The Listening Tube S13E2 Gambling, Dyslexia

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the listening tube.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello, thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we'll hear about a somewhat modern-day Noah's Ark. And I'll talk to a guy who knows his way around words. Russell Van Brocklin spends some time in the listening tube. But first.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Not the headlines.

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There's a way many of us have used to call out or challenge a friend when there's a disagreement on the correct answer to a question or the superiority of one sports team over another. A simple two-word offer to back up what you believe. Wanna bet? The question itself raises the original dispute to another level. It's no longer enough to settle the question through research or the completion of the competition. You must also risk property or dignity to justify your conviction. The penalty for loss could be anything from a monetary forfeiture to an appearance at the local sports bar wearing tidy-whiteys and angel wings. The latter type of penalty more likely to create memories and bragging rights than anything else. While disputes over facts can now be settled at the bar with a search on your phone, the most plentiful thing remaining to be gambled upon are sports. Surprisingly consistent yet wildly unpredictable, sports of all kinds have a lure for both gamblers and bookmakers alike. What used to be a wager between two buddies has turned into a billion-dollar industry, with states across America taking advantage of people's desire to say, wanna bet. But now, you don't need a buddy with whom to bet. You can bet against the rest of the world on multiple platforms on the internet. All legal. I'm not disputing that illegal sports betting exists. I understand the state-sponsored gambling takes a chunk of revenue away from underground gambling. And yes, it is regulated. Plus, you're not going to get your knees broke for your debt to a state or lawfully operated online gambling platform. But now you can also bet on all kinds of possibilities that may occur during the game, not just the final score. It's not necessarily new as prop bets like who will win the coin toss at the Super Bowl have been around for a while. Today, though, pitch by pitch and play-by-play wagers are made at lightning speed, with millions of dollars changing hands every minute. The call of an official, like an umpire or a referee, can determine who wins and who loses, not just on the field, but in living rooms and bathrooms and bar rooms. Gambling has become omnipresent. Legal gambling has infiltrated our everyday lives. Sports gambling has joined state-sponsored lotteries as a legal form of taking from the poor and giving to the institution with the promise of an occasional big winner. But like the old saying goes, Las Vegas wasn't built on winners. Even where gambling is strictly controlled, as it is in Nevada, the odds are slim that you'll walk away a winner. Some games have better chances of winning, but all of them favor the casino. When it comes to sports betting, all bets are now off. With the revelation that the National Basketball Association has again been the victim of gambling influence, gamblers and the gambling industry are under extra scrutiny. The same people arrested for fixing NBA odds are also included in charges for fixed poker matches. One unsuspecting gambler reportedly lost $1.4 million in these poker games that were rigged with programmed card shuffling machines, x-ray tables, and other tricks to give the advantage to those in the know. Gambling is a losing proposition to begin with, even when well regulated. But to get caught up in high-stakes poker games that attract whales with high-profile personalities is highway robbery. By the way, a whale is Las Vegas slang for someone who gambles in very large numbers. And although you can play poker in Las Vegas casinos, most high-stakes poker games are among the players themselves and don't really involve a host casino. The point is there are a lot of different ways and levels to gamble. It can be as simple and innocent as saying wanna bet to a friend, or it can become an addiction that has serious consequences for those who succumb to it. Anytime a gambling activity is run by an entity like a state government or a casino or even a racetrack, the odds are against you. It's easy to fall behind, and it's easy to get caught up in believing that you'll win your money back as long as you keep playing. That's when it becomes an addiction. I like to classify two different types of gambling active gambling and passive gambling. Passive gambling is the state-sponsored daily draw games, the ones with the ping-pong balls. You buy a ticket and you wait for the drawing. Some states have some of them twice a day, others once a day. Or maybe you buy a scratch-off ticket and wait till you get home to see if you have a winner. There's a way for everyone to have a chance at getting lucky with a small investment. Usually about two dollars per chance. Somewhere above that is the occasional poker player who plays with friends for the social exercise, but doesn't really expect to win a fortune at his buddy's kitchen table. Active gambling is how institutions like casinos and gambling websites make money, and they don't care how many lives are ruined by those who fall prey to their addictive and expensive product. There was a time when serious gambling addictions were confined to specific geographical locales. Then Atlantic City once gambling was legalized there. And the evidence of the damage that gambling does to many people was obvious. Now active gambling has spread from the casinos to the palm of our hands wherever we go. The leagues, the sports channels, the sponsors are all now encouraging active gambling at a higher frequency than ever imagined before. Places like DraftKings, FanDuel, ESPN Bet, and others have taken the deep dive into taking part in what is perhaps the single largest legal scam in America. It gets even worse when players, coaches, or officials take part in warping the results for an intended purpose. If you want to spend two bucks on a lottery ticket, fine. If you want to play poker with your buddies on a Thursday, fine. If you go to Las Vegas on vacation and spend an hour in the casino, good luck. You never know. If you have more money than you know what to do with and you like to gamble, have at it. But for the rest of us, I will urge caution when it comes to participating in institutionalized gambling. It's always benedictive, and now it's everywhere. It can become the equivalent of having a heroin dealer on speed dial, but it's more expensive. I'm not the only one who recognizes it. In my state of Pennsylvania, there's a proposal making its way through the legislature to remove gambling machines, or so-called skill machines, from convenience stores. It's a start. But I'm sure there'll be some resistance, as just like tobacco and alcohol, if the state can make a buck on an addiction, it will.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

You can hang your hat on that.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Fewer people are smoking, and alcohol consumption is waning among younger people. Gambling has the most growth potential. Gambling is an addiction that's been suppressed for decades, relegated to illegal bookies and numbers rackets only people in the neighborhood knew about. Now it's been unleashed and encouraged, used as a way to create revenue for government and the companies who make the machines and websites built to prey upon people's weaknesses. But there's an important difference between an addiction to a substance like nicotine or opioids. Gambling doesn't require you to consume anything but the desire to win. It's all in your head. No need to go through a middleman or a dealer. You can just deposit your money directly into the addiction. If you doubt that the proliferation of legalized gambling won't have significant negative effects on individuals, families, and communities, I have one thing to ask. Wanna bet?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Let's go back through the listening tube for this week in history.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

This week in 1902, a ship carrying the Barnum and Bailey circus returned to the United States from Europe. The Chronicle of the 20th century refers to it as a sort of a Noah's Ark, carrying lions, tigers, bears, horses, and elephants, as well as other creatures. That wasn't all. The story confirms that all of the animals and freaks, including the legless man, the armless man, and the Siamese twins, are all in good condition. Not all made the complete journey, though. Of the 54 monkeys on board, one named Jesse, who was called a champion peanut eater, refused to eat on the ship and died, as did a zebra born on the ship. The story states that both animals were buried at sea with proper ceremony. It also notes that the largest of the 23 elephants, named Mandarin, was in a foul mood for the entire journey and will be destroyed if he doesn't control his temper. I wonder whatever happened to Mandarin. I'm going to look that up.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

He's gonna look it up. He's really gonna do it. I want the truth!

SPEAKER_03 12:14

You can't handle the truth.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

As it turns out, there's a database of elephants called elephant.se. It says that Mandarin was an Asian elephant who died in 1902, strangled by a steam winch outside the New York Harbor. He too was buried at sea. More specifically, off the coast of Sandy Hook, New Jersey. A famous elephant trainer at the time called Mandarin the worst elephant ever brought to America. He must have been a pain, as when he was killed in 1902, he was worth twelve thousand dollars. Today, that's over four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

The listening tube will return at the speed of sound. Send email to thelising tube at outlook.com.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

My guest today is Russell Van Brocklin. Many people know him as the dyslexic professor. He's developed ways that help dyslexic people improve their reading and comprehension. I couldn't help but wonder if his methods might help average people too. Russell spoke with me from his home in New York. Are you dyslexic?

SPEAKER_03 13:45

I have the worst case of dyslexia you'll ever see. And people have like people say that's quite a claim. But for my original research project, which uh what I did is I took, I was funded by the New York State Senate, which took years to get. I took a bunch of dyslectic juniors and seniors in high school. They're highly motivated, highly intelligent, and in one class period a day for the school year, we brought them up from the middle school writing skills to the average of entering graduate school students. They're the writing skills of college graduates. All right. How was I able to do that? Part of that, the New York State government paid to have me tested by a New York State uh SUNY distinguished professor in psychology. It was 20 hours of testing. And she happened to give me some additional testing a few years beforehand. And basically, I have a first grade reading and writing level until I move the processing part of my brain from an area that doesn't work to one that does work, then I'm at above average graduate level. So yeah, everything that I've developed is from what I personally developed to overcome my own dyslexia, and then I just connected it to current research.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Now, what kind of timeline are we looking at here? How how many years has this been going on since you began this uh state-sponsored research?

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Well, we presented the research in New York City in 2006. So this has been going on for over 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

All right. Now, I have a little trouble with numerals. I I have to concentrate extra hard sometimes to make sure I have them in the right order. Is that common? Uh to spend over 20 years on a project most of the time. So to have to have trouble reading numerals in the right order.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Oh, okay. As far as uh it depends on the individual person. Now, for what you're talking about to see if this might be a case where you might have some concerns with dyslexia, let's let me ask you a few questions. Because one of the major things that I ran into over the years is a neuropsychological evaluation's like $5,000. And parents were asked, is there any way we can just understand in general what level my child's at, what the concerns are without us spending five grand? I said, okay, exactly. So I had to develop this. First question: we have to figure out what your speciality is. What's your area of extreme interest and ability? Reading and writing. Okay. Do you like reading more or writing more? Writing. Writing. Okay. So when you're thinking about writing, here's the key question. Do you have ideas flying around your head at light speed? Key question, but with little to no organization.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Well, that's a tough one to answer because there's always stuff going on around inside my head. Uh that's why I have a podcast. I had to create a podcast just to get the stuff out of my head that's been rolling around in there. Whether or not it has organization, I think it ultimately does because I'm able to put it on paper and then relate it to the people who enjoy my podcast.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Right. But just in general, is this you or not you? Do you have ideas essentially flying around your head at light speed when you're thinking about writing, but there's little to no organization? So it's in other words, is it simply a lot of fast ideas that are comp or that are generally very chaotic? No organization. Is that you now or ever in the past?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

No, I think there's some organization there. I'm not going to think there isn't any. Okay. Was it ever like that when you were a kid? Oh, probably.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

I didn't have an outlet for it. Okay. Let me ask you this. Next question. When you're thinking about writing something, it's in your you're going to want to write about writing. The idea is in your head. Fingers, keyboard, fingers, keyboard. You take your fingers and put it on the keyboard, does the idea fly out of your head, leaving you with an empty brain? Sounds familiar?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

No, it doesn't because my brain's never empty. There's always more stuff being poured in there all the time.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Okay, based on what you told me, severe dyslexia is almost certainly out. You may or may not have had some issues with attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or mild dyslexia at some point in your life. But if you had that, you found ways of developing compensation processes over time to make it a lot more manageable if you ever had it.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Well, like I said, it's just with only with numerals and like phone numbers, making sure I have to I have to concentrate to make sure I get the digits in the correct order. Now, from what I understand, most of your work is focused on helping parents who have dyslexic children or helping the children themselves. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Um I've moved because of the least the reason the changes in society and laws that have been put into effect, my industry 20 years ago was completely unregulated. Now it's extraordinarily regulated for obvious reasons that have happened in the last 10 years. So as I adopted that, what I do now is I now that I figured out the system so well, I teach the parents to teach the kids because of that. And the other reason is it's very hard for families to hire professional tutors to work with their kids. I found that I was limiting myself only to upper, upper middle class uh families and you know, the wealthy. And I was just like, there are all these deserving kids that I literally couldn't afford to work with. So I started transitioning my process over to teaching parents to teach their kids. And now it's allowed me to work with pretty much anybody. Let me give you an example. I'm currently uh I'm currently writing a book called uh, it's going to be called Literacy and Reading Dyslexia Turnaround. It's about Reed and his mother, Kimberly. I met them December 27, 2024. Kimberly just spent $700 getting her kids tested by the New York by the state of Ohio. And Reed was a year and a half behind in reading and writing. If he were in public school for the rest of the school year, the tests that they used, they would expect him to increase by two to two and a half points. He didn't. He increased by 20 points to a little bit above grade level. He went from the 11th percentile to the 65th percentile in reading. Why is that important? Because Kimberly only worked with him for an hour and a half a week. Worked with usually parents do 10 to 15 minutes a night. I worked with her a half an hour a week to show her the process. Last summer, Reed's friends came to him. They said, Reed, we want you in public school to be with us socially. You know, see you at lunch, see you in class. If he went in in January, he would have been placed a special ed away from his friends. Now he's in class, normal public school class is doing just fine. Kimberly did what every parent dreamed about, and she did it in a little under six months.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

As you know, I try to provide people with tools they can use to recognize why the news is delivered to us in the way that it is, and why it's not always in our best interest or even meant to inform us. There are two things I want to ask you. First, I'd like to know if there's a difference between how average people and dyslexic people consume news.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Yes, because our brains are so incredibly different. What I found is after I've trained dyslectic students how to overcome their dyslexia, just hear what I focused on that. I switched over from Yale from the front part of the brain from articulation followed by word analysis to word analysis followed by articulation. I found it drastically. More effective. So when we're talking about consuming news, let's do it with with an example because I find examples are much easier to communicate than concepts. So give me a major news story that's going out there relatively recently, and I'll tell you how the difference that dyslectics consume it compared to non-dyslections.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Well, one big story right now in the news is the uh destruction of the East Wing of the White House in order to construct a ballroom.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Right. So what people, how dyslectics would look at that first is because the when I asked you that question about ideas that you really like are flying around your head of lightspeed, but with little to no organization, we need to reduce this to a one-word, to like a universal theme. And then we will analyze it through articulation, and then we're using two and a half times more brain power than we have than a typical person. So what we are looking at is look at why we're doing this. So when you're looking at that with a country the way it is, you're pretty much going to have pro-Trump people and anti-Trump people, and very few in between. So would you like to look at this from a pro-Trump or a uh pro-Biden viewpoint? Pro-Biden. Biden has nothing to do with it. Well, I'm using Biden as a representative of the Democratic Party because he was the last, he was the he was president for four years. So would you like to look at this from a pro-Trump or an anti-Trump perspective?

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Well, I I as a news consumer, I would hope that the news is delivered to me in a neutral way.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

But it's but it's not. So I I I find finding unbiased reporting rather rare. I always find that it's typically quite heavily biased. So which lens would you like to look through it at?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Okay, well, I'm I'm looking forward to seeing what the new ballroom will look like. So let's go with the with the pro ballroom.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Okay. Well, I'll I'll give you both, but just as an example, if we're looking at this pro, what we are uh the word that I would look at is reconstruction. If, okay, in you look at it, the White House was completely reconstructed under Truman. President Obama put in a tennis court. A basketball court. I'm sorry, yeah, tennis court that you can use for basketball. Yeah. All right. There are those things. So what you would look at is the dyslectic would focus on the word reconstruction, and then they'd go back and look at how things were done in the past. However, the big difference now in that news story is that previously Congress had some say into it, especially with what Truman was doing. It was typically used with public funds. So Congress, the people's representatives had their say in that. Trump's not doing that. He's going to Google, Facebook, all these other companies, and they're giving him like 300 million bucks, and the Congress has essentially they're not being have any consultations into it. All right. So how the a pro-Trump person would look at this would look at this as construction, okay? They would look at this as, okay, what reasons is Trump doing this uh to have this constructed like this? You know, they'd do demolition, construction. How would how would they look at that? And they would look at those various words, and then they would start articulating things. And the idea that he's doing this the way that he wants to do it without Congress's input, a lot of pro-Trumpers would say, good, it'll be done efficiently. This will actually probably be done within his term instead of taking 10, 20 years. And because he's a developer, it'll be done correctly. All right? That's the way that they would probably look at it. Now, if you're looking at this from the other lens, from a more traditional Democrat, they would look at this and they would be horrified because the way that it was taken down, remember, this is this is a huge part of our history. And the fact that our congressional representatives haven't had input on this, and especially when the Democrats probably retake Congress, you know, uh in the midterms, which they typically do for an opposite party who's in power, you're looking at this as a really condemnation because they believe that our people's representatives should have some input in this, that this should be publicly funded, not privately funded. So that's how dyslectics would look at things differently. They would first of all come up with a word to understand what's going on, and then they would analyze it from there.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

I don't see how your examples are specific to dyslexic people. It sounds like you're talking about just everybody.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

So, what dyslectics tend to do is they take and they generally do this in stories like this through their political perspective, in this case, pro-Trump and anti-Trump, what they find a word that best represents what they're looking at to try to get a focus because the front part of our brain, we're thinking so incredibly rapidly, but with little to no organization, once we reduce it to a universal theme, we can then think about it, concentrate on it, and then come up with usually about three good reasons of why it's going on, and that's how we understand it.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Okay, now you mentioned the phrase word analysis. Right. And I think that's what you're referring to right now, basically, in its most most simple terms. How does word analysis, as you say, flag spin or hedging or manipulation before beliefs take over?

SPEAKER_03 28:04

So typically with how I train students how to read, because remember, we have to really understand, we have to really take control of that chaos and and focus it. And when you're dealing with a dyslectic, here's here's a big change. Do you see how most news stoop news uh stories they focus on the big picture and then they go to the specific?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

That's uh typically how they're written, yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

Right. Start with the dyslectic, yeah. It's like us trying to grab fog, there's nothing there. We have to go from the specific, a specific example to the general. So to put this into more concrete terms, if you're in an academic setting, if you're asking this dyslectic student, what effect did Martin Luther King's famous I have a dream speech have in the 1960s civil rights movement? We know nothing. We can't grab onto it. But if we if you ask what specifically compelled Martin Luther King to give his famous I have a dream speech, we can find that information that gives us an answer. Then that answer gives us a question, which gives us an answer. And as we keep going down that line, that forces our brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. So the biggest issue you're going to find with dyslectics is we have that chaotic front part of our brain with little to no organization. We have to force it to organize itself. And I tend to use discussion or writing as a measure of that output. Okay, so when you're thinking about a news story, the first thing after students that I've worked with said is when they get when they're listening to a news story, what they try to do is say, okay, you're giving me all this information. Do I believe it? Do I not believe it? How do I interpret this? They then, because that process, I show them how to come up with universal themes. They know literally hundreds and after time thousands of evolved words where they know the word and the dictionary definition. They find one that just instantly comes to the head and goes, okay, this is the universal theme. Now they're telling me all the these inform all this information. Do I believe it? Does this make any sort of sense? And they use that by articulating without reasons. And then they're in a position to where they internalize, do I believe this? Do I like it? Do I not like it? Then they're in a position where they can start discussing it. And my students, unlike a lot of people, when there's something that's important to them, then they really like to start discussing things. And that's where things help to clarify things.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Are there specific words that more readily identify manipulation or spin or the words that make it easier to identify it?

SPEAKER_03 30:52

You're asked a very complicated question. Let me try to give it to you in a way that's a simple answer. Give me a news story that happened relatively recently where you found if this is just a spin job, this isn't true. Well, I mean, there's a lot to choose from.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Uh huh. Well uh okay. Um how about uh Illinois Governor Pritzker? Or no, uh Massachusetts Governor Waltz saying that our ICE agents are Gestapo agents.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Okay. Let's look at and what perspective do you want to look through this, April?

SPEAKER_00 31:41

It's an outright lie and misdirection.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Okay. So let's try to just cut it back and just get on to the truth. Gestapo agents are referring there, there this really tends to branch off into two areas. The issue that if if Trump is actually doing what he's saying he's doing is having the ICE agents going in and going after the really bad actors, people that we know are convicted criminals that are really terrorizing the community. Most people don't have a problem with that, assuming they have a warrant and everything's been seen legitimately through a judge. The problem where he's getting this from is as they're going through that process, you're talking about people here who have been here illegally for 20 years and have been absolute model citizens. The data actually shows that illegal immigrants, the vast majority of them, behave better than typical Americans as far as breaking minor laws. They tend to be a lot of times very conscious people. And then, oh, we found out that who you are, we're gonna swoop you up. And by the way, we're not going to send you maybe directly back to your country. In some instances, Trump is literally trying to send these people to countries like Sudan. Like, not even on the same continent from where they came from. That's where he's coming up with this idea for a Gestapo agent. But as you're right, it takes it way too far. So, what would the students who I've taught look at this and go, guess you know, Hitler, Gestapo? These are the worst people who ever lived. That's not the case. What's a better universal theme to that flicks my political beliefs? All right. And if they're looking at it from a pro-Trump lens, they're here illegally. We got to get rid of them. If there's a few bumps along the way, I don't really care. They're just gonna look at this as standard law enforcement. But if they're coming from this from a traditional democratic perspective, they're looking at this from these people have been here for 20 years. They've done nothing wrong besides they it's a legal technicality. Why are we treating these people like criminals and sending them to the wrong continent potentially? And then, but they would not use something as extreme as Gestapo. They would use another less offensive, more moderate universal theme, and then they would easily then come up with reasons to discuss it. So that process that I taught them on how to come up with an exact definition for the universal theme depending on their political perspective and the level of what they're looking at, that precision makes discussing it so much more effective.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Well, I'd I'd just like to clarify two things. One, uh any Democrat will tell you no one is above the law. And two, the people who are being sent to third countries are only being sent to third countries because their original country of origin refused to take them back. Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

So no, but when it comes to there are uh there are cities called sanctuary cities, and the local politicians do this for a reason. They are not going to assist ICE in taking uh people that are behaving themselves who are here illegally, because what they've said, and that they have you know, there's data to back this up. If they think that the local police are going to help ICE get rid of them, when there's major crimes committed against them, they won't go to the police.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah, I should I yeah, I I understand all that. That's we're getting off off topic though, a little bit here. Yeah. Now, one of the things you you mentioned earlier was this uh going from either general to specific, or as it seems to work better for dyslexic people, going from specific to the general. As you had pointed out, most news starts with the general and goes to the specific. In the journalism industry, we call it the inverted pyramid style. But one of the things that I point out quite often on my program, and especially in the in the not the headline section of it, is that the headlines often are not reflective of what the story says at all. So shouldn't we all start with the specific and then move to the general? Would that really be the best course of action, not only for dyslexic people, but for everybody?

SPEAKER_03 36:27

Well, yeah, but you have to understand that news organizations do what they do for a reason. Grabbing your attention to get you to read the article or what whatever it may be. What I can generally tell you uh from it's not that news organizations or schools or everybody else are trying to make things hard for dyslectics. The simple fact is that 80 plus percent of our society are not neurodiverse. And we do things for a reason for the majority. And it comes down to when you're going through school, kindergarten through college, it's focused mainly on that back part of the brain. When you get into graduate school, we're coming up with original ideas in a very narrow specific area. That's where dyslectics own the place from day one or soon thereafter. And where did I come up with the idea of not general to the specific, but specific to the general? I interviewed literally dozens of successful dyslectic college professors that didn't go to a private dyslectic school. And virtually all of them told me the same thing. They would take classes that they didn't have to take that they didn't even like because the professor taught from the specific to the general. That's how they learned. And when I started applying that to kids in school, they said, yeah, that's it's so much better. So when we're in like a school setting or a news setting, the first thing you need to understand is that we're given a lot of information across to a lot of different areas. For typical people, that works great. For dyslectics, we hate it. We are very good in a very narrow area, and that's all we really care about. So you're not going to find us watching typical news channels. Most dyslectics will find very specific commentators or podcasts that focus on things that they really care about, and that's what they'll focus on. And then, especially those that can start off with examples and then go off from there, then if you have that, then you find that they will be extremely loyal listeners or readers.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

I wanted to ask you, you obviously you work with uh children and adults, mostly adults now, as you say. But I want to ask about dyslexic people in general, whether they be uh children or adults, uh what are some misconceptions about dyslexic people? People think we're not that bright in when we can't do school very well. Do dyslexic people want other people to know that they're dyslexic? Or if we recognize it, should we just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist?

SPEAKER_03 39:10

It depends on the dyslexic. It's it's a very hard answer because a lot of dyslectics don't want you to know. You can't tell if you're looking at it, you might notice it. If they don't volunteer it, the best thing to do is not to mention it. Other people are very open, and they're they you just know that they're dyslexic because they tell you. But if they're not very open with it, the best thing to do, even if you notice it over time, uh try not to say anything. Maybe you'll notice a friend that they have, and then ask a friend uh that they have what their preference is.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

To learn more about Russell Van Brocklin and dyslexia, go to dyslexiaclasses.com. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I. Thanks to Russell for spending some time in the listening tube and the on the spot examination and diagnosis. See? I told you I was normal.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

He's in that job, but he's still sharp.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

The listening tube is written and produced by yours truly, copyright 2025. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Now heard in more than 1,100 cities in 72 countries around the world. Go to thelistening tube.com and click on the green follow button. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for thou ad infinitum.