Joanne Lockwood: Foreign.
Niki McGlynn: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Niki McGlynn: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Niki McGlynn: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Niki McGlynn: inclusion, belonging and societal transformation.
Niki McGlynn: Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? Remember, everyone
Niki McGlynn: not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone.
Niki McGlynn: Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge
Niki McGlynn: the status quo and share stories that resonate
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Niki McGlynn: sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's
Niki McGlynn: connect, reflect and inspire action together.
Niki McGlynn: Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out
Niki McGlynn: to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Niki McGlynn: to share your insights or to join me on the show.
Niki McGlynn: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Niki McGlynn: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Niki McGlynn: Today is episode 166 with the
Niki McGlynn: title Powering Minds One reflex
Niki McGlynn: at a time. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome
Niki McGlynn: Niki McGlynn. Niki is a neurodevelopment
Niki McGlynn: therapist, trainer and ADHD coach,
Niki McGlynn: dedicated to helping people unlock their full potential through movement
Niki McGlynn: and understanding primitive reflexes. When I asked Niki to
Niki McGlynn: describe her superpower, she says it is translating
Niki McGlynn: neurodevelopment science into life changing movement strategies.
Niki McGlynn: Hello, Niki, welcome to the show. Hi, Joanne, lovely to have
Niki McGlynn: you here. Whereabouts in the world are you? So I'm based just outside
Joanne Lockwood: Reading, which is about 40 miles west of London in a small
Joanne Lockwood: leafy town called Wokingham. Called where, sorry?
Joanne Lockwood: Wokingham. Wokingham. Oh, I know Wokingham. I'm
Niki McGlynn: in a suburb of between Portsmouth and Petersfield.
Niki McGlynn: So. Okay. Oh, I never too far away.
Niki McGlynn: I wouldn't say quite a leafy suburb, but there are leaves and
Niki McGlynn: it is a suburb, but it's close. It's towny, I suppose,
Niki McGlynn: other than villagey. So, Nikki,
Niki McGlynn: your journey into neurodevelopment therapy. I think predictably, based on what
Niki McGlynn: you've written in your show notes, it's down to your own undiagnosed dyslexia
Niki McGlynn: and adhd. So how do you get into into associated this
Niki McGlynn: with reflexes and movement? So
Joanne Lockwood: really my journey was started with my daughter
Joanne Lockwood: who at age 12 was diagnosed with
Joanne Lockwood: dyslexia and I was 40 at the time and
Joanne Lockwood: became very obvious from her diagnosis that I had the same
Joanne Lockwood: issue. So I got a diagnosis and then discovered actually very
Joanne Lockwood: recently that, that my mum had suspected
Joanne Lockwood: I was dyslexic when I was very young. But at that point my
Joanne Lockwood: dad didn't believe in dyslexia. So kind of nothing happened.
Joanne Lockwood: So. And it's very. I find working within this
Joanne Lockwood: sort of neurodivergent world, that it's a very common
Joanne Lockwood: progression now is that. Is that parents get their children
Joanne Lockwood: diagnosed and then recognise their own issues. So she was
Joanne Lockwood: diagnosed with dyslexia and then more recently
Joanne Lockwood: diagnosed with ADHD just after the pandemic. And same thing, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, it's that greater understanding that we now have of how
Joanne Lockwood: neurodiversity exhibits in women and girls and a
Joanne Lockwood: lot of that was discounted or not recognised until. Until very recently.
Joanne Lockwood: So she got her diagnosis, I got my diagnosis and the rest is history.
Joanne Lockwood: But I think seeing her really struggle at school and
Joanne Lockwood: knowing how I'd struggled at school and at college and at university, I
Joanne Lockwood: didn't want her to have to deal with the same issues that I dealt with
Joanne Lockwood: and, and I thought there had to be, there has to be something that I
Joanne Lockwood: can do to help her. So I started to look and came across
Joanne Lockwood: this whole world of neurodevelopment therapy, which is
Joanne Lockwood: movement based and really effective, and
Joanne Lockwood: learned some of the techniques to help her and it. And it made a huge
Joanne Lockwood: difference. And then I started to pursue it, learned how
Joanne Lockwood: to practise with movement programmes
Joanne Lockwood: and then eventually became a trainer myself. As you're
Niki McGlynn: talking now, I'm thinking our son, who was born in the early
Niki McGlynn: 90s, we realised that he
Niki McGlynn: was struggling to learn to read. I have to admit, as a
Niki McGlynn: parent, I was getting really frustrated with him. I didn't understand it. There
Niki McGlynn: was no obvious label sign on his
Niki McGlynn: forehead saying, I'm different, I've got a dyslexic problem.
Niki McGlynn: We just thought that he was being awkward and not trying.
Niki McGlynn: And I remember going through flashcards in the Alphabet. Yeah,
Niki McGlynn: A for Apple, B for B and whatever, B for butterfly. And it's
Niki McGlynn: like that, what's this? He wouldn't know. I said A for Apple. And
Niki McGlynn: then I'd put it down, I'd pick it back up again, ask him again within
Niki McGlynn: a few seconds, and he wouldn't, he just wouldn't be able to grasp it. And
Niki McGlynn: it was really, really frustrating. It's so frustrating. My,
Joanne Lockwood: my biggest issue with processing is I'm dyscalculic,
Joanne Lockwood: so I can't do numbers, can't do numbers at all. But my grandfather was a
Joanne Lockwood: maths teacher, so as a child I would have to go on a Sunday afternoon
Joanne Lockwood: and have maths lessons with my grandfather and he would
Joanne Lockwood: explain things to me, which I. Which I understood, I thought I
Joanne Lockwood: understood. We'd go through it, it was fine. And then we'd go back to it
Joanne Lockwood: and I would. Wouldn't have a clue. And I had the word stupid thrown
Joanne Lockwood: at me on many, many occasions by my father and my
Joanne Lockwood: grandfather. And that's the conclusion you come to. One must be stupid,
Joanne Lockwood: must be stupid. And all the other moving parts of being
Joanne Lockwood: dyslexic or adhd, those executive function
Joanne Lockwood: problems of not being able to organise yourself, not being able to
Joanne Lockwood: keep your life organised, your home life organised, your school
Joanne Lockwood: bag organised, all of that stuff you, you don't realise is
Joanne Lockwood: part of that processing condition. So
Joanne Lockwood: you grow up feeling like you just. Yeah, a bit
Joanne Lockwood: hopeless. Well, the thing I came to realise was that
Niki McGlynn: it's not a kind of black and white thing. You don't. It's not that you
Niki McGlynn: can't read this, you can't read that, or you don't know this or you don't
Niki McGlynn: know that. You develop coping strategies or you can
Niki McGlynn: recognise certain patterns or shapes. You may not be able
Niki McGlynn: to. You may not be able to understand that's an A, that's a B, that's
Niki McGlynn: a C, or whatever it is, but you, you kind of know that's a word,
Niki McGlynn: you're reinforcing it enough times. So I think what was frustrating with our son was
Niki McGlynn: he wasn't stupid, he wasn't incapable of functioning in the world,
Niki McGlynn: it was just. He was incapable of learning his Alphabet,
Niki McGlynn: associating the letter with the object and
Niki McGlynn: then. But he was able to follow along a reading book with you or something
Niki McGlynn: like this. So that's where we were quite confused.
Joanne Lockwood: Is often very advanced in people who are
Joanne Lockwood: dyslexic. And of course now how they teach reading in
Joanne Lockwood: schools is to use phonics. And dyslexic people can't work with
Joanne Lockwood: phonics at all. They're far better off learning the
Joanne Lockwood: old fashioned way of literally spelling out words
Joanne Lockwood: and learning to recognise the shape of a word
Joanne Lockwood: is a much easier way for dyslexics to be able to learn.
Niki McGlynn: Yeah, because, you know, we read a book, we read something on the screen, whatever
Niki McGlynn: it is, we're not reading every letter, we're recognising the peaks and
Niki McGlynn: troughs and the pattern of that word, aren't we? We can look at whole sentences
Niki McGlynn: almost and gather the essence of what it's trying to say without reading
Niki McGlynn: every word. And that's something you call it speed reading, to call
Niki McGlynn: it development, you become very familiar. And
Niki McGlynn: I have a real trouble reading novels because the way I pick
Niki McGlynn: key bits out of sentences and I don't put any meaning
Niki McGlynn: or feeling in there, so I'm just getting facts. And I find it really
Niki McGlynn: difficult to absorb myself in something that's nonfiction or
Niki McGlynn: fiction, unless it's a technical or I'm trying to
Niki McGlynn: research something, in which case I can hyper focus and lift stuff out quite quickly.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So just at what point you look back at your life
Niki McGlynn: and you're seeing, seeing this about yourself, can you see instances
Niki McGlynn: in your, in your own development where this jumped out at
Niki McGlynn: you now with hindsight and you go, ah, that was that. Ah, that was
Niki McGlynn: that. Yeah. 100%. 100%. That whole, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, the, the journey of people with
Joanne Lockwood: ADHD, which we really only starting to recognise
Joanne Lockwood: is this, is this all the different parts to it,
Joanne Lockwood: things like rejection, sensitive dysphoria, which
Joanne Lockwood: is a sense that people don't like you
Joanne Lockwood: or that you're being criticised or that you're not kind of
Joanne Lockwood: part of it, you feel that rejection really, really acutely.
Joanne Lockwood: And I look back now and I remember that so
Joanne Lockwood: clearly. And I also so it so clearly in my
Joanne Lockwood: daughter where she would come home from school and
Joanne Lockwood: say to me that she, she didn't have any friends and nobody played with her
Joanne Lockwood: at lunchtime. And I went into school and went, okay, what's going
Joanne Lockwood: on? This is a problem. And the teachers were like, well, no,
Joanne Lockwood: she's, she's got this group of friends and she plays with this group of friends
Joanne Lockwood: and, and people were coming home for tea and she was going to people's house
Joanne Lockwood: for tea. So it didn't make any sense. And it was only later when I
Joanne Lockwood: learned about this part of being neurodivergent
Joanne Lockwood: that it, that I realised that was what was happening. And the same thing had
Joanne Lockwood: happened to me as a child, only I hadn't realised it. I went to people's
Joanne Lockwood: houses, fatigue, people came back to me, fatigue. But I felt like
Joanne Lockwood: I didn't really fit, that I didn't really have a lot of friends.
Joanne Lockwood: But it's that perception, that whole point where your brain
Joanne Lockwood: lies to you about, about the reality of what's on, going. Going on,
Niki McGlynn: inhibit you from engaging in social situations? Or
Niki McGlynn: is it just how you, or how was it how you remembered the situation?
Niki McGlynn: Did it stop you going in? Was it just on the way out? I think
Joanne Lockwood: probably a bit of both. You know, memory is such an odd thing, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: You know, what we remember isn't always accurate, but
Joanne Lockwood: I think, I think there was a bit of both. I think that partly it
Joanne Lockwood: stopped me being involved in things and partly My perception
Joanne Lockwood: was that I wasn't involved in things because that was how it felt.
Niki McGlynn: Yeah, I've seen people have
Niki McGlynn: social anxiety without any basis for that.
Niki McGlynn: It's just. It's become a kind of a habit or learned behaviour or
Niki McGlynn: exacerbated probably over. Covid reflex thing often.
Joanne Lockwood: And this is the thing about primitive reflexes, which
Joanne Lockwood: nobody's ever heard of. Have you heard of primitive reflexes?
Joanne Lockwood: Nobody's ever heard of them. And they're really. They're
Joanne Lockwood: really, really fundamental and they really, really explain a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of some of the behaviour that we see in people.
Joanne Lockwood: Not necessarily just people who are neurodivergent, but more typically people are
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergent and it makes a lot of sense of why people
Joanne Lockwood: behave the way they behave. And since the pandemic, that I think
Joanne Lockwood: has become a lot more obvious. So would
Joanne Lockwood: you like me to explain what primitive reflexes are? Go for it. Yeah, go for
Niki McGlynn: it. I think. I think I'm fascinated to know. I'm sure that our listeners want
Niki McGlynn: to know what it is as well. So primitive reflexes are movement patterns
Joanne Lockwood: that babies make from conception pretty much
Joanne Lockwood: to about the first year of life. And
Joanne Lockwood: each of those movement patterns have to express themselves
Joanne Lockwood: fully and then allow the brain to make certain connections
Joanne Lockwood: and then they integrate back into your system, so they don't
Joanne Lockwood: disappear altogether, they lie dormant in your system.
Joanne Lockwood: So. And they fall into various categories. So the first
Joanne Lockwood: reflexes that develop are fear reflexes. So
Joanne Lockwood: you have a fear paralysis reflex and a moro reflex.
Joanne Lockwood: Now, the moro reflex some people have heard of, and it's
Joanne Lockwood: that baby startle reflex. So when you have a baby
Joanne Lockwood: and they're lying in their cot and there's a loud noise or you
Joanne Lockwood: bump their cot or whatever, and they do that kind of fling their arms back
Joanne Lockwood: and gasp and startle. That's a morrow reflex.
Joanne Lockwood: So those two reflexes will have
Joanne Lockwood: really profound effects on our ability to be able to
Joanne Lockwood: socialise and function within society.
Joanne Lockwood: Because although they're called fear reflexes, they don't make you frightened, but they stop
Joanne Lockwood: you feeling safe. If you don't feel safe, it's very difficult
Joanne Lockwood: to be able to interact with other people, because fundamentally,
Joanne Lockwood: you feel unsafe in the world. So the fear
Joanne Lockwood: paralysis reflex will shut everything down. So if that's a very
Joanne Lockwood: active reflex for you, it makes it difficult to make eye contact, it
Joanne Lockwood: makes it very difficult to interact with other people, it
Joanne Lockwood: makes it difficult to be able to speak out. So if you've
Joanne Lockwood: got a child who's has selective mutism, often it's the fear
Joanne Lockwood: paralysis reflex that sits behind that because it literally freezes your
Joanne Lockwood: vocal cords. So anything that you do that you find that
Joanne Lockwood: you are unable to do even if you want to. Not
Joanne Lockwood: procrastination, but that sort of, you know, I really, really want to, but I can't
Joanne Lockwood: make myself. Can often be a fear paralysis
Joanne Lockwood: issue. You see it also in children and
Joanne Lockwood: adults who are really, really good. You know, they're really, really good. They absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: toe the line because they don't want anybody to interfere with them.
Joanne Lockwood: So they're the kids who do always do their homework. They don't get into any
Joanne Lockwood: trouble. They're always really, really well behaved because they don't want to draw
Joanne Lockwood: attention to themselves. They don't want to get told off. They don't want to be
Joanne Lockwood: called out. They just want to be left alone.
Joanne Lockwood: And within schools, that will often work reasonably well.
Joanne Lockwood: It's, it can often fall apart when they go to university and that, that structure
Joanne Lockwood: is no longer there. Or sometimes what you see are children who are really, really
Joanne Lockwood: good at school and that fear paralysis reflex really holds them. And then
Joanne Lockwood: they go home and then their moro reflex takes over. Now,
Joanne Lockwood: moro reflex is associated with that fight flight state. So
Joanne Lockwood: if that's very active, then that's where you see people who have
Joanne Lockwood: meltdowns or temper tantrums or overly aggressive
Joanne Lockwood: for what you would see as no particular reason. You know, people who become
Joanne Lockwood: aggressive because you looked at them or smiled at them. So, and that
Joanne Lockwood: can often be that, that I don't feel safe in the world. Therefore my best
Joanne Lockwood: way to deal with that is to attack. Because if I get in
Joanne Lockwood: first and there are people who then struggle with change.
Joanne Lockwood: If you have to, they have to move desks at work, they get very cross.
Joanne Lockwood: If, if the temperature changes, they get very cross. They're not very
Joanne Lockwood: adaptable. And that whole sensory processing issue
Joanne Lockwood: where people struggle with noise or too bright lights
Joanne Lockwood: or fabrics, often that's a moro
Joanne Lockwood: reflex issue because that sensory processing is
Joanne Lockwood: associated with that sort of inability to process what's
Joanne Lockwood: going on in the outer world. That's fascinating.
Niki McGlynn: That's absolutely fascinating. As you're talking, I'm thinking, yeah,
Niki McGlynn: I get that now. So the borrow is the fight flight fear. It's a vagus
Niki McGlynn: nerve, adrenaline glands. Yeah. And you're at this
Niki McGlynn: heightened state of stress. Find it. So when people, people go for help
Joanne Lockwood: for, for, for, for those kind of issues,
Joanne Lockwood: if those reflexes aren't addressed often, you only ever get
Joanne Lockwood: so far with recovery. So if, if somebody has ptsd
Joanne Lockwood: or complex trauma sometimes. What. What
Joanne Lockwood: stops the recovery from those things are those fear reflexes that are
Joanne Lockwood: really, really fundamental in development that just sit there
Joanne Lockwood: and will stop people progressing forwards.
Niki McGlynn: Yeah, I'm just. I think about this, that obviously personal biases kick
Niki McGlynn: in the world around them, and biases we know are very
Niki McGlynn: primaeval. They're very designed to keep us alive, keep us safe, cut down our
Niki McGlynn: processing time. But if you're mixing that with an inclination, if you like
Niki McGlynn: to go into a defence mechanism quite quickly, then, yeah, we're going to be driven
Niki McGlynn: by these biases quite heavily, aren't we? Well, it's a reflex, you know, it's like
Joanne Lockwood: blinking. It's a reflex. You have no control over it.
Joanne Lockwood: So often when people don't understand or you don't understand why this
Joanne Lockwood: person's behaved this way, or you don't understand why you've behaved this way, it can
Joanne Lockwood: be that that reflex has just kicked in, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: And I say often to people, we. We're wired for survival, not for
Joanne Lockwood: happiness. So even though we think we want to do this because it'll
Joanne Lockwood: make us happy, if our brain, if that real sort of
Joanne Lockwood: caveman part of our brain perceives it as being dangerous, then
Joanne Lockwood: it won't let us do the things that we think will make us happy. Yeah,
Niki McGlynn: I mean, going back to what you're saying there, we were wired for that very
Niki McGlynn: primaeval caveman, fifties, hundred thousand years ago, when we
Niki McGlynn: evolved. Yep. Using. Using Microsoft
Niki McGlynn: Word or logging on or writing a book or reading a book wasn't really part
Niki McGlynn: of the human design criteria, was it? It was cave painting, if you're lucky,
Niki McGlynn: or scratching surfaces or making notches in things. But we're
Niki McGlynn: expecting the human brain, the human diversity, if you like, to
Niki McGlynn: suddenly all be in tune with the needs of today,
Niki McGlynn: when, evolutionary wise, this is like a
Niki McGlynn: millisecond in our evolution. Yeah, yeah. And that whole how we bring
Joanne Lockwood: our children up now doesn't. Doesn't really help
Joanne Lockwood: with neurological development. The brain develops through movement. So the
Joanne Lockwood: less you move, the less your brain develops. The more you move, the more your
Joanne Lockwood: brain develops. So with babies now, where babies
Joanne Lockwood: sleep on their backs, lie on their backs under a baby gym, stay on their
Joanne Lockwood: backs in car seats, they don't move around. They can't move
Joanne Lockwood: around in the same way that we used to do in big prams, that
Joanne Lockwood: will have a fundamental effect. So after the fear
Joanne Lockwood: reflexes, we have the development of neck reflexes. There's three neck
Joanne Lockwood: reflexes, and those reflexes are the things that will help with
Joanne Lockwood: really good executive function, that sort of processing, reading, writing.
Joanne Lockwood: Neck reflexes control eye movement. So if you've got a problem with tracking
Joanne Lockwood: left to right, that can often be a neck reflex issue.
Joanne Lockwood: Organisation. Things like being able to go
Joanne Lockwood: downstairs, things like being scared of heights. If. If there's. If
Joanne Lockwood: your first neck reflex, which does this to your head,
Joanne Lockwood: if that isn't well integrated, if you look down, what your body
Joanne Lockwood: wants to do is collapse. If that reflex is still active, your body wants
Joanne Lockwood: to collapse forward or hyperextend backwards.
Joanne Lockwood: So what happens is when you look down, you feel
Joanne Lockwood: like you're going to fall, because that reflex wants your body to
Joanne Lockwood: collapse because it's still active. So
Joanne Lockwood: people who have trouble with going downstairs or going downhill, often
Joanne Lockwood: it's that reflex that's causing the problem. Or the other neck reflex
Joanne Lockwood: turns your head from side to side. So again, if this reflex is retained,
Joanne Lockwood: when you turn your head to the side, the side you've turned your head to,
Joanne Lockwood: you, your arm and leg wants to extend out and the opposite arm and leg
Joanne Lockwood: want to come in, so you get this kind of movement. So if you're
Joanne Lockwood: driving in the car with somebody and they. They look at their
Joanne Lockwood: sat nav, or they look over their shoulder and they suddenly swerve. That's why. It's
Joanne Lockwood: because this arm wants to come in, this arm wants to go out and they
Joanne Lockwood: swerve. Or if you're riding a bicycle and you look behind you, this arm wants
Joanne Lockwood: to go out, this arm wants to come in and you fall off your bicycle.
Joanne Lockwood: So there's. There's lots and lots of issues that makes handwriting really difficult,
Joanne Lockwood: because when you're looking across, when you cross
Joanne Lockwood: this central midline, this arm wants to extend. So you're trying to hold your
Joanne Lockwood: pen on the page and write. So often then what people do is they turn
Joanne Lockwood: their page around and kind of write uphill so they're not having to cross the
Joanne Lockwood: midline. So. And then that also deals with
Joanne Lockwood: organisation and spatial awareness and
Joanne Lockwood: timekeeping and all of those things. Proprioception. Where.
Joanne Lockwood: Where's my body in space? Where are my arms? Where are my legs? That kind
Joanne Lockwood: of famous ADHD walk where people swerve around trying to avoid
Joanne Lockwood: things. That's often because of that neck reflex that isn't functioning
Joanne Lockwood: properly, to be able to give you that proper feedback about where your arms
Joanne Lockwood: and legs are. So this neck reflex you're talking about here, we.
Niki McGlynn: We move on from it after about our first year, is that what you're saying?
Joanne Lockwood: Less than that. Less than that, so this, this neck reflex
Joanne Lockwood: is integrated by doing this movement, okay? So it integrates into
Joanne Lockwood: your central nervous system, lies dormant. So if you've got a
Joanne Lockwood: baby who spends all its time on its back, and particularly in a car
Joanne Lockwood: seat where it can't lift its head properly, that reflex
Joanne Lockwood: can't integrate. So it sticks around. But if you've got a baby who's
Joanne Lockwood: lying on its tummy and kind of do that, you know, nod, nod, nod thing,
Joanne Lockwood: that's part of that integration process. And the side
Joanne Lockwood: to side one, one of the best ways to integrate that is breastfeeding. So you
Joanne Lockwood: feed on one side, flip the baby over, feed on the other side. So it
Joanne Lockwood: learns that it's got two sides and how to cross its midline, brings
Joanne Lockwood: its thumb into the midline, brings its foot into the midline. So
Joanne Lockwood: that's, you know, lies on its tummy, picks up toys, brings them to its
Joanne Lockwood: mouth. So it's kind of learning that I've got two of everything.
Joanne Lockwood: Learning to work its eyes together, learning to work its ears together so that you
Joanne Lockwood: develop 3D vision, 3D, 3D hearing, binaural hearing,
Joanne Lockwood: which you need, you need to have a dominant eye and a dominant ear
Joanne Lockwood: so that you can work out where sound's coming from, what, what you're looking at.
Joanne Lockwood: So, so children who, who are, can't converge, who
Joanne Lockwood: can't focus, that's often a reflex issue. See
Joanne Lockwood: in the, the third neck reflex is still a neck reflex, but it
Joanne Lockwood: affects your core. So that's the, that's what we would call the crawling
Joanne Lockwood: reflex. So when you crawl, you learn how
Joanne Lockwood: to learn how to accommodate with your eyes. So you learn to look near and
Joanne Lockwood: look far and be able to focus. You look down where you're crawling, you look
Joanne Lockwood: up where you're going. So your, your brain learns to do that process so that
Joanne Lockwood: you can focus near, focus far, and focus your eyes
Joanne Lockwood: together. And then that helps with being able to focus at the
Joanne Lockwood: right length to be able to read and write and paint and draw.
Joanne Lockwood: And societies who don't have crawling as a developmental stage don't
Joanne Lockwood: have written language. So written language,
Joanne Lockwood: fine art comes from being able to have the right focal length
Joanne Lockwood: from crawling. So babies who don't crawl, babies who
Joanne Lockwood: sit up and then get up and stand, or get up and walk, run.
Joanne Lockwood: Because nine month old babies don't want, they run so they don't fall over.
Joanne Lockwood: Babies at bottom shuffle often have those kind of focus
Joanne Lockwood: improvements. Wow, I'm fascinated by this. Let me just sort of translate
Niki McGlynn: it into my language. So what the baby's doing or the, in their early
Niki McGlynn: stage of life are doing is what we're trying to do is calibrate our senses,
Niki McGlynn: our eyes, our hearing or whatever it may be with our muscles
Niki McGlynn: and movement so that we can understand cause and effect. If I do this, this
Niki McGlynn: happens. My eyes need to compensate, I need to adjust by movement.
Niki McGlynn: So it's all part of that learning to drive a car type thing. It takes
Niki McGlynn: us six months to a year to become comfortable and spatially aware.
Niki McGlynn: That's all the newborn and the young, the toddler's doing is calibrating
Niki McGlynn: all these senses and muscle movements. And those muscle movements
Joanne Lockwood: then allow the body and the brain to do things
Joanne Lockwood: naturally. So for instance, if you've got a child who's got a
Joanne Lockwood: retained neck reflexes, so when they look down
Joanne Lockwood: at their desk, they want to slump forward, they want to slump on the desk,
Joanne Lockwood: put their hand on the desk, lie on the desk, and the teacher says to
Joanne Lockwood: them, right, sit up, pay attention. So you should be able to sit
Joanne Lockwood: up naturally without having to think about it. But if those reflexes are active,
Joanne Lockwood: you have to make yourself sit up. So all
Joanne Lockwood: of, all of your learning brain, all of your cortex,
Joanne Lockwood: your prefrontal cortex is taken up with, I must sit up
Joanne Lockwood: straight and look forwards. So there's no space
Joanne Lockwood: left then for learning. Because the learning part of your
Joanne Lockwood: brain is focusing on sitting up straight. Whereas if those reflexes are
Joanne Lockwood: integrated, you can naturally sit up straight because you
Joanne Lockwood: are not fighting against that reflex that makes you want to
Joanne Lockwood: collapse. So we've never developed those as autonomous movements. They're conscious
Niki McGlynn: movements rather than subconscious movements. Exactly, rather. Yeah, yeah.
Niki McGlynn: So and because it's, that's taxing in the prefrontal cortex
Niki McGlynn: because we're actively having to think about, focus on it. As you say, I
Niki McGlynn: haven't got space for anything else in my prefrontal cortex because I'm so worried about
Niki McGlynn: whatever I'm, whatever I've been told to focus on. Exactly, exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: So I'm focusing, I'm looking at you, the teacher, I'm focusing on what
Joanne Lockwood: you're saying. I can't look down and write because if I look down I want
Joanne Lockwood: to collapse. So I have to just, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: keep my fingers crossed and stay upright and look upright. So
Joanne Lockwood: same with the spinal reflexes particularly, there's a reflex called the spinal
Joanne Lockwood: galant reflex, which lives either side of the lower
Joanne Lockwood: spine. So that reflex, its job is to help you get
Joanne Lockwood: born and it's to help with the, with the kind of side to
Joanne Lockwood: side movement. So if that reflex remains active in
Joanne Lockwood: your system, it stops you from being able to be still.
Joanne Lockwood: You have to move. You have to move all the time.
Niki McGlynn: Fidgety bum, as we would say. Exactly. Bum. Exactly that. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's a reflex. That's your spinal gland reflex. And it
Joanne Lockwood: lasts all the way through if it isn't integrated. So. And
Joanne Lockwood: it makes it difficult to sit still. It makes it difficult to be still. So
Joanne Lockwood: this is why wobble cushions and things
Joanne Lockwood: that allow children to move, allows them to concentrate, because if
Joanne Lockwood: they're trying to sit still, their whole brain is taken up with sitting still.
Joanne Lockwood: Whereas if they're. If they're allowed to move, their body can move, but they
Joanne Lockwood: can focus on what they need to learn. But that reflex
Joanne Lockwood: also interferes with your ability to listen. So I have children
Joanne Lockwood: who come to me who've had a hearing test. There's nothing wrong with their hearing,
Joanne Lockwood: but they struggle to listen. Because in the womb,
Joanne Lockwood: the spine helps to conduct sound up to the brain because your ears are
Joanne Lockwood: full of fluid. So if that reflex is still active after you're
Joanne Lockwood: born, your spine is still trying to conduct sound up to your brain, and
Joanne Lockwood: your ears are trying to conduct sound into your brain, so it becomes overwhelming,
Joanne Lockwood: so you stop listening. So those are the people who, if somebody drops a pen
Joanne Lockwood: at the back of the class, they've got to turn around and look. Or if
Joanne Lockwood: somebody stands behind you, is. That most of us, really? No,
Niki McGlynn: it's hard not to override that. What's that noise? Isn't it? It's hard to. Hard
Niki McGlynn: to override that. Well, I find it hard.
Niki McGlynn: I have to bring it in. I have to bring it into my prefrontal corsets
Niki McGlynn: to go, don't turn around, don't turn around. I mustn't turn around.
Niki McGlynn: I can resist the urge. But my inclination, I suppose it's a primal reflex,
Niki McGlynn: is to look over and say, is that a threat? Is that. Exactly. Do I
Niki McGlynn: need to worry about it? Exactly. Because you've got to be safe. So, yeah, so
Joanne Lockwood: all of that, all of the fidgeting, being overly chatty,
Joanne Lockwood: not being able to listen, not being able to pay attention,
Joanne Lockwood: not being able to tolerate labels in the back of your trousers, not being able
Joanne Lockwood: to wear things that are tight around your waist, all of that is that reflex,
Joanne Lockwood: nighttime bedwetting. If children are not able to control their
Joanne Lockwood: bladders beyond about the age of five, often it's
Joanne Lockwood: that spinal galantic reflex that's causing the problem.
Joanne Lockwood: So they have massive implications for children,
Joanne Lockwood: but also for adults, and yet nobody knows about them and
Joanne Lockwood: you can encourage them to integrate at any age. So even if you
Joanne Lockwood: have somebody who is really struggling as an adult, you
Joanne Lockwood: can still do reflex integration and it makes life
Joanne Lockwood: easier. So you can recalibrate yourself later in life once
Niki McGlynn: you're aware of it. Absolutely. Obviously it's quicker in children because their brains are
Joanne Lockwood: more plastic and things change much more quickly. They. But
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely. An adult. Well, when you're an adult, there's adulting
Niki McGlynn: to do, isn't there? And it's finding time for these. These children activities
Niki McGlynn: when you're just lying on the floor crawling. It's much easier to do that when
Niki McGlynn: you. When you've got no responsibilities of life and no one's judging
Niki McGlynn: you, it's, oh, what a good girl, what a good boy. Well done. You're
Niki McGlynn: sitting up. Oh, you've crawled across the floor. Isn't that cute? Try and do that
Niki McGlynn: as an adult. People are going to look at you and go, what are you
Niki McGlynn: doing on the floor? What are you trying to do there? I'm doing my crawling.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm increasing my brain capacity. I've
Niki McGlynn: got issues with my neck reflexes. What I've got to try and do here is
Niki McGlynn: crawl across the floor, look up, practise looking left and right without moving my arms,
Niki McGlynn: and I've got to make my bum stop hearing noises and pass it to my
Niki McGlynn: brain. Exactly that. Exactly that. So I was being a bit
Niki McGlynn: flippant and a bit jokey there. So how. I mean, I'm hoping
Niki McGlynn: someone listening might be able to identify some of these traits. What can someone do
Niki McGlynn: in terms of, you know, just pick one of these reflexes at a time? Maybe
Niki McGlynn: the. How can people unlearn or retrain or recalibrate
Niki McGlynn: themselves in later life? So what you're. What you're looking to do is
Joanne Lockwood: integrate those reflexes. So you want those reflexes to
Joanne Lockwood: essentially become absorbed into your central nervous system.
Joanne Lockwood: And the simplest way to do it is through movement. There's lots and lots of
Joanne Lockwood: different approaches of how to do it. I believe the best way to do it
Joanne Lockwood: is. Is to do it with the person as a whole, rather than pick out
Joanne Lockwood: each individual reflex. So you find movements that will work on that
Joanne Lockwood: whole system and then target different reflexes
Joanne Lockwood: as you need to. But that's what I do in my clinic and that's what
Joanne Lockwood: I train people to do. But also you can. There's lots and
Joanne Lockwood: lots of information available online these days. It's becoming a much.
Joanne Lockwood: Although nobody's heard of it, it is better understood than it was.
Joanne Lockwood: So there's books, there's information online. If
Joanne Lockwood: it's something that people are interested in, absolutely, you can find out information.
Joanne Lockwood: I would always recommend going to a
Joanne Lockwood: provider, going to somebody who can support you because
Joanne Lockwood: you're working. Sometimes you're. Particularly if you're working with the fear
Joanne Lockwood: reflexes, you can work with quite sensitive parts of your system,
Joanne Lockwood: so it's better if you've got support for that.
Joanne Lockwood: You know, if it's something that you want to explore 100%, you can
Joanne Lockwood: just Google it, Just Google retained primitive reflexes and see what comes up.
Niki McGlynn: So is it. Is it dance, is it yoga, is it
Niki McGlynn: activities? I mean, just for people who may be thinking, oh, that
Niki McGlynn: sounds. That's how I want to explore. What are they signing up for?
Joanne Lockwood: So there are bespoke reflex integration programmes which
Joanne Lockwood: will target those primitive reflexes generally. However,
Joanne Lockwood: any kind of physical movement will improve the connections in your
Joanne Lockwood: brain. So maybe not dance, which is a little bit sedentary,
Joanne Lockwood: but. But yoga would be good. Dancing is good.
Joanne Lockwood: Anything. Climbing is really good. You know, climbing is crawling on a different
Joanne Lockwood: plane, so. So, you know, climbing is great for being
Joanne Lockwood: able to get your brain to work, you know, and that whole being able to
Joanne Lockwood: move your arms and legs separately without your head getting involved.
Joanne Lockwood: Brilliant. You know, climbing is fantastic for the. That.
Niki McGlynn: It's a bit like learning to drive again, isn't it? You spend the first couple
Niki McGlynn: of driving lessons constantly aware of everything, looking over your shoulder,
Niki McGlynn: turning the wheel, instructor grabbing the wheel, saying, when you look over your shoulder,
Niki McGlynn: don't turn the wheel, it will listen. And then eventually, after three or
Niki McGlynn: four months, you're off and becomes
Niki McGlynn: ingrained into the back of your head. So what we talk about here is doing
Niki McGlynn: exercises, movements that allow you to build that
Niki McGlynn: sort of brain image of yourself, your spatial awareness
Niki McGlynn: of where your parts are, where your senses are, and connect those little
Niki McGlynn: dots in your brain. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, exactly that, exactly that.
Joanne Lockwood: And of course, you know, as we get older, the other thing to remember is
Joanne Lockwood: that movement builds your brain. So staying active
Joanne Lockwood: isn't just about keeping physically fit, it's about keeping your brain fit as well. But
Joanne Lockwood: movement will keep your brain much healthier than doing puzzles
Joanne Lockwood: and things, because it. Because it's building connections all the time,
Joanne Lockwood: which is why things like dancing is really good. You know, whether you're, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, going out to a nightclub or whether you're going to a tea dance or
Joanne Lockwood: learning dancing like on Strictly, you know, that
Joanne Lockwood: repetitive pattern, that sequencing pattern that's
Joanne Lockwood: social and enjoyable and relaxed will massively
Joanne Lockwood: help. Your brain as we get to later life. I mean, I'm
Niki McGlynn: in my 60s now, so I don't know how that happened. I was turned around.
Niki McGlynn: I went from 40 to 60 without noticing.
Niki McGlynn: I've noticed that my sense of balance isn't what it was.
Niki McGlynn: My reaction times, my. Maybe my risk quotient's gone
Niki McGlynn: down, but when I'm driving, I drive a lot slower and it still
Niki McGlynn: seems fast, but I realised that I'm causing holdups in country lanes now. In the
Niki McGlynn: past, I'd be the one pushing somebody else. I'm. I'm more reserved. Is
Niki McGlynn: that part of the brain slowing down? Is that losing connection with my
Niki McGlynn: reflexes? Yeah, yeah. So it's. It's that as we age,
Joanne Lockwood: reactions do become slower. Twitch muscles, which are the muscles
Joanne Lockwood: that stop you from falling, stop working as well.
Joanne Lockwood: So. So all of that is part of that process. But you can. You
Joanne Lockwood: can improve all of that. You can reverse it in some cases.
Joanne Lockwood: Which is why things like yoga and tai chi and qigong are all really good,
Joanne Lockwood: because they help to encourage your balance
Joanne Lockwood: system, your vestibular system, and developmentally, your
Joanne Lockwood: vestibular system is the first sense that develops in the
Joanne Lockwood: womb. So. And often that's one of the things that we have to
Joanne Lockwood: look at where children's vestibular system isn't great, their sense of balance isn't
Joanne Lockwood: great, their cerebellum isn't. So cerebellum is the bit
Joanne Lockwood: at the back of your brain, that sort of extra bit that. That helps with
Joanne Lockwood: balance and movement and memory and all sorts of things. And if
Joanne Lockwood: that isn't working too well, then that's something that you can. You can work on.
Joanne Lockwood: That's something we work with. We use a lot of spinning in
Joanne Lockwood: chairs. Spinning in chairs is really good. So spinning is really good.
Joanne Lockwood: So not spinning, you know, cycling, spinning, but spinning round and round is really good
Joanne Lockwood: because it helps to develop your vestibular system. Anything like that
Joanne Lockwood: is great. So you try to get your inner ear,
Niki McGlynn: or the little fluids in there, the little hairs, that movement going around. So you
Niki McGlynn: then lock on and again recalibrating your senses. Yep, yep,
Joanne Lockwood: yep, yep. So that whole thing, I don't know if you've ever come across the
Joanne Lockwood: idea that you stand on one leg when you brush your teeth. You
Joanne Lockwood: ever heard of that? Okay, so that's a really, really good thing to do. Really,
Joanne Lockwood: really good thing to do as you get older. You stand on one leg as
Joanne Lockwood: you brush your teeth and then you swap legs as you need to. Need to
Joanne Lockwood: Stand on one leg at a time, but that helps with your balance, but it
Joanne Lockwood: also helps with your bone density. So if you stand on one
Joanne Lockwood: leg, the more you use your bones, the denser they get. So stand on one
Joanne Lockwood: leg. It helps with your balance, helps keep you sharp and bright, and
Joanne Lockwood: helps everything else work, and it also helps with bone density.
Niki McGlynn: So it's all part of this use it or lose it mantra. As
Niki McGlynn: you get older, if you, if you sit down too much, you're going to lose
Niki McGlynn: the ability to be as agile and flexible as you once were. So
Niki McGlynn: keeping active, keeping, keeping the movement going. Which is why we see some people in
Niki McGlynn: their 90s doing marathons and some people in their 60s
Niki McGlynn: struggling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there is, There is part
Joanne Lockwood: of that whole process of life is as we get
Joanne Lockwood: older, to kind of withdraw a bit more. That's. That's part
Joanne Lockwood: of. Oh, that's just part of nature. We want to go out less. We want
Joanne Lockwood: to not drive as fast. We don't want to stay up as late. That is
Joanne Lockwood: part of that whole ageing process. And for some people it's
Joanne Lockwood: fine, and for some people it's not. But if you want to stay active and
Joanne Lockwood: you want to stay out in the world, then you have to do it.
Niki McGlynn: Yeah. You have to. You have to use it or lose it. And I, I
Niki McGlynn: agree. It's very easy to. The opposite of FOMO is Jomo, isn't it? The joy
Niki McGlynn: of missing out. You know, you could quickly develop this. I don't care. I don't
Niki McGlynn: need to. I'm not, I'm not jealous anymore. I think that's. That's a Covid thing,
Niki McGlynn: you know, lockdown come out, that you think I've lost, Lost the impetus now,
Niki McGlynn: definitely. It's. I find it really interesting, actually, that if you do go
Joanne Lockwood: out of an evening, Everywhere's empty by 10 o'. Clock.
Joanne Lockwood: Everybody's gone home by 10 o'. Clock. And I think,
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's. I think that's. That's definitely a post Covid thing.
Joanne Lockwood: Definitely, definitely. But, yeah, people change their habits. Yeah, yeah. But when you look
Joanne Lockwood: back at the reflexes, that whole. Those fear reflexes, that fear
Joanne Lockwood: paralysis reflex, that Moro reflex which stops you from feeling
Joanne Lockwood: safe, you know, all of a sudden for, you know, two
Joanne Lockwood: or three years, the world became a very, very unsafe place. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: particularly affected children, that all of a sudden strangers were
Joanne Lockwood: unsafe, school was unsafe. It's. It's not safe to
Joanne Lockwood: be around other people. It's not safe to go to the park. So that's had
Joanne Lockwood: a really profound effect developmentally on those children who have grown
Joanne Lockwood: up through those years. But I think the same for adults as well is that
Joanne Lockwood: all of a sudden the world doesn't feel like a safe place. And then of
Joanne Lockwood: course you see what's going on across the world, you know, the rise of the
Joanne Lockwood: far right. And I think again, you know, that happens because people
Joanne Lockwood: don't feel safe and then it makes other people feel, feel less safe. So we
Joanne Lockwood: sort of end up in this self perpetuating
Joanne Lockwood: route. I think we've also developed this fear of
Niki McGlynn: catching something off somebody else. In the past, you know, we would
Niki McGlynn: send our children to chickenpox parties and we deliberately make sure that our
Niki McGlynn: children were being exposed to as many coughs and sneezes as possible. Now we're
Niki McGlynn: fighting back against vaccines and saying they must be dangerous. Well,
Niki McGlynn: no more dangerous than the actual disease or the illness they're preventing.
Niki McGlynn: But we've become kind of this risk averse about everything. We'd rather stay
Niki McGlynn: in. If I got a sniffle, I'm going to do myself a COVID test. If
Niki McGlynn: I'm a bit dodgy, I'll just keep out of Everybody's way. Whereas 10
Niki McGlynn: years ago we would just be out there gung ho, apologising.
Niki McGlynn: Yeah, yeah. So I think in some ways we're taking a
Niki McGlynn: step back here because our bodies are designed to reprogram themselves
Niki McGlynn: from the environment. If we're not giving them all these threats and how can
Niki McGlynn: we ever evolve to counteract them? We're just becoming. Exactly,
Joanne Lockwood: exactly. This whole risk aversion thing has a, you know, and it's the
Joanne Lockwood: same with things like, you know, children's equipment in
Joanne Lockwood: parks where slides aren't very slidy, swings aren't very swingy,
Joanne Lockwood: roundabouts don't go very fast because everybody's
Joanne Lockwood: scared that they're, they're going to get hurt. But it's important, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, risk, risk taking is, is important in development.
Joanne Lockwood: Children need to take risks. Adults, you don't learn through getting it right, do you?
Niki McGlynn: You have to hurt yourself to know what hurting yourself feels like. Kids
Joanne Lockwood: bounce. I mean, when you're a certain age you do bounce. You know, if you're
Niki McGlynn: less than 18 months, you can fall off a bed and you just go. Bit
Niki McGlynn: of a cry, bit of a hug, rub their back. Every night it's raining again,
Niki McGlynn: nothing damaged, nothing broken. But now I remember going to the
Niki McGlynn: park as a little un and down the slides and the swings and
Niki McGlynn: we were trying to see how high we could get. If we could go over
Niki McGlynn: the top and do a 360 on it. Yeah. The
Niki McGlynn: rocking horse. You'd be six of us on this rocking horse trying to
Niki McGlynn: send it into space. It was like, I mean it must be horrendous. And the
Niki McGlynn: roundabout. I remember we used to have a game where we used to lay on
Niki McGlynn: it and put stuff, stuff underneath it, spin it around it. Somebody had to try
Niki McGlynn: and pick up the thing that was underneath. Yeah. God knows what happened. That's so
Joanne Lockwood: good. That's so good for the development of your brain.
Joanne Lockwood: So good. But yeah, can't do it anymore. I know. Do you remember the
Joanne Lockwood: witch's hat? No, I don't remember that one. Is that the one that used to
Niki McGlynn: rock and sway in things? Yeah. Like a big upside down cone on a pole
Joanne Lockwood: swung back and forward and bang against the pole.
Joanne Lockwood: Got that in the stomach more than once. Yeah. I mean, I know
Niki McGlynn: we don't want anyone to become seriously hurt, die or whatever it may be.
Niki McGlynn: Cuts and grazes and a thoroughly
Niki McGlynn: good learning exercise it sometimes needed.
Niki McGlynn: I don't remember any, anybody that I remember at that age
Niki McGlynn: coming to any real harm. Okay. They may have had a black eye or a
Niki McGlynn: grazed knee or, or bit. Been a bit poorly when they crashed off their chopper
Niki McGlynn: bike at the time. A city chopper, bunch of those tiny wheels. Remember going down
Niki McGlynn: this, this massive road near us with that really steep hill downwards. And
Niki McGlynn: we used to. One person had a chopper. We used to take turns and going
Niki McGlynn: down this hill on this chopper bike and I, I don't know, I'm going to
Niki McGlynn: guess we were probably getting up to 20, 25 miles an hour which is pretty
Niki McGlynn: scary on a bike anyway. But on a chopper where you got no stability on
Niki McGlynn: that front wheel and the number of times we used to crash and burn off
Niki McGlynn: of that and just pick ourselves off and laugh our heads off and, and get
Niki McGlynn: going. Trudge home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But now you
Niki McGlynn: just wouldn't do it. You just wouldn't do it. And you don't see kids out
Joanne Lockwood: in the same way, you know. And so one of, one of the best things,
Joanne Lockwood: one of the best things you can do for brain development for children.
Joanne Lockwood: Most adults can't do this because they feel sick, but they should. Are
Joanne Lockwood: rolling down hills, log rolls down a hill. And I
Joanne Lockwood: used to live next to a park that had a great big hill
Joanne Lockwood: and, and I never saw, never saw kids doing it.
Joanne Lockwood: Never. Everybody's worried about dog poo now. But I say to people
Joanne Lockwood: that's what your washing machine's for get your kids running down
Joanne Lockwood: a hill because it's, It's. It helps with that vestibular
Joanne Lockwood: system because you're spinning. Proprioception is great because
Joanne Lockwood: you're. You're putting pressure on the body as it rolls over.
Joanne Lockwood: You're having to focus with your eyes, your ears are having to work. It's brilliant.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolutely brilliant. Brilliant for your interoception and your
Joanne Lockwood: external senses. It's
Joanne Lockwood: balanced and vestibular is balance.
Joanne Lockwood: Interoception is, am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Do I need to go to the
Joanne Lockwood: toilet? Am I tired? All of those things that the
Joanne Lockwood: kids need to learn to develop. But when you're rolling down a
Joanne Lockwood: hill and your body's, you know, sloshing round, that really
Joanne Lockwood: helps with the feedback to your brain. It's all about
Joanne Lockwood: the. I remember that your body's giving to your brain.
Niki McGlynn: I remember as a nipper, we used to take our go karts to the top
Niki McGlynn: of Portsdown Hill. It's probably. I look back at it and I think, how did
Niki McGlynn: I ever walk up all that way to top of Ports Down Hill? It must
Niki McGlynn: have been. It's probably five miles from home. We used to wheel our go karts
Niki McGlynn: five miles up there and we used to launch ourselves off the top down
Niki McGlynn: this grassy, steep hill on our go karts, chaining off for dear life.
Niki McGlynn: Somebody on the back, you know, pinning a pillion. And
Niki McGlynn: I remember this one time we got to the bottom and we end up crashing
Niki McGlynn: into the fence at the bottom of the. Of this hill and. And putting our
Niki McGlynn: go kart nose through the bottom of this fence. And they were coming out chasing
Niki McGlynn: us off. But, yeah, we were worried about hitting the tree. There's these
Niki McGlynn: park benches spread around, you know, over the top of a hill, you'd
Niki McGlynn: be going, oh, mind the. Mind the bench. But, yeah, it's all part of that.
Niki McGlynn: Yeah. Risk your own go kart. Did you buy one?
Niki McGlynn: Say again? Did you make your own go kart or did you buy one? I.
Niki McGlynn: No, no, my father. Well, I say I made it. My father did. We made
Niki McGlynn: it out of. He. He was a woodwork craft teacher. And so we took.
Niki McGlynn: We took old prams. Yeah, we had. We had. It was proper. Proper.
Niki McGlynn: I think it was an old wardrobe door or something. Or a wardrobe bill. Old
Niki McGlynn: oak wardrobe that he chopped up. He cut. It was really styled like a
Niki McGlynn: racing car. Had proper movement, wooden front axle and everything.
Niki McGlynn: And it had these pram wheels. Wheels. Yeah, yeah.
Niki McGlynn: And what we soon realised was these pram wheels had, like, a quick release
Niki McGlynn: button and you can take them off and put them back on, which is great
Niki McGlynn: for storage, but you'd be going down this hill and suddenly hear this click,
Niki McGlynn: click wheel would come off. It's like your wheel would head that way. And if
Niki McGlynn: you go straight down. So quick release wheels on a go kart were
Niki McGlynn: not a good design feature, so we had to fix that one and put some
Niki McGlynn: split pins in to stop them coming off. But, yeah, I mean,
Niki McGlynn: we certainly did our neurological development back then. We were out active and,
Niki McGlynn: yeah, living in fear sometimes. So I do wonder when we talk about this
Joanne Lockwood: massive rise in neurodivergent conditions, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: part of that is 50% of the population couldn't have a diagnosis.
Joanne Lockwood: So now we're diagnosing 20% of that 50%.
Joanne Lockwood: But also I wonder if really the
Joanne Lockwood: symptomatology is now so much stronger because we
Joanne Lockwood: don't do those things anymore that would allow the brain to develop.
Joanne Lockwood: So people are more dyslexic, have more ADHD
Joanne Lockwood: symptoms, have more autistic symptoms, because the things
Joanne Lockwood: that we would have done as children would have helped overall with
Joanne Lockwood: brain development. So those conditions were less obvious.
Niki McGlynn: Is some of that a boy girl thing? Boys being more rough and
Niki McGlynn: tumble, girls being more reserved? I'm not trying to imply
Niki McGlynn: stereotypes here, but traditional girls were less out there, weren't they?
Joanne Lockwood: I think so, but I think girls was certainly equally as
Joanne Lockwood: active, just in a. Maybe a different way. Yeah, in
Joanne Lockwood: a different way. In a different way. Yeah. I have
Niki McGlynn: friends, little. We'd all climb trees, we'd all mess around, we'd
Niki McGlynn: all do stuff. So, yeah, I just wondered maybe the risk averseness
Niki McGlynn: comes more from a gender stereotyping
Niki McGlynn: or gender nurturing than. Which is why we
Niki McGlynn: didn't see it manifesting itself in young women until more
Niki McGlynn: recently when we were looking at different symptoms. I think it's
Joanne Lockwood: just not a great understanding of how
Joanne Lockwood: those conditions manifested because I think
Joanne Lockwood: with. If you look at adhd, for example, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, there's three sorts of adhd. There's hyperactive, which is your
Joanne Lockwood: typical naughty boy at the back of the class throwing chairs, and
Joanne Lockwood: inattentive, which is your typical girl sitting,
Joanne Lockwood: looking out of the window, daydreaming, and then combined.
Joanne Lockwood: But I know hyperactive girls and inattentive boys. And I think it
Joanne Lockwood: just. It just shows up differently. And girls tend to be much
Joanne Lockwood: better at masking. So girls tend to be able
Joanne Lockwood: to, in social situations, be able to look at
Joanne Lockwood: what everybody else is doing and copy that and. And change
Joanne Lockwood: their behaviour so that it doesn't Show. And then when they go home,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, the wheels fall off.
Joanne Lockwood: And. And of course that causes problems because. Because when you're looking for, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: if you have a daughter and you're looking for a diagnosis, it doesn't show up
Joanne Lockwood: at school. So when. When the school sends a report back, they go, no, we're
Joanne Lockwood: not aware of any of this. Not aware of any of this behaviour. Well, no,
Joanne Lockwood: because they're masker, you know, we need better education really,
Joanne Lockwood: within schools as to how these conditions show up so that children
Joanne Lockwood: can get the help that they need, so that they can
Joanne Lockwood: function in society. Because neurodivergent people
Joanne Lockwood: are incredibly important in moving society forwards.
Niki McGlynn: Yes, I suppose young boys, they're disruptive, they're
Niki McGlynn: trouble, hard to manage, hard to keep doing something.
Niki McGlynn: They're most likely more likely to be a problem for the teacher.
Niki McGlynn: Whereas, as you say, a young girl is
Niki McGlynn: being quiet, relaxed, maybe not fully. Fully
Niki McGlynn: living up to her potential, but she's not disrupting anybody.
Niki McGlynn: She's seen as not a problem. Say again?
Niki McGlynn: Yeah, I can see that, because I hit puberty. Sorry?
Niki McGlynn: I remember hitting. I remember hitting puberty and. And turning into a completely different
Niki McGlynn: person where I became completely disruptive, completely
Niki McGlynn: unmanageable in certain subjects, ones that I couldn't latch
Niki McGlynn: onto, whereas in the other subjects I was a model pupil.
Niki McGlynn: So I'm like that now. I'm either both feet in or both feet out.
Niki McGlynn: I can't do a bit in or bit out. I'm either. And I like to
Niki McGlynn: hyperfocus on things, pull them apart, put it back together 50 times.
Niki McGlynn: I go, right, I'm bored with that now. Move on to the next thing. So
Niki McGlynn: when you look back later in life, you think you hear other people's stories,
Niki McGlynn: you go, wow, yeah, that sounds like me. Yeah, sounds like me. That sounds like
Niki McGlynn: me. But it's never been a problem in my life. It's just something that
Niki McGlynn: I've become aware of as being maybe call it a superpower, call it just part
Niki McGlynn: of who I am. And I now embrace that side of me going, if
Niki McGlynn: I. If I realise that I'm in that kind of. This isn't really for me.
Niki McGlynn: I just get out quickly. I just don't bother trying to push myself because I
Niki McGlynn: know I won't be interested and I'll be focusing on some shiny object or a
Niki McGlynn: squirrel running down on the fence or something. Yeah. Which is
Joanne Lockwood: great, isn't it? It's great that you have. That you have that ability to be
Joanne Lockwood: able to make those choices now. So.
Joanne Lockwood: And. And I think, and I think that's where,
Joanne Lockwood: that's where it really works to our advantage. But I do think
Joanne Lockwood: that for a lot of people it's massively debilitating
Joanne Lockwood: not being able to. Not being with society, not being able to
Joanne Lockwood: make friends, not being able to be in public spaces, not being
Joanne Lockwood: able to make yourself do things. You know, the procrastination
Joanne Lockwood: of poor executive function is really crippling.
Joanne Lockwood: Even if it's something that you think you want to do, if your brain has
Joanne Lockwood: decided it's not worth it, then it's really difficult to override
Joanne Lockwood: the. Not being able to organise yourself, not being able to pay bills, not being
Joanne Lockwood: able to, you know, all of these other parts to, to those
Joanne Lockwood: kind of conditions can be. Be really debilitating and that's really where we need to
Joanne Lockwood: be able to support people so that they can live up to their potential,
Joanne Lockwood: so that they can do the hyper focus or the innovation or
Joanne Lockwood: the creativity that's so important, the human experience.
Niki McGlynn: Yeah, that's really interesting. Very interesting. I've got a couple of friends
Niki McGlynn: who are. They can become very hyperactive. You
Niki McGlynn: know, one of the friends is. They start chatting and
Niki McGlynn: chatting and chatting and chatting. Okay, can we watch the film now? Can we watch
Niki McGlynn: the telly? Can we focus on this? And they almost feel like
Niki McGlynn: chastise and they go, hmm. They shut down for a bit and they go. Then
Niki McGlynn: after about five minutes they go, see, I'm being quiet, aren't I? But by
Niki McGlynn: telling me you're being quiet means that you must be hyper focusing on this part
Niki McGlynn: of your brain, complying to my, my request. And then all of a sudden not.
Joanne Lockwood: Watching the film because all of their attention is on being still and
Joanne Lockwood: quiet. Yeah. And then they, it bursts out again and
Niki McGlynn: they can't stop themselves and it's like. And you go, come on, come on. Goes
Niki McGlynn: into this cycle continually where they, they're behaving,
Niki McGlynn: complying with a request and then suddenly they can't help themselves
Niki McGlynn: and they want to be disruptive and it's almost like attention seeking, but
Niki McGlynn: it's not, it's. They've got this exuberance that they can't
Niki McGlynn: keep it in. And it's. I've noticed it in a couple of people that
Niki McGlynn: I end up just laughing about it now. And it's, it's, it's who they are.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's their spinal gland. You need to say, that's your spinal
Joanne Lockwood: gland. You should sort that out. I'll get them to Google it and
Niki McGlynn: see what they say. Yeah, and look up a therapist or a practitioner
Niki McGlynn: who can give them some guidance, because I suppose it also connects. You know, you
Niki McGlynn: talked earlier about diet, regulation of intake
Niki McGlynn: and movement and exercise, things like that. I guess if you're.
Niki McGlynn: If you haven't overcome all of these incongruences and
Niki McGlynn: developmental learning and calibration, then you are going to be
Niki McGlynn: off kilter in certain aspects of your life, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. And of
Joanne Lockwood: course, we associate so many of those things with a
Joanne Lockwood: moral failing. You know, if you can't wash up, if you
Joanne Lockwood: can't control your appetite, if you. If you can't
Joanne Lockwood: organise yourself. We see it as a moral failing as opposed to not
Joanne Lockwood: understanding that. Actually it's a processing issue. It's a. It's
Joanne Lockwood: a neurological issue that's, you know, and if we support people in that
Joanne Lockwood: position, then. Then it doesn't need to be a moral issue. It can
Joanne Lockwood: just be something that somebody needs support with. Well, our social constructs
Niki McGlynn: of society are telling us this is how you should behave. And it
Niki McGlynn: associates shame or guilt or all these
Niki McGlynn: unhelpful emotions get associated with it and you feel like a failure,
Niki McGlynn: not succeeding, embarrassed, whatever it may be. So, yeah, it's
Niki McGlynn: trying to normalise these conversations so that people understand
Niki McGlynn: that they're just different, they have a different way of dealing with things. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, yeah. And it's not wrong. And this is why there's such a huge
Joanne Lockwood: suicide rate associated with people, particularly with undiagnosed
Joanne Lockwood: adhd. The mortality rate for life expectancy for people with
Joanne Lockwood: ADHD is much lower than it should be. Having
Joanne Lockwood: undiagnosed ADHD is a greater risk than smoking, you know, and
Joanne Lockwood: you think of all the. All the work we put into trying to stop people
Joanne Lockwood: from smoking. So it's a serious, serious issue. Does
Niki McGlynn: that all key down to lack of social worth, lack of social integration?
Joanne Lockwood: Well, children with ADHD are told off 20,000
Joanne Lockwood: times more than their neurotypical peers.
Joanne Lockwood: So there's a lot of shame associated with that. There's a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of, I must be stupid, I must be a failure, I must be useless,
Joanne Lockwood: I must be what's wrong with me? Why can't I.
Joanne Lockwood: I should be able to. That's interesting. Yeah, I can see
Niki McGlynn: that as well. I think I saw something on. I think it was LinkedIn or
Niki McGlynn: some article on one of the car news sites talking about how
Niki McGlynn: this is correlation between entrepreneurship and
Niki McGlynn: not being an A grade student. Because
Niki McGlynn: being perceived a failure or having to try hard or not
Niki McGlynn: always succeeding gives you better resilience, better adaptability,
Niki McGlynn: which is an entrepreneurial trait. Whereas if you're used to getting everything
Niki McGlynn: right, your success comes easy. You've never experienced failure, which is what we
Niki McGlynn: talked about earlier, about this development stage where you have to learn what failure feels
Niki McGlynn: like in order to be able to cope and adapt. Where. And entrepreneurs tend
Niki McGlynn: to be neurodiverse. They tend to be people who have not succeeded
Niki McGlynn: academically because they've learned alternate
Niki McGlynn: ways of interacting with the world that is benefit their
Niki McGlynn: entrepreneurship, I suppose. But also people who are neurodiverse see the
Joanne Lockwood: world in such a different way, you know, so that's where that
Joanne Lockwood: creative thinking comes from. Being able to think
Joanne Lockwood: laterally, being able to see patterns, being able to
Joanne Lockwood: understand and often see
Joanne Lockwood: answers very, very quickly. And they're also not very good
Joanne Lockwood: at doing what they're told. Much easier to be an entrepreneur,
Joanne Lockwood: but it's to work. Prudential or
Niki McGlynn: a comedian. You look at most professional comedians, they have exactly the same traits,
Niki McGlynn: don't they? They see the world differently, they find different things funny, they see
Niki McGlynn: patterns and stuff that are humorous often and not being governed by
Niki McGlynn: social contracts or rules of how you supposed to behave.
Niki McGlynn: Nikki, it's been absolutely fascinating. I've loved talking to you and I'm sure we could
Niki McGlynn: just carry on for hours. I've got so many more questions which they're more personal
Niki McGlynn: questions, but yeah, I think we'll let individual
Niki McGlynn: listeners contact you if they need to. So how can people get a hold of
Niki McGlynn: you? It's. My business is
Joanne Lockwood: Organised Mind, which is an aspirational business
Joanne Lockwood: name because I don't have one and so I'm.
Joanne Lockwood: My website is organised mind.co.uk and I'm on Facebook
Joanne Lockwood: as Organised Mind. Instagram, LinkedIn. I'm on as Nikki
Joanne Lockwood: McGlynn, but I'm not very good at Instagram, so
Joanne Lockwood: I don't. I'm a Facebook generation person.
Niki McGlynn: McGlynn. McGlynn. Yep. And
Niki McGlynn: Nikki. N I K I. Brilliant. Well, Nikki, it's been absolutely
Niki McGlynn: fascinating to meet you. I'm going to make sure we're connected on LinkedIn and hop
Niki McGlynn: onto your Facebook in a minute and say hi. So, yeah, that'd be fun. Love
Niki McGlynn: to keep in touch. Brilliant. Lovely talking to you, Joanne. Thank you so much for
Joanne Lockwood: letting me come on. Thank you.
Niki McGlynn: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Niki McGlynn: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Niki McGlynn: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Niki McGlynn: Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to
Niki McGlynn: Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community,
Niki McGlynn: driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and
Niki McGlynn: colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.
Niki McGlynn: Got thoughts, stories or a vision to share? I'm all
Niki McGlynn: ears. Reach out to
Niki McGlynn: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Niki McGlynn: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this
Niki McGlynn: is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
Niki McGlynn: more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and
Niki McGlynn: unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one
Niki McGlynn: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.