speaker 2: would do, so we could follow our dreams at night,
Speaker 2: like you told us.
Speaker 3: To, Gelda. I'm Sonia Gray and this is no such
Speaker 3: thing as normal. Series two, I'm diving into the complex
Speaker 3: and fascinating world of neurodiversity. I'm not an expert, but
Speaker 3: my daughter is neurodivergent and a few years ago I
Speaker 3: was diagnosed with ADHD. In this series, you'll hear from
Speaker 3: experts and from many wonderful people who experience the world
Speaker 3: in a unique way. We're looking at neurodiversity from the inside.
Speaker 3: This is the second of a two part focus on dyslexia.
Speaker 3: In the last episode, I talked to twenty three year
Speaker 3: old Michael, who buys and sells supercars for a living.
Speaker 3: It's a dream job. Michael's profoundly dyslexic. He can read
Speaker 3: when it's a topic of interest to him, like supercars,
Speaker 3: but fictional writing just doesn't make any sense. I could
Speaker 3: read your book, it would make sense to you, guys,
Speaker 3: wouldn't make sense to me now. In this episode, I
Speaker 3: talked to dominic Hoey, best selling novelist and poet. Unlike Michael,
Speaker 3: dom finds it almost impossible to read or write anything
Speaker 3: that's not fictional. It's fascinating. We can't assume we know
Speaker 3: what strengths or struggles any one dyslexic thinker might have.
Speaker 3: Dyslexia comes in many flavors, so dyslexia a loaded word
Speaker 3: and misunderstood. I think, how did your diagnosis come about?
Speaker 2: I was probably, I want to say, like thirty, and
Speaker 2: I went to university as an adult student. I kind
Speaker 2: of knew something was up because I'd been in special
Speaker 2: education and I still can't write.
Speaker 1: My hand or spell and stuff. I didn't know exactly
Speaker 1: what it was.
Speaker 2: I suspected dyslex yet, So anyway, I went into the test,
Speaker 2: and I thought that'd be like, oh, you're a little
Speaker 2: bit dyslexican, but like, no, you're very looking disabled.
Speaker 3: So how to feel.
Speaker 2: There was a bit of relief, but there's also a
Speaker 2: lot of frustration that I kind of wish someone had
Speaker 2: told me when I was seven, or you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. I mean, there's definitely advantages. I think you know,
Speaker 2: and you have a certain level of grit and tenacity
Speaker 2: and stuff. But I do wonder, if you know, all
Speaker 2: the sort of self loathing and low self esteem and stuff,
Speaker 2: is it worth to sort of payoff?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's tragic that almost all dyslexics have a deep sense
Speaker 3: of shame. Would it have been different for Dom if
Speaker 3: he'd been diagnosed as a kid, Well, it's unlikely he
Speaker 3: would have been. An assessment is expensive up to fifteen
Speaker 3: hundred dollars these days. That would have been out of
Speaker 3: reach for Dom's family, who didn't have much money. Poverty
Speaker 3: and the disadvantages that come with it as central to
Speaker 3: his writing. You always wanted to be a writer. M
Speaker 3: tell me about that.
Speaker 2: I don't know where it came from, Like I guess
Speaker 2: because like when I was young before I couldn't read
Speaker 2: to us about eight or nine, and my parents had
Speaker 2: just read to me all the time, and I was
Speaker 2: always like kind of like just like I loved stories
Speaker 2: and I loved you know, I was always making stuff
Speaker 2: up from a super young age. I just think because
Speaker 2: I was asking my mum kind of recently. I was like,
Speaker 2: did I talk about being a writer when I was young?
Speaker 2: And She's like, yeah, you did, but you know, you
Speaker 2: couldn't read, so we were kind of like, maybe this
Speaker 2: isn't the thing for you. And then when I learned
Speaker 2: to read, my dad was like, oh, if you want
Speaker 2: to be a writer, she just read all the time,
Speaker 2: and so I did. And he actually had a library,
Speaker 2: like a room just full of books and I kind
Speaker 2: of read all of them in a lot of strange stuff.
Speaker 2: But I think that really helped as well, like to
Speaker 2: sort of develop the style I have.
Speaker 3: Did you've got quite a unique style? Line?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Good unique style.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's not for everyone.
Speaker 2: People love or hate it, but I think that's a
Speaker 2: good thing, you know, And I think that comes from
Speaker 2: just having taught myself mostly, you know, and also like
Speaker 2: I learned a lot about writing from rapping, which probably
Speaker 2: unusual for miss novelists, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Don Joe started out as a rapper under the
Speaker 3: name to read poetry was a natural progression In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: his first novel, Iceland, was published, and it's most recent
Speaker 3: is called Poor People with Money. I read your book
Speaker 3: Poor People with Money. Loved it.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you, I tell you.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons I loved it you right in
Speaker 3: a way that's easy for someone like me to read. Now.
Speaker 3: I'm not dyslexic, but the way I read a book
Speaker 3: is often it's not really that linear. But I found
Speaker 3: myself being able to read it in a linear way
Speaker 3: because it wasn't too dense. Did you do that on
Speaker 3: purpose or is that just your style?
Speaker 1: A bit of both.
Speaker 2: Like Penguin had been super supportive, but I think I've
Speaker 2: had to fight for a little bit because I think
Speaker 2: that they were like, why don't you make the chapters
Speaker 2: a little bit longer, make the book a bit longer,
Speaker 2: make it more like a traditional literary thing. And I
Speaker 2: was just sort of like explaining, well, this is kind
Speaker 2: of my audience, or this is the audience I really care.
Speaker 3: About, and there's a shitload of books for the other.
Speaker 1: Audience, exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: You know, of course, the material is enjoyable and funny
Speaker 3: and deep and gritty and all the things, but just
Speaker 3: that fact that I didn't have to think. It's yeah,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the greatest compliment, you know.
Speaker 2: And like when people say stuff like that, you're just like,
Speaker 2: oh man, it's like crazy, because good you have to entertain,
Speaker 2: you know as well. And I think a lot of
Speaker 2: writers forget that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, they're very busy creating this beautiful prose and
Speaker 3: yeah it's just too dense.
Speaker 1: They're trying to be clever, you know, clever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting and we all want to
Speaker 3: be clever. But if it stops people reading it, then yeah,
Speaker 3: if no one's reading you're clever, then you're not that clever.
Speaker 3: If you haven't read any of Dom's work, do it,
Speaker 3: he is clever. The first time I read a Dom
Speaker 3: Harry poem, I was like, how does he know what
Speaker 3: I'm thinking and feeling when I don't even know he's
Speaker 3: a master with words because he doesn't use that many.
Speaker 3: But just because he's a writer, it doesn't mean he
Speaker 3: likes all words all the time. Like filling in forms
Speaker 3: quick and easy for most people, for Dom it can
Speaker 3: be impossible.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can't do it, sorry, So what is it?
Speaker 3: Tell me what it is about a form that is
Speaker 3: difficult and what Sorry not to press on it, but
Speaker 3: it's just interesting so that people understand what specifically is
Speaker 3: it the writing itself? Is it the putting the words together?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's just I don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is just me speculating, but I think
Speaker 2: what it is is like whatever part of your brain
Speaker 2: does creative writing, I've developed that, but I started from
Speaker 2: the union like negative, but the other part of my
Speaker 2: brain I didn't develop that non creative writing, and so
Speaker 2: I feel like that's still in the dyslexic thing, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like I think.
Speaker 2: Ironically, like I can't really it's quite difficult for me
Speaker 2: to write stuff that's not fiction. So I think I've
Speaker 2: taught myself to write fiction and I can kind of
Speaker 2: write an email, but.
Speaker 1: That's about it.
Speaker 2: Like if I have to write anything else, I find
Speaker 2: it incredibly difficult. Just sometimes I feel like I describe
Speaker 2: it like there's a wall in my brain and sometimes
Speaker 2: I just hit that wall and it doesn't matter what I.
Speaker 1: Do, I can't get beyond that.
Speaker 2: And I think oftentimes nonfiction kind of writing like guess why,
Speaker 2: Like funding applications are just a nightmare for me because
Speaker 2: you know what I mean it's like you're bending your arm.
Speaker 1: In a way it doesn't want to bend, or something.
Speaker 1: That's what it kind of feels like.
Speaker 3: I think this is crucial to understanding the struggle of
Speaker 3: dyslexics and neurodivergent people in general. They can be great
Speaker 3: at the things that are supposed to be difficult, like
Speaker 3: in Dom's case, novel writing or poetry, but not so
Speaker 3: good at the things that are considered easy, like filling
Speaker 3: in a form. You can be a writer of award
Speaker 3: winning best selling novels, but you don't get a US
Speaker 3: on the Edmond.
Speaker 2: So me and my mate who's also dyslexic, we were probably
Speaker 2: about twenty five and we were just like cooking and
Speaker 2: just terrible places. And we're both like, we're going to
Speaker 2: go to university. We're going to turn our lives around.
Speaker 2: So we walked down to the university and we're like,
Speaker 2: we want to enroll, and the guy was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: here's all these forms, and we're like oh, And we
Speaker 2: spent about an hour trying to fill the forms out,
Speaker 2: and then we were back to going like we can't
Speaker 2: do this, and he's like, well, if you can't feel
Speaker 2: the forms out, he can't come to UNI, and so
Speaker 2: we just left and that was you know, so it
Speaker 2: was probably another five years after that that then they
Speaker 2: got computers, so then I could enroll.
Speaker 3: You know, you got the RDE block before you've even started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and I think it's like that's the
Speaker 2: thing with just six here. Like I tried to pevson
Speaker 2: level of pride in it and bravado and talk about
Speaker 2: how it's like help me and all this shit, but like, definitely,
Speaker 2: my life is I feel like I'm always five or
Speaker 2: ten years behind where I probably should be if I
Speaker 2: didn't have this or if you know that there were
Speaker 2: the systems to support people with this, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: So only really in the last ten years, I think that.
Speaker 2: I've got to the point where I don't let that
Speaker 2: stuff stop me, and you know, if there's a system
Speaker 2: set up that you know, like I'm like, okay, well
Speaker 2: you need to sort this out because you can't not
Speaker 2: let me do this or whatever. I was had a
Speaker 2: dentist the other day though, and she's I spent the
Speaker 2: receptions ask me for that form, and I just was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm dyslexic. Do you think you could do it? For
Speaker 2: me and people are usually pretty understanding.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Is that quite liberating when you do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a relative I guess that's another
Speaker 2: thing that sort of is in the last ten years I've.
Speaker 1: Started doing and you know what.
Speaker 2: I mean, just like really owning it.
Speaker 3: It's taken do a long time to own it. He's
Speaker 3: in his forties now, but can it go even further?
Speaker 3: Move from shame through acceptance all the way to celebrating
Speaker 3: his dyslexia. New research shows that evolution has kept dyslexia
Speaker 3: and our gene pool for a reason. This unique way
Speaker 3: of thinking is critical to the survival of our species.
Speaker 3: If dyslexics weren't needed, they would have been like evolution
Speaker 3: would have extincted them distinct. So there is a reason
Speaker 3: that for different cognition. And so it's a specialization, so
Speaker 3: you don't there's many people that can fill out forms. Well,
Speaker 3: AI can do it now. So like it's an exciting
Speaker 3: time to be dislexit because you're not going to have
Speaker 3: to do all that stuff. I hope, I don't think.
Speaker 3: But we need the explorers, the disruptors that I see
Speaker 3: a solution to that problem. No one else has been
Speaker 3: able to see it.
Speaker 2: What's it called, like the telescopic kind of thinking where
Speaker 2: you can see the end of something, Like I think
Speaker 2: that's something that I've noticed that I have that.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me about that? Because that is a
Speaker 3: big thing.
Speaker 2: So like when I start the novel, it's like I
Speaker 2: can see the end, Like even if I don't know
Speaker 2: how it's going to end, I can see that I'm
Speaker 2: going to get to the end. Like whenever I do anything,
Speaker 2: I can see how to get to the end of it.
Speaker 2: I guess, And I didn't realize that was rare until,
Speaker 2: you know, I guess when I was making music with
Speaker 2: like super talented people, but they couldn't do that, and
Speaker 2: often they wouldn't finish their songs or they finished their
Speaker 2: albums because they couldn't see that kind of end.
Speaker 3: Put this ability to see the end point reminded me
Speaker 3: of doctor Ruth gibbons comments in last week's episode about
Speaker 3: the different way dyslexics often do maths. My daughter can
Speaker 3: provide the answer to a complicated math problem, but she
Speaker 3: often loses marks for not showing the working because the
Speaker 3: way she got to the answer isn't something she can
Speaker 3: write down.
Speaker 4: That's a natural way for dyslectic to work. DYSLEXICX don't
Speaker 4: think in a linear way. Dyslexics are much happier when
Speaker 4: they have multiple pieces of information that they can bring
Speaker 4: together into one point. So when they're doing something like maths,
Speaker 4: they will be bringing those things all together to get
Speaker 4: the answer.
Speaker 3: But you still have to show you working. So many
Speaker 3: of the skills that dyslexics possess aren't definable or measurable,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean they don't exist or that they're
Speaker 3: not very, very valuable. Research out of Cambridge University is
Speaker 3: found that dyslexics have enhanced abilities and things like discovery, invention,
Speaker 3: and creativity. They say developmental dyslexia should no longer longer
Speaker 3: be considered a disorder, but instead a specialization, which is
Speaker 3: exciting and I wonder if dorm's aware of this dyslexic age.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I still don't know a lot about
Speaker 2: dyslexia other than what my experiences.
Speaker 3: Are you interested in it?
Speaker 1: I kind of am.
Speaker 2: I think there's sort of like a lot of trauma
Speaker 2: around it, Like I get I get quite emotional when
Speaker 2: I'm reading about other people's experience. It are sort of
Speaker 2: like minor stuff, So I guess maybe I kind of
Speaker 2: avoid it.
Speaker 3: Do you think a lot of it comes from school?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: For sure, for sure, like because you know, like special
Speaker 2: education was just like it was pretty much just like
Speaker 2: a holding cell, like they destructed all the kids that
Speaker 2: didn't know what to deal with in there. And then
Speaker 2: also just like being told you're stupid for years and
Speaker 2: sort of not I guess, you know, like part of
Speaker 2: me sort of thought, well, I don't think I am.
Speaker 2: But then you sort of like if your teachers are
Speaker 2: telling you that, you're like, well, I guess that's the job.
Speaker 2: You know, they must know what they're talking about.
Speaker 3: So I think, yeah, well did special education look like?
Speaker 2: I'll sort of in and out of it throughout my
Speaker 2: all my schooling, so sometimes that put me back into mainstream.
Speaker 2: But in primary school, it was just this classroom just
Speaker 2: for a flight deals a deaf kid. There was like
Speaker 2: a with a school bully and just all of them.
Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm laughing. It's just like it's
Speaker 3: like a whold itself. Yeah, the misfits. Everyone knew that
Speaker 3: if you did.
Speaker 2: That, probably weren't going to get a job, and that
Speaker 2: and that again was just a holding solf because you know,
Speaker 2: like you had kids in there who were brilliant at
Speaker 2: some stuff in life.
Speaker 3: Brilliant it's some stuff, but not the right stuff. Sometimes
Speaker 3: the kids who can see patterns and solutions are hard
Speaker 3: to spot. They can often be ignored. Instead, we have
Speaker 3: accommodations to help them get better at the right stuff.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get the extra time, you know in
Speaker 2: the exam. Well, actually I wanted to use a laptop.
Speaker 2: But then they were like, there's no way we're going
Speaker 2: to use a laptop. But the thing is having extra time.
Speaker 2: If you can't spell or handwr it doesn't really make
Speaker 2: any difference, Just longer to sit there failing at the thing,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You can use a laptop now in university. In fact,
Speaker 3: university seemed to be set up super well to support
Speaker 3: neurodivergent learners. It's trickier in schools, and a support isn't
Speaker 3: a support if it's not the right support for you.
Speaker 2: For me, it's like because I got to read a
Speaker 2: writer for a while, and so I had to say
Speaker 2: it out loud and I'd write it down. But that
Speaker 2: for me is a different part of the brain lake.
Speaker 2: I can't community you know, when I'm talking, I'm not
Speaker 2: as eloquent as I am on the page.
Speaker 3: For those that don't know, a reader writers a volunteer
Speaker 3: that works with a student during an assessment. Generally they
Speaker 3: read the question to you and then write the answer
Speaker 3: that you give them. For some kids, it's great. For others,
Speaker 3: it's really not. For Dom the big change came when
Speaker 3: he changed schools. My husband knocked around with you, yep,
Speaker 3: back in the day, and he said one of things
Speaker 3: about you, but also that you went to a school
Speaker 3: that I'd never heard of called Metro Auckland Metropolitan College. Yeah,
Speaker 3: can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that kind of I think that really was
Speaker 2: like maybe talking about that trajectory. It was one of
Speaker 2: the turning points actually was I was at Western Springs
Speaker 2: and just was having a pretty horrible time and then
Speaker 2: they basically kicked out a huge amount of kids. I
Speaker 2: don't know why exactly, and we all went to Metro.
Speaker 2: And so Metro was an alternative school in Mount Eden.
Speaker 2: It was just like a two storied building. There's one
Speaker 2: hundred kids there, and it was based on this model
Speaker 2: where kids loomed best when they want to loun and
Speaker 2: kids got to vote on what classes they had and
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff, so she didn't have to go
Speaker 2: to class, and I just spent the whole time writing
Speaker 2: poetry and playing the drums pretty much. There was a
Speaker 2: class on Marxism, so we had a class on Marxism, So,
Speaker 2: you know, I left school without I didn't really have
Speaker 2: any sort of practical skills, I guess as such, but
Speaker 2: you kind of had an advantage because I'd been writing
Speaker 2: poetry for two years and getting lessons and performing and
Speaker 2: doing all that stuff. So at eighteen, I was sort of, like,
Speaker 2: I guess, a bit further ahead of most kids my
Speaker 2: age to gone to traditional schools.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And the other thing was because it was so small,
Speaker 2: like you couldn't have cliques, so you couldn't be like
Speaker 2: they weren't like cool kids or whatever. Like you were
Speaker 2: all just forced together, and you were hanging out with
Speaker 2: kids who were just from wildly different parts of the
Speaker 2: city or different backgrounds. There were kids there whose parents
Speaker 2: were like millionaires, and there were kids there who were
Speaker 2: like sleeping in the cars and everything in between. So
Speaker 2: and we were all hanging out, you know, and I
Speaker 2: think that was pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: Dom says this school was fundamental to a success. But
Speaker 3: this kind of state school, it doesn't exist anymore these days.
Speaker 3: Dom wears a lot of hats. He co founded publishing
Speaker 3: company Dead Bird Books. He co founded a Define, a
Speaker 3: program for disadvantaged youth, and he mentors dyslexic kids in writing.
Speaker 3: There's a common thread through all his mahi helping those
Speaker 3: who are struggling.
Speaker 2: I really think that if you're an artist that has
Speaker 2: a profile, part of your job is to bring to
Speaker 2: other people like you belong and it makes everything slower.
Speaker 2: But I think in the long run, it's like way
Speaker 2: better than does you know you having a little moment.
Speaker 3: Dom has defied the distincts of gods and become a
Speaker 3: successful author, but he carries the hangover from years of
Speaker 3: being told the way he was wasn't right. It's a
Speaker 3: while since Dom was at school. We know so much
Speaker 3: more now. But if that's the case, why are there's
Speaker 3: still so many young dyslexic kids having a terrible experience.
Speaker 5: He would leave the room, or he would hide under
Speaker 5: a table in the classroom and not move for hours.
Speaker 3: Amy is a high school counselor. She works with kids daily,
Speaker 3: but she's talking about her own son, eleven year old Oliver.
Speaker 5: He was not a confident kid at all, and he
Speaker 5: would come home crying some days and we wouldn't know why,
Speaker 5: and he started talking about that. He just he felt
Speaker 5: different and he was sick of being told off. And
Speaker 5: I think, yeah, there was not really any I guess,
Speaker 5: how would I say care in terms of the emotional wellbeing,
Speaker 5: He would say, I'm dumb, I'm stupid, don't.
Speaker 3: Want to be here.
Speaker 5: He struggled quite a lot in the reading writing, and
Speaker 5: that was a constant thing that was brought up in
Speaker 5: teacher interviews and a daily thing, and he just would
Speaker 5: be pushed quite hard. So his instinct was to run.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is all of our instincts.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 5: So it was that flight response, you know. It was
Speaker 5: conformed to the classroom. And if you're not sitting on
Speaker 5: the mat in back of the class doing something else,
Speaker 5: you don't fit in here.
Speaker 3: You're not here doing the right thing. Oliver now goes
Speaker 3: to Summit School in Auckland, which is set up for
Speaker 3: dyslexic and neurodivergent kids, but up until age eight he
Speaker 3: was in mainstream school. He got into trouble a lot.
Speaker 3: Tell me about what you struggle with the most.
Speaker 6: I'll struggle still, like concentrating, it's really hard to just listen,
Speaker 6: or I just can't stop moving.
Speaker 3: You were at a mainstream school for a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I imagine there you had to stay still.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Can you remember what that was like and if you
Speaker 3: got in trouble for like wriggling or whatever.
Speaker 6: Yeah? Sometimes I got in trouble and I didn't really
Speaker 6: know why. Yeah, I didn't really like it.
Speaker 3: Tell me more about that. What can you remember some
Speaker 3: of the things you got in trouble.
Speaker 6: For, sometimes getting up and moving or like fvegishen with
Speaker 6: stuff I normally got told off.
Speaker 3: Right, do you remember how it made you feel when
Speaker 3: you used to get told off for stuff that you
Speaker 3: couldn't change.
Speaker 6: It made me very mad and frustrated. I just didn't
Speaker 6: want to be at school anymore.
Speaker 3: Did you stop going to school?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Because you felt like whatever you did it might be wrong.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I just didn't feel like a fit in with
Speaker 6: everyone else.
Speaker 3: That is such an important bit that belonging a life,
Speaker 3: feeling like you're wanted at school just the way you are,
Speaker 3: is something I think a lot of kids don't have.
Speaker 3: Can I just say, here, you move as much as
Speaker 3: you want. Here, you get up and run around if
Speaker 3: you want. You don't have to stay right there. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: that's really important. And with that, Oliver was off up
Speaker 3: and down, wandering around. His body needed to be in motion.
Speaker 3: It makes me sad to think of him contained at school.
Speaker 3: This is a very active kid. He's a star on
Speaker 3: the basketball court and the rugby field, and he's getting
Speaker 3: into acting. You have joined an agency. Do you kind
Speaker 3: of like the whole acting performing thing?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 6: It just gets of it in the thing when you're
Speaker 6: doing the audition for it.
Speaker 3: It is and I still get nervous. Doesn't go away.
Speaker 3: But what I do is I go, Okay, I'm feeling
Speaker 3: the nerves, feeling the nerves. I'm going to take all
Speaker 3: those nerves and I'm going to use them. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 3: it doesn't work, But tell me about rugby what you
Speaker 3: love about it?
Speaker 6: Well, I can let out my angers. Sometimes I like
Speaker 6: to just try and get better. I like working harder.
Speaker 5: The confidence with Oliver has changed so much since coming
Speaker 5: to a different school where he feels included and his
Speaker 5: personality is embraced, and his learning style he's actually picking
Speaker 5: up on things and then understanding it. And this confidence
Speaker 5: of I can read that road sign or I can
Speaker 5: pick that out and know what that is has really
Speaker 5: given him just this happiness. It's real and it shows
Speaker 5: through the family, through the home, through school friendships. Friendships
Speaker 5: are very hard for him, and they're becoming slowly easier.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we all get treated the same, and everyone at
Speaker 6: that school it's like just like me. So I fell
Speaker 6: in quite a well.
Speaker 3: Amy is delighted that Oliver feels there's a place for
Speaker 3: him at school now. Sending him to an independent school
Speaker 3: is expensive, but they believe the sacrifice is worth it.
Speaker 3: Of course, there are great things happening at mainstream schools too,
Speaker 3: but they're desperately under resourced. Many teachers I've spoken to
Speaker 3: say they feel like they're fighting a losing battle every day,
Speaker 3: but some still manage to leave an impression. Oliver remembers
Speaker 3: his first teacher with great fondness.
Speaker 6: Her name's Miss Lalla. Yeah, she was my first ever
Speaker 6: teacher when I started school. She was the kindest.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I made her a part and I gave it
Speaker 6: to her. I met her a couple of days ago,
Speaker 6: so yeah, I said.
Speaker 3: Hi to her, Miss Lalla. Is that her real name?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't actually know her first name. I've forgotten, but
Speaker 3: her last name is Lala. Of course she's lovely with
Speaker 3: a surname like Lalla, she was gorgeous. Can you remember
Speaker 3: any incidents at school that you were just like I
Speaker 3: just hate it, like one specific incident, like I just
Speaker 3: don't School's not for me. I know, it's hard to remember.
Speaker 6: I remember one time that I just couldn't sit still
Speaker 6: when I really didn't want to go to school. So
Speaker 6: it's quite mad that they and I got told off
Speaker 6: for like moving around, and I said I wanted to
Speaker 6: go home, but they said too bad, and they just
Speaker 6: left me there, left you where like at just at school? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Were you upset? Yeah, so it really was to me.
Speaker 3: It sounds like that. Correct me if I'm wrong. But
Speaker 3: one of your big things is sitting still, which is
Speaker 3: hard for so many kids, and then getting told off
Speaker 3: for that. Yeah, yeah, like the injustice of our day.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The need to move is something I've noticed a
Speaker 3: lot with the dyslexic people I've interviewed. Staying still seems
Speaker 3: to require a lot of effort. Sure, dyslexia often coexists
Speaker 3: with other profiles like autism and ADHD and who can
Speaker 3: say where one diagnosis begins and another starts. But doctor
Speaker 3: Ruth Gibbons sees dyslexia as a full body experience.
Speaker 4: In my research, I found out how important movement was
Speaker 4: and it was not really discussed at all. It's more
Speaker 4: talked about that being an irritant rather than actually a
Speaker 4: necessity for dyslexics.
Speaker 3: Ruth says that it's cool, particularly high school and in workplaces,
Speaker 3: we prioritize the brain over the body and that just
Speaker 3: doesn't work for everyone.
Speaker 4: It's all about being still and just listening and using
Speaker 4: your brain. That creates a particular assumption about how brains work,
Speaker 4: and that's not the way works for dyslexics. Dyslexics actually
Speaker 4: need to move for their brains to be engaged and working,
Speaker 4: even in the way that they think. Dyslexic don't think
Speaker 4: in a linear way. Dyslexics are much happier when they
Speaker 4: have multiple pieces of information that they can bring together
Speaker 4: into one point. So the brains have to move and
Speaker 4: their bodies need to move.
Speaker 3: To There are kids that don't even realize that they
Speaker 3: need to move.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, and all they know is the dialogue in
Speaker 4: their head that they are not doing as well as
Speaker 4: everybody else, and they don't know that actually just being
Speaker 4: able to move.
Speaker 3: Would be useful.
Speaker 4: Then there's the other kids who move and get told
Speaker 4: off for doing so. I have a participant who was
Speaker 4: rocking on her chair. The teacher took the chair away
Speaker 4: and made her kneel at a desk.
Speaker 3: Always looking for solutions, Ruth came up with one. It's
Speaker 3: called tilt with a Y, essentially as a fidget toy
Speaker 3: for your feet. It looks kind of like a skateboard
Speaker 3: with some fancy additions, and it came about quite by accident.
Speaker 4: I put together some courses for my students who are
Speaker 4: dyslexic on managing UNI from a dyslexic perspective, and I thought,
Speaker 4: I can't have these students sit still for hours on
Speaker 4: end whilst I do this workshop. So I went out
Speaker 4: to the garage and I got this piece of wood
Speaker 4: and put a door handle on it, and I took
Speaker 4: them into the space to use. After that, I then
Speaker 4: went back to my research participants who I've been working
Speaker 4: with the twelve years, and said, look, is this any good?
Speaker 4: Do you think this could work? And I said, yes,
Speaker 4: we just took it from there and now we're at
Speaker 4: the space and looking towards manufacture, which is exciting. Actually
Speaker 4: we just want to red Dot Design Award as well.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, bro, that's amazing, and it's so simple.
Speaker 3: It's something that people can you know, it's transportable. I
Speaker 3: feel like the solution is things like this, simple changes
Speaker 3: as well as recognition and understanding, but just these little
Speaker 3: things that can make a difference. Ruth says this need
Speaker 3: for movement goes hand in hand with the fact that
Speaker 3: dyslexics are often very aware of the world around them,
Speaker 3: super sensorial.
Speaker 4: It's actually in neurodivergent thing. It just gets ignored and devalued.
Speaker 4: You know, even something as simple as the seat not
Speaker 4: being level can mean that the dyslexic student is not
Speaker 4: going to learn anything that day because they're constantly trying
Speaker 4: to monitor that and be in this space with all
Speaker 4: the sounds and smells and your tactile things. I've got
Speaker 4: to take on as well.
Speaker 3: Do you know what the problem is for dyslexics is
Speaker 3: that because these are overlapping characteristics of adhd as autistics,
Speaker 3: you know, like you're quite universal when your advergence. But
Speaker 3: if you're dyslexic, people don't know about the sensory side
Speaker 3: of things. They experiencing so much of the world that's
Speaker 3: very you know, it's just the reading writing thing has dominated, hasn't.
Speaker 4: It always literacy? It's always the big focus, and because
Speaker 4: of that you miss out on all the other information.
Speaker 4: A lot of research that's done it has a very
Speaker 4: literacy focus, and therefore you get a very particular type
Speaker 4: of information about that. If you don't look broader into
Speaker 4: more aspects of what it means to be dyslexic, it
Speaker 4: also means too then oh, we can cure the dyslexics
Speaker 4: if we just get them to read. And that's not
Speaker 4: the case at all. And I've found that with when
Speaker 4: I've done focus group work. You know, people have come
Speaker 4: and they said, well, I want you to thought that
Speaker 4: was going to help them to cure their dyslexia. By
Speaker 4: the end of it, they're going, what am I.
Speaker 3: They cueuing for.
Speaker 4: I'm absolutely fine. What I've got is incredible and creative
Speaker 4: and of these incredible abilities and they just hadn't seen
Speaker 4: that before. It was through being with other people and
Speaker 4: exploring and discussing that they found actually their identity had
Speaker 4: an awful lot of value.
Speaker 3: Back with Dominic Hoey, I'm introducing him to Tilt Ruth's
Speaker 3: skateboard like foot fidget, I reckon. He might just find
Speaker 3: it helpful. You're probably going, what the hell is you're
Speaker 3: pulling out of this bag? M h Yeah, I'll explain it.
Speaker 3: So it's based on the fact that a lot of
Speaker 3: the time dyslexics need to move in order to think that.
Speaker 1: Do you you've the whole time? I just I just
Speaker 1: fidgeted like the whole time.
Speaker 3: Ah right, Okay, So this is called she. So she
Speaker 3: designed this, Ruth, doctor Ruth. I love her. So you
Speaker 3: put it like down there and then you put your
Speaker 3: either side and so say you're working at a Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you're doing that, do you reckon? And obviously this
Speaker 3: is a very short experiment for time purposes. Do you
Speaker 3: think that kind of thing might help you?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I like this, do you Why?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 2: I'm just always moving and it's like and it drives
Speaker 2: people crazy, you know, like because if they can see
Speaker 2: your hands and you're tapping.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I always rip up bits of paper and break pens
Speaker 2: and stuff. So I have to go to board meetings
Speaker 2: and everyone else is like, yeah, like neotypical, and then
Speaker 2: I'm just like the whole time, I just like and
Speaker 2: my mate is just like just sit still, just at
Speaker 2: least pretend you're listening, like, don't close your eyes.
Speaker 1: Like formality. Yeah, I find formality quite tricky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so do you know that that's helping your brain works?
Speaker 1: So funny, it's like I'm just like really relaxed.
Speaker 3: I don't have brought it.
Speaker 1: Out at the start. I don't know. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like magic.
Speaker 2: And all the songs we wrote and all that paint
Speaker 2: we spilled, and all the shows we played for free,
Speaker 2: all of this was for you, and all the day
Speaker 2: jobs you worked that no one else would do so
Speaker 2: we can follow our dreams at night like you told
Speaker 2: us to.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Next time on no such thing as normal.
Speaker 7: Like comedy has been so important to me. And the
Speaker 7: thing that I found was like I found the greatest
Speaker 7: success when I started to lean into more being myself
Speaker 7: on stage.
Speaker 3: People like they like that.
Speaker 7: They like when you are yourself and you're not trying
Speaker 7: to be anything else as much as you think, oh
Speaker 7: I'm not like everyone else, that it's actually a strength.
Speaker 7: And the people that love you, They're gonna really love you, yeah,
Speaker 7: and they're going to meet you in your own terms.
Speaker 3: No Such Thing as Normal is produced and presented by
Speaker 3: me Sonia Gray. The editor is Jamie Lee Smith. Arwen
Speaker 3: O'Connor and Mitchell Hawkes are executive producers. Production assistant is
Speaker 3: Beck's War. The series is brought to you by the
Speaker 3: New Zealand Herald and Team Uniform and it's made with
Speaker 3: the support of New Zealand on air. If you like
Speaker 3: this podcast, please rate and review it it helps people
Speaker 3: find it. New episodes of No Such Thing as Normal
Speaker 3: are available wherever you get your podcasts.