Full video

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wouldn't it be the most ridiculous story

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ever told if the boy who couldn't read

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and write at 18 gets a PhD before he's

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30 that's Cambridge Professor Jason AR

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day and his story is the most ridiculous

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ever told but he didn't do it alone and

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sometimes you don't need a thousand

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people to want you to win you just need

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one or

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two Jason's Story got off to a tough

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start he was diagnosed with autism and

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Global development delay and was

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non-verbal my processing is very very

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slow so cognitively that has always been

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a problem that's the reason why things

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happen later for me than they should

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have done four or five hours of speech

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therapy a day from the age of three

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there is nothing to suggest that any of

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this is working at 11 go into this room

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we go through the same kind of warm-up

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exercises as we normally did the speech

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therapist and said to me hello Jason as

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she always did and I just responded

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hello it's quite a strange thing to hear

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your own voice for the first time when

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you're 11 I didn't expect my voice to

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sound like this I think the first time I

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saw I was like 15 that was like an

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experience that was orgasmic oh s words

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this like am I using them in the right

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context Jason's mother was the first to

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instill in him a valuable life lesson so

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she had done a lot of research herself

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she knew that an autistic trait was

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repetition she normalized things a lot

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in a sport like snooker repetitions are

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quite an important thing you assess the

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shot you cute a shot you feather it's

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the same thing over and over and over

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again and her whole thing was that he

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might be able to apply it to other areas

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of his life for example speaking and in

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particular being a literate it's hard to

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say if it worked or not it well in terms

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of the snooker it did because I became a

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really good snooker player but having a

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strategy to succeed in life wasn't

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enough Jason still needed something we

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could all do with a good teacher I think

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teachers who care are absolutely vital

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the caring side of education is the most

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important thing when I was with him in

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his classes he just didn't make me feel

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any different and he just took an

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interest he took such an interest he

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gave people the most important thing you

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can give any human being he gave them

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agency and a sense of importance and

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just always felt like he he wanted me to

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win hearing that that Jason looked up to

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me and and valued me is actually really

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humbling and it it just makes you very

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aware that as a teacher that the impact

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you can have is is huge if I hadn't met

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Sandro I wouldn't be sat in front of you

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now Jason has been a a special case I

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think he my life I met him in 2003 he

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didn't know how to write I felt

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something on the day I must help this

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guy there was something about Sandra's

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approach that took Jason back to his

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past and this time he was ready Sandra's

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whole thing was repetition just doing

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phonics doing literacy doing reading and

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writing over and over again went over

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and over and over with the same topics

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until he's mastering it they tell me

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every day you're great you're going to

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do something great every single day but

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you have to be disciplined Jason you

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need someone to say look you're capable

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of doing things you going to achieve it

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you know let's do it together and one of

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the things he said to me is like look

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Jason you have this indominable will

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that is going to be your thing then I

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kind of thought right I'm just going to

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try as hard as possible so when I got to

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University that's the approach I took

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now Jason being Jason he didn't just

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stop at University in my second year of

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uni I had a lecturer who just got their

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PHD kind of went back and said to SRE

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like like what's a PhD I want to try and

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do one and he said Jason we can do this

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and once Jason started he couldn't stop

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he made it all the way to becoming one

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of the youngest professors ever at

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Cambridge and it might not stop there

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all of these lessons go back to being 14

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15 16 being taught these things by Mr

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trace and then it kind of being taken to

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another level with Sandro and working on

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the fact that my only two strengths are

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that I've got a lot of Will on

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determination I'm good with people and I

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remember standing there thinking you

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know you're in a situation where you're

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on the cusp of doing something that

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you've always wanted to do enjoy it