Autism, ADHD & Early Intervention: A Conversation with Dr. Inyang Takon

Join us for an honest conversation about autism, ADHD, and the power of early intervention. Our guest, developmental pediatrician Dr. Inyang Takon, shares expert insights on diagnosis, support, and what families and neurodiverse individuals really need. We discuss common myths, the importance of a strong care team, and practical advice for parents, educators, and anyone navigating neurodiversity. Whether you’re a parent, professional, or part of the neurodiverse community, this episode offers real stories and actionable guidance.

Transcript

0:09

Yeah, I am Leta. That is my mom. That is human being. Uh, that is her way of introducing, uh, people now. Um. We are so grateful that you came on the show today. I have this terrible, terrible habit of when I introduce our guest, the AI bots that, you know, say whether or not something's ai, uh, ding us for me being ai. So I have learned to ask our guest to Thank you. So, um, so hello everyone. I'm Yang Tko. I'm a that the AI machines are like, yep, she's ai. which refers to pediatricians specializing in children's. Development brain and cognition, um, and things around that. So, um, I practice here in the United Kingdom and I have been a consultant pediatrician for over. Um. 30 years. But my specialty, I've been, uh, doing this work for over 20 years as a consultant in my hospital. So in the UK I see children between the ages of zero to 18 and I get referred children. We, um, neurodiversity, um, with spans from autism spectrum disorder or differences. A DHD tick disorders. Um, motor coordination difficulties. I also see children with cerebral palsy, developmental delays, so quite a wide range of conditions. So I work with, um, I work in a team as well, so I as a pediatrician will see children, meet them with their parents, um, do the initial bits, and then I usually have other people I work with in a team. Um, depending on what is needed. So that's what I do in my day to day. I also, um, do other things apart from being a clinic doctor and I host a podcast series. Called Early Intervention Matters. Um, because I, my goal is to try and normalize the conversations around neurodiversity so that everybody can, you know, recognize other people's differences and make, you know. Make their, make the support available and, um, not try to change people, but making support available for them. And, uh, myself and my colleagues also co-founded an enterprise called School Doctor. Uh, school doctor was set up to bridge the gap between the schools, the health professionals and families, because sometimes it's such a big difficulty. For children to be recognized as having difficulties at school and giving them the support and assessment they need. So we do lots of training for teachers, um, and run training for school staff, other people. Yeah, that's what I do on a day-to-day basis. So lovely to be here with you and later. I want, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on, um, is I often get asked. Because my first question when people are like, yeah, my child's been diagnosed autistic. I'm like, oh, so are they seeing the behavioral psychiatrist, the developmental pediatrician, or the neurologist? And everyone's like, oh, it was just the general practitioner. And my next question is, okay, how quickly are you getting to one of those three? And I'll answer that. So, do I so developmental pediatricians have trained first as to look at them? Doesn't the all had training know what they're doing? Before we then specialize as developmental pediatrician and it's quite, um, uh, an a skill that you need to have. So in terms of being able to understand. How the brain works in terms of development and behavior. You really need to have been working with children. You need to understand differences in behaviors because not everything comes up with the same diagnosis. So if people are working from a point of, okay, these are just the symptoms and is equal to the diagnosis, there will be lots of errors. So the developmental pediatrician understands the phases of development of a child, understands what can be impacting that behavior, understands how to tease things out and differentiate between, you know, what is an evolving pattern in the neurodiversity or what could be influencing the behavior. So take for example, um. Children or young people or even adults could have poor concentration if they are anxious. And if you're not thinking far and wide about why somebody might be anxious, um, might have poor concentration, you might just think, oh, they have a DHD. So you have to explore a lot of things and you have to understand. So it is very, very important. And also the developmental pediatrician understands. You have to work with other people. It's not just about giving the label and the diagnosis. The developmental pediatrician understands that for that child to be able to function properly and access what they need, you need to be able to work with the schools You need be able to educate other people around the child. You need to be able to. Explain the changes that could happen and how things could impact the child. So it's not just about giving the labels, it's beyond the labels. It's about, you know, how do you understand what is going on and help to make things, you know, supportive for that child. So a lot of what we do is advocating for the child as well in terms of working with other people. To understand that, and as a developmental pediatrician, you acquire those skills, um, more. The neurologist, again, is a very, um, they deal with things in terms of on picking diseases, physical things as well. Um, so they would go more on around doing a lot of investigations. But the long term, the long term care of the child, um, the developmental pediatrician is best placed. So I see lots of children up to. From the time they've been diagnosed to when they're living to adulthood. So I'm part of the journey of that child's life. Oh. I am so grateful for her leader's developmental pediatrician, and she is being distracted by the dog right now. He's a, we just had a thunderstorm and he has some very anxiety. So he is acting out a little bit 'cause he does not like thunderstorms and uh, it came right before his afternoon anxiety pill. Um, but. We were lucky or are lucky enough that she has a behavioral psychiatrist, a developmental pediatrician, and a neurologist all on the team. And the number of parents were like, what do you mean team? Can't the general practitioner do it? And I'm like, it's not being mean to general practitioners, but they aren't specialized. And like you were talking about, there's. A few times I have not caught something that was a developmental problem with Lita that her developmental pediatrician will catch and go, Hey, um, is that 'cause of her autism? Is that 'cause she has the bad right hip 'cause she has a deformed right hip from a injury? Or is that something else we're looking at? And I'm like, well, I am glad you are the one who studied all this.'cause I do not have 18 years of my life to dedicate to studying all this. I think a lot of times the parents coming into this, um, I had had the ability of having a team around me as a child and knowing you need those specialists, so. I was like, yes, please hand me the specialist. As soon as they were like, you want a specialist? Yes, please. But I think a lot of parents, they haven't had medical issues themselves. They haven't had a team of specialists around them. So they're wondering why they can't, and trying to explain to them how amazing developmental pediatricians are. I get blank looks going. it, it is the same thing. And I was uh, the United Kingdom, but here in America we don't give our general pediatricians much information about autism. We just kind of go, there's autism. general pediatric trainees about how to support children with autism when they come into the hospital. And I said to her, that was really good because. People, um, in the past used to have this notion that when a child with, say, autism comes in, or a DHD or any neurodiversity, that they were only going to go into a certain place and be seen there. But I, I explained that we have children with autism are just like any other person. They get any of the illnesses that. Everyone gets, they need to see people for any of the conditions that everybody gets, and therefore you can't say, or I don't, I don't have to know about it. You must know about it because you are going to be seeing them for different conditions and you need to know how to support them. You need to know how to make your clinic environment reasonable for them to be, you know, comfortable. Because you, you know, I say when they, they get into the clinic and they're overwhelmed with so many things going on at the same time. You know, the machines going, people just coming to them with different things. Everybody, three, four staff coming to them. Without taking into consideration that those things are overwhelming, you know that child is going to shut down in your clinic, you're not going to be able to examine them. You're not going to be able to talk to them. You're not going to be able to see them properly and be able to unpick what's wrong with them. So it is really important. And a lot of general pediatricians, it's the same in the uk, in the emergency room. It's the same. Many people do not. Stand neurodiversity, and I think this is what we are trying to do now, is to educate people that, you know, this is something you have to be aware of. You know, it's not something you can shy away from because you need to be able to support the children when they're coming for any procedures, for bloods, for anything in the hospital. You need to understand how to support them in, in those spaces. And. Coming from a child who is neurodivergent, sometimes we do things that you weren't expecting us to do.'cause that is what we heard you say.'cause I remember getting yelled at by my mom 'cause I was going in for scoliosis, uh, appointment. And the doctor's like, well, I need you. To, uh, take your gown off. And he meant to That's a very good example, and you but he said, take your gown off. So I over the years, off and they're all like, why'd you do that things are very clear. you know, off. and not complex because as a doctor you get trained and you just say things and you don't think about what you are saying. You just say it, um, because you're trying to work out what is happening. But here, when you're dealing with. You know, people who are neurodiverse, you have to check yourself. You have to think first before you say what you're saying so that it is clear to them, and you're very right. Many people don't do that. So it's something we're having to learn, to reframe our language, to make sure that it accommodates everybody. And I know with her developmental pediatrician he, when he was like, well, does anyone else in the family have neurodiversity? I'm like, me, Mimi. And he is like, when were you diagnosed? I was like, back then it was considered late for my A DHD 'cause I wasn't diagnosed till I was 12. But that was late in the nineties. You were diagnosed at like six or seven. Now when we say late, we're talking thirties or forties and he is like. Yeah, honey, do you know how badly A DHD you had to be to be diagnosed in the nineties? And I'm like, I also had the autism diagnosis. And he is like, oh. Okay, so she's autistic. I don't even have to finish, but he changed how he was talking to me and I watched it in real time. He's like, Absolutely. It is. It is. And I think it, it's helped us to check our soon as I said I was neurodiverse, he's like, yep, okay. That's out the window. we can start going, okay, here's the papers. Here's all this. know, to complete. And many times we never really thought about the fact that parents that we are asking these questions could be neurodiverse themselves. We just expected that they would get on and complete the information and send to us. But over time, sometimes some parents just struggled. They did not, they could not do what was expected. And so they would come clinic after clinic and they would not have that information. And that's, there was a lot of reasons behind that. Now we realize that yes, a lot of parents who come in, uh, neurodiverse stem cells and, and therefore we need to consider that as well. Yeah. A, a lot of them weren't. I had to have been. Really bad if you consider the fact they diagnosed me in the eighties and nineties and we were not diagnosing people back then. Um, nowadays a lot of these parents are finding out with their kids that they're neurodiverse, and I know a lot of people are like, oh, so you found out with Lita? I'm like, no, no, I didn't. But um. That was one of the reasons, uh, not just the neurodiverse. I've got some medical issues to go with it, but I had, you know, back then the psychiatrist.'cause it wasn't necessarily the developmental pediatrician. I had the neurologist, I had everyone and having. People who talk to each other. And I think sometimes when I'm talking to parents, they're like, oh, my general practitioner doesn't talk to my child's other, uh, specialist and her developmental pediatrician. Frank can annoy therapist.'cause he's calling up going, hi, you didn't tell me how she did in therapy this week. but who, especially when you were like going to therapy on a regular basis, uh, Dr. Lopez would be like, hi. You didn't gimme an update Yes. I think we see this quite a lot, um, and your, unfortunately because of more information about your increase in Uh, the other and the, um, numbers of people that needing assessments. We're getting less and less opportunity to work together in the same room. So in the past it was really good. We would do assessments with, you know, the speech and language therapist in the room. We would have schools invited to join the assessment. We would do all that, and we'll be able to have a period where we were collecting all that information and everyone kind of getting the information out to share that as it's. As things have gone now where you, you know, it's really hard to get on the, on the queue for an assessment. Um, you find that people are working more in silos, doing the assessments, waiting to get information from the other person, and sometimes it can take a while before that information comes through. So you're not really getting the kind of joined up approach that you were getting several years ago, which is frustrating and I think. Um, I always feel that in the best way it's better to work together. I'm lucky because I also work, um, privately, independently, and I do that work with some psychologist and it's always quite, um, useful that if we chat a lot. So when I see a child, um, and she's saying, we'll, chat. Together, we'll talk about that. If there are things that are unclear, we work out how we're going to get more information, we work out what's going to be done, and we do that over the phone. And I agree what we are going to do, so we don't have to wait writing letters to each other or emails. We can do that over the phone and things get done quicker and we, you know, we come and agree on what we are doing. So I found that quite useful. I've had a few parents who are like, really? do you think that's useful? And I'm like, yeah, yeah. It actually is useful as the patient even to have your medical team working together. Um, and I know we can't seem over here in the US to keep up with the demand of how many kids are now being. Referred for, like you said, assessments. Oh, we know we need so many developmental pediatricians. There's a shortage something that we need to be Um, in the UK we've got the same problem. suggesting that people Um, so we have a national health service and we've also got the private practice as well. But for the National Health Service, which is free, um, people are referred there by their general practitioner. It can take up to two years before people get seen for the first time. And that's not, in terms of concluding the assessment, it can take longer. There is a shortage of developmental pediatricians, but what has from that is also the fact that you've now also got people out there who are doing assessments who are not, um, should I say, as skilled as the people who should be doing it. So because there's such a demand, it's also brought the problem of. Sometimes people don't get the kind of detailed, comprehensive assessments they should be getting. Um, so there is a huge problem and there needs to be more done in terms of encouraging more people to do developmental pediatrics. I've always liked developmental pediatrics from when I was doing my training, so, uh, it's something I've always liked and I've enjoyed it and I'm happy I chose that field, but I think we need to encourage more people to go into that field. I know here in the US we have our privatized health system and I try to tell all new doc students, I'm like, if you want insurances to listen to you, they listen to neurologists and they listen to developmental pediatricians. Those are God, just if you wanna be God, join those fields. Mm-hmm. Um, I. It's true. Yeah. we need developmental they're all like, oh, I wanna go into causing a lot of insurance is never going to care about for us here. Yeah. Six to seven years. Yeah. Wow. we have states here where the wait time is six to seven years before you can get in to see a developmental ours was very bad. neurologist. Yeah. our best states are at three to four years, and that was. I'm like two years. She was lucky because her general pediatrician took one look at me one day and I'm like, she's got to get diagnosed'cause I cannot handle this anymore. And she's like, okay, I know how to get this done. And she went and yelled at our military insurance and I had the Referral before we left the office and the appointment was 30 days later and I'm like, thank you for knowing how to cut the red tape. But I mean, that is a miracle that we were just where someone's like, I know how to cut the red tape. I have so many questions 'cause Well, I love watching children how Absolutely not just necessary developmental when I did my, um, training know everything about how what really fascinated me was that. could stay with the babies and try to, uh, you know, I just understood their quirks and the way they behaved and there were little things they did, even from being a baby that I found so interesting. And you could almost tell what a baby's behavior was going to evolve to sometimes by just watching them in those first few days and for first few weeks. And so I got this interest in, you know, um. in babies and how they develop. And so I think that kind of pushed my interest in developmental pediatrics as well, and just watching them evolve into their own persons, their behaviors, their differences, their interest, and just when things are not going, you know, in. Kind of right direction, you being able to pick that up, making sense of all that in the child's different environment, and just looking at what are the things that help make things better for that child. So I have found that really interesting feel. What has been most fulfilling for me as well is the difference it makes once you are able to, you know, unpick. Know what that child's differences mean and when you're able to then, you know, inform other people and help them to understand those behaviors that they were confused about, and then also help to support them in the classroom, in schools, helps support parents, the life changing, experiences that everybody has when people understand what is wrong. That's what I've found, and I, I've been lucky to follow up children to adulthood, children doing different things, different interests of theirs, you know, being very successful in doing the things that they're doing, and that has been very rewarding. I wanted to circle back. She went upstairs. Her father just got home. That's why the dog went crazy. I was like, why is he upstairs barking? Um, guys do more than just autism, as developmental pediatricians. Um, you guys do down syndrome. You do everything, you know, like. You guys really are the jack of all trades of knowing this is where a child should be, and this is what I'm looking yes. You get to you. It becomes part of you. Yes. We do so many other I've ever met, is you guys disorders, so seem to just know automatically, sometimes even what's child's pattern is likely to be genetic. Um, if there's a chromosomal deletion, now we've got very sophisticated, um, genetic tests so we can unpick things that couldn't be picked up before. I see children with epilepsy, so that's one of the things I do manage. I see children with seizures, different types of seizures, and I assess and I manage that as well. I see children with, um, ticks. Tick disorders and Tourette syndrome. And I do see children with different types of ticks and I manage that as well. I see children with A DHD and I assess and manage that, like I said, children with um, dyspraxia motor coordination difficulties and how that impacts their everyday functioning. Um, I see that as well. And also. Do joint working with a ps. So I have, um, part of my qualification, I did a master's in clinical neuropsychiatry, so I do have experience in doing, you know, some, um, assessing some children with, you know, basic. Presentations and being able to unpick if this could be just more than surface anxiety or mood problems. And if I feel that they're more concerns, I, I'm able to unpick that and, and support them and refer them to the, um, psychiatrist. Yeah. So we, yeah, we do a lot of different things. And you guys are, Yes, I actually did three on top of having different masters. So yes, it's been very pediatrician I know, One of the ones I've liked is my master's in public health as well, because I did that and I felt that that has been really good in helping me to, Educate people out there because I feel that it's not just seeing one child in the clinic, it's about educating everybody around public awareness, which is what, um, led me to developing the podcast.'cause I felt we need to get the message out there. We need to speak to different groups of people. We need to empower parents with knowledge, um, how to support their child, how to work with the schools type of questions they need to ask. So yes, that's what led me to starting that podcast. Uh, mentioning the podcast series and the early intervention. I, you know, having been an advocate for 20 years and working with kids like life changing and um, sadly many people. Did not recognize what they were, Early children had. Sometimes the schools, they didn't even know, um, you know, a child who was restless and couldn't stay in school. Sometimes the easiest way school would say is, you know, will you, you'll do part-time timetable you or will exclude the child because the child can't be in school. They could not. Tease out and look at the pattern of why is this child distressed? Why is he not coping? could there be a reason behind that? And so that's why we do a lot of training and teaching. And school doctor does a lot of that, um, with teaching and training the staff. I know Lita went to Montessori for preschool and her Montessori teacher was amazing. And one of the things she kept saying is, she's having meltdowns'cause we can't communicate with her.'cause Lita was nonverbal at the time. And uh, the school system who was providing the services was like, oh, she's just aggressive 'cause that's why she's having meltdowns. And I'm like, no, you can. I wasn't the aggressive one, the boy trying to throw the black ones. I hope he got his anger issues resolved. The boys in our class was throwing bricks, and that was considered appropriate for a male child, but a female child having a meltdown was considered aggressive by the school system. And I yes, definitely. and I was, Um, we do see this and it still happens. There was still a major double standard for autism and there is still for women. But we were lucky enough, um, because I had the team around me who knew how to get the school to deny her the services so we could go to the military healthcare system and go, oopsie, they denied us. Can you give it to us? that was lucky. and know about the US but it's so therapy when you're 3, 4, 5, to get speech therapy input for their child here. and. Yeah. It is almost, we were lucky. The team of doctors we had around us knew exactly how to cut the red tape, and they're like, one of them brought me coffee. yeah, your general pediatrician, who was one of my friends, got to have that discussion with her. Nurse practitioner.'cause we get together on Saturday and she was giving her, Starbucks frappuccinos. And I'm like, I am not the one bringing this up. At the next pediatric visit, you get to go tell your nurse practitioner what you gave the child. Um, because doctors are really good at saying one thing. bribing me in coffee. Yeah. And she still got to explain that to her nurse practitioner because I am not the one getting yelled at for the child too. Yeah. even with like over here, it's becoming harder and harder to get that early intervention. Uh, the CDC just changed it to where speech delays don't start until 36 months. so we're going, but they can, if a doctor feels that they may see a speech delay, they can push it forward to the insurance company and to our, uh, child finding everything. Um, for parents who might be listening who are like, my child is not babbling, or, you know, I think it's good to talk to your pediatrician early because the early stages suggest they talk to their pediatrician about, their child not making milestones those early stages, even if the child is not talking, but you want to make sure that those early stages of communication is coming on quite well because, um, you don't just wait till the child begins to talk. You want to look at whether. Other forms of communication, like the nonverbal, is the child making an effort? how is the child making their request known? You want to be able to see whether those building blocks are there, even if the actual words coming out, uh, late. But it's better to talk to your pediatrician early. With Lita. Um, she did not have those early Yeah, exactly. Uh, everyone else was like, oh, Yeah, exactly. a good baby. She doesn't cry. And I'm sitting there now her pediatrician. Cheetah was like, yeah, the baby should be crying. Like she's in the Yeah, exactly. Uh, she should be Yeah, something. Exactly. And so, and you do get this, some parents would And we're us, oh, 'cause we always wet. She's not crying when she wants a bottle. like when they were younger, and some would say no, he was such a laid back baby. he would just feed and be content and wasn't demanding at all. And I was like, okay. even when you were doing, some would say, even if we're having a party next door or this, then she just happy being there. I said, well, that's not what you would. sounds like, you know, the, concerns were already there very early on, but because they don't recognize it, and like you said, people would say to them, oh, the baby was really good. you shouldn't worry. But yeah, I would recommend talking to your pediatrician quite early. I know with, uh, her, when she had her injury at 11 months old, that has caused the hip issue. I called her, uh, pediatrician going, Hey, I think you're meeting me at the emergency room. And she's like, what's that in the background? And I'm like, lead's crying. And she's like, yeah, I'm meeting you at the emergency room.'cause that child doesn't cry. And it was like. So we got, we know she does have some form of communication when she's in pain, but having all that documented that she wasn't crying, like she could get shots and she wouldn't cry. She didn't cry, you know, like I said, for being wet or wanting It does It does help. Do you get, um, in the US do you have the standard, um, two year check here? We have it with the health visitors. Mm-hmm. She, uh, did, she's like, what? Her first few years, she was at the doctor's office all the time for other things. Um, but yeah, you're supposed to have the standard 24 months check, 36 months check, and then four years, five years, and six years. Um, whether or not people do that. they're like, I'll skip. Um, and two years old is not a, uh, vaccine, I don't think off the top of my head, but I have not seen the vaccine chart in a couple weeks. Um, and I know that, I know a few people just try to go when the vaccines are. Um, we had a problem. She got to go a lot more often 'cause we had a problem with one of the vaccines we gave her, uh, got recalled and then she got chicken pox varella so many times trying to make that legit. Um, but it was not a doctor thing and I am a very big proponent of vaccines. But we did find out, thankfully because of all the issues we had, getting her a legitimate varella shot that the state liked that she is not, uh, inoculated for exactly. She has had her mumps me rebellious shot. So it was like, that is helpful to know.'cause once you get that vaccine, you kind of think they're inoculated, but that's, you know, a one in a gazillion thing that, um, you don't get inoculated. So, uh, vaccines are very important. minutes in, than Getto I have had some people go, do you think she got. Autism due to all the vaccines she had to have. you know what? And they call me the stupid one. And all you people are the stupid ones because you're not even thinking about science. Dunno what La LA land you are living in. But even magic can help you. I'm like, have you met her father and I, I think she comes by it very naturally. Uh. I did wanna ask because you do have the medical background and I get asked this a lot. Um, and I know we don't know exactly where Neurodivergency comes from, but I think we can all hazard a very good scientific Yes. Where it comes from knowing the parents. Um, as a doctor, do you think there's. Um, so Um, do you think it's probably on one of the genetic thing There's whatever crazy internet conspiracy it is this week? but what we don't know is why that is. So we know that yes, there's increase awareness, but I think it's even more than that because we're finding that in families, you know, sometimes you can get two, three people being. Significantly affected. We're seeing that a lot more there. You know, there are lots of genetic studies being going on. We do know that yes, in the family, there's obviously the genetic. Component to autism where there's a risk, you know, if one of the parents is diagnosed. But we also, what's being researched again, is there have been some modification from environmental issues, that has, you know, just changed the way the Jane makeup is and causing that. We don't know, but I think in a few years we'll have more answers because there's definitely been a surge. In, you know, referrals. I remember when I started working, we got more referrals for, things like cerebral palsy and, developmental delay. We had a lot of referrals for that. Now with, that's been completely flipped on its head. We get lots of referrals every week for autism spectrum disorder. Some for A DHD and very, we can go weeks and months without getting a referral for cerebral palsy. This is how much things have changed in the space of, you know, over 10, 15 years that the referral pattern coming in has completely changed. You're getting much more referrals for autism assessment. Almost nothing every week for cerebral palsy. So it is interesting. But on the other side, we used to have a lot of preterm in funds of children who had, cerebral palsy. In the end, but because of the good care that's been offered, we are having fewer children having cerebral palsy. But what we don't know is how many more of those children who haven't presented with the physical aspects could end up developing. Autism in future. So there's a lot of research about quite a number of things. Has there been some, what we call epigenetics, has there been some kind of modification of our genes with the environmental issues changed the nature of the gene and then made us more susceptible to neurodiversity. The familiar aspects. So there are quite a lot of things, but research is going on on this 5G. Some of the crazy ones I have heard recently that when I said internet conspiracy, it was things like, um. someone suggested that it was the font we were using in children's book causing autism, and I'm like, well. Unless it's radioactive. No. Okay, we'll put the physics, uh, to the side on Radioactive Inc. Because after 45 there's radioactive ink all over the place. But, uh, no. Someone was suggesting that like the font, like we get like the crazy internet theories tosses us, like the font that we have in our children's books is causing autism. And that's what I was like This isn't a DC comic. This isn't a superhero comic. When I was going crazy, the crazy internet theories was more like, are you kidding me? Uh, you put that, you wrote that down, you read that back, and you thought that that was a legitimate theory that caused autism. we're the ones with the problem. I don't think we're the ones with the mental stunt. I mean, uh. An environmental change, and this is coming. I know I am not in biology or evolutionary biology or medicine, but I have my No, I don't see how that font in the and environmental change would cause something like this, but that, doesn't necessarily mean it's the font in the book or the colors being used. Exactly. I've also heard, well, it's a color of ink colors we're using Yes. for kids that's causing a You want all the children to be really because there are lots of everywhere. exposed to colorblind children. up with autism. Oh yeah, that's what I meant by you've seen the outside world. Colors exist no matter what. The outside world, even if we didn't have everything humans made, the outside world still has color. Human beings invent. I don't think Britain millennials went through what American millennials went through. The millennial parents decided they were going to do only beige and gray toys for their kids and beige in gray rooms. And they're seeing Jen Betas in the US is gonna all be colorblind I know is not going to cause colorblind list, but has seemingly caused a bunch of gen alpha and gen beta guys to go. Neon colors exist, and I'm like, we did not need to go back to the eighties for those neons. Exactly. to go find all my millennial friends who raise their kids with beige and gray going, see, this is what happens when you deprive kids of color. Yeah. Damn. Um. but are the crazy internet theories I was talking about. Uh, 'cause there is, there's definitely an worst. Yeah, I remember them because I had to lock them in the vault. You're like, they were so stupid. I locked them in a vault in my mind. Um, I do know like with the military, US military, there's a extremely high level of autism. It's three out of every five military kids has autism, which is. A little bit high. Um, and maybe it's 'cause they're now starting to find out that all the military guys have autism too, now that they're allowing them to serve openly and get diagnoses. And I'm like, I am interested in the studies you guys need to be doing on you. Um, and I know Princeton just came out with a new study on stuff, but I haven't been able to look at it, They also came out with a new study suggesting that we go back to having different types of autism and basing you know, you people have to you need them. And I'm like, wow. Um, so it's all good sometimes doing things in the lab and doing, what you need. have to bring things to real life. And how does it impact on young people every day's life? Yeah. Well, we told you we would only get an hour. We're almost at the hour mark. We would love to have you come back on the program if you wouldn't mind coming back on the program. um, my podcast is hosted on www who's listening or watching on YouTube, where can they find your podcast and all your information online? Um, so that's where I host a lot of my podcast series. And it's also got information about me and also, um, the school doctor, social enterprise I was talking about that's open to families, um, who can connect from anywhere and it's www. And it has a lot of information about what we do, um, and how people can connect with us. There's a lot of useful resources. Um, one of my, co-founders. Has written lots of useful books for children and young people with different neurodiversity that's quite easy to relate with. So yes, uh, there's a lot of information there about me. Yes, definitely. They were okay with it. are putting together a resource page on our podcast website, and we would love to include both of these on the resource page if you're okay with it. Wonderful. I have gotten so many people even just stopping me at Starbucks now that she's got her dance studio here going, hi, you're that mama, that autistic kid. I need a resource. And I'm like, I cannot remember everything off the top I know. It's all going on a podcast Bill. okay. And I. know I'm autistic. I still have name. if they could remember that, that would be nice. I know it's a hard name that isn't really used in America You are right. a lot You're absolutely world, but I still got name. I'm not offended by the autism, but I'm perfectly fine with that part, but I still got. Yeah. Like you're very right leader. is a little bit of infanti get people to understand people still on this side of I you know, you have to, people have to move away from trying to put people in a little box. People are people, and you call them by their names and they've got their strengths. They can do a lot of things as well and relate to them normally. Um, that's what we encourage people to do. So li you're very right. Yeah. Yes. It's not. And that's what we want, spectrum is a spectrum, which I don't um, you know, you Everyone completely Uh, you've got to recognize people not a linear spectrum. their abilities, just like you're doing with everybody else. You don't suddenly think, oh, because that person's got autism, then they lose every other part of themselves. That's not right. That's what we want to move away from. I had an intern who when she found out that Lita was autistic, was like, well, I could never work for anyone who's autistic. And I'm like, maybe not the best thing to say to your autistic boss as an intern. But she thought she was sympathizing with me over having an autistic child. And I'm Exactly. just I'm the boss. Exactly. the boss's medical history. We shouldn't have to announce my medical history for you not to say that in the middle of a meeting. Thank you. they learned their lesson Who says that about somebody and it's been great. It's been great joining you and leader to um, have a conversation and Aven and thank you leader for your contributions.'cause I think it's really great to. You know, you teach us doctors and professionals about things. I've learned a lot from the, um, young people that I do, you know, see day to day they've taught, taught me a great deal. And I'm always very grateful because I say that they've made me a better doctor. And I think that these are the kind of things that we need to be sharing out there. And thank you leader for, you know, being out there and expressing yourself and. Helping the doctors and everybody else to understand how it's better ways in which people can communicate better. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You can say thank you. And you too. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have to. What. She gets very shy still. Thank you so much Dr. Takon, and thank you for everything and we'll talk to you soon. Okay, well thank you for watching the podcast and please subscribe and also look at the Adorable, don't You watch, subscribe Forward and also please like, and don't pick it if you'll to us, if you'll miss any of our new podcast. And also you see the Adorable, don't you like it?