[Music] [Applause] raise your hand if you have been told that you were not good enough clever enough or smart enough when you were little yes yes we have all been there so i want you to remember that feeling because that's exactly how children with dyslexia feel in school every single day and not only that's how they feel every day in school the media also tried to remind them that dyslexia is just a long word of stupidity or it's just some kind of middle class disease hello i'm dr rosa clock a research fellow at the university college london my research area is in dyslexia and literacy development so you might ask me what is dyslexia children with dyslexia often complain that they have difficulties in reading and writing they often see words fly around in front of them and they often get confused with letters that look very similar to each other like b and d so for a word like blitzbot a new word for a typical adult select yourself you will take about six presentation of this word before you can learn that but the amount of exposure will need to be doubled for an add up with dyslexia to learn this word so it's gonna take and add up with dyslexia at least 12 presentation of this word in order for them to learn it and i could relate to that when i was little i went to one of the most prestigious primary school in hong kong so i was surrounded by all these brilliant smart clever kids one day my teacher told me that well rosa it seems like it takes you a few more times before you can learn something so i got my school back walked back home and i told my mom that yeah that's what my teacher told me that it takes me a few more times before i can learn something compared to my peers does that mean that i'm stupid my mom told me that baby girl i don't really care whether you are the most intelligent girl in the whole class what i care is whether you put in your best effort in every single task that you do and if you can do that you'll be fine so i keep my mom's word in my heart and i push my teacher's word to the other side of my brain and i keep working hard for 20 years and i managed to get a phd in psychology at the age of 25. so turns out it doesn't really matter that it takes you a few more times to learn things as long as you keep working hard if we look at the texas prison population sixty percent of them are dyslexic but what we don't talk about is that fifty percent of nasa scientists are dyslexic as well if you look at the american self-made millionaire population 40 are dyslexic so why are we only talking about the limitation of dyslexia but not celebrating the strength and the uniqueness that comes with the dyslexic mind the world economic forum has published a report that shows the key skills that are going to be important for the job market over the next 10 to 20 years the skills that add up with dyslexia are very good at which is creativity and visualization this is going to take up to 50 percent of the skills demand in the job market over the next 10 to 20 years what about the skills that add up with dyslexia are not very good at which is literacy skills turns out it's going to take up to 10 in the skills demand over the next 10 to 20 years now i'm a researcher in literacy development so you will never hear me say that literacy skills is not important but the reason why literacy skills is only going to take up to 10 percent in the job market it's because of technological advancement so do you remember when you used to type in microsoft word if you type something wrong you will see that red squiggly line yeah children with dyslexia often complain to me that well yeah i see that red squiggly line but i don't know which option i should choose from now with microsoft word that comes with the new windows 10 all children can hear the options of the red squiggly line so that they can hear all the pronunciation of the word and they can choose the one that they want so you see with new technological advancement like this it's really gonna help to alleviate the difficulties that children with dyslexia experience i love this real job advertisement when i first worked in this area a decade ago adult with dyslexia tend to hide their diagnosis because they feel like it's going to hinder their career progression but i love this job advertisement it says that if steve job is still alive he's a real innovator he's going to be creative he's an out of the box thinker and he would think what's the best thing that we can do for this company as a company we are innovative we are creative and we value the strength of dyslexia so end up with dyslexia if you think that we are a good fit for you come work for us so you can really see that even in the job market we begin to value the strength of dyslexia rather than just focusing on their limitation when i work with children with dyslexia i often try to remind them that hey sir richard branson jamie oliver adele all of them are dyslexic but children of dyslexia often say to me well we are they are not ordinary they are special they are not like me so children with dyslexia find them very unrelatable but the thing is i always want to remind these children with dyslexia that these figures they were once children and if they have believed in the voices that say to them you're not good enough you're not going to achieve anything you are not going to succeed i don't think they will be where they are today but in order to convince children with dyslexia i partner with the british dyslexia association i interviewed 100 adults with dyslexia i want to know where are they right now what careers are good for adults with dyslexia and how are they making this world a better place for all of us through their everyday life and when you look into the data we can categorize their jobs into four categories number one adults with dyslexia are very successful in the creative industry we have seen lots of graphic designers fashion designers illustrators painters adults with dyslexia are very creative they also work really well with children in fact recent studies have shown that children with dyslexia might be more compassionate compared to their typically developing peers we have seen a lot of teachers and psychologists who are dyslexic and the reason why they get into this field is because they told me that when they were growing up not a lot of teachers actually understand the learning profile of dyslexia so now that they have been through the whole education system they want to be there to support the learning of the next generation of dyslexia the same go with psychologists these add up with dyslexia told me that when they were growing up not only they have to face their learning difficulties but because of their dyslexia a lot of them have been bullied in school so they have to deal with mental difficulties as well so these psychologists once that they have been through the whole education system they want to be there to support the next generation of dyslexia to go through different mental difficulties we can see a lot of them working in the healthcare system as well we have a lot of nurse doctors podiatrists physiotherapists occupational therapists these adults with dyslexia are making the nhs system better for us every single day and when we talk about dyslexia of course we cannot miss the business industry adults with dyslexia are very entrepreneurial i want to share a few case studies with you i love the story of andy andy he grew up in one of the poorest area in the uk when he was born he really really struggled with the english letter sounds so his mom focused on teaching him on the english letter sounds before he gets to primary school and his father focused on teaching him on mathematic skills and computing skills even though they didn't know what andy's future career is going to look like they always have faith in him because they know that he's a great speaker he is really compassionate and he's also a very good musician today andy is a self-made multi-millionaire working as a top sales in a global company i want to share the story of tom with you tom he got a first class degree in engineering he's doing his third year phd in aerospace you can see that he's a pilot being dyslexic didn't keep him on the ground i love the story by alicia alicia told me that yeah i don't have a business degree but now i'm selling my product which is the baby sling to my customers worldwide we can see that all these 100 ordinary adults with dyslexia they have gone from being a zero in the classroom to being a hero in the real life so where do we go from here well we could easily just stick to the old ways focus sing on people's limitations keep telling people that they are not good enough or we can begin to focus on people's strengths encouraging one another to be the best version of ourselves if you would like to join me in this journey there are three things that we can do together first i would like all of us to focus on building talent there is this mom who brought his teenager with dyslexia to come and see me you can obviously see that his mom forced him to see me we have this typical teenager really grumpy just wanna get done with the task so that he can leave so he completed my task and after he finished the task i told him i have done this task with 30 000 children and teenagers with dyslexia a lot of them give me really typical thoughts and ideas a lot of them just draw mountains you are the only one who gave me a sydney opera house what it means is that you're able to generate thoughts and ideas that other people can't and that's what psychologists called statistically rare ideas and after i said that you can see there is joy sparkles in the boy's eyes and it's like finally there is someone who understand him and being able to see him as a person beyond the label of dyslexia the mom told me that well yeah my child wants to be an architect and he has been trying to figure out how can he become an architect while being dyslexic a few days later i received an email from this mom and she told me that his lovely teenager son cut the picture of the sydney opera house that he drew and he stick to his bedside so that even after a very difficult day in school he will remind himself that there is something that only he can do but i can't do this on my own i'm a psychologist so i'm trained to see the creative talent in children teenagers and adults i know in our audience today we have people working in all sorts of industry we have software engineers we have people who are working in the education sectors i would like all of us to identify talent in our own niche in our own working area and when we identify that to be able to encourage one another to be the best version of themselves and while we are doing that i would like to encourage us to focus on progress not perfection children with dyslexia often say to me i can't write i often correct them and say you can't write yet and i would remind them hey do you know remember six months ago you could only give me one sentence now you can give me a whole paragraph when we focus on progress rather than perfection we help people to focus on what they can do not what they can't do i would like to encourage us to help people to see their true self and one way to do that is by helping others to understand their personality traits and you can do that for free through this link there is a girl with dyslexia a little girl she came and see me and i've done this task with her and i told her that hey do you know that you are an enfj by the way if you want to know what's enfj go check it out and i told her that in this world only four percent of the population is an enfj and do you know who shared the same personality trait as you michelle obama oprah winfrey so now this little girl with dyslexia she would say to herself well yeah i might have the diagnosis of dyslexia but i also shared the super cool personality traits as michelle obama and oprah winfrey the story that we tell ourselves matter and if we begin to plant seed of hope in people's heart we can really change lives all of us are weird or strange in our own ways we are all neuro-diverse so let's not be that person who say to other people that you are not good enough you are not smart enough you are not brilliant enough but be that person to identify the strength and encourage each other to be the best versions of themselves i would argue that children with dyslexia are born to stand out let's not force them to fit in thank you