This is an I-Heart podcast.

Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markwood Show on IHart Radio.

My guest today is Leland Bittert.

Leeland is News Nation Chief Washington Anchor and the author of the excellent new book, Born

Lucky. So nice to have you on. Oh, what a pleasure. Thank you. So your book comes out at a really

interesting time in American history. It's called Born Lucky and it's your story. Do you want to

tell us a little bit about it before I went into that?

It's my story about growing up with autism and my father's quest, journey, 15 year epic

fight, whatever you want to call it, to adapt me to the world, not the world to me.

So when I was five years old and my parents were told that I needed to be evaluated,

they took me to one of those little medical testing centers and waited in the room with stale

coffee and old magazines.

And two hours later, the person brought their son back and said,

it is very difficult to know what is going on inside his head. And I had real behavioral issues.

I would, you know, turn around and hit anybody who touched me in the lunch line because touch was so

difficult. I couldn't understand how to interact with kids in any way.

I had real sensory issues, which is pretty typical of kids with autism.

I had speech issues.

I didn't talk until I was three.

And I had this huge learning disability.

So the way they do learning disabilities is

they do two halves of your IQ. Your score is the average of the two halves. A 20-point spread

...