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Unlocking Neurodivergent Potential in EMS — Russell Van Brocklen · Dispatched & Dysfunctional

• Christopher Stockton: You the paramedics are quite knowledgeable in the field compared to a lot of other ⁓ professions, I should say. Yeah, we do get in arguments with doctors a lot ⁓ because again, they know more about it in a controlled environment. We are in a shit show world, you know, that's easiest way to put it. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yep. Yep. When I deal with dyslectics, ⁓ I had one kid who wanted to go and become a doctor and I said, that's just impossible. At the state university that I went to, the acceptance rate was under 3%. So I convinced him to go and get his paramedics. All right. Then after that, I had him go and get his four year nursing degree. Christopher Stockton: What's up, bachelor? Russell B Van Brocklen: but he had to get the paramedic first because then he had to go out and know what the hell he, he learned by doing, he did not learn in the classroom. And then I went and I got, he got his, his nurse practitionership and he said when he was done, it was a roundabout way. took a decade, but he said he had a comfortable position. He liked, but he knew what he was doing. If it wasn't. If he didn't do the paramedic first and go out and spend at least a year just on call seeing just stuff, he wouldn't know what the heck to do. Christopher Stockton: And that sounds about right. And I've worked offshore and I work in industrial fire now. And it's interesting because I work with a of firefighters now that are still with the municipal department. And even talk to them, they're like, look, the shit we run here ain't nothing compared to out there. Russell B Van Brocklen: Mm-hmm. One of the more interesting aspect, this was not a client, but a friend of a client. He was ADHD, tension, deficit, hyperactivity disorder. So how I like to describe the difference between dyslexia and ADHD is it's like a mild case. ⁓ But when you're dealing, especially if you're coming across people who are ADHD, they are hyper-focused. They love their little speciality case. Christopher Stockton: So. Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: All right, so what he wanted to do is he wanted to go out and he wanted the adventure. He wanted, and he also wanted a big paycheck. So I was like, okay, well, you're young. What I advise you to do is drop out of high school. He's like, excuse me? I'm like, he was going in, it was the summer between his sophomore and junior year of high school. I said, drop out, go to your local community college. Just get rid of all your gen ed requirements. Just get rid of it. Take your time. Get to know it. There's this course called Anatomy and Physiology. You're going to take that sucker and you're going to flunk it probably two or three times until you pass it. Just do it. So by the time his friends got out of school, all right, he went and he, I'm in New York state, he did the 24 credit thing where if you go to community college, you get 24 credits, you graduate. Christopher Stockton: That's cool, okay. Russell B Van Brocklen: So he went, he got done with all that, took him three times to pass anatomy and physiology, because that's the course they use to keep you out of the paramedics and to keep you out of nursing. All right. So he passed it and then he starts at the same college that his friends are going to. But now he just has to take the normal classes. All right. And he can just really dive in and he passed that anatomy and physiology class. And he's out there. There's a lot, you know, the paramedic training. There's a lot of hands on. There's a ⁓ yeah. So but he's he doesn't have to do English because he's already done all that. He said, thank you. So he finished up all that stuff and then he went and he said, I want adventure. So I said, well, if you really like the adventure and you really like where it's warm, did you think about maybe getting a job in one of the oil rigs down in the in the Caribbean? I said, I said, you're going to have no social life. You cannot be in a relationship with that job. He did that for years, freaking loved it. And then he came back and I said, yeah, if you want to go and have the excitement's over, you want a relationship, go back, get your RN, your four-year degree. You already have a bunch of experience. Then apply for a nurse practitionership. And then he was happy with that. But when you're looking at the difference, between a big part of what you're going to find is when you're coming up with people who are in trauma. And let's face it, you're paramedics. When you go out there, you're in a messy situation. You're not in a clinical environment. When you're dealing with the neurodiverse, I'm going to focus on ADD, ADHD, and dyslexia. All right. The first thing that I want to just explain to you is what's going on. Christopher Stockton: That's perfect. Russell B Van Brocklen: When you're dealing with these, with people like me, because I'm ADHD and dyslectic, is the first thing you're gonna wanna find out is from anybody who's around is what is the kid's specialty? What's their area of extreme interest and ability? So just so you understand from a scientific point of what's going on, this is the top book on dyslexia. All right, it's from Dr. Shewitz for its overcoming dyslexia. Second edition by Dr. Sally Shewitz from Yale. That's dyslexia. All right, the brain is completely different than anything you're used to. So just from an academic point, you see how the back part of your brain has this massive neural activity? You see how the back part of mine has like nothing going on? Christopher Stockton: Yes, sir. Russell B Van Brocklen: But the front part of my brain is about two and a half times overactive. Christopher Stockton: I see that, yeah. Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay. So when you're dealing with the neurodiverse, call it 15, 20 % of the population, what you're going to find is this back part of the brain. Don't even try to do anything associated with that because nothing's going on. Okay. You're in an emergency situation. This is not the time to mess around with something that's just functionally nothing's there. So the front part of the brain is about two and a half times overactive. Here's the key point that you're going to want to focus. You're going to want to get this kid to where you can actually have a conversation with them. See if they're okay. And they're going to... And the stress may have just caused them to shut down. So the first thing you're going to want to do is find out this is going to be completely off base of anything you've ever been taught. Find out what their speciality is. Find out what their area of extreme interest and ability is. All right? We love talking about that. All right, so I would just ask him, hey, I'm just gonna call him, hey, Tony, know, snap your fingers, hello. All right, Tony, and if you have a sense that they may be dyslectic or neurodiverse, simply ask, hey, Tony, just out of care, what do you like? What are you good at? What do you like talking about? All right, and they will tell you or somebody around them will let you know. Here's why that's important. Because if you ask a neurodiverse person about the front part of our brain for what we're really interested in, you ask them in your speciality, your area of extreme interest and ability, key question, do you have ideas flying around your head at light speed, but with little to no organization? They're going to say yes. Okay. So a lot of times when we're kind of out of it and we're kind of just hazy, And we're just kind of like, you may think it's something else, but really it's just our brains are processing the information at such an incredible velocity, ⁓ there's just no organization. Okay. Christopher Stockton: It honestly sounds like my brain that's a sad thing about it. Russell B Van Brocklen: So when you're asking the neurodiverse, okay, just simply find out, you know, what they like. Because a lot of times there's going to be people around. So let's say Tony's 10 years old and I don't know, he fell and hit his head or something. And you ask his mom, what is he really into? Baseball. And you just say, hey, Tony, who's your favorite baseball player? Who's your favorite baseball team? And if he's not responding to anything else, and if he responds to that, You know, there's certain questions you go through to see if they're cognitively okay. If he can start then talking about his interest, then you know he's probably going, you know, then you can make your judgment based on that. If you're talking about his interest and he's still going, her, then you know there's probably a deeper problem. Or if you run into this situation, this is especially with boys. Christopher Stockton: and Russell B Van Brocklen: I would especially call it late elementary and middle school in that range. They've been bullied horribly. Maybe they've been beat up and they've been told they're retarded one too many times. And they're completely and utterly shut down. And a lot of times what I would see is paramedics would show up and I've been actually around when this has happened on a few occasions and people know I'm a dyslexia researcher and they'd call me over and they're thinking about taking the kid to the mental emergency room because they're they were beat up. The physical marks don't look that bad, but they're just nothing responding at all mentally. And I would sit down with a kid, ask him, how are you feeling? What's going on? I'd go through the speciality thing. Nothing. And then would say, do you, were you called stupid one too many times? How were they tormenting you? All right. I would ask them about what language they were using and just tell them, listen, these are mean bullies. This is not you. They're, they're the ones who are acting horribly, not you. And I would just ask them a few times, what did they say? Cause I just, I'm just trying to get them to talk. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: And then there was one time when they were about to take the kid to the mental emergency room when he just started talking and crying when I asked him, what did they say that was so mean? And then the kids just started crying. They started talking. I just got the kid to talk. Then I left it up to the people in the ambulance about what to do. They ended up not taking him to the mental emergency room. They took him to the ER for a standard you know, everything and they had him talk to a lesser trained person than a full blown emergency mental exam. And what they were told later is taking kids like this to the mental emergency room when it's not needed can be a problem. Because, but if you can't get them to talk, then they have to because you just don't know. You don't know if there's some, I mean, it was, it gets very serious sometimes. So the ones that I just keep coming up with again and again over the past 25 years for me doing this is you have these dyslectic kids who are just numb and they won't say anything. So you go into that speciality and you talk to them about that. Just get them to talk. And the second one is especially when there have been fights and they've been beat up and they just won't say anything. The speciality thing doesn't work. And then again, when you do that, what you really wanna concentrate on is what did they say that made you so upset? Were they using, what words were, ask people around what words they were using. This word does not apply to you. The kid's a bully, he's being, they will be punished badly, okay? Christopher Stockton: Makes sense. Kids are F- Russell B Van Brocklen: and just let them know and then you're just trying to get them to talk so you can do your assessment. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: And those are the ones that I keep seeing over and over again in the kids. Now, when you're dealing with adults, it can be more of a much subtler because typically what adults have found who are neurodiverse, and by adults, I'm not talking about 18. I'm going to talk about, let's call it real adults, 25 plus. Okay. Christopher Stockton: Okay, so the frontal lobe's completely developed and all that. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yes, okay. And they've been out of school or they're a grad student and they're a real grownup. So what I've noticed about that is the shame is much less. So when you're dealing with a neurodiverse person, I would still start off with find out what their speciality is, what they like. What I would do if there's nobody around, just look around, just see if they have a book. that they're reading. ⁓ Look around and see if there's anything that indicates what they're into. Okay, like if you see like somebody's a Mets fan, because it's literally on their key chain. Just ask them about if you think they might be neurodiverse, tell me about the Mets, what do you like about them? It's just something else to add to your repertoire of just to get these people to start talking. Okay, all right. Christopher Stockton: Makes sense. Russell B Van Brocklen: And, what happens on a few occasions that I've just noticed throughout, you know, my experience is I had a extreme concussion. All right. And I was out of it and people kept trying just, know, my background with this year. This was about 16 years ago during the great recession. I had to have a menial job to just to keep the lights on for what I was doing. I was told to use a ladder that they knew was broken. And I walked up and I fell back, hit the back of my head. I was under the care of an associate professor of medicine at a major ⁓ teaching hospital for four years. The basic stuff, basic simple things that you guys do every day. I'm never getting that back. My higher order thinking was still intact, but that basic stuff is gone. So they kept trying to ask me questions and I just couldn't respond. It wasn't until I was in the hospital and they had an attending come over who started asking me things that I was into. And then I slow that they slowly pulled it out for me. And that was, I was, said, I was under their care for four years. That's how bad this was. So they, but finally asking what I was into, allowed me to start finally beginning to talk. Cause they thought, I mean, they, thought they were really worried because I was just not responding to anything. And that was, that's, that's just from a personal experience. That's how, ⁓ how important I found these techniques. And how did the attending know? Well, the attending was in their sixties and they've seen. everything so many times. That's just one of the things they picked up over time. Christopher Stockton: Right. I gotcha. just so everyone knows, we were talking to before I hit record, ⁓ your name is Russell. ⁓ If you wouldn't mind going into your background for everybody who's listening, tell us a little about yourself and what the work you do is. Russell B Van Brocklen: So ⁓ my story of how I got into this, because this is the last thing in my life I was ever supposed to do. It started in the late 90s when I had this insane idea that I wanted to find out how laws were created, not some class I wanted to know. So I went and I signed up for the New York State Assembly internship program and I was accepted. People ask me, what's weird about that? Well, I showed up. said, here's my neuropsychological evaluation. I have a first grade reading and writing ability. And they freaked. Because back then, you'd have the elected official. You'd have the chief of staff who was probably an intern a year or two before than the intern. They'd take messages. They'd file things. They'd write memos. And I couldn't do any of that. So the director goes up to the speaker's office. just like we can't use this kid. They said, you're not getting rid of him because he's dyslectic. So they got a committee together and they did this really, really, really strange thing. They pulled me out of the legislative office building, brought me over to the Capitol and put me in the Majority Leader's Program in Counsel's Office. And I walked in, I immediately knew why they did it. There are three administrative assistants who could help with my horrific writing, but they had no idea what to do with an undergrad. So they treated me like a grad student. So I had a much better internship for the paper instead of the big paper. gave a long hours long Q and A session and presentation, very standard accommodation. Now remember the New York state government came up with this, the top people in the legislature. So then it goes back to the state university of New York center of Buffalo's political science department. And they look at this absolutely massive, crazy accommodations. And they said, we don't like these accommodations. So we're going to lower your grade from 15 credits of A minus to 15 credits of F. Christopher Stockton: Okay, that's fucked up. Russell B Van Brocklen: They flunked me. Yeah, they flunked me. That was 29 years ago. It's still their only time ever happened in the history of the internship. So then I got upset and I said, I remember where I came from. I came from the majority leader's office. I stayed nights and weekends with these people. I had access to opportunities you people can't even imagine. And I turned it all down to people. Christopher Stockton: It is. Russell B Van Brocklen: You're going be shocked by this. asked my professors, where can I go to force myself to learn to read and write in grad school so I can teach other dyslexics? They said, well, if you like politics, it's easy. Law school. So I went into the belly of the beast. I ordered two classes. My second day of contracts, my professor called on me. I kind of taught myself to read somewhat. Christopher Stockton: Explains the tournament now. Russell B Van Brocklen: And the key thing is what they do in law school if you don't know the answer, which nobody does the first week, is they ask you questions when you don't know to embarrass you publicly until you adapt. That didn't happen to me. I didn't respond as a student. I responded as his equal. He's been a professor longer than I was alive at the time. And I responded as his equal. Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I couldn't beat him. He couldn't beat me. Threw up his arms and he said, Russell, you couldn't be any more correct. In the interest of time, have to move on to the next case. I learned to read within a month. I learned to write within a couple of years. Then I go back to the New York State Senate and I say, I want you to fund my dyslexia research program, which they don't do. So they send me over to the New York State education department and they said, ⁓ we need, they told me we need a New York state distinguished professor in psychology to approve what you're doing or you're done. Nothing. So I go back to Buffalo and I find out there's two distinguished professors. One just happened to be the one that gave me that original valuation. The state paid for it. She spent 20 hours with me over three days and validated this is the, I can literally go from first grade to grad level and back down again. By going from this part to, know, this doesn't work, I moved to this part that does work. Wrote up five pages. Then I was told I have to connect this to current research. Well, I was told it was going to take years. I did it in less than two weeks. You noticing grad school? I do really well in, extraordinarily well. That's where to select because we're in my speciality. So I got that approved, got 15 grand from my university and the university wide competition. A couple of years later, we got funding from the state. Christopher Stockton: ⁓ wow. Russell B Van Brocklen: I went back to my old high school, the Averitt Park Central School District, right outside of Albany, New York, our state capital. And we picked, this is very important, the juniors and seniors that were extraordinarily motivated and extraordinarily intelligent. They were reading and writing at the middle school level, one class period a day for the school year. They increased to the average rate of entering graduate students. They all went out of college. They all graduated GPAs 2.5 to 3.6. Cost New York State less than $900 per kid. We were literally 3X as successful as the best dyslexic college for less than 1 % of the cost. And that's how I got started. Christopher Stockton: That is extremely interesting. Okay, that is cool as hell. That is something to be proud of right there. That's amazing. Russell B Van Brocklen: Hahaha. Yeah, well that's just the first part and then we've done a lot more since then. So when people ask what's my background with going through all this, well remember I wasn't like some lucky PhD candidate who had to go through a PhD committee. I had to literally go through the top professors in the State University of New York and then we presented this in New York City in 2006. All right, now you want to talk about a tough room, you go in there and say, yeah, dyslexia is not that hard to fix. Here's how you do it. Christopher Stockton: Yeah, don't think anyone who honestly, anyone who's not in the medical field or even in the medical field, honestly, a lot of us don't quite understand what dyslexia really is. ⁓ As you said earlier when we were talking is the frontal brain is a lot more active than the dorsal brain. Russell B Van Brocklen: The back part, it's just, I'm really oversimplifying advanced neuroscience. Okay, but this is basically what's going on. The back part of the brain, I want you to think of kindergarten through high school. Dyslectics suck at that because we got nothing going on and we are academic specialists, not journalists. We like to focus in our own little area and that doesn't really happen until grad school. Christopher Stockton: Right, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Russell B Van Brocklen: As you saw when I went to grad school, I rocked the professor the first time he called on me. I was his equal. They never even heard of anything like that ever happening before. When I had to go and get the approval of Professor James Collins, people said it was going to take years. I didn't, less than two weeks. Christopher Stockton: Right. That's amazing. Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay, well that's the advantage of that massive overactivity. So when I'm dealing with, typically with dyslexic kids, what we do is we find their speciality and we focus on that. And just so know how crazy this can get, ⁓ this is my most successful case. I never saw anything like this before, Casey. I will never see anything like this again. But just so you know how powerful this is. I met Casey at the end of fifth grade. She was 10 years old. She turned 11 over the summertime. She was reading and writing at the second grade level. I always do writing first because if you can write it, you can read it, but Casey wanted to do reading first. And she was interested in Theodore Roosevelt, so I signed her this little book, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. All 900 pages of it. This is for 10th grade to first year college level. I gave her a simple process. Casey went up to her room, shut the door for three hours a night for six months, most of the days during the summertime. At the end of that, you could flip to this random page, point to that word, and she would tell you the dictionary definition verbatim. She jumped eight grade levels in six months. I worked with her for 15 minutes a week. Christopher Stockton: that damn you're doing miracles with this. That's amazing. Russell B Van Brocklen: ⁓ no, that's all Casey. when people say, can't keep these kids to read, I'm like, well, a 10 year old figured it out. Most of my kids will not do that in six months. They will take one to three years to do that. Normally around two. Christopher Stockton: You just. Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay, but- Christopher Stockton: to jump eight grade levels in six months. That's astronomical. Russell B Van Brocklen: On Herb, and I worked with her for 15 minutes a week, and half our time we were talking about her when she was going into cheerleading and she wanted to know, so I told her that stuff and she asked a couple of questions and occasionally she would text me saying, I'm stuck here and I'd tell her what the answer is. And she'd go, one of the funnier things was I told my students I'm not available certain days because I'm literally at the racetrack for thoroughbreds at Saratoga. And she texted me. I said, okay, I went to a corner and she said, it's loud there. I said, yes, it's at the track. What's the question? And she asked, I said, yeah, I see where you're stuck. Here's where it is. Then she went back and she just kept working at it. Her mom had no idea. Zero idea. Finally, the school called her up because ⁓ she was in a reading class and she's with this big book and the kids went in and just took her book. They couldn't get past the first paragraph. And they called her mom thinking she had a huge reading problem. And I said, what do you, their mom called me. said, what do you think she's been doing in her room all this time? She was, we worked another couple of years. She was ready for college at the end of eighth grade. So I mean, that just gives you an example of how, again, that is a one-off edge case, but that just shows you how powerful that overactive front part of the brain is. Christopher Stockton: Right. That's actually sorry. I had a text come in that I to read for a second. That's and that's amazing and interesting too because that was actually following my next question is how common is this in reality to have dyslexia or the neurodivergence and – Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay, in general, what you're going to find is dyslexia is like the just the most severe case. Dyslexia, dyscalculates when you can't do math. Call it five to 10 % of the population. Okay. If you're going to add ADD, ADHD, you're pushing 15, maybe 20%. The numbers aren't, unfortunately, the numbers aren't that great in the field. I see them all over the place, but I'm more on the conservative side of Christopher Stockton: Let's sing. Russell B Van Brocklen: probably maxing out probably around 15 % with everything. Christopher Stockton: Gotcha. I didn't know that math thing was a thing. I thought that was just something people made up. Russell B Van Brocklen: it's called dyscalculia. And I had one kid who I dealt with dyslectics who literally would go to MIT and they thought that the math that calculus was a joke. I've also dealt ones where two plus two, thought was seven. And my response was, and this really angers educators, but I said the only time and just, my background, I flunked calc one and calc two seven times. because I wanted to be an aerospace engineer like my uncle. I was real good in math through high school. I just couldn't do it in college. So after college, the only time I use this math is when I'm teaching other kids how to do math. I never use it. mean, so what I told the parents was we solve the reading, we solve the writing. And I said, when you're dealing with math, we've invented this thing called calculators. They're on our phones. Christopher Stockton: They're everywhere. Russell B Van Brocklen: So I literally, I said, okay, I literally had the parents, said, we're doing World War III where they're going to college. I literally went to a university professor and I said, you're gonna pay big time for this evaluation. I'm gonna save you a corp, you're gonna pay big time for this. Associate professor in psychology at a major state university did the evaluation. And I had to be very careful. said, should this kid be required to take the math class? I said, I don't want to influence you. This is your choice. The professor said no and wrote it up. Then we went back to the university. said, we went to your top expert. They said no. Now do we have to go to federal court to enforce this? And they backed down when they found out we went to, I had the parents travel. to big state you, like University of Ohio, of Penn State, University of Florida, Gainesville, the top flagship campus. We got one of their real professors to do the evaluation. Christopher Stockton: Gotcha. Russell B Van Brocklen: The thing, why? Because it's a state employee at the big campus and they got the reputation and we didn't ask for anything. They gave their opinion. And that opinion, because it's a professor ⁓ at the big state university, the judge is just going to go with that. Because you went up the middle. so that's how important these evaluations can Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: ⁓ that might also help if you think the person's neurodiverse. Ask if they have any other documentation with you. That could help out tremendously if you're trying to figure out what's going on. Some people like me actually carry it around with Christopher Stockton: ⁓ wow, okay. Russell B Van Brocklen: You know, it'll give you something. Maybe you can ask, explain that, know, just to get again, just to get them to talk because I've seen. Christopher Stockton: So when he said, you'll carry it around with you, do you carry like a little card or is it a- he's a great girl. ⁓ okay. We have the whole report with you. I got you. I wasn't sure. I was trying to make sure to clarify on that. I'm like, huh, hold on a minute. Russell B Van Brocklen: It's a five page report. ⁓ ⁓ Well, for me it helped out. ⁓ actually I got pulled over for a minor traffic infraction and it was dyslexia that got in the way. So then I pulled out the documentation and I gave it to the officer. So the officer called up to because the dispatcher had a kid who was dyslexic. They said, yeah, OK, tell me the test. Yep, that's for real. Yep. Now tell me the scores. Christopher Stockton: Hey, it worked. Russell B Van Brocklen: Guys like, wow, okay, now who wrote this? Whoa, okay. Actually looked up Dr. Hulich, who did the evaluation. This guy is the worst thing I've ever even heard of. Give him an escort to the thruway. So I had two cops giving me an escort to the thruway to make sure I got it on the right way. But the dispatcher was like, yeah, that's ⁓ way worse than my kid. They said, well, your kid has it better. I'm no, not like this. This is real. And the officer there was like, how do I know that this isn't some, you know, blah, blah, I looked up the professor. It's a distinguished professor. It's a State University New York distinguished professor in psychology. She's huge in the field. No, this is real. Christopher Stockton: That's awesome. Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay, then they decided to me the escort instead of a ticket Yeah, you have to know And this is a key thing though You can't BS this. All right, because if people want to know I'm not just dyslexic. I'm not just ADHD There's a bunch of other nonsense that I'm dealing with here It is literally the most severe case people said they've ever seen Christopher Stockton: That's awesome. Ouch. Russell B Van Brocklen: And I had to correct how I drove after that. mean, literally when I drive now, it drives people nuts because I drive worse than a little old lady. I drive way too slow to drive Miss Daisy. All right. But it avoids so many accidents. But I just have to be very like like the other day I was just coming out of my bank and I'm going really slow and somebody starts to back up and I'm just on the horn until I make a right turn. Christopher Stockton: Yeah, but at same time. person. Russell B Van Brocklen: All right, because everybody just, you know, it's just this. So it's just something. And that's that's also with the effect of concussions. And you see this left eye got to get fixed. So I just have to be really, really careful. But when you're dealing again with the neuro diverse. Our brains are just the complete opposite of what you have yours completely. And. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: It's, ⁓ we can be quite frustrating to deal with each other because, you know, every time I'm in a situation, I'm just trying, you know, ⁓ people will ask me, I remember in, ⁓ I had this one professor, he required us to write everything down in class, in front of him with a paper and pencil. Christopher Stockton: Okay. Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay. And as a dyslectic, I always type. I want you to think about it. The letter W hitting a key or trying to write a W takes up all your cognitive load. And then I would turn in something that would be embarrassing for a first grader. And I'm serious about that. And the spelling, the grammar, and finally I had enough. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: I was in tears. We're in the disability office, the director's out, the woman who actually ran the place, who was much better, was sitting down, and we're screaming at each other. All right. Finally, it got past the chairman level and went up to the dean and the dean just said, we're going to remove you from this class. We're going to have you repeated the next semester under a different professor. Walk in with him. I say I need to turn things into you that are all written out He's like, well, how do I know you wrote it? I said, yeah talk to the people in the writing assistant center He did he said, okay Yeah, might they said you they they're gonna start charging you rent for all the time. I'm there So I turned it in he checked out they said He was here 21 times for this paper alone he They said what they... So he accepted it. I never had a problem after that. He even allowed me, instead of doing written essays in class, you know, where I have to type it, I would take my tests in the disability office. He would want me, instead of me typing them out in class, I'm sorry, in the disability office, he allowed me to do extra papers and just turn them in. It worked out great. None of the other students wanted anything to do with it. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: That was a standard thing that professors would say to make sure it's fair. Here's the accommodation I'm giving the dyslectic. Anybody else want this? And nobody ever would. Christopher Stockton: Makes sense. mean, so here's a question that popped in my head when you were talking about that. ⁓ you know, in the field of like you were saying earlier, dyslexics and ADHD, ADD, they all have their specialties. As we were talking about earlier, a lot of paramedics, a lot of cops, a lot of firefighters, that is our specialties. And it, it makes me wonder if a lot of us are just undiagnosed. I mean, I've been diagnosed with ADHD before anyway. I just never took meds. So I'm like a squirrel on crack, but... ⁓ Russell B Van Brocklen: So let me go. you want me to give you? I developed a series of up to three questions. And the idea was to diagnose things for treatment purposes so that you don't have to spend $5,000 on a neuropsych exam. Would you mind me using you as a guinea pig? OK. OK. So what is your speciality? What's your area of extreme interest and ability? Christopher Stockton: Okay. Go ahead, I'd ⁓ appreciate it. mechanical. Russell B Van Brocklen: Mechanical. So when you're thinking about mechanical things, do you have ideas now or ever in the past where you have ideas flying around your head at light speed, but with little to no organization? Christopher Stockton: That's constant. Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay, so what that tells me is your ADD, ADHD, or mild dyslexia at least. Okay, one of those three. Now for the next one. Now if you're thinking about writing about mechanical stuff, fingers, keyboard, fingers, keyboard. The idea's in your head, you take your fingers, put them on the keyboard. Does the idea ever then fly out of your head leaving you with an empty brain? Is that you or not really? Christopher Stockton: It goes out there and it stays in the brain at same time. Russell B Van Brocklen: Okay, well, here's the key question. The idea is in your head, your fingers hit the keyboard. When your fingers hit the keyboard, does the idea then fly out of your head, leaving you with an empty brain? Okay. So what that tells me is you're not, you're not severely dyslectic. And the third question doesn't matter. So you're ADD, ADHD, or mildly dyslectic. That's what it tells me. And you already said you've, find out now with ADHD. So do you remember going through school when you were in, especially probably when you were in college or wherever you got your paramedic training. When you were in something you really cared about, you were not only focused, you were laser focused, much better than your classmates, and you were just completely absorbed. Sound familiar? Okay. When we step way outside of that, they could hardly ever get you to do anything. Sound familiar? Okay. So yeah, so that's ADHD. ⁓ Christopher Stockton: Yeah, and yeah. ⁓ yeah. Russell B Van Brocklen: So when you're, you're, so you know all about this stuff. All right. So you would just try to find out what their speciality is and talk to them about it just to get them to talk. That's the main thing because if you can't get somebody to talk and they're just like, because I see that a lot when sometimes I'm called in when these situations. What do you have to do that? They're just sitting there. They're just not communicative at all. You have to bring them in, right? Christopher Stockton: You have to, yeah, you have to. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yes, and because a paramedic brings them in as non-communicative, especially if they think there's a head injury, then they're probably going to be going through all of this extra stuff where if you got them to talk and they were cognizant, they would probably avoid a lot of stuff once they're brought into the emergency room. Yeah. that's, the whole point of what I'm just trying to get for this episode is how do we, if you think they might be neurodiverse, how do we get them to talk? Look around again, look, look at literally look at their key chain, look for anything else personal that says what might they be interested in and just try to get them to start talking about it. All right. And, and, but a lot of times what works for neurodiverse. Christopher Stockton: Thank you. Russell B Van Brocklen: Eventually finds its way into the general education classroom Give you a little hit any normal kid You find out what they're interested in. They're talk more about it It's just with your ADHD. It's ten times greater a hundred times greater Okay, so this also works for Normal people as well, but if you reap, but if you're especially if your ADHD What do you interact just get them to talk because Christopher Stockton: Right. Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: Just so your colleagues know, what's the difference of you bring somebody in and they can recognize the day, know who the president is, they can communicate basically, and the ones that are just, what happens to them when they go into the ER? What's the difference? Christopher Stockton: They're treated completely differently. They have a bunch more tests run and could be unnecessarily ran. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yes. with a lot of us nowadays with our health insurance, I remember when I was a kid, I remember I'm 52, insurance actually covered stuff. yeah, but now people, a lot of families I'm talking to, they'll say, listen, we got insurance, but there's like a $7,000 deductible. You go in and you start running all these tests. Christopher Stockton: Yeah, that'd be nice. Russell B Van Brocklen: You're shooting past that. I mean, you're going to eat up that seven grand when you can't like just boom. So yeah. So the other thing is just to save everybody all this time and aggregate from running all these tests that aren't needed so we can actually get them to talk. Christopher Stockton: Yeah, and like you said earlier, you know, family, friends, that's a very good asset to have as well as to ask a question like, are they neurodivergent or is there a issue I should know about, you know? Russell B Van Brocklen: Or if you just want to cut to it, what are they... And if you're not sure if people are shaken just because it works for everybody, just a lot more for the neurodiverse and the most for ADHD, what are they interested? Talk to them about what that is. Like if you see a book on Theodore Roosevelt. So I see you had a book on Theodore Roosevelt. What do you like about it? All right. Just get them to start talking if you can. Christopher Stockton: That makes sense. Russell B Van Brocklen: Alright, because a lot of times these kids are shut down, but especially if you get called in and you're dealing with a dyslectic who's been bullied and beat up and they, you know, you get a couple of 10, 12 year old kids and they throw a few punches, you know, it's not like two grown men in a bar throwing punches where one can really cause damage, but you know, just trying to get them, I was in... Christopher Stockton: Right. News of payment. Russell B Van Brocklen: As I said, I've been involved in some of these things. I've been consulted on some of these. We can't get the kid to talk. And then I would just ask, you know, what did they say? What are the nasty words they told you? That's not you. Just how did that make you feel? And sometimes when I did that, I just got to open up. They started crying and talking. But then I turn them over to the medical person, but they're talking and the medical person got them just they could understand, okay, the kid's coherent. That's the main thing. The ones that I've heard about that I was not involved in, they would bring the kid in. One time they ran them through all this neurological stuff. The kid ended up in literally the mental emergency room, you know, like these shit door things, until they finally got the kid and that scared the hell out of the kid. What happened? The kid was beat up by a much bigger bully. Christopher Stockton: Yes, sir. Russell B Van Brocklen: And then they had these medical bills of you can't believe what it was. The parents actually sued the kids' family because they had money. All right? I can tell you when they got done, had a heck of a lot less. Christopher Stockton: ⁓ right, yeah, I'm sure. Russell B Van Brocklen: You Christopher Stockton: ⁓ yeah. Russell B Van Brocklen: So they actually took it to trial because they wanted, they really wanted, not only did the jury come back with an award, but in that state, for a egregious thing, they could do punitive damages. And then they came up with a big number that way. And they finally came up with, they settled after that for little less on the punitive damages, but it paid, because the medical bills were, I don't know, just tens of tens of thousands of dollars because of this. Yeah. Christopher Stockton: Here's something that I'm kind of curious on too is in the neurodivergent world, rewards I would say something different or pattern recognition like rewards for school. If a kid is given a sticker or something, does that make it – Russell B Van Brocklen: ⁓ that doesn't work. So what I do with that is I'm truly evil. I ask the kids to come up with 10 likes and 10 dislikes because I literally show them how to go from randomly placed misspelled words to writing ⁓ a ⁓ grammarly okay spelling correct three reason sentence. For the thing that they dislike the most if they don't do the work, What I tell the parents is how the kids force them to do what they don't like to do. Like one of my kids, he hated cleaning the rabbit cages. His name is Reed. He's in a book I'm writing that says, you can write, you can read. That's the title. Coming out in a few months. So what would happen is I said, Reed, please don't do your work, because this is what's going to happen. Your mom's going to take you out and force you to clean the rabbit cages that you really don't like doing. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: and she's gonna videotape it and I'm gonna be laughing like crazy and ten years from now we're gonna play it again we're gonna laugh like crazy and you're gonna be like that's not funny it is to us so please don't do your work he started doing his work another one his name is ⁓ August he's nine and he hates folding clothes so if he won't do his work his mom hasn't has him fold clothes fixes it real quick now that's if they won't do the work Christopher Stockton: Gotcha. Russell B Van Brocklen: Now, you don't give them a sticker if they do things nice. That's not how these kids work. What you do is you go up to them and you say, you find out, I tell parents, what is something that's really important to them, that doesn't cost you a lot of money, but is really important to them? And it always comes down, virtually always to come down to where they have a certain best friend or two best friends and they like going to a certain ice cream shop. Or they like doing this certain activity. So if you really did something special, then you have them do that. Like I had one kid, his name was John. You'll find a lot with neurodiverse kids, we have fewer friends, but they're much deeper connections. And he liked going for ice cream with Jeff. This one place where they had really amazing homemade ice cream. All right. And I said, do you know what happened? There are consequences. for what you did. He's like, what did I do? I said, well, you've been doing extremely well. So I said, actions have consequences. You're going with your best friend for ice cream. He's like, really? I said, yeah. I said, actions have consequences. It's not always bad. So he went and just, he really dove in. But he learned not to ask for it. He knew that somehow his parents trained him that at his, at a young age, he knew not to ask. And I would, the mom would come to me and say, when, and I would say, we're not going to make this a regular thing, but when he did something extraordinary, you know, we go ahead and do that. And then he would act like a kid again. And we would have him go do what he didn't like to do, which for him was cleaning the cat can. and his mom wouldn't clean the cat pant for a couple of days to make sure it was extra reeky. And then he said, go. Yeah, that fixes things really fast. Christopher Stockton: No. Yeah, cat shit normally does. Russell B Van Brocklen: No, but like what was it when you were a kid? What did you really hate doing? What was your chore that you hated when you were a kid? Christopher Stockton: I don't know, I was the weirdo that actually enjoyed doing the stuff my parents told me to do. I didn't have anything inside, my stuff was always outside. I had to mow the yard or pick up sticks or, know, stuff like that. I try to think what it was. I'd probably say probably folding the clothes, because I still hate that to this day. I'm to help the wife with it, but I'm doing it. Russell B Van Brocklen: It had to be something you didn't like doing. Okay. Okay, imagine your parents dumping two weeks worth of laundry and saying go fold this. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: The kids tell me that I am truly evil. When I had that done, one of the kids I had brought the kid all the way through, brought the writing up to the graduate level, all right, from the glittery of the first grade level, and she said, you know, what you did was still so evil. I said, well, yeah, did it work? She's like, yeah, it worked, but it's still evil. And I said, yeah, and you will never think it's funny, but your mom does. I started working with her when she was 10. We finished up when she was 14 and she was doing grad level writing. And her mom and her sisters really thought it was funny. And then just, and she got a little too ⁓ rambunctious. So her mom showed her video to her boyfriend. ⁓ that was classic. Nothing. Christopher Stockton: Yeah, very true. ⁓ wow. Russell B Van Brocklen: gets more embarrassed than a teenage girl. was just like, she's like, that was so evil. said, yeah, well, people still think it's funny. Christopher Stockton: So another question I got for you too is, for instance, if you're in EMS or a first responder in any way, ⁓ we're normally good at recognizing patterns, fast decision making, adapting under pressure pretty quickly. Is that common for neurodivergence or is that something that's not common for neurodivergent people? Russell B Van Brocklen: When you're in your speciality, it is a drastic, extraordinarily unfair advantage over your normal people peers. I don't know whatever way you want to call people that are just typical, all right? Because we have two and a half times our neural activity, all right? The way I'd like to explain it, is imagine the difference between Arnold Schwarzenegger at let's say 16 and your typical 98 pound weakling. We put him on a bodybuilding competition. You'll put him in a weight training program. Arnold Schwarzenegger is obviously going to win that because that's what his body was designed to do. When we're in our speciality, we tend to drastically excel in it because we've been working at this ever since we were kids. I want you to think back to when you were a little kid. You always had an interest in being a paramedic, right? Yes. So you started studying this unusually deeply when you were a kid. So by the time you got to your actual training, you already knew so much stuff about it and you knew it deeply because you've been studying it hard ever since you were very young. And that... Christopher Stockton: most part yeah. ⁓ yeah. Russell B Van Brocklen: level of knowledge so when everybody else is learning the basics, you're splicing hairs. What should I do in this specific situation? Should I use this or should I, what type of medication am I going to recommend? You know, like this one's made by Pfizer, this one's made by Moderna, these are the different ones. Why would this one be a little better in this situation? You're doing that while they're still trying to figure out what the basics are. Christopher Stockton: Gotcha. Yeah, a little bit, yeah. ⁓ Russell B Van Brocklen: Sound familiar? Yeah, it's extremely unfair once we're in our speciality. Because for what you do, ⁓ an associate's degree is the optimum education level. Okay, so we walk in there like we already know, like that kid I told you about who was going on to med school. How did he know more in some instances than the EER attending? Because he spent 60 hours a week Christopher Stockton: Well, I'm with. Russell B Van Brocklen: running the ambulance service for years. You you said the doctor sees it in the ER where it's a controlled setting. He's out there in the real world where it's anything but. Christopher Stockton: Very true. And the sad thing about my situation was I actually had a stroke during Paralyte School. So I forgot everything that I and had to relearn it within six months. That was very fun. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yes, but that's again where you have the advantage of being neurodivergent. The way I like to describe ADHD is like mild dyslexia. You don't have the reading, writing of problems that dyslectics have. It's still some, but there's ways of overcoming that. It's the same solution. It's just, go through it a lot. You go through things a lot faster, but you know what you want to do. Like I have one client now, he's neurod, he's ADHD. He has a business degree. And I said, okay, now what do you want to do? He wants to go into a certain recruiting area. And I said, okay. I know. And I told his parents, this is what he has to do. Well, can't he go into, I said, no. When you're dealing with ADHD, you're going in something ultra specific and you don't fight it. And they're like, okay. And I'm walking him through how to do that with. custom-made Harvard style case reviews. And I'm being really hard on him. And he's starting to pick it up. The main thing that I'm teaching him is you're not allowed to think at the entry level. You always have to get permission from somebody else. Here's how you do it. You offer them a solution if you can. And I just walk him through all that. And how did I learn all that? because I went and had five deep research reports created by the $200 a month artificial intelligence. And then I verified it, talked to people who actually did the job. Christopher Stockton: It works. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yeah, so, but we have to focus on our speciality. So if you're in, if you're an EMT or a paramedic, what I recommend, if you're an EMT, take the extra training, become the paramedic, really know your stuff. And then if you're happy doing that, stay doing that. But as you're finding out at 39, is it worth it to go back, get your nurse practice, getting your nursing degree and then getting a nurse practitioner? Yeah, it's going to suck financially for a couple of years. But then as you, you you've seen everything for a lot, lot of nurse, here's what a lot of people don't understand about nurse practitioners. You get a four year RN degree. They don't want to see you for the, and Pete and the nurse practitioner part until you have a lot of experience. And I mean a lot. They want you to know what you're getting into. So then you go back at your nurse practitionership, then you're sitting in. Christopher Stockton: Right. Russell B Van Brocklen: because I'm seeing a few doctors now. I go and I talk to them. You go in, they run through everything. 70, 80 % of the stuff that comes through the door, they deal with. And the key thing they tell me, they say their bad weeks are 45 hours a week. They're typically there from nine to five and they leave at five. Christopher Stockton: Yeah, they're done. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yeah. Now the doctors make a hell of a lot more money than they do, but then they're there, nights and weekends. Christopher Stockton: Yeah, that's very true. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yeah, it's like one of my kids, one of the first kids I started working with. I said he wanted to go for, he wanted to be an electrician. So I said, okay, you're going to go to a community college, get your two year degree. And I said, but I'm going to insist that you go on and get your four year degree. He's like, why? I said, just do it. Now he's your age and you know what he's telling me? Christopher Stockton: What's that? Russell B Van Brocklen: It's getting a lot harder being an electrician in his late 30s. I said, yes, now remember that piece of paper I insisted you getting? Did you think about becoming a foreman? So he went and he applied. They said, you have a bachelor's degree? Yes. You have? OK. He became a foreman. Christopher Stockton: Done. Yep. Russell B Van Brocklen: He said, this is so much easier. He's walking around with his clipboard. He's pointing things out. He said, I'm not coming home, like, just wasted at night. He said, there's one thing about doing that at 23. It's different when you're 38. Christopher Stockton: ⁓ yeah, 100%. Russell B Van Brocklen: I said, I'm 52, wait till you're my age. Like, I don't want to even think, because he sees the older guys doing it. They do it, but they're just like, this is hard. they do try to retire early. Christopher Stockton: ⁓ yeah, I would imagine. Electrician couldn't be easy on the joints. Russell B Van Brocklen: Oh, or the plumbers, they got to go into one plumber kid I worked with. He started his own plumbing company. He goes, this guy's remodeling the house. They can't figure out where a leak is. I mean, this home is going to sell for over a million bucks. This is pre pandemic. He goes in, hits the pipe, finds out where the problem is, fixes it in about, you know, what? 10, 20 minutes gives him a $5,000 bill. The guy wanted itemized. He's like to actually fix the problem, 100 bucks, knowing how to fix it for $4,900. The guy paid it because he had all these other plumbers that come in that couldn't figure it out. Christopher Stockton: And that's the funny part about it is, we all have, like you said, our specialties, we all have our abilities and we, as a human ⁓ race, we're always hesitant to get compensated for that. And it's kind of sad, but interesting at the same time, because the ones that are able to do tremendously well, and then there's the rest of us that are you know, struggling to do it. Russell B Van Brocklen: Yeah, that's, and that, and so what you want to do in nowadays with all this, cause I'll tell you AI was made for dyslexics. Okay. I literally now train people on how to do my, I don't use agents that much. keep a tight rein over things, but I belong to the three major labs and I show kids how to go and use AI to produce really well, really well created polished documents. ⁓ Christopher Stockton: ⁓ yeah. Russell B Van Brocklen: that are ready to hand out. And it's just a huge advantage being dyslectic. So I use a book called The Craft of Research. It came out in 1995 from the University of Chicago to teach their students how to do doctoral dissertations. And I literally walk students through that process and they finish up while they're in high school. Yeah, if you know how to do that, you can do AI really well, even if you know nothing about AI. Christopher Stockton: That's cool. So I appreciate everything today, Russell. So if anyone wants to find out more about you or the services you offer, how would someone find out about it? Russell B Van Brocklen: Best thing to do is just go to dyslexicclasses.com. It's with an S dyslexicclasses.com plural. Click on the download, ⁓ download the free republish. There's a button there. This is download free guide, answer three questions and just ⁓ set up a time to speak with me. It's a half an hour. It doesn't cost you anything. Christopher Stockton: perfect and I greatly appreciate your specialty on that and everything you're doing man. That's it's amazing. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Let me go ahead and hit stop. Russell B Van Brocklen: Thanks for having me.