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Neurodivergent Mates
“Neurodivergent Mates is a podcast delving into Neurodiversity and Mental Health, hosted by neurodivergent professional – Will, the ADHD and Dyslexic host. Will candidly shares his personal experiences, discussing topics like relationships, dating, addiction, trauma, sex, education, careers, parenting, the workplace, and more.”
Neurodivergent Mates
The Unique World of Twice-Exceptional (2e) Individuals.- Dr Matt Zakreski
Join us on Neurodivergent Mates as we welcome Dr. Matt Zakreski, a psychologist specializing in neurodiversity, to explore the unique world of twice-exceptional (2e) individuals.
Ever wondered what it means to be “twice-exceptional”? Dr. Matt breaks down how someone can be both gifted and face challenges, the impact of 2e on self-esteem, and the unique hurdles 2e students encounter in school. We’ll also dive into ways schools and workplaces can better support 2e individuals.
Tune in to hear Dr. Matt’s expert insights on maximizing the potential of neurodivergent minds!
Questions
- Tell us a bit about yourself
- Tell us a bit about your work
- What does “twice-exceptional” mean?
- How can someone be gifted and have challenges?
- What issues do 2e students face in school?
- What effect does being 2e have on self-esteem?
- What could schools and workplaces do to better support 2e individuals?
- Where can people connect with your work
All episodes are brought to you by neurodiversityacademy.com
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#NeurodivergentMates #TwiceExceptional #2e #GiftedAndChallenged #Neurodiversity #Inclusion
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You're listening to NeuroDivergent Mates. Hello and welcome to NeuroDivergent Mates. I'm your host, will Wheeler Wheeler, and I gotta say I do have a massive cold. I'm getting over, so I apologize for my husky voice, but today we've got an awesome return of an awesome guest, dr Matt. How's it going, my friend?
Speaker 2:Well, will, I'm doing a little bit better than you are, that's for sure, but it, you know, you with a cold is better than most people fully healthy. So you know what?
Speaker 1:Let's ride with it yeah, totally, my friend, totally, totally. And, like I was saying to you before we started, it sounds a lot worse than what it actually is. So I don't know, I don't know. But, like you know, when you've had like a head cold and it's like you've got sinuses and stuff like that, and then it moves down, all my head now feels great, it's just my throat, it doesn't hurt or anything, it's just husky and all of that.
Speaker 2:My wife said it was sexy, so maybe I should keep the voice right. Yeah, you know, every so often I'll I'll have a cold. When I'm on a podcast and I'll listen to it, I'll be like, oh, I sound like I'm in a deeper register yeah, yeah, yeah right, I'm like it's not the worst world, not the worst thing in the world. You know you don't sound like you're dying, so you know it's, it's a well, the thing is like I don't know about you.
Speaker 1:So this really came on because I was teaching for a day, so my my voice wasn't really good and then I had to teach for a whole day. Public speaking do you get like that a lot, like you'll get off stage. You know like, oh my god, like I've just been speaking for the whole day and my throat is just like I put it through, a cheese grater type of thing dude, when I'm on the road and you know I've had good fortune to uh, be on the road a lot.
Speaker 2:This fall I mean my, my throat is my instrument. So I'm like carrying like big bags of cough drops Like I'm always having, like I only drink iced coffee I don't drink hot coffee on the road, Like I'm keeping the instrument Right. And you know, I remember I was, I was at a conference and as we were wrapping up night one and I was going on first thing in the morning, the conference organizer was like, ah, do a shot with me. And I was like, ah, I really shouldn't. I first thing in the morning the conference organizer was like do a shot with me. I was like I really shouldn't, I'm working in the morning. He's like come on. I was like we'll do something nice, like a nice bourbon or something. I got over there and there was tequila. It was like rack shelf tequila. I was like, oh, I'm going to hate this. It wasn't the alcohol, it was only an ounce of alcohol, but like I just had to burn. And in the morning, I was like I'm sick.
Speaker 2:Sounded like a zombie, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's the thing right. Like imagine if you were like a singer and you get a cold. You can see why, like they've got to cancel shows and then you're letting down a whole stadium of people down.
Speaker 2:You just can't sing my best friend in college. He was a very good singer. He's still a very good singer. But yeah, I mean it's so funny because it's college and you're partying, you're doing all these things, but you could always tell when he would have a show coming up. He'd be like guys, I can't drink tonight. Like, come on, man. He'd be like guys, I can't drink tonight. I've got a show in the morning and he would show up at the. He would sometimes go to the party but he just wouldn't drink, he would just have some water. And I mean, like I always appreciated that dedication because, like I am not that disciplined of a human being man, I am like, ah, damn the torpedoes, we'll figure it out tomorrow, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually, you know what, right, like, I spoke at a conference a few weeks ago now and I did have a few drinks the night before. Yeah, I don't know if I'll ever do that one again. A few drinks is okay, but a little bit over just probably not the best. When you're speaking the next day, if that makes sense, I'd say so. Right, you know, but anyway, anyway, let's move on. So today, what we're going to be covering is the unique world of twice exceptional, 2e individuals, and when I thought man, we've got to get dr matt back on this was the first thing that come to mind. My friend, um, you know, I think you know, I'm twice exceptional. You're twice exceptional, I'm pretty sure. Correct, yes, sir. So I thought this would be the perfect time to pull out all the guns and talk about this, but what we might do just before we do get started, I'll just do a little bit of housekeeping. So, just for any new listeners out there, if you haven't already done so, please subscribe, like and follow to all of our social media pages. We're available on TikTok, facebook, instagram, x, twitch, YouTube, linkedin, and if you haven't already done so, please go to wherever you listen to your podcasts and subscribe to us, comment, give us a thumbs up. It really helps with the algorithm. Also, check out our sponsor, neurodiversity Academy. You can check us out at neurodiversityacademycom.
Speaker 1:I think this next part's funny Not really funny, but warning some discussions may be triggering. If you need help, please reach out to a loved one or call emergency services. We are not doctors. The thing is you are a doctor. We have a doctor here today. That's why I thought it was funny. This is a space for sharing experiences and strategies. Also, too, if you've got any questions, please put it into the live chat. Wherever you're listening to us through a live stream, say through our social media platforms, and if it's something we think would be great to share, we'll put it onto the podcast, so you know what we might do. Dr Matt, you know there could be some new listeners who maybe have never listened to you before or know much about you.
Speaker 2:Please share a little bit about yourself yeah, so I'm a clinical psychologist and a professional speaker who works with primarily with neurodivergent kids and um, you know and adults to help them get their needs met. And I do this work because I am a twice exceptional person myself. I am gifted in ADHD and you know. So when I was little, I really was like I want to work with people like me, I want to help people whose brains work like my brain and you know, and I've built sort of this whole career around this and it's, it's been a great ride ride, I mean. They're as we learn more about these brains and like the messaging comes out more online, what you're seeing is more and more people leaning into like, oh, the differences in my brain matter and I can use the understanding of those differences to get my knees met at school, at work, with my friends, with my loved ones, and it really goes a long way to making your life better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy. Yeah it's, I think. You know, for me, when I was growing up, you know, twice exceptional just wasn't a term that was really used. You know when do you reckon that really came into place, that term? Out of curiosity?
Speaker 2:So it's been in the field, it's been in the journals and the articles for 40, 50 years at this point, but it really didn't make its way into like more common understanding until the 2000s. And so there are still some mental health professionals and administrators out there who are going to say, like a kid can't be gifted and autistic, they can't be both Like. No, they not only can, many of them are.
Speaker 1:What type of people are saying that, bud? Because if you fully are in the neurodiversity field and this is just me guessing this right wouldn't you be like, well, no, that's wrong.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's the thing. Imagine, I think about one particular school psychologist that I've crossed swords with a few times. You know, this is a guy who got his job in the 70s and it rode his out. I mean like, yes, we have continuing education obligations, but it's easy enough to cherry pick what you want to learn and not see broader sea changes in the field and not see broader sea changes in the field. And and also, a lot of it stems from the fact that we've tried to cram psychology through the medical model.
Speaker 2:Right, so you have a cold. That is a thing that we can diagnose. It's a thing I can point to and be like ha ha, it's a cold If you break your leg, if you sprain your elbow. Those are things we can image. See, they're concrete, they're discrete things.
Speaker 2:Mental health and neurodivergence they're messier right. Like you're someone who's depressed, you can also have anxiety. You can also have ADHD. Those things may have a lot to do with each other. They may have nothing to do with each other, but our brains are almost like a quantum state Things exist and not exist and work in very weird relationships to each other, and these are the sort of things that the medical model fails to grasp. So you're seeing ever so slowly psychology shifting to be a little bit more holistic view of how humans are, and I think that's going to help us start to treat things as more broad topics like neurodivergent, without getting so hung up on what the neurodivergent is, Whereas that might work in the medical model, Because if they said you have cancer, your first question is going to be where's the cancer? I need to do this so I can do something about it, like I know my. You've got cancer. Great, great.
Speaker 1:No more words, please, right you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but. But so what I'm sort of thinking is, if you're talking about that gentleman who got his started in the 70s, would it be hard for someone like that you know, like the term, you can't teach an old dog new tricks you? Is it sort of like that type of thing that they're just not open to change or realizing that, oh my god, what I've been talking about for all these years, that doesn't't really apply now.
Speaker 2:Well, probably the best way to think about it right now is that there's a lot of people who are leaning into the concept of being AUDHD. Right so, the AU is autism and then ADHD. Right so, because many years we thought you couldn't be autistic and ADHD. Right, like one is, it overwhelms the other. Now we know a lot more nuanced about how the prefrontal cortex works and how these systems of functioning in the brain work. As our, as our, as our understanding of the brain gets more nuanced, we can see the different pathways these things take, and I think that's why we can have these conversations now that we couldn't have 20 years ago, because we just know so much more and, at the same time, know so comparably very little about the brand. But we're moving in a direction where you're seeing more people really embrace this ADHD model Like rock on do the thing right, because, as I'm fond of saying in life, it is better to know that you're a zebra, not a weird horse.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people out there who think they're weird horses, right? They're thinking like oh, like, every other horse can do these things. Why can't I do that thing? It's because perhaps, my friend, you were a zebra the whole time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, interesting. Look, moving on from that, what does twice exceptional mean? You know, I know you and I know this, but like there could be a lot of listeners who are like what's this term? And I know with a lot of. So with neurodiversity Academy, we're doing a lot of work in vocational education and we're looking to go into higher education and I think it's really important to be able to learn about those types of learners, because I know when I was younger, it was very difficult for me because people just didn't understand that I was incredibly intelligent but struggled with so many other things. So you're already put into the hard basket a lot of the time, where it's like what the hell is going on. So could you please explain it in maybe a little bit more detail?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so twice exceptional is when you have a gifted level IQ and some sort of secondary or other learning difference so another neurodivergence and that those are usually ADHD, autism and specific learning disabilities like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia or dyspraxia. Now there are other things that are under that umbrella, but those are sort of the big six. Those are the ones we talk about a lot, and what that tells us is that gifted as a neurodivergence already comes with strengths and weaknesses, peaks and valleys higher the highs and the lower the lows, right. And what I like to tell people is that there are, sort of unofficially, three different kinds of twice exceptional kids. There's the kind of twice exceptional like me, when I was a kid where I was gifted in second grade and no one ever paid attention to the fact that I always forgot that there was tests. My backpack looked like a bomb, went off, right. I always forgot the homework but did it in three minutes before class and got an A on it right. So my strengths outweighed, like overshadowed, my weaknesses.
Speaker 2:It wasn't until school got harder than I was smart that people were like oh my gosh, you totally have ADHD. I'm like, I totally do. And then there's more which sort of sounds like your experience, where they're focusing more on the deficits, the like. This is a problem kid. This kid can't sit still, this kid can't pay attention, this kid can't read right, and they're so busy focusing on what you can't do that they, they have a tough. They don't ever stop to think what could you do and what are the? What skills you have, you know. So if we don't ever, if if a kid shows up and they can't read and that's all we focus on, we may never learn that they're great problem solvers or great writers or great mathematicians.
Speaker 1:You're already put in the too hard basket, yeah, and then that's all you see. Well, yeah, well, yeah Well. I remember, if I think back to school, it was very confusing because I was failing big time with a lot of the main subjects. So math's, I remember I was incredibly great at sport and I think once I got into the working world that was where my strengths really started to shine.
Speaker 1:But, you know, during that time through school it was incredibly difficult and, um, it caused a lot of, I suppose, mental harm, if that's the word I'm looking for. Uh, because you're you really doubt yourself. So, and and and it's actually interesting because I have connected with a lot of people I used to go to school with and, um, I often, you know, they know a lot of the work I'm doing and withdiversity, all of that, and they're like, oh, I'm neurodivergent as well. I'm like wow, I didn't even know that. And I said, oh, and I talked to them and I talked to them about like how I had no confidence and I really had a bad time during school, my mental health was bad, and they're like what? I didn't think that at all, I just saw you as the cool popular kid and I'm thinking I'm the, I was the cool popular kid I.
Speaker 1:I just didn't see that because all of these other things were going on in my head which were taking me away from what everyone else was perceiving me as, which was just blows my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean that's just thank you for sharing that right, because our perceptions of ourselves can be so discordant with how the world sees us, in a positive way or a negative way. Right, and and let me, before we dive deeper into that, let me talk about the third kinds of twice exceptional kid. So you could imagine, right, that if you were really good at some things, right, like, let's say, in school you take tests and do papers really well, so you're getting good marks on all those things, but you don't pay attention in class, you don't participate, you don't always do your homework, so those things, but you don't pay attention in class, you don't participate, you don't always do your homework, so those things all come out as zeros. So if we, if we throw all those terms together and we weight them appropriately, what you're going to end up with is an average score, right. So in the field this is called the gifted C, because in the US we use the letters grade system, right. So you know. So it's this idea that if you look at a kid's grades at the end of the year and it's all average, average, average, average, average, average your brain automatically defaults to that kid is just average.
Speaker 2:But a lot of times you'll have a kid who's high highs and low lows cancel each other out, so they end up in the middle. And you, you'll have a kid who's high highs and low lows cancel each other out, so they end up in the middle. And you know, you think about a, you know, think about your favorite. You know your favorite. Um, you know, uzzy rules football team. Like there are some great teams, there are some terrible teams and there are some teams that have great players and lousy players, so they end up in the middle of the pack. Right, it doesn't change the fact that they have great players but lousy players, so they end up in the middle of the pack. Right, it doesn't change the fact that they have great players. But if all you did was look at the standings and then you're like oh, you know the, uh, you know the rabidos are just an average regular team, when they actually might be much, the real story might be much more nuanced than that yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1:Um. So you know, moving on from that, sorry, how can someone be gifted and have challenges? And I know you sort of said a little bit about that and you know, and I think maybe some people, and I think, like you were saying before, like it can sort of cancel things out, like not cancel, I don't know if that's the right word, but like, sometimes our strengths are what's the word I'm looking for, and maybe when I was in school, maybe people didn't realise I was struggling so hard because maybe my strengths was socialising and being out there and people were just seeing that and not seeing that I was really struggling there. So how can someone be both gifted and have challenges?
Speaker 2:So this gets into a lot of the neuroscience of being neurodivergent, right. So if you're a neurotypical person, right, and 80% of people are neurotypical, that means that those people's brains work basically as we expect them to work, right? 20% of us are neurodivergent, right, and giftedness is a part of that. Twice exceptional is a part of that. When you're neurodivergent, you develop asynchronously, you go out of sync. So if you imagine that there are five developmental spheres, right, intellectual, academic, social, emotional and physical. Now for most people each one of those five get 20%. Right, it's an equal distribution. When you're neurodivergent, that process becomes disrupted. So you might get intellectual and academic. They each get 30%, not 20%. And since there's a finite amount of energy, there's that the rest of that 40% now split amongst three things. So you see kids with weaker social, emotional and physical skills. We could also infer that, right, you were a kid who was great at sport, so maybe you got 25% or 30% in that area and maybe it dragged you down a little bit. Academically, but not intellectually right, because we know you're a very smart human, right, but we all know academics doing school is a skill Not everybody. Not intellectually right, because we know you're a very smart human right. But we all know academics, doing school, is a skill. Not everybody gets that right. So what we see is that the more disrupted this developmental path becomes, there are essentially like pockets or holes that occur in somebody's developmental path. So you might have a kid.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about a young woman I work with. She was diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia, so you know physical disability in writing and reading. She's also gifted and people would say, oh well, she's probably gifted in like nonverbal learning, right? Like she's probably a good STEM student. She had a gifted verbal IQ. How could she do that? Because when she answered the questions verbally she had great hearing, right. So I asked her like I won't use her real name, becca, like Becca, what does the word arrogant mean? And she would pop that definition out, right. But in school it would be the word arrogant would be on a worksheet and she would have to read that word and then write the definition. Yeah, couldn't do, right.
Speaker 2:So what we gave this kid was a voice to text system and told her to write a story. And she's like I can't write. I'm like, right. So how about this? Tell me a story and I'm telling you the. The story that exploded out of her was one of the best things I've ever read from any author of any age.
Speaker 2:And just sitting there and watching this girl who was so convinced that she was less smart, less good because of her learning differences she was their classic type two kid. No one would have ever thought to look for those strengths. We were in a position to do so because of the kind of school I met her at and you know, I know now that she's doing amazing work in the spaces she's in as a creative type person, and that's you know, when you think about the opportunities we have to unlock the talents in people. I mean that's why we all do what we do right, that's why you do what you do and I do what I do. All the teachers and professionals who listen to this podcast like we're trying to find that spark in those kids.
Speaker 1:So would you say that technology has really helped that person that you're speaking about?
Speaker 2:I mean technology can be one of the biggest tools to help kids overcome the challenges that come with being neurodivergent.
Speaker 1:Because I've got to admit that technology has changed my life to unbelievable. I just feel like I'm ahead of everyone else now, almost um not by the technology, because what I have always wanted to get out of my head, I'm now able to utilize technology to be able to help me get that out there where in the past it's put me. It's been a real challenge to go. How do I get this onto paper? You know, let's say AI has been great for me. I don't know how it is for everyone else, but for me it's been great because a lot of the time and you've probably come across this a lot just starting something is incredibly hard. What does that need to look like? How do I start? Now I can just go to chat GPT and say, look, I'm creating this. What do I need to create? Where do I start? And then it's just like the boom gates open, the water just comes flushing out. If that makes sense, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I thinking about a, an adult I work with, actually, who he has a lot of like, perfectionistic tendencies, a lot of anxiety, so what? What we do for him is, well, I was like, listen, when you need to get a rough draft, use chat gpt to give you a rough draft. Then you go through and edit what ChatGPT has to say and you do it in your voice and you put your knowledge in there. And what he's found is that ChatGPT raises the floor and then he can raise the ceiling Right, and but he has such a tough time getting started that he might never write the copy if he has to do it himself, but say like all right, chat gpt do this thing. And then he goes and gets a coffee and he comes back and there's a halfway decent, you know page and a half on whatever he needs to talk about getting ideas right. And then he goes like, oh, that's good, that's good, I would change that this. Oh, we need to expand on this point.
Speaker 2:And he's you know, he's carrying all this secret shame. And I was like well, what if he told your boss? He's like well, then I would get fired immediately. I'm like, would you, because I got to tell you I would bet you a steak dinner that you're not the only person at your job who's using chat GPT. So he did sort of mention that to his boss's boss, like, oh yeah, we all use it. Just don't ever submit something that's chat gpt and claim that it's you and his wife likes that world right. So all of a sudden his life's gotten easier and more manageable and he hasn't had to change right. He didn't have to fix his brain. He's using tools in a way that allows him to play to his strengths and everybody's happier for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's awesome. I love the period and it's probably only going to get better that I'm like, oh my God, I am able to get these things done, and then people are so my God, I am able to get these things done, and then people are so. For example, I developed a professional development course the other day. Now, I've probably always been able to do that, but you know, a lot of the time I've had self-doubt Because you know I haven't worked in that field before of like structural design, in learning and all of that.
Speaker 1:But being able to sit down with ChatGPT and just go, look, where do I start, what do I need? It would spit me out stuff and I'd be like I don't like that. You know what I mean and build off from it. I know exactly what I've put in there. I haven't. You know it's not. Some people may see that using chat GPT might be classed as cheating, but you know, for me it's not cheating at all. It's like going okay, that's good, that sucks, get rid of that, we don't need all of that. And I've just been able to build off from that, if that makes sense I mean absolutely, and in its own way.
Speaker 2:It's the, it's the logical evolution of. People used to hate computers because they thought that it made typing irrelevant. People used to hate word processing programs. They're like well, aren't going to learn how to handwrite. And it's just like guys, can we all just get off our high horses for a second here? Right, there's always going to be a need to handwrite, just like there's always going to be a need to create your own content. But when we can work smarter, not harder, work smarter, not harder. You know, like, if I'm cooking dinner for my family and I forget to defrost the chicken, I don't not cook dinner for my family because I didn't put this chicken in. I put it in the microwave and then the microwave defrosted for me. Then I cook the chicken. I mean it's. You know, I don't go in the backyard and kill a bird and break it down myself because we don't have chickens and frankly, that creeps me out. Man, I wouldn't want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, like so do you live in like a suburban area? Yes, so I think your neighbors might be a little bit like oh my god, dr matt's really loose with a sharp knife and like in blood.
Speaker 2:You know that's, that's, that's how you make bad relations with the neighbors. You know, totally it's. So. It's the sort of thing like I remember. I remember reading a book about technology in the classroom a few years ago and it bothered me because they were like well, kids today can't read maps, they can only use the gps. And I'm like, do you well, do you remember using maps? You have to fold them, and it was like always the worst fold in human using maps. You have to fold them and it was like always the worst fold in human history. And then you have to figure out where you are and like, yeah, you're like okay, so Uluru is there. Yeah, who is sitting in cans? So I think something has gone wrong and like, objectively speaking, gpss are a better system than maps.
Speaker 1:But they still have their flaws.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that because there is no perfect system. Five years from now, when there's a better thing than GPS, whatever that might be, there are going to be people like ah, you remember the good old days of.
Speaker 2:GPS, yeah, jeez, like, let's all just calm down a second. And it is helpful to be able to read a map. If your GPS goes out, like if you're on walkabout and you need to find a way home, gps isn't going to help you, but knowing how to read a map could. So it's not either, or it's what's the best tool for this job right. Best tool for this job right. And so much of taking the ideas of neurodivergent education right and expanding them to society. This is what we call universal design, because the best practices for neurodivergent kiddos are just the best practices, full stop, right, you can. If a kid is really good at something, we want to give them those skills and give them as much exposure as we can and then teach them the other things they need to know along the way. Every person on planet Earth would benefit from that kind of model, whether that's at school or at work.
Speaker 1:It's almost like a calculator, right? Do you know what I mean? Like before, calculators were a thing you had to do that in your head or on a piece of paper, right? Then you were given a calculator in school. You know how's that not different to utilizing this technology?
Speaker 2:Correct Right. I mean, and there are times I remember being in school, teachers were like you're not always going to have a calculator with you First off, yes, I do.
Speaker 1:Is that a calculator? Or is that your phone? My phone, right. I suppose, it is a calculator. I was going to say you've got an old school calculator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at all times Will.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Here's my slide rule. Here's my protractor yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's also. You know, I do a lot of IQ testing as part of my job, right? And when we're diagnosing kids as gifted or twice exceptional, you've got to do the testing. When I'm running those numbers, I don't do the math in my head I could I'm very good at mental math but I use a calculator because the calculator is smarter than me. The calculator is not going to drop a one or forget to carry the negative sign. The calculator is going to do the job and, frankly, do it faster than me because I use a calculator. Just like I don't think you're worse at writing or social media or whatever you use chat GBT for if you're using that tool, right, Because you know a tool matters, but the user matters more. Right, it's not the it's, you know, it's not the plane, it's the pilot, right, and that matters.
Speaker 1:Do you know what right, like, I was speaking to a doctor who's doing a lot of research in, you know, supporting students who are struggling in higher education, vocational education. She's also looking at like online education, which is huge, and we were talking about like the use of technology to be able to support neurodivergent students and a big thing, especially in the vocational and higher education space. We are seeing a lot of people using ChatGPT to cheat, if that makes sense, and I spoke to her about this and I said what are your thoughts that you know chat GPT is? You know people are using it to cheat and she goes look, the thing is, cheating has always been there. We're just in a different realm of cheating now. Like before, say, chat GPT would copy, uh, um, someone else's assignment or um. They would just copy and paste straight from google into um, their document or whatever thing like that. And it's like this is just the new way of um of cheating.
Speaker 1:But, like you were saying before, it does come down to the individual. What's the individual going to take away if they're just putting in something that they've copied or whatever they haven't been a part of creating? And I think for me, when I create something like a course or whatever like that. I don't just copy and paste and put it in and not know what I've put in there. I know exactly what I've put in because a lot of the time I've gone that is crap. I need something. That's more what I'm looking for. If that makes sense, right.
Speaker 2:And I mean that's exactly it. And this society always pushes back on change, right, because change is hard and it's easy. Well, kids will use it to cheat. You're right. You know what else kids used to cheat their phones, their laptops and before that, their buddies. And before that, running off copies of the exam and slipping them into somebody's notebook right, and I'm sure plato and aristotle had somebody was like carving out, like chiseled things on the side, like yeah, I got this right, like yeah, yeah, no, so the.
Speaker 2:And I actually think that's why we're seeing increased shift to creative outlets and processes and project-based learning, because there are things that not only resist cheating but force the kind of engagement that makes you not want to cheat in the first place. If I have to take a chapter test with 25 questions from a book I didn't read, it is a lot easier to be like chat to GPT tell me the summary of that book and then take my chances based on the summary of the book. But if it's like, here are the ideas of that book and then take my chances based on the summary of the book. But if it's like here are the ideas of the book 1984, now I want you to put that, tell me what that would look like in minecraft. Or tell me what that would look like in at a surfing competition. Or tell me what that would look like in a french restaurant. Like we're're sending things out in the lens of the kid's interest and forcing them to not only engage with the information but engage in the way that you can't cheat that you you have. You know, if you're building something, making something, it is much harder to cut those corners and what you're going to find is kids are going to build more resilience, they're going to trust the process more and they're not going to want to cheat as much.
Speaker 2:Because that's the kind of thing where my grandfather always said this that hard work is its own reward. The thing he missed was hard work. That means something is its own reward. Right, I could go ask you to go mow your backyard by by hand. Will? Right, go get some scissors and they go that's hard Considering I live in an apartment that would be incredibly hard.
Speaker 2:Do it anyway, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can do it anyway. My neighbors might think I'm crazy, but I'll give it a go um do love.
Speaker 2:I'd be like what's he doing?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. But no, look, moving on from that, like so what issues do 2e students face in school? And I've sort of named a few of them there, but what specifically would they maybe come against? A lot of the time, I know misunderstanding was a big one for me misunderstanding.
Speaker 2:And that asynchrony is another big thing because we tend to treat kids at the highest level of their functioning right. So if you have a 10 year old who's intellectually 16 and talks and acts like a 16 year old, you're going to start recalibrating your mental expectations of that kid. That, oh, they're 16. They're there, they're an adult, right. But then they do something that a 10 year old does pick their nose or make a fart noise in class or say girls are gross or whatever 10 year olds do, right. Then you'd be like you're that much more disappointed because you're not grading them as a 10 year old, you're grading them as a 16 year old, right. And so when I talk to parents and teachers, like when you've got a neurodivergent kid, the first thing you got to do is stop and remind yourself how old is this kid Not how old do they act or how old do they seem, but how old they are, because that's going to make much more realistic expectations, which are going to make your interventions much more reasonable. Let's take that a step further and talk about one of the other ways they struggle through. That asynchrony is that kids don't necessarily have the social and emotional skills to manage the challenges we're handling, handing them right. So, you know, to our good friend Photon John, right? You know, a very common intervention for musically gifted kids is to move them up to the next school's band. So if you're a middle school student, we would move you up to the high school. Right, and this kid can absolutely do the music right. If it's the flute or the drums or the saxophone they can do it. But can they handle being in a room with a bunch of high school kids who are talking about high school things? Right? Can they create relationships? Can they emotionally handle the stress and the higher stakes?
Speaker 2:You know one of the kids I work with. He was just at his first marching band competition and he had a panic attack because he's like I'm the littlest and youngest person here and he's like, pound for pound, I might be the best musician on the field but I'm shrimp compared to these giant hulking kids, and you know. So he and I were on the phone, I helped him calm down and we talked about setting expectations. But it's like we've got to be very nuanced and very intentional with how we put in interventions for kids like this, because the reality is that that asynchrony model says a kid who's 10 years old but can operate like a 16-year-old on their best but operates like a six-year-old at their worst. All parts of that kid have to exist if we're going to come up with a plan that serves them. So it means we've got to really be thoughtful in how we attach these things.
Speaker 1:See, if I think back to when I was in school, I would always be in arguments with my teachers or I'd tell them to you know, go F off. Or you know what I mean. Because a lot of the time and I look back at it now and I'm like, oh my God, I was so ADHD. They had no idea that I was ADHD, and a lot of the things that were getting under their skin I had no idea about and I felt like they were attacking me and probably because I didn't have, you know, the I suppose, the maturity to be able to go oh, you know, approach it properly. I wouldn't do that now, of course, I would just lose it at the teachers. So it's a common thing I found. Yeah, you know, but would you find that would be something that some TUI students may struggle with as well, because they're not really comprehending what the teacher sort of understands about them.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And let's throw another layer on that, because if you don't understand yourself, it's awfully hard to accept somebody else understanding you or misunderstanding you. Right, and that's a thing that when we see. That these kids, you know, just go back to the words we used before. They're walking around thinking they're weird horses and they don't want to be a weird horse, but they don't know they can be a zebra. They don't know what that looks like, so there's an angst to what that is and what that feels like, well, that was probably me.
Speaker 1:Remember. I spoke about, like, how I was in school and I'm thinking, man, I'm not learning that I was the cool popular kid. I was definitely thinking I was the weird horse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and everyone's like that's the coolest zebra I've ever met. Oh my God, that's right. I guess, to make this more Aussie, we could, like a lot of people think they're kangaroos, but they're really wallabies.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Yes, true, true, true, they're smaller.
Speaker 2:Right, and not all dogs are dingoes, something like that. We'll figure it out, but the idea here is that you can't name it to tame it if you don't know what it is you're trying to name, right. So that's why podcasts like this are so important, because there are going to be people out there who are hearing this and thinking, holy shit, they're talking about me. I didn't know that this word existed for somebody like me. You know, and you know I have a.
Speaker 2:I have a client I work with, who's you know, through our the course of the work we've done for many years. He was like so, dr Matt, like, and so there's a big overlap between the LGBTQ community and the neurodivergent community. There's a lot of overlap there. Yeah, totally Right. And he's a very neurodivergent kid. He's like Dr Matt, I got to tell you you, I, I don't it seems like everybody else has crushes on people and like, gets sexually attracted to people.
Speaker 2:It's always like oh, they're so hot and they're so hot and they're so hot and they're like I don't feel those ways like, and he's like I don't think it's that I don't like girls, that I like boys, I just don't like anybody. And he's like is this depression. Is there something wrong with me? And I, you know, let him talk for a while. I was like buddy, have you ever heard of the term asexual? And he's like I've heard of that term and I'm like so here's what asexual means, right? And some people abbreviate it as ace. So I, you know, here's an ace community near you. And he went to a, a meeting, and he's like these are my people. I didn't know that that was an option. I didn't know that was a term you want to say. You can't name entertainment if you don't know what you're trying to name now he's a proud asexual student.
Speaker 2:He has the asexual flag in his dorm, right and and, and. Of course, like, people will come in and be like oh, what flag is that? Because you know he is not caucasian, let's say and people will come in and be like oh man, is that your home country?
Speaker 1:that's hilarious. Oh my god, is that your?
Speaker 2:why don't you mess with people? Be like ah yes, that's the country I'm from. What country do you think I'm from?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, true, true, true. But look, you know, what effect does that bring? Oh sorry, what effect does being 2E have on self-esteem? So you know, we've just spoken about like people not understanding certain things about themselves and all of that. And I can tell you right now that for me, especially leaving high school, my self-esteem was right down. That was where I started to get into drugs, alcohol, because that was what really. It almost killed the pain, if that makes sense. You know, and I think this, and you know it's interesting. Sometimes I think if I had known earlier, would my life have been different or would I have still? And look, I think sometimes too that what I did experience, maybe that did contribute to who I am today, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And I mean I'll tell you like one of the things that hurts twice exceptional kids in particular as compared to gifted kids is there's this perception that gifted kids are good kids, right, and so a gifted kid would never smoke marijuana. A gifted kid would never go and drink alcohol, right. And then, like I think about myself in high school and I was smoking a lot of marijuana and nobody knew because I had to get out of my head, right, like it was a 38-piece orchestra up here and everybody else has got like the clapping monkey and I'm like, and it's like it was exhausting, right.
Speaker 2:And so if you don't understand the full impact of being neurodivergent on trying to live in the world, then you would never think that a gifted or neurodivergent kid would would turn to drugs or alcohol. But a lot of the kids that I talk to who do use those substances say, for the same reasons, like I want to get out of my head, I want to not feel this way for a little while and I know it's not the best thing in the world for me, right. But also like, what other options do I have? Because I don't know if you've seen the world recently, dr matt, but holy shit, and and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you, there are reasons to want to get out of your head.
Speaker 1:And considering what's just happened in your country, it's going to get a hell of a lot more interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And interesting is a very kind word for what I would rather say, which we would probably have to bleep out, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's fun. It might create you some more business, Dr Matt.
Speaker 2:I'm never going to be out of work, but, yes, things are very like a lot of clients that have come out of the woodwork this week. I'm like, come on in, come on in, it's you know, it's like. It's like the guy who, like, builds the life raft if there might be a flood, and then everyone's like, oh my God, the videos are fine. Like, go and get on the raft. I told you, I told you Right, right, so, yeah, you right at the back, right so yeah, I mean, you know it.
Speaker 2:Really it's hard to be out there, and one of the things that makes it harder for people like us is that the world is not built for people like us. Right, 80 of people are neurotypical, so they built the world for them and they didn't do it intentionally to hurt us. Right, there was no mal intent, ill intent there, but the reality is the world doesn't work for people like us. It's not meant to work for people like us. So we have to find a way to build our own skills to navigate those worlds. That doesn't involve selling ourselves out, right, and that's honestly why I wrote my book.
Speaker 2:Like the whole idea is crack, like the subtitle is cracking the code of a world not built for you, because I don't want you will to ever not be well right. I love your gifted adhd dyslexic like it's. It's that's what makes you so you know a fun podcast host and frankly, it makes you my friend. Right, yeah, yeah, but there are going to be times like you know a fun podcast host and, frankly, he makes you my friend Right, yeah, yeah, but there are going to be times, like you know, if you meet with the Australian government, they're like we want to give you a $3 million grant to take your show on the road. You've got to be the most neurotypical version of will to get that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're dead right, and I'm like hello government.
Speaker 2:I am, will Wheeler, look at me being very appropriate, and you're going to get out of there and you're going to take your suit and tie off and like, put down a couple of VBs and be like, let's go, vb mate.
Speaker 1:I'll have to be. Things must be going pretty bad, if I'm turning to the VB mate.
Speaker 2:Hey, there's a steak and two eggs in every VB.
Speaker 1:That's what they told me. When I looked An alcoholic's steak and two eggs I think I was more of a Carlton cold guy myself. Yeah, carlton's not too bad. Honestly, I don't drink much beer these days. I try to stay away from it. But anyway, that's a whole nother. We can make a whole different podcast on that, right, that'll be episode three We'll talk about.
Speaker 2:You know, like, really get into the substances, yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's not built for us. We've got to find ways to. The technical term for this is code switch, right? So I'm going to speak one way to you, because you and I are neurologically very similar, right. Then I would speak to the head of a university or my kid's teacher, right? Or my in-laws, like that's, actually my in-laws are super neurodivergent. That's a fail, but, um, but that's the thing it's like it's. Don't sell yourself out, but develop the skill to shift your focus as needed, right, and that's how we navigate different situations better.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I think for me, probably the last 10 years, my career well, actually since the pandemic, my career has really skyrocketed into a lot of positive things. Because I remember before the pandemic I would always be wearing suits, you know, short hair, very clean cut, and I just felt like I wasn't really progressing to, or I was trying to, be someone I wasn't. And during the pandemic it was sort of like you know what. Obviously, I had a lot of time to think over a lot of things and I was like you know what, I'm going to be more me. And once I was able to start being more myself, that was where the magic really started to happen. Yes, I am going into certain situations where I have to try and not be who I am and I sometimes come up against a little bit of um friction there. It can be sometimes difficult, but I'm just finding being more myself. I've been able to succeed a lot faster than when I was trying to be someone. I wasn't type of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's that's I mean, like if there's a singular takeaway from this episode and I hope that people take a lot of takeaways from it is absolutely that it's that you are going to go much further and faster and have more meaningful success being the most authentic version of you than trying to be somebody you're not right. Yeah, try to be neurotypical. If you're not neurotypical, find environments that allow you to lean into your neurodivergence and be the best version yeah, it was actually interesting.
Speaker 1:So while I'm building neurodiversity academy, I have to work a part-time job. That's that's what an entrepreneur has to do when you're building a business right. And so what I do? I actually um help people with disabilities start businesses. So I work with like the government gives like money to people to help them start a business, but I always share that.
Speaker 1:I'm dyslexic and adhd. It was actually interesting. I had this person stay back and ask me questions the other day and they're like oh my god, I'm adhd. Um, and she was talking about how she's like you know, I'm really worried because when I'm listening to people, I'm actually doodling or doing something else, but I'm still listening and doing this. And she's like do you think I should change? Or I'm like hell. No, I said what you do is like awesome, like if you can be who you are. And she's like but people get annoyed because I speak over the top of them and I'm like look, the main thing is, you're mindful of it. When you can be yourself, that's where a lot of great things are going to happen.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think that's just from my experience anyway- I mean, I would absolutely agree with you, right, you, Right, and, and so much of you know. When I went to a summer camp for gifted students when I was younger, I called my mom after the first day and I said, mom, I don't have to pretend to not be smart here. I don't have to spend that mental energy holding myself back because, surprise, surprise, when you're not holding yourself back, you're putting more energy into the things that make you special and awesome. Like there's no downside to that, right? So I just tell people, like, if you find those spaces, then you're going to be amazed at what you can do.
Speaker 2:You know, and one of my favorite expressions has always been if a flower is not growing, you don't yell at the flower, you change the greenhouse. And I think that a lot of us are searching for those greenhouses. And you know you starting a. You know you talking to a. You know helping people start their own businesses who are, you know, who have disabilities, like you're helping them create their own greenhouse. That's going to work well, right? A really cool thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think just helping people to be able to see what's good in themselves, especially when you're running a business, is vital. Yeah, absolutely. But look, we are getting to the the end. But we do have another question which I think sort of flows in well with um what we're talking about. What could schools and workplaces do better to support 2e individuals?
Speaker 2:oh man, um, how much time do we have? Four minutes, all right, let me see. What can I do. All right, let's start with. Let's start with we have to meet kids where they are right, and that is going to play out across all different aspects of that asynchronous development chart that we talked about before. So that's number one, right Meet kids where they are. So if you have a 10 old who can play orchestral music like a 20 year old that reads like a three year old, then we've got to get them, to get them into, um, you know, the music program for 20 year old and teach them to read like a three year old.
Speaker 2:Both pieces of that have to be true, right?
Speaker 2:Second piece here would be let kids go as high and as far and as deep as they need to go in the things they learn, because so often we are teaching kids like learn as much as you can until I tell you to stop.
Speaker 2:If a kid wants to know more about astronomy and the unit only covers the eight planets, then we are missing an opportunity to reach that kid in a meaningful way, because why would we tell a kid to stop? Right, let's keep going. And then, last but not least, being smart isn't easy. So I think that one of the things that we have to do is Is integrate more social, emotional learning into the way that we teach all neurodivergent kids and really all kids in general, right, but, like you know, it's not easy to get along with people. It isn't especially if your brains don't work like theirs. So if you can lean into those, if you can lean into those, those spaces, and develop those skills, then you're going to find that people are going to respond to you a lot more, they're going to open up to you a lot more, and we will be much better off for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome. Well put, dr, Matt, well put. Did I hear your? Well, I didn't hear. I know you've just released the book, um, did you want to plug it?
Speaker 2:I, I mean it's I would love to plug it so it's called the uh neurodiversity playbook and it's a. It's a book. That's sort of a lot about what we were talking about today, like if you understand your brain, you can build the skills that help you to to develop the things you need to be successful in today's world, and what that looks like for you as as a neurodivergent person is going to look different than somebody else, right? So, um, so, yeah, so it's. It's funny. It's got a lot of pop culture references's, kind of you know, me on a, me in a book, right? So if you've enjoyed this podcast episode, you likely wouldn't enjoy this book. Um, and it's available on amazon. Um, I don't know when they're going to ship them to australia, but we do have a big order from australia, so I know we're sending some books there eventually so, oh, I didn't realize.
Speaker 1:I thought like you could get any book on amazon, and but it can only be done per country, can it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think they, I think they um, because I thought they print.
Speaker 1:It depends how you've got it, like I thought. So it's not like you can't get like a digital version of the book. Yeah it, it's all hard copy, is it?
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to release a digital version soon and an audio book. I just don't know when those are going to be.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, but keep an eye out for it. Yeah yeah, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. Sorry, I've just got something. Something has popped up on my screen here. Thank god that's gone, um, but look, dr matt, thank you so much for coming on. Uh, where else can um people uh connect with you and find out more about your work?
Speaker 2:oh man, well, I am chronically online, so that would be a good place to start um. So I have a um, so I have two primary roles, right? I am a clinical psychologist and a professional speaker. So for the psychology piece, you'd go to the neurodiversitycollectivecom, and if you want me to speak to your organization or your school, then you'd go Dr Matt Sokreskicom. So it's Dr Matt Sokreskicom if you want me for your organization, the NeurodiversityCollectivecom if you want me for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, dr Matt. It's always a pleasure when we catch up with you, my friend. You're always very entertaining. I do want to make my way to America one day. I'm hoping, with everything that's gone on, it's not going to be too expensive to go to America. But, dr Matt, it's always a pleasure, my friend.
Speaker 2:Well, when you come out, I will be the first person to meet you at the airport and we'll show you a good time here in America, because there are still good things about this country, I promise.
Speaker 1:Totally. I do want to come to your side for sure. Yeah, anyway, but look. Thank you so much, dr Matt, and for all of our other listeners. If you haven't already done so, please subscribe, like and follow to all of our social media platforms. Check us out, subscribe and comment on all of our things on wherever you listen to your podcast. My name's Will Wheeler and this is Neurodivergent Mates. Till next time.