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Dyslexic Resilience in High

School in 21st Century


A talk in 4 parts
21 st Century . Resilience . High School . Dyslexia
Part I: 21 st Century
Industrial Economy to Connectivity Economy
How can
business be
competitive
with
Abundance

Asia

Automation.
Knowledge worker can now be replaced by computers, or, what they do is longer in demand or can be done cheaper overseas.
Asia
Abundance (consumers have too many choices, nothing is scarce), Asia (everything that can be outsourced, is) and Automation (computerization, robots,
technology, processes).
Creativity becomes the
competitive di!erence
Design
Story
Symphony (big picture thinking)
Empathy
Play Meaning
Dont wait to be
picked

Pick your self

CEO Global Entreprise

Just need to connect


to the internet.

New assistive technology
Apps, gadgets, text to speech, voice recognition and stuff we cant imagine yet!
Non Dyslexic Brain -Linear
Thinking
Precision
Accuracy
Efciency
Speed
Automacity
Reliability
Repetition
Focus
Detailed Expertise
Rules & procedures in expert and
efcient manner
Dyslexic Brain -Spatial
Thinkers
Gist & Essence of large complex
things
Recombine things in novel ways
Inventiveness
Multidimensionality of perspective
Ability to see new and unusual
connections
Mindfulness and intentionality in tasks
Can quickly nd best ts and ad hoc
problem solving
Spotting interesting associations and
relationships.
Partners that compliment
Creating Synergy.
Dyslexics, its time to step up!
Soviet space program propaganda poster. We will open the distant worlds!
Who you are becomes limited by your dreams, so make sure you have one and if the stuffing has been knocked out of your confidence then get it back,
its not too late!
Part II: High School
A is for Adolescence.
Separation -Individuation
Move away from family, and
become more private.
More focus on peer group.
Messy process.
Have to start to manage
feelings and anxiety by self.
Identity formation.
Whats under cooked
surfaces -thats ne.
Undercooked regulation of

ANXIETY

RELATIONSHIPS

IMAGE OF SELF

STATE OF MIND

EMOTIONS
Year 8 & 9 Worst
All over the place.
Frontal lobe not ash
(reasonable/ judgment bit)
Insecurity understandable
maxed out.
Peer group ratty too.
Everybody over it.
Make lots of mistakes.
Cultural exposure to drugs.
Roller Coaster
Things can massively and quickly
go off the rails
No experience of bad going to
good to refer to.
Risk needs to be taken seriously,
these kids are thin skinned and
reactive. SAFETY FIRST.
Parental role for support and
helping modulate some of the
extremes by helping reect.
Parents: dont give up!
6 months and everything has
settled!
Dyslexic Adolescence
Double whammy
Depend on parents for
assistance.
Depend on parents for advocacy.
Adolescent exhaustion +
dyslexic exhaustion.
Increased organisational
demands, not necessarily a
strong point.
Not getting kudos for their
shmartz -frustrating.
Call a spade a spade.
Whats a dyslexia problem
ideally school help with
this?
Whats adolescenceroll
with it.
Tuning into Teens (Program)
I still do this today
late for appointment, missed previous because misread SMS
lost, cant remember directions
iPhone not working
enter into tirade of shame and self deprivation (letting people down, stuffing up etc)
SHUT UP its just the dyslexia, youre not a bad person, just dyslexic, find a by pass.
Parents Dyslexic Baggage
will sneak up on you
signature primitive feeling
stone of shame and
despondency dropping to
bottom of deep deep ocean.
nd it hard to do homework
and see my kids struggle.
Undoing Dyslexia Scars
-Name it, bypass it.
I still do this today
late for appointment, missed previous
because misread SMS
lost, cant remember directions
iPhone not working
enter into tirade of shame and self
deprivation (letting people down,
stuffing up
School Work
Set dyslexic realistic goals for
high school
Be on guard for school
catastrophising
Monitor homework, ?effective
learning for a dyslexic.
Keep hope alive -open days,
work experience where young
person can see themselves
with an interesting future.
Foster extra curricular talents
VCE
Go for low hanging fruit, be strategic?
Part III: Resilience
The word on everyones lips
Ability to prevail
Humour
Warmth
Passion
Dream (not revenge fantasy)
GRIT & DETERMINATION
Easy to like
Relationships build bridges
Dyslexics great intuition and empathy should help
There curiosity and passion likewise.
Prevail over
what?
-The Knocks
One of the worst things dyslexia
does is rob a child of its self
esteem.
-Sally Shaywitz
Dyslexic Baggage -formed at
a tender age.
Day after day struggle
Day after day muddle
Day after day fear
Day after day shame
Day after day being shamed
Day after day frustration
Frank traumatic episodes
Secondary effect of
protective behaviours
Protective Behaviours
(sneaky feelings)
the feelings under the feeling
sad under mad
shame under anxiety
uncertainty under dis interest

tuning into kids program
Youth Justice Illumination
Name them and tend to
them.
re attribute some of these
beliefs to dyslexia and an out
of sync school system.
Encourage activities that are
easy and natural and be
specic about the good job
the child is doing. ie the
fragments that are coming
together.
Things that can take over
Anger
Anxiety
Withdrawl
Stuff that stop you getting
involved to over write the sad
story and write a new positive
one
they conrm the hopeless
story and reinforce these
feelings.
Writing a better story
1. Whats giving you the shits?
2. What does BETTER look like?
be specic
root it in daily events
grade it in small achievable
steps
identify gap and work on
that e.g. anger, anxiety.
Keep breaking it down until
its doable and scaffold.
Emotions
Name, including sneaky
emotion.
Understand why now?
Accept and Validate.
Better? How would you like to
manage that?
Challenge some of beliefs
Identify dyslexic component
Anxiety
Dont let it win
Rate it
Over 7 sensory calming
Challenging beliefs after that
Headspace App. 10 mins per
day.
Sensory Modulation
20 minutes is
magic number
once
physiology
activated.
4 x 5 min
activities.
Look at how are
you wired?
Push your comfort zone out
each day
Comfort Zone
Things are a bit scary but can
do with effort
Scary
No way never
Screaming down the street.
DONT LET THE AVOIDANCE
WIN -IT WILL GET
STRONGER!!!!!!!!!!!
Self Esteem
Body Pose
Guided visualisation
Headspace app to calm
3 Gratitudes
Create new stories
Part IV: Dyslexia
Primary School
Streamed classes . Mentally lazy. Day dreamer .
Secondary School
Disorganized . Simple mistakes. Needs to concentrate more. Drama . Thinking
out loud . Average HSC .
Tertiary Education
Ebbs and ows, book vs practical or higher order stuff . Failed med school and
topped year ?!
Life and Family
Creeping realisation of dyslexia . All rst degree relatives . Stigma still powerful .
Dyslexic Psychiatrist
Intuition & complexity . Cant remember names . Not taught about it . Not able to
protect kids from ignorant school approach . Excited by new research . Exhibition .
Dyslexia is becoming the new cool
DSM V . Christopher Pyne . Creative assets for changing times . Impressive role
call . Da Vinci . Einstein . etc
Sally Shaywitz
Overcoming Dyslexia
1. Dyslexia is
1. It's common (1/10),
especially with art,
engineering, innovation,
entrepreneurs, design,
construction.
Many people are undiagnosed.
It often presents with reading
and spelling difculties early
on in school that persist, but
there can be other stuff too.
Often this does not tally with
the child brightness.
2. Di!erent processing style
2. It is a different processing style with benets
(MIND) and challenges.
The challenges can include:
Speed of processing,
organising information,
sequencing, short term and working memory,
reading accuracy and automaticity and
uency in writing

It is persistent, despite being able to make
inroads with the challenges by:
developing alternative brain pathways (that
come online at later ages), and
rening by-pass skills.
3. Brain Di!erences
3. It seems to involve 4 different brain
structures:
Weaker phonological processing
structure in the left brain (spelling &
reading difculties, organizational
difculties, working memory difculties)
Weaker procedural memory from the
cerebellum,-process don't become
automatic easily eg handwriting, maths
processes.
Enriched right brain broad thinking
processing, favoring "out of the box"
creative thinking.
Micro circuitry in the cerebral cortex that
favors broad associations between
information, rather than narrow detailed
processing.
4. Dyslexics are a mixed
bunch.
Recognition when the
dyslexia is getting in the way
Phonological Sx
Auditory Sx
Cerebellar Sx
Visual Sx
5. MIND Strengths
4. MIND Strengths are a
mnemonic that summarize
common processing benets -
not all individuals with dyslexia
will have all of them, it is
helpful to identify which ones
are present. MIND strengths
often come with trade-offs:
MATERIAL Reasoning
INTERCONNECTED Reasoning
NARRATIVE Reasoning
DYNAMIC Reasoning
6. Material Reasoning
Material reasoning sees the world in
rich and detailed pictures that can
be manipulated in the 3-d.
These are the LEGO kids. They can
grow up to be architects, designers,
construction workers, inventors etc.
Sometimes it can be hard to explain
stuff because they are busy guring
out where to start with describing
the picture in their head.
Mmmh, where to start -Einstein
always complained of this.
The trade-off can be struggling with
coding and decoding in 2-D
7. Interconnected Reasoning
This is understanding the
world as broad web of
knowledge.
This knowledge is highly
detailed and nuanced.
It is broad and interrelated, so
spitting out facts or getting to
the point can be hard.
Getting the gist and using
context to understand a big
complex story is easy.
8. Narrative Reasoning
This is where the world is
understood as detailed, multi-
sensory stories.
The stories are interesting and have
meaning.
Lists of facts are disorienting and
hard to remember.
The stories of understanding can be
recombined into new ones and this
is where the creativity and
inventiveness gets fun as well as
being a deep intellectual and
investigative process.
Daydreaming can be very important
work after all!
9. Dynamic Reasoning
This takes the Material
Reasoning and, with partial
information, can put it in a ight
simulator and imagine what will
happen next. All the information
rich visual pictures can be put
through their paces to come up
with thought experiments or new
situations in a very sophisticated
way.
If Narrative Reasoning was the
Art, this is the Science or
predictive imagination.
This is how new stuff gets
thought off!
10. Multi Sensory & Experiential Learners
Field Research . Jack Horner Dinosaur Hunter
Learning Hooks
Info often in wrong data format ie for
linear thinkers not spatial thinkers
Start with the end in mind
Convert the data set by asking
questions.
Find novel dyslexic learning
approaches eg study groups, asking
questions to each other, practice
how info is to be downloaded to
exams
Us as much assistive technology as
you can
harness your dyslexic powers
So remember
Know your dyslexic di"culties
Be clear on your dyslexic strengths
Kick the shame game -start with your self.
Rewrite a great dyslexic story for yourself.
(get some advocacy)
Be strategic about how you learn and negotiate
high school
It WILL get better.
Take care of yourself while you are guring out
the high school thing
Then go out and kick some
serious BUTT
Thank you ;)

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