I'm not a good person. Stupid. Lazy. Hopeless. Dumb. Slow. East list. A disappointment. A failure. These are words that we and hundreds of other kids have heard directed at us countless times before. There were some that carry with them, often until they graduate, and sometimes even after. But for us, these words are called action, a reason to get up and stand up for kids with learning differences. Whether it be ADHD, dyslexia, or dysgraphia, learning differences are not something to be ashamed of, and they're not something that should be used as a music to discriminate. Learning differences are an obstacle that many do have to face. But despite these hurdles, people with learning differences have just as much of a chance succeed in life as anyone else. It doesn't matter if you're 5'11 or 4'9. Have a learning difference or don't. We're all human, and we all do pretty amazing things. We're athletes and artists. Like this student who can make entire costumes completely out of cardboard. Musicians and mathematicians. Like, or this student who's amazing with equations and film photography. There are no limitations as to what we can do or who we can be. We're here today as students of assets high school and as people to take action and disprove the stereotypes of kids with learning differences. This young woman's journey started in the first grade. This was when she first started having trouble in school. It seemed to her that whatever was going on outside the window was far more interesting than basic addition. Even when her teacher put her in the front row, she still had trouble paying attention. The patterns in the carpet were just so intriguing. It wasn't until she was in eighth grade that she was diagnosed with ADHD, the root of all of her struggles. What is ADHD she thought? It just must be another way of saying, I'm not smart enough. These kinds of thought plagued her during her school hours and she found herself reluctant to do any work. Especially when her teachers only saw her as a stereotype. And it began to take a toll on her and pretty soon that's what she thought she was. Just a stereotype. This diagnosis did not, however, fully explain why she'd always tested high but received low marks on report cards. They answered all of her questions finally came in 2010 when her school recommended you see a specialist for psychoeducational assessment. After several hours of testing, it was determined that she wasn't stupid. In fact, she was pretty dang smart. What had been holding her back was her processing speed, which was substantially lower than the rest of her scores. The thought of changing schools again came as a shock and honestly didn't sound too appealing at first. But pretty soon that shocked her into indifference and she started the second semester of her sophomore year at Assette High School. Slowly but surely, she adjusted to life in a school where differences were celebrated. For the first time, she school became less of a chore and she wanted to go to class. Assette was different, teachers were passionate about teaching and bent over backwards to make sure that every one of their students received the education they deserved. As a member of Hawaii's Surgeons Program, a club for gifted and talented students, she has proved to herself that she is not stupid. She just needs a little extra help to get over her difference. While anxiety is still a small issue, this girl has powered through adversity. For the first time, she is a straight-a student and takes pride in all of her work. She is a junior at Assette High School and continues to be a compassionate student and an amazing person. Ladies and gentlemen may introduce to you our one, Uyoka. Thank you very much. On the other side of the world, there was another girl. As a military child, she moved around a lot. She never had any geographical ties and grew up learning that home wasn't necessarily the house you grew up in. Home was where your family was and for her, that was all over the world. As an elementary school student, she spent a lot of her time not doing her work. It wasn't that she didn't understand it and it wasn't that she was a slacker in the making. This girl was diagnosed with a learning disability when she was in second grade. She wasn't particularly happy about it either. Her teacher began treating her differently and she started associating being ADHD with being punished. For a while, she thought she was a bad kid. Perhaps just carried that experience with her and lived under the weight of it for the following years. In third grade, things took a turn for the worse. Her teacher had the misconception that just because she was ADHD, she was stupid. She would call her out and single her out in front of the rest of the kids. At the time, her school used to program to categorize kids according to their reading level. When she took it, she scored at a high school level. Of course, she was ecstatic. It felt like she was smart for once. Her teacher pulled her aside the next day and told her that she'd have to retake it. Because the student with ADHD like her couldn't have gotten that high of a score. She retook the test and scored at the same level. Her teacher dropped the subject after that. For the following years, the girl continued to struggle in school. Math became her arch-nemesis and she fought tooth and nail against multiplication, division, and fractions. She lost pretty much all confidence by eighth grade. She was done with trying because she lived her whole life being told that what she was doing was wrong. Perhaps it was because of how little teachers actually believed in her. Nonetheless, schools were worse than her. In her freshman year, she still struggled. Not only had she moved for the eighth time, but she was stuck at a school where it wasn't uncommon to have more than 20 students in more in class. Teacher health was completely out of the question. The high school's answer to her diagnosis was special education classes. Her teacher obviously needed doctors' notes and eventually found out about her learning difference. She made her stay after class one day to tell her that she shouldn't be using her disability as an excuse not to do work. She passed class. When her parents had brought up changing schools again, the girl was very against the idea. She thought she was perfectly fine where she was. Eventually, however, she did change schools and started her sophomore year at Asset High School. The first thing that struck her as unique was the fact that teachers actually cared about the subject's day top. Her whole life, she'd gone to schools where teachers forgot her name because there were so many other students. And Asset this wasn't the case. There was no hiding in the back of the classroom because there was no back of the classroom. Teachers she didn't even have would say hello to her and ask her how she was doing. Slowly, she began to come out of her shell. All of a sudden, she knew what her education should have been like. She'd finally found a place where she could be herself, take control of schoolwork, and learn about herself as a learner. Her strengths are celebrated Asset and her challenges were overcome. The girl learned how to be a successful student with a learning difference. There were of course bumps along the road, but the girl managed to make her ways her senior year. Asset's gave her the confidence to do her work and succeed. She's also been able to become who she wants to be as a person and as a student. She's been accepted with an academic scholarship to her number one choice in schools and is determined to earn her a doctorate in forensic anthropology. This girl has overcome the obstacles of being an ADHD student and has learned to be successful. She graduates on May 19th of this year. My introduce Ms. Hayley Jackson. Thank you, R.A. How do ADHD or any LD for that matter is different for everyone who has it. R1 and I have the inattentive type of ADHD, but even with the same type, many variations on how it manifests can occur. She tends to get music stuck in her head or daydream a lot. Well, I hyper focus on things and can't see or hear anything else around me other than what I'm focusing on. People with dyslexia or dysgraphia may have trouble spelling reading or writing, but that does not make them illiterate and it does not make them incapable. One similarity between all of us, however, is that we can get very overwhelmed very easily. It's like this. When you avoid a daunting task, it doesn't really go away. And pretty soon, that task is joined by another and another until you're buried underneath. We're smart. And for those of you who like to see numbers, here you go. As you can see, there's kind of a gap in our smartness. And for me, it's working memory and processing speed, but for R1, it's processing speed. Having coping skills like no cards while presenting, using technology like inspiration or curves wall, or even having simple lists to check off is vital to becoming a successful student with learning difference. And these coping skills, they take a while to get used to. Trust me, it's taken me my whole life to finally find a system that pretty much works for me. And honestly, I'm still working on it. Learning differences are not bad, and students who have them are not inferior to normal students in any way. They just need accommodations in someone to believe in them. Said by Albert Einstein, we're all brilliant. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. Thank you. Thank you.