Leo’s Superpower: The Boy Behind The Viral Speech Teaching Kids to Be Proud of Who They Are

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
My Heart Podcasts, year more Kiss Podcasts, playlists and listen
live on.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
The free iHeart app.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
It's Robin and Kip Now Choreo. It's on Kiss ninety
seven three. So there's a video you brought to our
attention yesterday, rob which is going viral at the moment
on TikTok.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
When I first saw it, it had only been up for
twenty four hours and it had already got three million views.
Because it's a young guy over the name of Leo.
He was taking part in the Young Communicators Competition twenty
twenty five. We think he's in about year five or six,
but he actually won the grand final. And this is
part of the speech.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Hi everyone, I have autism in ADHD and no, I'm
not broken. I'm just field different Yka limited edition Lego sets.
I was diagnosed in KINDI. While other kids are playing time,
I was wine on the four lining up my toy
cars perfectly straight.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Warning shot.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yes and joining us now is Lara, who's Leo's mum,
and Leo as well. Morning guys, Welcome to the.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
Show mony, Thanks for having us.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
How does that make you feel when you hear your
son like that?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Lara?

Speaker 5 (01:29):
Oh I knew it'd probably be well received if I
was to pop it online, but I am completely overwhelmed
at how many families it's touched. And I don't know,
it's just it's weird that it's my boy, that it's
making an impact. I'm so proud.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Le tell me about how you wrote that speech, because
I'm guessing. I'm guessing you worked on it for a
really long time.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
So I love writing, So I just wrote all the
weird things and stuff that I have to do with
autism about me. I just write it all down and
palm cards and then my mum helps me put them
in cards, so then you put.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
It in the order is a lot of parents kind
of struggled to come to terms, like they think, you know,
there's something wrong with their kids, and they sometimes refuse
to believe. Adie hahd or autism was that something that
you were really easy to sort of realize and come
to terms and then be happy and accept and sort
of proud of Leo for who he was.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
It came to our attention in preschool, and we worked
with his educators quite a bit because they were, you know,
flagging all of the things that they were seeing that
he was doing, and my husband has adhd as Leo
mentions in his speech, so we thought, okay, this just
might be the new little Peter and so yeah, like

(02:50):
we sort of expected it. We were sort of relieved.
We just thought, you know, there's an answer to why
he may not be exactly like his friends, and we're
just going to do early intervention and help him as
much as we possibly can.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
So good, like a limited edition Lego.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, yeah, it's special. It's it's not something to be
ashamed of or you're a limited edition. Man, it's cool.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
So Leo, tell me with this competition because you want it, mate,
like you absolutely nailed it. Did you have a choice
on what it was you were going to talk about? Yeah,
at what point did you go, you know what, I'm going.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
To do this because I want my superpower to make
kids feel good about having autism like me. So, like
I thought, maybe when the judges hear my speech, they
will also think that, oh, this speech is a very
good topic to make other kids out of autism understand
that if they have autism they can feel good about themselves.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
No, I think you should be really proud yourself because
being happy about who you are and proud and you know,
showing everyone you're proud of who you are and what
you've done is incredible. I believe it's going to help
so many kids. I really hope all the kids in
the world can see this. Then also it can help
the parents too, you know, Yeah, I think.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
It definitely has. I've been so many parents have reached
out to just thank us, and you know, and have
hope that some of theirs may not be verbal at
the moment, but have hope that maybe, you know, one
day they can. And I think you know, and you
were nervous to do it at the start, wonn't you.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (04:25):
I was because I thought maybe after I did my
speech kids would maybe start to teasing me about having autism.

Speaker 5 (04:32):
But after I did the food, yeah, it was the opposite.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
So they just said up to me saying that was
such a good speech.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
And people appreciated that.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah they did. Well.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Can I tell you what happened here in Brisbane because
you guys are in New South Wales, right you and Sydney,
Yes we are, Okay, So we saw your video and
so because of your video, we put it on our
show and said, if you've got a kid with a
superpower like Leo give us a call. The phones went
off even in Brisbane, like thousands of thousands of kids

(05:06):
heard what you did and it's motivated them to be
proud of.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
Who they are. So incredible.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
You're a legend, Leo.

Speaker 5 (05:14):
The thank you one, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Ye?

Speaker 5 (05:17):
Great?

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Well, thank you so much for joining us, and thanks
for sharing that story online Lara. It's made a big
difference to a lot of people, and good on you both.

Speaker 5 (05:25):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.