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Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 19 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In episode 19 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, we are excited to host Jaime Spencer, OTR/L, of MissJaimeOT.com to talk about how we can advocate for ourselves as OTs at every level from the school site to nationally. Jaime Spencer, like Jayson and Abby, is a proud school-based occupational therapist. BUT, she happens to live on the other side of the country from us, in New York City. Through her website, Jaime shares many tips and tricks for all pediatric OTs with an emphasis on helping school-based OTs, teachers, and parents. Lately, she has taken on the calling (and the challenge) to advocate for higher pay wages for OTs in New York as well as fair working conditions, caseloads, and status. If you think School-based OTs have a thing or two to advocate for, you have found the right episode to listen to! "I support School-Based OTs looking for change! ...Do you?" -Jaime Spencer, OTR/L MissJaimeOT.com Check out the episode below by pressing play on the web player (not available on phones) or using the links to listen on your phone! Links to Show References: Miss Jaime OT At the core of her website ( MissJaimeOT.com ), Jaime provides free resources for school-based OTs, parents, and teachers alike. In fact, her tagline as noted in the podcast is: "Helping you to help the children in your life!" Be sure to subscribe to one of her many email courses or her "Motor Monday" email list for a weekly email that you will be excited to receive! Advocacy for School-Based OT! Jaime is the right person to have on your side. She has already developed so many tools for us OTs to use in our advocacy efforts. Use the links below to learn more and join the Facebook Groups to "hook up" with other like-minded SBOTs in your state! Miss Jaime OT's Advocacy Page (Link) Facebook Groups (Click the link) USA School-Based OTs Looking For Change California School-Based OTs Looking For Change Connecticut School-Based OTs Looking For Change Florida School-Based OTs Looking for Change Illinois School-Based OTs Looking For Change New York School-Based OTs Looking For Change North Carolina School-Based OTs Looking For Change South Carolina School-Based OTs Looking For Change Does your state not have a page? Want to start one? Contact Jaime now! Join Your State & National Associations! Join AOTA and your State's OT Association. Those funds help toward the advocacy efforts of like-minded OTs! Changes to state education codes occur at the state level! That's why it is also important to support your local association See the letter AOTA sent to the Superintendent of each state on behalf of us in 2017! Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript.   Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hello and welcome everyone to OT school house. Episode number 19. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I sure had some time to spend with the family and build some Ikea furniture and all those wonderful here at heart at the Davies house. So I hope you all had a great time, and I'm welcome to Well, I'm glad to have you all back. So with that, we are going to get started. I don't know if you can tell, but my voice is a little hoarse, but I'm just going to introduce our guest today. Her name is Jamie Spencer. Many of you probably know her as Miss Jamie ot of the Miss Jamie ot blog, she also produces many wonderful Facebook videos and sends out wonderful sensory motor emails on Monday. So be sure to check her out on her website again. That's Miss Jamie ot com, and sign up for her email list. And we're going to talk about some Facebook groups a little later today that you should also be sure to join if you're having any difficulty finding these Facebook groups or her email. Can't quite remember what it is, be sure to check out ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 19 for the show notes. We'll have plenty of links over there for all the resources that we talk about today. And so without further ado, please help me to welcome Miss. Jaime Spencer to the OT school house podcast. Hey, Jaime, welcome to the OT school house podcast. How are you doing this evening?     Jaime Spencer     I'm great. How are you?    Jayson Davies     I'm doing very well. Excited. Only one more day as of the day that we're recording this, until we get to have a nice, long week break. How about you guys?    Jaime Spencer     I'm excited too. Definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving.    Jayson Davies     Yes. How's the weather up there? I've seen on the news that it's a little crazy up there or about to get crazy.     Jaime Spencer     Yes, it actually, it took me two hours to get home today, and it usually only takes me about 40 minutes. Oh, wow. It was a really bad blizzard. Well, not a blizzard, but it was pretty stormy.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, I'll stay here in California for a bit. Well, Jamie, you are the blogger behind Miss Jamie ot.com and I'm so happy to have you here, but I want to give you a minute to introduce yourself, a little bit about who you are, what you do, and also about your blog?    Jaime Spencer     Great. So my name is Jaime Spencer. I've been a school based occupational therapist for about 18 years now. I work in the public schools in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, and my majority of my caseload is from kindergarten to fifth grade. But I happen to be the only district employed occupational therapist in my district, so we have 10 buildings, and I kind of run around from building to building. Do a lot of you know, I wear a lot of hats. I do all the assistive technology for my district, and I do push ins for the general education kindergartens and first grades. And I'm actually doing a research project right now about handwriting. So I kind of have my hands in a lot of areas, which I really like. It makes the weeks go by, and it's interesting and fun. And I love working with the kids. So I also have a blog, a pediatric occupational therapy blog. It's called Miss Jamie ot.com which I really love because it allows me to share information and resources and ideas and activities with parents and teachers and therapists. I have two books so far, the handwriting book and the scissor skills book, which I co authored with a bunch of other pediatric occupational therapists and physical therapist that was really fun. And my big passion right now is that I'm an advocate for occupational therapy and school based OTs in general. So I'm interested in telling you a little bit more about that as we go on, because it's a hot topic for me. But I also have a Facebook page with a lot of Facebook Live videos. I do something called Motor Monday. And every Monday, almost, I try to share some tips or tricks or a cool new product I found to share with parents or teachers about just things they can do to help the children in their lives. My tagline is helping you to help the children in your lives. So I hope to you know just be a good resource for adults who have children with needs?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I love that tagline. I mean, I often tell people within the schools, teachers, admins, you know, it's I can sometimes help one kid in 30 minutes, or I can help a teacher who can help 30 kids sometimes, I mean, those simple little tricks and tips that can help an entire class versus one kid go so far.    Jaime Spencer     Absolutely, yeah. And it's fine when you share one with the teacher and they're like, you're a genius, exactly. I love those moments. And you're like, Oh, this one's an old one.     Jayson Davies     Right? I think one day, I just brought a box into a classroom, and I just put it underneath the kid's desk so he could actually reach the box, because he was just kind of floating in the air. And the teacher's. Like, Oh, and actually, the parent, that kid's parent, happened to be in the classroom that day too, and so she was like, Oh my God, you're the best ot ever. You actually did something for this kid that will make him able to work, right? Yeah? So yeah, it's the simple things in life that go, go a long way. So.    Jaime Spencer     I love OT.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, Miss Jaime, ot has been an inspiration for us over at the OT school house. So we thank you so much for everything that you're doing there. And I had no idea at first how much you were doing for the advocacy going on right now. So let's jump into that a little bit. You mentioned it. You know, you're just kind of on this high of school based ot advocacy. I saw your shirt recently at the New York State Association that you had that was like all glammed out for school based OTs. What is it exactly that you're advocating for?    Jaime Spencer     Exactly, okay, so, yes, I had right obnoxiously yellow neon shirts made up, and on the front they said, I support school based OTs looking for change. And on the back they said, Do you so it was the perfect forum to wear them to the New York State Occupational Therapy Association. So basically, myself and many other OTs, I'm, you know, it's not just me. There's five admins of our group. We are advocating for what we call educational credentialing. So you might say, you know what's educational credentialing? Basically, what it means is, if you look into the state regs, and it's different for every single state, but it's very similar across the USA. In New York, exactly when you look at the New York State Education Department regulations, and you look at who is considered a pupil personnel service, so teachers get teaching certificates, and then there's pupil personnel, so they're not exactly teachers, but they're considered teachers under the umbrella of Pupil personnel. So though that includes guidance counselors, speech and language pathologists, includes social workers, school psychologists. It includes a lot of other related service providers who our role in the school is, you know, so similar, if not almost identical. Of course, we're OTs and they're working on other goals, but we all work directly with children. We all have master's level degrees or higher. We're all, you know, advocating for children and working on their IEPs. We have very similar roles. And occupational and physical therapy in New York State are left out of this umbrella, and it really impacts us tremendously. It impacts us in terms of how we're employed, in terms of how we're able to treat what unions were put in, our rate of pay, our pension, our retirement, the amount of paperwork we have. I mean, it just, it goes on and on and on, and it's just one of those crazy laws. And this is how I how I've been explaining it. There's also the law about children needed to be severely in a deficit range in order to get any special education services. So the parents really fought about that, and now we have RTI response to intervention. So we're putting measures into place before a child foils like way, way behind. We're trying to catch them up earlier on. And that's a great law. The old law is crazy. Why were we doing it that way? And in my mind, this law right now, the fact that OTs and PTs are not considered equal to, you know, teachers and speech therapist and guidance counselors and psychologists, it's just crazy. I completely agree. It impacts us, and it really impacts the children, and that's, you know, the most important thing.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely. Because, I mean, it's amazing, because some of the simple things that we can't do with the without that credential is we can't have more than a few kids in a classroom at a time with us, like we're kind of on the same level as a classroom aide in that sense, in the sense that we have to have a teacher to be in the classroom in order for us to be, like, with a group of kids, and so that limits the ability that we're or that limits the amount of RTI that we can provide, like, something like you're talking about, you're doing handwriting research. I'd love to hear more about that, because at this point, it's kind of my understanding that I couldn't say, Hey, first grade teachers, do you each have like, three kids that are having some difficulty with handwriting? Because I can help those kids in a classroom. You classroom, but I can't do that because I have to completely assess them all if I want to work with that child. And so that prevents me from doing a simple RTI, MTSS, whatever you want to call it, group with those kids to help them in a few weeks, versus now, you know, we'll just wait until they fall behind, and then they're going to need an IEP, okay, now they can have OT, right? I know. And so you're right. I think we really have to express, because it's absolutely true, how much we can benefit the kids.    Jaime Spencer     Through that and the teachers too. And I think that because administration, they just really don't, they're not. Aware of our value, and we need to show them. And I don't think that they're unopen to it. We just haven't really, you know, thinking about it, I don't, I've never heard about OTs advocating, you know, really going crazy advocating about this before. So maybe now's the time. Maybe administrators just didn't know, or they don't know what exactly we can do. Yeah, another, another really big, I'm sorry, another really big limitation for the fact that we don't have credentialing is that we can't try to further our careers by pursuing administrative degrees. So that's huge. I mean, you can graduate when you're 24 with your ot degree, and that's it. You can't become, you know, a higher level. You can't get another degree under the school law, and that's just a shame, because think of how your job would change if you had an OT as your administrator, you know. I mean, I don't think that children would be getting recess skipped. I think maybe the art and the art room and the cafeterias wouldn't have adult sized furniture. I mean, little things I don't think OTs would be working in the locker rooms or the hallways. It just wouldn't happen, because an administrator who had that background of OT would get it. And these are little things that are really important to the kids.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, as you're talking, so many things are going through my mind. I know in hospitals, there's kind of a push in some places for OTs to start being case carriers on a acute patients rehab team, because we do have that holistic approach. We see the medical side. We see the side that is the patient going home and having to go up and down stairs. We see all that and so in the same sense, when it comes to school, I mean having an admin that that's an occupational therapist, like they kind of see that whole picture. They're not focused on just the numbers that the SAT scores are putting out or whatever. And I'm not saying that all admin are, but we do kind of have that just right amount of education in several different areas. It's like we're not a specialist in any one thing, but we have so much information about everything. It sometimes seems like, obviously we do have a very specialized education. But actually, I just met an OT and I won't say her name on here, just because, you know, hopefully one day she'll come on the podcast, but she is actually a special education director at a district in the Southern California area. I just met her at the OT conference, and I basically told her she's my hero, because she went back and got her psychology credential so that she could become a principal, and now she is the special ed director. And so it took her, she was telling me, like, 10 years from having her ot degree, in order to get to the place where she could be an administrator. And so that's just amazing. And, like, I've been contemplating with that for like, two years now, because I kind of have similar aspirations, I guess you could say, but it's just like you said, it's, it's impossible for us right now, basically. And so I'm happy to hear what you're doing, and I know California is kind of on the same page and working towards something like this. And so yeah, so we talked a little bit about how we can benefit, but we, I guess we kind of talked about this, but I want to dive into it a little bit more, how the teachers are and the students will benefit from us having this credential. What do you see at the top things?    Jaime Spencer     I think one of the, one of the main drawbacks to us not having the credentials is that we're not always employed equally, and this can impact our schedule. It can can impact our caseload. Which impacts the kids, you know, we're spread between however many buildings, and we don't have a prep period to, you know, write our notes or call parents, or do all those other things that other school professionals have time to do it impacts the quality of our care, and unfortunately, I really want to know, Do parents know this? No, they just think their ot isn't in touch, or that their ot isn't available, and it's, yeah, they're not available because they ate lunch in their car, and, you know, they didn't use the bathroom all day today, like they are running, running, running. And it's just unfortunately, because they don't have this credentialing that it impacts, you know, it just impacts so much. And it also, like I said, about the holistic view, if an OT was in the administration, the whole school would have a different feel. I mean, we know about mental health, we know about behavior, we know about, you know, physical strength, we know about so many different things, just like you said, and it would just add a very different positive point of view to the school community.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. So one of the things that I know is a hot topic when talking about the credentialing, whatever you want to call it, educational credentials. Credential is the education, the education that we do or do not have, and the education that we may or may not have to get in order to earn this credential. And so in my opinion, I mean, I remember, you know, six, seven years ago, whatever it was being a new school based OT, straight out of grad school. I mean, I didn't understand education. I didn't understand common core. I didn't know what, what the actual third graders are actually working toward. That's not something we necessarily learn in occupational therapy school. I mean, I know my program, it was pediatric based, in a way, but it was mostly clinic pediatric base. We did not have a lot of school based resources to really learn about. And so I think we are limited in the sense that we don't get the best. I mean, I don't know we get a great education, but not necessarily geared towards school based therapy. And so I don't know what education may or may not be in the works if we're to do that, but I do actually think that it would be beneficial for us to learn a little bit about education and how that system works.    Jaime Spencer     Well, I agree with you, and I think it really depends state to state, because it depends what school you went to. How did you know what is the correct of course, but also you know, if you think of any new speech therapist or school psychologist or guidance counselor, do they know the curriculum? Do they know what the third graders are working towards? No, they go into the building and they learn as a hands on person under the mentorship of a skilled school professional. That's true. OTs don't have that. We don't have a mentorship, you know? I mean, I shouldn't say everywhere, because things are different in every single state, but as a whole, so many OTs that I've spoken to. I mean, I know myself. When I graduated, I literally went into my school based ot position as a contract therapist with no one, no help. I had a hard enough time making my schedule must last, looking through my textbook, trying to come up with activities I was I was a newbie, and I really could have used someone to teach me and show me. So again, it's different in every single state, but in New York, our school social workers have to graduate from their program and then work within a school for two years under the mentorship of a licensed social worker within a school, so and then they're able to apply for their certificate. So why couldn't we do something like that? I don't know. There's a giant shortage of school based therapists, and a lot of it is because of this. It in, you know, again, it impacts our pay, it impacts our job satisfaction. So people are choosing to go elsewhere. If we were to put extra demands for more education, or that we have to take classes in order to get this, I think it would only limit people from pursuing it even more. So I think, personally, I'm New York. I know the conversations that I've had with other New York OTs is that we're hoping to follow in the pathway that social workers set up for themselves. But again, it would be different from state to state, which is why, you know, each state needs to really figure out what will work for them.     Jayson Davies     Definitely. So yeah, no speech therapist. In order to earn their C's, I think they have to have one year of supervision and so exactly similar type of system. I know they also have to pass a few similar tests that teachers have to pass. It's called, I think, the rica out here, and another one, but yeah, so I like your idea of the mentorship. That makes a lot of sense. All right, so now that we know a little bit about what we're advocating for let's talk about how we actually get to that. How do we advocate at different levels? Obviously, like you've been saying, every state is different. We all have our different licensure boards. We all have different educational systems, educational codes. So how are you advocating for yourself at the district level?    Jaime Spencer     So in terms of my full time job at the district, I'm advocating for myself by really putting my voice out there when there, when it comes to school wide initiatives that I know that I could be a part of, I make sure to let my administrator know. And that's again, another another job on me, because I am spread pretty thin. I don't know any ot that isn't but so are teachers and so are other I don't mean you know that I'm more spread thin than anyone else, but you know, I've been speaking up and saying, You know what I heard, that we are, you know, looking to increase movement in the elementary schools. I'd love to talk to you about hiring occupational therapists to implement, you know, RTI groups in the kindergartens to really work on the motor skills. As I said, I'm doing a handwriting research project in the kindergarten and first grades, and I've screened 22 classes of children, and I it's just so alarming the. Level of their motor skills and their grasping patterns. And it's just, it's upsetting. The kids are coming to us delayed in their motor skills, but we're expecting advanced, you know, academic work from them, and it's not fair to the children. And there's such an easy fix. You know, have an RTI program with motor skills in place, we can slip right into that reading block and incorporate motor skills with literacy. It doesn't need to be, you know, jumping jacks in the middle of the classroom. It can be very conspicuous and just an extra interventionist in the classroom. And you know that would you know you have to speak up at your job and let them know what you can do and what your knowledge and expertise is most administrators do not know that we know more than fine motor, handwriting and sensory they're not aware. They're not aware that we can run social skills groups or anti bullying initiatives or RTI programs. They don't. They just don't know what we can do. We need to let them know.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and I try to weave in a little bit of that, especially like the social skills group, you know, I like to chime in during the IEPs a little bit and kind of speak up and just say, Oh, that's a concern that you're having. You know what? That's something that we can work on during our OT sessions a little bit. And just so it just kind of implants that seed in the administrators minds, oh, Jason, can do that with the kid. Okay, all right. We'll see what happens. And then the next time you mention it now, you know, they're they're open to it. So, right, right. So that's at the district level, maybe even the individual school level. What about at the state level? I know we already talked about your glamorous outfit at the soda. So what's going on at the state level? How are you helping out?    Jaime Spencer     So at the state level, for myself, personally, you know, it's really important to belong to your state organization and see what they're doing to advocate for school based OTs. If you're not speaking up, they're not speaking up for you. So they are paying attention to their members, and their members are asking for A, B and C. That's what they're going to put their efforts into. So if you're not a member, and you're not speaking up about your concerns, you know, then you're just not there. You're not at the party. And you know, you need to go there. You need to say, here's what I'm seeing, here's what's happening. So from for me, as as terms of New York, I've been kind of grouping together lots of New York OTs, and we've been writing letters to our state education department. I don't know if you're aware of this, but the American Occupational Therapy Association wrote a letter to every single state education department in the United States two years ago, two summers ago, advocating for school based OTs and the benefits that we could provide to a school district as leaders, and asking for a response from the education department as to, would you consider us to be leaders? Would you allow us educational credentialing so that we can further our careers? Because we have a lot of great qualities. And the letter was, you know, very articulate, and it went on to list all of the qualities that OTs have, as well as our educational background, etc. And as far as I know, not one single state education department has answered the American Occupational Therapy Association. So isn't that telling, you know, like they're not even answering a state an American organization, I mean, a ot A represents 1000s and 1000s of people and 1000s of school based OTs our state ed departments can't even answer with a letter.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. And that's tough because, I mean, I, I get it from the administrator point of view, you know, like, there's only what, there's one ot for every three, 410, schools and so like we are not on their radar at all, like we're just not and until we start to stand up, like you were talking about at that district, that individual school level, then what reason are we giving them to answer that letter? And so they need to know what we can do to help them to I mean, let's be honest. Here. It comes down for the higher ups in the district. It comes down to money, and we have to show just like that. Recent research showed, you know, that OTs are kind of the, one of the few people that can actually save hospitals money. You know what? We need to kind of show the district that we're there to help them, not just the kids and so, for anyone out there looking for a doctorate project.    Jaime Spencer     Well, also the disconnect between what we actually can do and what we're being almost permitted or encouraged to do. So there is a giant disconnect. So I am actually with my New York State admin group for school based OTs, looking for change. We're in the midst of putting together a bunch of surveys, and we are really trying to gather data within New York State about what administrators really know about what occupational therapy can do and what their perceptions are, as well as what do parents think about OTs. We want to know you know, how many OTs have you had this year? What. There a lot of turnover. Have you had a shortage of OTs that impacted your child? We're really trying to gather information so that we can put the whole picture together with data and research for administration and for the New York State Education Department. Look at this. Our survey shows that OTs have a poor job satisfaction, high burnout, poor pay. You know, high turnover. They're looking for other positions. Parents are complaining because they can't find an OT. Guess why they're not there, right? You know, why? Why would I, you know, and it's like, I, personally, I love working with children, and I'm not saying, but you could see where a therapist would choose to go another route, if they need to support their family or they want to, you know, rate, you know, rise up in their profession and advance professionally to a higher level. And there, this opportunity is not there for school based therapists.    Jayson Davies     No, definitely. So I think advocating at the national level is very similar to the state level. You know, you talked about that letter that a ot a sent out to the state's education system, and you know, nothing really came back. But is there anything in particular? I know you have your Facebook group. We'll get into that in a minute. But are you writing at all to a ot a and letting them know the concerns, or are you urging other OTs to do that?     Jaime Spencer     Yes, in my New York State Group, as well as in the USA school based OTs looking for Change Group. I number one, I urged OTs to write a letter to their state education department, attaching the A ot a letter and saying, what's the response? Obviously, much longer and more articulate. But you know, OTs would make great leaders. This, you know, impacts me personally. How what is your response to this? So we started a letter writing campaign in New York. We've sent, you know, I don't know exactly how many letters, but people were interacting and saying, I sent mine. I sent mine. I know, personally, I've sent a bunch. I sent a couple of emails and a couple of letters and nothing, you know. So we did do that, you know, Avenue. But on top of that, in terms of a ot a, yes, we had a bunch of our OTs write to their a ot a RAs, that's the representative assembly. So each state has a few representatives for a ot A, and those representatives are supposed to represent the people of that region, and let a OT, I know, what their, you know, constituents are feeling and thinking. So I did have a bunch of my New York members write to our New York RAs and say, Hey, school based OTs are struggling here. We there's a shortage, there's high burnout. We're stressed, we're overworked. We haven't gotten raises in 20 years. It's bad. And we really need help from the National Association, and we are on their radar. Yeah, I don't know if, I don't know if you saw the advocacy webinars for membership Appreciation Week, but they did wonderful. I mean, a wonderful webinar is almost one a day about advocating for your professionals, other stuff, but it really didn't touch on school based therapy, there really was almost nothing for school based therapists to kind of grab onto and be inspired by. So we we wrote in. We said, well, what about school What about school agencies? Is a ot I have any plan to help schools, school based therapists. It's not all about skilled nursing facilities and not, I'm not, you know, saying that they're not important. Of course they are. But we need help too, and we've been on the back burner for too long.    Jayson Davies     Definitely, we're just not being heard.    Jaime Spencer     We're also not speaking up enough.     Jayson Davies     Yes, yes. But also, as far as a ot A goes, like you said, a lot of this is state dependent, and a ot a can send a letter to each individual state, but until the states really fight for it, that's who's going to make that difference. You know, every state has their own educational code, and it's typically that education code that points out who can get a credential and who cannot get a credential, and what the requirements are and what that person with a credential can and cannot do. And so, you know, in California, we are fighting it. You know, we had a setback this previous year. It didn't go through, A, b2, 386, I believe it was and it didn't go through but the OT Occupational Therapy Association of California, you know, they're determined, and they've already told us, You know what, we're gonna continue with this. We're not giving up. You know what? We may have to change the route a little bit, but they know that here in California, you know we are, it's the big agenda item right now. You know what? We got something passed this previous year, but this one didn't. And so now it's kind of time for this one to go through. So if you're in California, be sure to speak up continuously, because you know what this actually leads right into our next topic is misconceptions. There's some OTs out here that have some misconceptions about what this credentialing initiative may actually entail and how it might benefit us. And we actually there's some people that are speaking out against against this initiative. And so what are some of the in talking to people? What are some of the misconceptions you've come. Across.     Jaime Spencer     So I've heard some things about, you know, are we going to have to take additional courses? I don't want to go back to school. Am I going to have to take additional courses in order to continue doing what I do? And you know, that shouldn't be the case again. It's going to be state to state. If we look at the snowball effect, it could be that maybe there'll be some changes to occupational therapy program curriculum, but that's for new students. Yeah, for ot for us, there shouldn't be any giant upset or upheaval. And again, it hasn't happened yet, so I can't guarantee but I mean that hasn't happened for other professions that changed their pathway, and it shouldn't happen for us. We should really just be grandfathered in. And you know, then I've also heard people who said, Well, if we become educationally credentialed, you know, I might get observed. And I don't want to get observed. Okay, well, do you want to make another $40,000 a year? If so, then you need to be observed once a year. And why wouldn't you want to be observed? Show them how awesome you are, show them the cool, fun things that you do, while incorporating curriculum and everything that that child needs to know. Like, I have been working for my school district for 18 years, and I have never been observed, and honestly, I'm insulted. Yeah, I want to be, and that's my take on it, and I understand that other people are not looking that way, and that's fine. We all have our different point of views, but when it comes down to it, we deserve parity with teachers, and if we're asking for equal pay and equal career opportunities, then we might have to deal with equal supervision or equal, you know, obligations that we're not dealing with right now. Personally, if I had to do bus duty and it gave me another $40,000 a year, I would do, you know, like is what it is. But every again, every state and every state and every school is different, but it's just that kind of negative attitude. I don't want to do anything more. Maybe if you had this credentialing, you'd be in a proper union, and you would have a prep period and time to eat your lunch. Maybe it wouldn't be so overworked and stressed that you would feel that you couldn't take on one more thing because school based OTs, unfortunately, have a very high rate of burnout. And this is why, and we have to look at it the positive, like last half full. If we were, if we got this credentialing, we would be much more equal. So not only Yes, would we be observed, but we would also have similar schedules and similar pay or retirement pension, all that great stuff. We'd be invited to the team collaboration meetings. We could use our voice. We'd be part of the, you know, in my in my district, we call it the IST the Instructional Support Team. Basically, it's like when we have concerns about a child, we go to we go to a meeting about it. I don't get invited to that meeting. There's no time for me. I'm busy running around like a crazy person, but I would love to be at that meeting to give input and suggestions and pre referral strategies. And I think that it's a valuable voice that's missing.    Jayson Davies     And that's so and that's interesting, because it just shows the difference between some of the things that you said. Shows the difference just between two states. You know, in California, we have people that are concerned about taking a pay cut if we get credentialed, because here OTs tend to make a higher starting salary than teachers do, and the end salary, depending on the district, might be the similar, or might be similar, but typically there's about anywhere from 15 to 20 steps for a teacher. You know, every year they get a pay raise for 15 to 20 years. Versus OTs, we max out after seven years. And so we start high, but we don't have much to go. Versus teachers, start low and then eventually surpass us, typically, right and and then again, what you're talking about the union. You know, in California, no one knows what union they're in, like, literally, they did a survey and people said, I don't know what union I'm in, and I'm not in a union. I'm considered classified management. I know other OTs that are considered certificated. Other OTs are just classified. And these are all, in a way, meaningless names that don't mean a whole lot, other than how much you make, what your pension is, and whether or not you have a credential, and.    Jaime Spencer     Who's representing you if you get in trouble?     Jayson Davies     No one, right? No, I'm representing myself.     Jaime Spencer     Yeah, in New York, we don't have those terms at all. Everything that you just said, I've never heard of okay, we are either in the teachers union or we're in the civil service union. Do you know what that is?    Jayson Davies     Is that like the non teachers union? Um, I guess yes, that would be our classified.    Jaime Spencer     Okay, so the civil service union for us is anyone who works in a school that's not considered a school. Professional. So it's school, it's bus drivers, custodians, the secretaries, the lunch ladies, the one to one aides, all of them, and then OT and it just makes no sense, because we're the only people in that union with an a master's degree or higher, and we are the only people in those unions that are actually working directly on a child's education. So it just, it's like, what are we doing there? It makes no sense. And it's not, you know, oh, we're better than anyone or anything like that. I actually had a few administrators like, shame me into like, because I was saying, this is inappropriate. I should not be in this union. I have a master's degree. Everyone in this union doesn't. And they were like, well, and they made me really, like, ashamed. I was young when that happened, but they really did, and it was smart of them, you know, because I didn't feel like I had the strength to be assertive enough to stick up for myself. But it's not appropriate. And I'm still in that union, and it's not appropriate, and I'm on, literally, the head custodians pay scale, and I've been working in my district for 18 years, and new teachers, who've been there for six, seven years, are probably making exactly what I make. Yeah, and it's just not right. You know, it's just, it's just not right.    Jayson Davies     So actually, right now in California, the CSEA California School Employees Association, which I think is kind of on par with what you're talking about. It's those employees that aren't teachers, basically. So all the custodians, all the bus drivers, anyone who's not credentialed, and it basically isn't teaching. So not the psychologist. They're actually the ones that kind of gave us the biggest fight on AB, 2386, and the best we can figure is that OTs do tend to be in that union, and so they're kind of, they're believing that they're sticking up for their union members. In actuality, well, I mean, it's obviously every ot has a different feeling, but a lot of OTs aren't even in that association, but they have this, you know, idea, that every OT is a CSEA member, and so we need to stick up for them, but they spoke up big time against this. We had we had support from the California Teachers Association, we had support from the administrators. We obviously had support from a ot a but that CSEA, they really kind of spoke up and yeah, so unfortunately, it didn't happen. But we're not going to be turned away, not yet, still working on it. Yep, that's half full, right, exactly. So let's continue on. We talked about pay, we talked about some of the education. Yes, I agree with you on the fact that we and from what I have understood, is that that grandfather in effect, that should be in most states that I've heard that's kind of in play. That grandfather in effect, for if you're already working in the schools, you won't really need any more education. I meant to ask you earlier, do you know of any states where this is actually already occurring.    Jaime Spencer     And you know what I'm ashamed to say, there are four states within the USA that have it, and people always ask me, what for    Jayson Davies     I know one's Washington. Oh, man, Washington.    Jaime Spencer     I think New Mexico, if I'm not mistaken, I think I heard that one. I want to say Idaho. I'm not sure about them. And I think New Jersey, but I can't, I don't want to be quoted on it, because I say these four, oh, and I look it up constantly, and I'm always like, Oh, wait, which ones? There's one that's gonna be wrong, right? Just Can't Wait to Add New York to the list. Yeah, no, I    Jayson Davies     definitely agree. And we'll have to get someone else on the podcast from one of those states and ask how they're doing it, because we got to learn from somewhere, right? So.    Jaime Spencer     Definitely now, I mean, that's great.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, all right, well, we've been going strong for almost 40 minutes now. Let's kind of wrap this up. What can OTs do now in order to join the advocacy effort, if this is something that they're interested in, they want to know more about this, what can they do?    Jaime Spencer     So the number one thing they can do is join our face group, USA school based OTs looking for change. You can just put that right in the search bar of Facebook. And no matter where you are in the United States, you can find us and join our group. I just want to warn you that it is a closed group, so if your profile does not state that you're an occupational therapist, we are not allowing new random people, basically, like, we don't want, you know, Educational Administrators in there lurking. We want OTs, and we want to have real, honest conversations with occupational therapists about what we can do to advocate. So that's the national group. And then we have a bunch of state groups. We have California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Connecticut, New York, Florida. So those are the, those are the individual state groups. Most of them are really small and just starting up at this point. And you know. My goal is on the New York one, and we have a lot happening here, and as we start to progress, I'm very eager to take everything we've done and state by state, help you guys take over your states as well. We're, you know, everything that we're doing, we want to hand to you and say, Okay, now adapt it to California, or adapt it to Connecticut. And you know, why are we reinventing the wheel? The thing that we have on our side, the huge, amazing benefit that we have on our side, is social media. 20 years ago, there was no social media, and now here we are. Jayson, I feel like I know you forever. You've never even met. You're in California and New York, and because of social media, we know each other professionally and can help each other out. And, you know, it's a different situation, it's a different life, and we can make our advocacy efforts spread so much faster and so much, you know, just in mass as opposed to in trickles, finding out, oh yeah, I know someone who cares about that.     Jayson Davies     And I think you know, you announced that we have a California school based OTs looking for change Facebook groups. So I guess I should kind of just say this is going to be the official kickoff event right now. Right now, there's only three people in that group, but after this podcast, I hope to have many more in there. So come join us right now. It's Jamie myself and one other OT, it's gene, right? Gene. And so this is the official kickoff. And so we'll put links to all of these different pages right there in the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 19. This will be so be sure to check that out. Get involved. We'd love to have you come help us. The other thing that Jamie mentioned earlier is make sure you're part of your state organization. They need to know what you are looking for. And as much as they like to hear you, they also need your support financially too, because they have to pay for people. They have to pay for lawyers and or it's fundraising, fundraising, yes, and all those people that lobby for us up at the state capitol, so be sure to pay it. It is worth it. Go to your state conferences. I know some of them are small, but that is where you meet people that are interested in the same thing that you are. And that's where these little, you know, grassroot things start. So with that. Do you have anything else you want to say?     Jaime Spencer     No, I think you covered it. If you know, if you care about your career and you'd like to continue to progress and have opportunities and pathways, then it's important for you to really look at this and be a part and don't be a lurker. You know, I was thinking about it. Yes, you know, the other day, every once in a while, I get frustrated because I have all these great ideas, and people are saying, I'll help, I'll help, and then they don't really do anything. And I, you know, I don't take it personally. I think they're just not sure how to get started or what they can do to help. But it's kind of like if you go to someone's house and they are making you this big, fabulous dinner, and you just watching and then you can't wait to eat it all up, but you didn't do anything to help. Like, guess what? It's the littlest thing that you can do. And if you're wondering how you can help, reach out to the person who's running your state group and just say, is there anything I can do? I mean, for me personally, I have 1000 things you can do. I'll just give you one. But I'm so grateful to the people who have reached out to me and in New York, you know, have really been supportive and allowed us to make a small, you know, a small spark into almost like an explosion. We really have gained a lot of power, because there are so many of us, and everyone's willing to help a little bit, which is all we need. You know, we're all busy, we're all stressed, but guess what? It impacts us, and it's important.     Jayson Davies     Well, they say, you know, if you need something done, give it to the most busy person, right? Yeah. So Miss Jamie, you are that busy person. So all right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. People can reach you at Miss Jamie OT, Is there anywhere else they can reach you?     Jaime Spencer     Yes, my website is Miss Jamie ot.com Jamie is spelled J, a, i, m, e, everybody spells it wrong, so I always correct that. I also have a Facebook page. I do tons of Facebook Live videos for OTs teachers, parents, and that's Facebook slash Miss Jamie OT and or they can just email me at Miss Jamie ot@gmail.com and it's J, a, i, m, a, and that's it. I'd love to hear from anyone, especially if you're interested in helping us advocate. Yeah, I'm really always looking for new friends who can partner up with us and make things happen.    Jayson Davies     I know we have some new york listeners to the podcast, so hopefully you'll get some extra help from that. And we also have California out there. So I hope to hear from you guys as well reach out to us. We will definitely have all these links on the show notes again at ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 19, we look forward to seeing you on all of our blogs. Miss Jaime OT, ot  schoolhouse.com as well as the Facebook pages. So with that, we bid you a good evening, good morning, whatever time you're listening to this podcast. Have a good one, and thank you again, Jaime, we appreciate it.     Jaime Spencer     Thank you.     Jayson Davies     All right, take care.     Jaime Spencer     Great. Talking.     Jayson Davies     Bye, bye.     Jaime Spencer     Okay, bye.     Jayson Davies     All right. Well, that was Jamie Spencer of Miss Jamie ot.com be sure to check out her page as well as the show notes@otschoolhouse.com forward slash episode 19 for several links to all the topics that we discussed today. And also be sure to join Jamie on her Facebook groups, like she said, she has United States school based OTs looking for change as a Facebook group, but she also has New York, Connecticut, Indiana, North Carolina, Michigan, South Carolina, Illinois, and as we said earlier, we're now welcoming in the California School Based OTs looking for change Facebook group, so head on over there, join us, and we'll see you next time bye, bye.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OT schoolhouse.com . Until next time class is dismissed. Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 18 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, we are excited to host one of the therapists behind The Inspired Treehouse Bog at TheInspiredTreehouse.com Lauren Drobnjak is the Physical Therapist half of this popular blog and she joins us today to talk about how she and Claire Heffron, the Occupational Therapist half of the blog, began working together and ultimately started The Inspired Treehouse. She also shares how they went on to start a non-profit center for children in their local community and how those kids helped them to develop the book they just released. Just listen to the first 30 seconds of this podcast and you will hear how much Lauren cares for these kids and the community she serves. Then, listen to the rest of the episode to hear how Lauren and Claire are helping teachers, therapists, and parents around the world with their new book titled " Playful Learning Lab for Kids " Links to Show References: The Inspired Treehouse Blog An inspiration for many including us here at the OT Schoolhouse, The Inspired Treehouse Blog is a place where we often start when in need of some fun and therapeutic treatment ideas. Along with their free resources, we highly suggest you look into their offered webinars. Both provide great content along with resources and worksheets to help guide you to being a better therapist: Pushing into the Classroom: Practical Strategies for Pediatric Therapists Creative Pediatric Treatment Strategies Based on the Evidence (Don't forget to use promo code otschoolhouse20 to get 20% off your order before 12/31/18) Playful Learning Lab for Kids This is THE book. Lauren and Claire spent a lot of time and energy compiling these 52 activities for you to use with your kids and students. Then they put together a blog post about how you can get all the needed materials to complete all 52 activities for under $50! So, be sure to check out the book on Amazon The Treehouse Ohio The Treehouse Ohio in Bedford, Ohio is a not-for-profit center for developmental play founded by Lauren and Claire. If you would like to learn more about the Treehouse or make a donation, visit TheTreehouseBedford.org Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Lauren Drobnjak     I think the kids in the book probably, I think that's probably going to be my favorite memory for a long time, is just how happy they were to be able to be a part of it, how happy these families have been to watch that book come out and to watch the Facebook feeds and see say, hear them say, or see them say, That's my kid in this book.     Jayson Davies     Hey everyone, you may not recognize that voice you just heard, but That's Lauren drobnjak talking about her new book and one of the greatest memories she'll ever have from creating that new book. Lauren is one half of the inspired tree house, along with Claire Heffron, the occupational therapist behind the inspired Treehouse, and today, Lauren's here to talk about their brand new book, as well as several other things that they've got going on at the inspired treehouse.com . So stick around to hear from Lauren Drobnjak of the inspired tree house, and actually, she surprised me with a special discount code for all of you, and so she will be giving away that discount code at the end of the episode. So stick around. We're going to do the intro real quick, and we'll be right back.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research. Now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     All right. Well, welcome everyone to Episode 18 of the OT school house podcast. We are super excited today to have on Lauren drobniak of the inspired treehouse.com as our special guest today, before we get too far into the podcast, I do just want to give a simple reminder that we will have all the links to many products, many resources from the inspired tree house on our show notes at ot school house forward slash episode 18, we really appreciate whenever you do use a link from our website to a site such as the inspired tree house or Amazon or most other websites that we do have links to, these are where they're called affiliate links, and allows us to make a small commission at no additional cost to you. In fact, if you listen to this podcast, using our link will even help you to get a discount, because you'll be able to use that promo code that we have here. So this podcast does take time and energy, and so we do appreciate any way that you're able to give back through using these affiliate links. So we thank you in advance for using those. You'll hear me say later in this podcast that I was really looking forward to one of their webinars, and I have since actually had the chance to go on and start that webinar, and I'm just super thrilled about it. It's six videos, about four hours in length, of content, as well as several resources that they provide that can be very useful in my practice. So I want you all to know that they have a lot of awesome resources over there at the inspired tree house. Claire and Lauren both do a great job over there. Lauren being the physical therapist and Claire being an occupational therapist. They combine and work together to collaborate on a just a brilliant website, a big inspiration for us here at the OT school house. So we want to not keep you away from this awesome interview with Lauren and the stuff that she has to say. So we're gonna jump right into it right now and let you listen in. So put that cell phone in your pocket, or start your workout, start your drive and well, here's Lauren jobniak, hey, Lauren, welcome to episode number 18 of the OT school house podcast. How are you doing today? I'm good. Jayson, how are you? I'm doing? Well, November is off to a very quick start. I guess we could say I am looking forward to the holidays, though. How about you?     Lauren Drobnjak     Yeah, I would say November's off to a pretty cold start here in the Northeast. But, oh, really, yeah, we're supposed to have a mild winter, but it's awfully chilly right now.    Jayson Davies     Oh well, there's a reason. I don't live in the Midwest. I am a California boy that is for sure. Love my warm weather, yes. But every now and then, we like to get up into the mountains and go snowboarding. Is there anything fun in Ohio that your family loves to do as a together?    Lauren Drobnjak     Yeah, we actually live less than five minutes from a pretty decent ski hill, so we try to do that every so often. Some great slide riding around here, as long as you can stay on the coals, but and then we like to escape as soon as we can to somewhere warmer. Oh yeah, yeah, Spring Break can't come fast enough around here, not yet, not yet.     Jayson Davies     Haven't figured out where you want to go yet. We'll get there great. Well, you know what? You obviously are on the podcast. For a reason. You are one of the bloggers, the therapist behind the inspired treehouse.com and, well, that's fascinating. I've been following you guys for a while and and appreciate what you guys do, but I want to give you a chance to tell a little bit about yourself, as well as the inspired tree house. So if you'd like to share about your experience as a therapist and how you got to where you are, where you are?     Lauren Drobnjak     Okay, great. I was always interested in pediatrics from a very young age. I thought I was going to be a pediatrician. I went to college, followed my high school sweetheart and on a full basketball scholarship. I. Went to a school that probably wasn't my top choice, but those two factors were very influential in my college decision. We have a college here called Neo EUCOM, which was an Ohio based medical college, and I went to Youngstown State University, and it was affiliated with Neo UCOM, and I just thought, well, that will kick start my path to pediatrics and my future career as a pediatrician. Oh, wow. Well, my experience in college basketball led me to lots of physical therapists, and I thought, Oh, this career is kind of cool, but I don't want to do what they do, because they hurt me. So I'm going to keep going with my pediatric dream, and maybe I'll be a pediatric physical therapist. And it just so happened that in my senior year at Youngstown State, they got a physical therapy program, so I was part of the inaugural class there. Made my way through physical therapy school. Did almost all, I think, all, but one of my clinical experiences in pediatrics, my favorite being the Shriners Hospital of children, four children, in Shreveport, Louisiana. And then when I got out of school, I worked one year in a skilled nursing facility, and since then, I've been in pediatrics. So did a brief stint in school based therapy, right from the get go, and then spent eight years at the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital for rehabilitation, and then went back into schools. So I've been a pediatric therapist for a very long time.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, it sounds like you kind of got one year of a little bit of with those adults in the sniff. And then, no, yeah,    Lauren Drobnjak     Yeah, that was enough.     Jayson Davies     Wow. So, so you're currently in the schools? Correct, correct. Okay, are you? Are you an employee of the school I know in various parts of the states? It kind of varies. Some people are contracted. Some people work for the district. Where are you at?    Lauren Drobnjak     I am contracted to the district, and I currently contract myself to the two districts that I work in.    Jayson Davies     So you're working for two separate districts under your own name, or under the Inspire tree house, something like that, correct? Yes. Oh, very cool. How's that going? It's great. Have you been doing that for a long time then?    Lauren Drobnjak     No, it was within the last two years that I took the contract over myself. We actually have the contracts under the inspired tree house. But it was in within the last two years that we did that. Prior to that, we did work through a contract company.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, that's a definitely a very interesting topic that I would love to dive into more sometime with you. But to keep this going, remind me again, do you have your DPT or the doctor?    Lauren Drobnjak     No, I do not know, and that's a sore subject, because as the inaugural class through the first physical therapy at Youngstown State. We received a bachelor's degree. They had to be accredited as a bachelor's program first, and then the very next year, they were accredited as a master's program with no additional coursework added, but they would not grandfather us in. So I say that I have my master's degree by default, but I don't I have a bachelor's degree in physical therapy.     Jayson Davies     Wow. Well, yay. You're still in the same spot you would be, even if you had the master doctorate. I mean, you're still a physical therapist, and you're still doing what you love, right?     Lauren Drobnjak     I am, and I feel like my years in the field have probably prepared me for anything better than school would have at that point. So, all right, perfectly content.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely. So obviously, we've talked we're talking about how you're the physical therapist, but Claire isn't with us today. But would you like to give a brief introduction to Claire and how you two work together?     Lauren Drobnjak     Sure, can Claire is the occupational therapist half of the inspired treehouse.com she and I met in the school district where we worked together probably for a good eight years. Claire is a journalist by background. She her first degree was in journalism, and then her second career is occupational therapy. She has also spent the majority, if not all of her career in pediatrics, and that's how we met. Was within the school districts.     Jayson Davies     That's cool. That just, I mean to you're happy if you can make a friend and when you go to work, but to find a partner to run a blog with and get all this, these other things that you guys are doing that's super cool. And we'll get into that in a little bit.     Lauren Drobnjak     Yeah, we had very similar work ethics. So it, it kind of, yeah.     Jayson Davies     Worked out, yeah. So actually, in practice, at the schools, do you have a chance to work alongside Claire as far as treatment goes? Or do you guys kind of do more you do PT over here and she does ot somewhere else? Or do you guys get that chance to collaborate?     Lauren Drobnjak     We, we used to collaborate a lot, and that's probably why the inspired tree house started. We used to do a lot of CO treatments within a preschool classroom, and actually we included speech in that. So ot PT and speech would go in and do small groups with each of the preschool classrooms. We picked one day a month where we'd go in and kind of tackle them, and we'd run 30 minute groups, kind of bouncing. Using the kids between three different stations, one PT, movement, one OT, more fine motor, one speech language, and they would rotate through us.     Jayson Davies     That's perfect. Actually, that's kind of we're in a transition period at one of our schools, and so that's one of the methods that we are considering doing. One of the teacher concerns, and I'll ask you right now is, did you see that the students get tired at all, bouncing straight from ot to PT to speech. Or did it work out pretty well for you?    Lauren Drobnjak     No, I thought the kids loved it. I think they they didn't realize it was therapeutic. They thought it was play. We had a different theme every time we went in. So they thought we were super fun. People coming in to play with them, is what they thought cool.    Jayson Davies     And so I want to ask you, because some, some people out there just feel like treatments, good treatments, magically occur. Did you guys spend time collaborating before? And how much time if you did before you actually went into the classroom?    Lauren Drobnjak     I I think that we just worked together so long and knew each other's styles so well that it came very naturally to us, we would definitely prep our themes ahead of time. And I just knew that I was going to create some kind of movement activity or activities around that theme. Claire would create her piece, the speech therapist would create hers. And it just kind of all came together. So I wouldn't say there's a whole lot of prep at all in front of it. I think we just, we just worked well together.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's good. It's nice. The theme, the theme idea, I think works really well, because then you're right, like you said, you don't have to spend too much time collaborating with each other, but at the same time, it's going to look like you did, because you're all working on the same snowman theme, or whatever it is, yeah.    Lauren Drobnjak     Yeah. I think pediatric therapists are so creative by nature and flexible. So yeah, yeah, I don't get up anything that needs to be.     Jayson Davies     With the punches Yes, and keep it going. Yeah. So exactly a second ago, you mentioned that you and Claire were working together, and you guys had the same work ethic, and you're collaborating anyways, that kind of led to the inspired tree house. But was there, like, one particular moment that really just like we need to do this?    Lauren Drobnjak     Yes, we both have very entrepreneurial kind of a drive. And we were talking one day about how else we could use these skills outside of school based therapy, because we were kind of in a low about IEPs and evaluations and all the paperwork, and we just kept thinking, There's got to be some other way to do this. So we started talking, and we talked about, actually, a drop in play center. Is what we talked about, let's create this place where families can drop their kids off to play, but the play is led by therapists, so it's very developmentally appropriate and kind of like a babysitter, but kind of at on a whim, you could just say, Oh, I've got this doctor's appointment now. I'm going to watch my kids. I'm going to watch my kids. I'm going to drop them off here. So that was our idea. And there's actually a place in and around Cleveland that does that. They're not therapist led, but there is a drop in play kind of situation here. So we went to talk to the people that owns that place, and they happen to be Harvard Business grads. Oh, wow. And they were very insightful, and they actually told us to start a blog, put our ideas in a blog, and that that blog would eventually become our business plan. Should we decide to open a brick and mortar location? And Claire and I both looked at each other and thought a blog like, what is that? What do we do that's more paperwork? What's more writing? What do we what are we doing that for? But we knew that we had this whole archive, just 1000s of activities in our brains from being therapists for so long in pediatrics, and we thought, well, we'll just start writing activities. We'll write these things down. We'll tell what developmental skills they're good for, and we'll tell people how to change them up. So if you look at our very earliest posts on the inspired Treehouse, all of them were formatted that way. Here's the activity. Here's how to change it up. Here are the skill areas addressed. So that's kind of where the blog came from.     Jayson Davies     So then you created the blog. How long has the blog been out? Again?     Lauren Drobnjak     It's four years. Four years. Yeah.     Jayson Davies     Wow. That's amazing. And so now, how has has that come true? Did you start the blog and then eventually open up the play center?     Lauren Drobnjak     For sure, did.     Jayson Davies     And that's.     Lauren Drobnjak     That's tree house, yeah.     Jayson Davies     Tree house, Ohio, right?     Lauren Drobnjak     Yes, yes.     Jayson Davies     Very cool. And so I know we're gonna jump into that, so I won't go quite into that. But when you originally started doing the blog, who was your intended audience? Were you trying to get out to parents, the teachers, other therapists, or who is the inspired tree house for?    Lauren Drobnjak     I don't think we really had the concept of an intended audience at that point. I think we just wanted to make our writing very clear to whoever read it. So if you were a therapist and you read it, you'd say, Oh, I love that they target these developmental skills. I can write a goal, or I can use this activity in my treatment session to address balance. If you were a parent, you could come in and you weren't going to see words like range of motion or bilateral coordination. It was gonna be very simple. So I don't think we had that. That. Direction very clear from the get go, but we quickly found, we surveyed our audience within that first year, and we quickly found that a third were teachers, a third were parents, and a third were therapists. Oh, wow, which was fascinating to us. We were happy because we thought, Oh, wow. We did it. We wrote simple enough that anybody could understand. And, you know, gained our audience that way, and they seem to stay in that ratio. Third, third, third.    Jayson Davies     Great, yeah. And I, I loved, like, even just opening up your page, the logo that you guys have, the tree with the swing, it kind of just shouts out play, shouts out development and all. And that's great. Thank you. Right now. I mean, you guys have a lot of content on there. Is there one or two go to resources that you still find everyone wants to know about.    Lauren Drobnjak     Our webinars have been a huge resource that everybody seems to flock to. And then if they find the webinars through some other source, then they keep coming back to the blog, and they'll leave comments on blog posts. And so our webinars are probably our biggest traffic driver right now, and we have to create a pediatric treatment strategies, and then pushing into the classroom.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that pushing into the classroom one you have no idea there's at least been, I don't know, five times probably where I've been, like on my mouse about to hit the button, like I should do it, and then I don't. I know I need to that pushing, pushing into the classroom webinar. I'm sure it's amazing, and I guarantee, like tonight, after talking to you, I'll probably go over there and do it, because that is something that a lot of I'm sure you must have been seeing it, otherwise you wouldn't have created the webinars parents are asking for. That least restrictive environment, you know, working in the classroom, and is that basically why you guys developed that program or that webinar?    Lauren Drobnjak     Yeah, totally. I feel like that's really where we started, without really knowing that's what we were doing at the time we were doing it. We were pushing in. But just more recently, that's become a big buzzword pushing into the classroom. And I think as seasoned therapists, nobody wants to be told what to do or how to change their practice up. It's hard. It's hard for people that have done this. Me, I've done this for 18 years, and I don't want to be told that I have to change up all these things I've been doing to come into the classroom. Teachers don't want to change up what they've been doing, to say, hey, therapist, come on in. Interrupt my class for 30 minutes and do your thing. So we created that webinar to kind of ease that transition, give some tips and ideas for therapists to kind of approach teachers. There's an action plan in there that kind of says, Hey, this is how I do it. This is this is how I'm going to progress through this. Here's how we're going to start. Going to start slowly and kind of move into it a little easier. I talked about how you're going to get your objectives met when you're having to work with a whole classroom of kids, when you're really only in there for two or three so I think that's why we why we did it. It was hard for us. It was hard concept for us, let's, let's just research it and throw it out there. There you go. And well, received, good, good.    Jayson Davies     You touched upon something, you know, meeting the benchmarks. Are you and the other IEP team members creating more collaborative goals? Or do most people have their own goals?     Lauren Drobnjak     This is, this is so funny. You mentioned this because we just had this conversation today. I find, as a PT, I struggle with this. I think the OTs have gotten a little more into that. You know? I think it's easier for a teacher and an OT to collaborate on a goal, yeah, so I'm might not be the right half an.    Jayson Davies     AP teacher. Then do you collaborate with any ape teachers? Or do they not have too many in the district?     Lauren Drobnjak     We don't have any AP teachers in either of the districts I work in answers that question, yeah. And most of my goals have had to become so much more functional. So whereas before I would collaborate with the physical education teachers and say, Hey, what are they having trouble with? Inevitably, it was jumping jacks. And, you know, I can't necessarily write a goal for jumping jacks anymore. Is that going to affect their ability to function in their school environment? Maybe. But if I screened all of the 150 kids that they see every day in gym class, I bet probably 50% of them can't do a jumping jack. So it's just gotten a lot harder to to do that and to make my goals functional, but yet still a team goal.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, you mentioned jumping jacks, obviously, and bilateral and, and sometimes that is one of those key terms when you talk about sensory, sensory as a PT, do you how do you manage sensory and is that something that you kind of integrate as a physical therapist? Or does Claire do a lot of that? Or how does that work?     Lauren Drobnjak     We do a lot of a lot of collaborating with any child that needs some work with the sensory systems. A lot of back and forth with teachers. I think, you know, we wrote what sensory processing. 101 again, to try to simplify all of those sensory systems and make that easy to understand for teachers, parents and even therapists that may be new to it, it's definitely not my niche. Yeah, so I rely heavily on the team around me to to help with that, definitely, and we're seeing so much of it. So.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and in collaboration, actually, one of the things that I've done in the past is collaborated with the ape teacher, because, I mean, a PE teacher, yeah, they know the exercises that a student needs to be able to do, but sometimes they don't quite understand, you know, some of the things that may be limiting that student, such, especially the sensory aspect for it, right? And so myself and the other OT, we would work really close with that ape teacher, as well as the PT, and all three of us would kind of work on it, because, let's be honest. I mean, there is research that shows that PE and recess have a big role in academics. And so if we can help the ape teacher even further solidify the sensory systems through using those bilateral crossing midline activities and stuff like that. You know, according to research, we should see some improvement in some in the academics too. And so, right? It's a good way to way to do that. So, all right, the exciting time we get to announce Lauren and Claire actually just had a new book come out. We are recording this on Thursday, so it came out two days ago. I got my copy in yesterday. I'm so excited. I got it right here, but I'm gonna let you do a little announcement. What's the title of the book?    Lauren Drobnjak     It is playful learning lab for kids.     Jayson Davies     Exactly, and it has a beautiful cover. I love it. I looked through it. I haven't had a chance to completely go through every activity. But what the book is and correct me if I'm wrong, it's a lot of different sensory motor and just all types of activities. It looks like it could be one of those activities, or a book, just like your website that is for teachers, for therapists, for parents, for, I don't know, maybe babysitters that want to have some activities to do with kids. Anyone can really use this book. And that's what it it's, it really looks nice. It's, it's easy to go through. It's broken down into step by step. And you're sharing with me, how did you guys actually try to break it down.    Lauren Drobnjak     Try to break the activities down. How did you segment the activities? Oh, the activities are segmented by academic areas. Okay, so there is a chapter for geography, a chapter for science, a chapter for literacy, art, music, social studies, math. Did I say math already? But it's, it's all the chapters are broken down into academic concepts, and every I could, every activity within those chapters addresses, what do we say?    Jayson Davies     Academic need? Or?    Lauren Drobnjak     Yes, skill, yeah, and in that area.     Jayson Davies     And that's cool, because right now, of course, again, most of the states have gone to Common Core, and we're trying to make all of our goals relevant to state standards and stuff. And so if you know this kid's working on a geography goal and they need some sensory motor stuff going on, boom, you just have an entire chapter right there for some geography stuff. So that's very cool. So what are some of your favorite activities that you provided in the book? All of them. All of them, of course, well, naturally.    Lauren Drobnjak     I think rabbit hole is one of my favorite. It's actually a blog post that we wrote way back when we started the inspired tree house. It's a game where kids try to escape the fox or the wolf and get into their rabbit hole before they can get eaten. And so they have to step over a hula hoop that's balanced on top of cones. So it works on balance and body awareness. It works on cooperation, because they have to work together to get in that hole without the hole falling feet in the sand. Is probably another one of my favorite. It's a twist on a typical sensory bin. Everybody thinks sensory bins are for getting hands in and getting messy, and this sensory bin in particular uses a child's feet, so we put some sand in there. They sit on a bench, they stick their feet in the sand. We buried animals in there, and they had to use their feet to pull out an animal and tell us whether that animal was a land mammal, a sea animal, whether the animal is, you know, big or small, what the animal's name starts with? Things like that.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. And of course, OTs can be creative and go even further. And PTS as well, just make it, adapt it for their child.     Lauren Drobnjak     So we actually have suggestions through the book on how to make each activity either more or less difficult, depending on the child's needs.    Jayson Davies     You read my mind that was gonna be my next My next question was like, yeah, so obviously, every child's a little bit different, and so you there's different activities, or not different activities, but different tips to to grade the task.     Lauren Drobnjak     Yep. How we call it? Yeah, how to change it up or how to enhance so each activity has those options. Yeah.    Jayson Davies     So what do you think is going to be the reader's favorite part of this book, whether it be an OT or maybe it's different if it's an OT versus a parent, if you want to give separate answers or just one general answer, what do you think is going to be the reader's favorite part.    Lauren Drobnjak     I think in general, it's a very colorful, well laid out. It's visually appealing. I think the activities are very simple to follow. We tried to stay in the same tone that we write the blog with, so activities are simply written. Instructions are easy to follow. It doesn't take many supplies. In fact, we just wrote a blog post last week, and we called it 50 games and activities to learn under $50 I think we put together a basket with every possible material you would need for doing the activities in this book. Oh, wow. And it was under $50 so it doesn't take a lot of cost.     Jayson Davies     That was great, because I was actually thinking about that. I was gonna, like, go through and actually look at all the activities and find all the materials. Go to Michael.    Lauren Drobnjak     Go on the blog.    Jayson Davies     That is perfect. Good for everyone out there to know too. So you guys really did think of everything that's cool. So you mentioned to me a while, not too long ago, but when we were kind of getting this already, that one of your favorite parts of the book was the pictures in this book. And I want you to go ahead and share why the pictures in this book are so meaningful.     Lauren Drobnjak     The pictures in this book are of all of the children that come to the tree house. And we were able to, we had so many kids that wanted to do this, and we were able to pull every single one. Single one of them in. I think only a few didn't make picture cuts, and it was only because we had so many pictures of every child doing the same activity, yeah. So we were so happy to include them, and they're such a big part of our lives now, and it's fun to be able to see them on the pages of the book. We're actually having a book release party for them on Saturday where they're all going to come in and autograph the books and make it a big deal for them, so.    Jayson Davies     How nice. That's cool. And so that brings us back to the treehouse Ohio. Tell us about the treehouse Ohio. You've talked about it a few times. What is it?     Lauren Drobnjak     So the tree house Ohio is the brick and mortar dream of the original plan that led to the inspired tree house, a little twisted than it originally intent, than we originally intended it to be. The tree house Ohio is a nonprofit, 501 3c corporation, and we wanted it to be this way. We chose Bedford, which is the district that we both worked in for so long, as the location for the first tree house, because many families there work, many jobs. Kids live in apartment buildings. They don't have access to outdoor play as much as other kids might. They don't have the means to get to classes that are expensive, yeah, so they just don't have the opportunities to build the developmental skills that many other children do. So we were finding in the district that many teachers were coming to us completely frustrated because kids were falling out of chairs, or they were seeing increase in behaviors because kids were frustrated because they couldn't write or because they couldn't go up and down the stairs, just behind in developmental skills, and unfortunately, we couldn't offer much support, because those kids weren't on our caseload. They hadn't been identified with a specific need. And we were overloaded as we were, as we overloaded as we all are.    Jayson Davies     As every OT and PTA, yeah, yes.    Lauren Drobnjak     So we decided to open the tree house and run developmental play groups for these kids, and we wanted to make it non profit, because we wanted to make them free to low cost, so every child can come to the tree house for a play group one time per week for free, and if they'd like to come additional times per week, it's $5 a class. So we sell punch cards for $25 and they get five classes on those punch cards. And we are currently we have classes for ages, baby, infant up through age 10, and it's just been it's been really fun. It grew faster than we ever thought that it would. We're serving communities all over Greater Cleveland, not just Bedford, which we really thought we would target just Bedford, and maybe 50% are from Bedford, and the other 50% are coming from zip codes all over the place. Wow, that's    Jayson Davies     cool. Yeah, you're having such a meaningful impact on so many kids. And so, I mean, what would you say about how many kids are you able to support?    Lauren Drobnjak     We, we have 251 kids on our intake forms now. Wow. So, yeah, yeah, it's fun.    Jayson Davies     So how does it work? Do you actually schedule classes throughout the week and the kids can show up for that class? Or is it just kind of like you said earlier, a play or drop and play, or?     Lauren Drobnjak     It's scheduled, it's pre scheduled. It is drop and play, and in the sense that the parents don't stay, it is a drop off. Yes, but they do schedule in advance. And in fact, we opened up our schedule for January through March. We open up three months at a time. We opened that schedule up last week and it was full within an hour. Wow. So they fill very quickly. That's    Jayson Davies     amazing. It is. So if people want to learn more about the the tree house, is that a link on your blog, or is there a specific website that they can go to the for that?    Lauren Drobnjak     The website for the tree house is WWW dot the tree house, Bedford, B, E, D, F, O, R, D.     Jayson Davies     And so, yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not actually providing any therapy to these students, right? It's all just kind of developmental play groups, if you want to call them that    Lauren Drobnjak     correct. However, every play group is therapist LED. So we like to call it an alternative treatment setting. We do not provide an evaluation. We don't follow goals. We have no paperwork. So there you go. We infuse our, you know, our therapeutic minds on every activity we do, we run it very similarly to those collaborative therapy sessions we used to do in the school every week is a new theme at the tree house. Every week we prepare about 35 activities that span gross motor, fine motor, sensory motor, and the kids move through all of that within a play group session.    Jayson Davies     And is that Monday through Friday or your Saturdays and Sundays too.     Lauren Drobnjak     It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We're in the schools working. Okay, well, Fridays, we have play groups that another therapist covers. And then Saturdays, we just did open up to new groups on Saturdays.     Jayson Davies     Wow, that's super cool, that you guys are able to find a passion that you guys love, and then completely give back, and especially to do it through a way that's a nonprofit that you guys are really supporting this that's That is very cool. What has been like a memory from the Bedford, the tree house in Bedford, like one of your favorite memories from there?    Lauren Drobnjak     Oh, wow. I think the kids in the book probably, I think that's probably going to be my favorite memory for a long time, is just how happy they were to be able to be a part of it, how happy these families have been to watch that book come out, and to watch the Facebook feeds and see say, hear them say, or see them say, That's my kid in this book. It's just been so fun, and to know that those kids still come to us every week and and still participate in those play groups and love to come in is is just amazing to us.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's cool. And, I mean, I'm sure they're gonna see the book and they're gonna go back and look at all the activity and be like, Yeah, I did that one. Yeah, they all love it. So that's super cool.     Lauren Drobnjak     They can be brutally, brutally honest reviewers, I think.    Jayson Davies     Sometimes miss Lauren doesn't do this. I'm quite right, like she says in the book. That's right, that's funny. Are you doing anything special for for the book launch then?    Lauren Drobnjak     we're doing the party on Saturday with the kids, yes. And other than that, Claire and I have launched several products before, so we're just full blown into this lunch right now, just trying to keep up with emails. We did offer a freebie for anybody who bought it on Amazon this week. So if they bought it and sent us our receipt, they had a 20 page printable pack that supports that book that we sent them for free. So we're trying to keep up with all of those people sending receipts and getting those printable packs to them. So definitely and so email. Jayson, yeah, I know you got one so that, oh, the Send us your receipt. We know you have one. You can have the printable pack.     Jayson Davies     Yep, I do have my printable pack. I went through it, and it's a lot of I love that you guys have stuff that can be produced. And then you even just say, hey, laminate this, make several copies of it, and then put them on the floor, you know. And as teachers and OTs in public schools, I mean, obviously everyone knows that the funding is minuscule. And so those, those little activities, and those, those extra pieces of paper that we do have access to in a laminator. I mean, gosh, the laminators will be fought over in every school district, you know, before leading up into the school district or into the school year. So, yeah, I love that you can just get that 20 page document and do that. All right, good. Well, we will be sure to submit a link in the show notes to that, as well as the inspired Tree House, the tree house Bedford and the OT school house. Show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 18, that will be, unfortunately, when this comes out, the 20 page printable will be available. But.    Lauren Drobnjak     we do have an offer for ot school house listeners. We will give anybody that is listening a 20% off discount from anything in our shop. Oh, it's the code ot school house 20.    Jayson Davies     Wait. Thank you, Lauren. I was not expecting that. You surprised me. Thank you so much for doing that. We will definitely put that in the links as well. Is that for a limited time?    Lauren Drobnjak     That will expire at the end of this year. So December 31, of 2018    Jayson Davies     perfect. Sounds good. That'll be really help. Definitely check out everything. They have webinars. They have all their books, multiple books that you guys have over there, the new book that won't really count for because the new books on Amazon, right? So you won't be able to use it there.    Lauren Drobnjak     But sensory processing 101, that is on its own, yeah.     Jayson Davies     Okay. But to be fair, the book is, I know you guys had a special on it leading up, is like $16 I think now it's about 20 right now, or is it still at that?    Lauren Drobnjak     Changes that? Yeah, no control over Amazon, unfortunately.     Jayson Davies     Right? So it is a fairly, I mean, it's a relatively cheap book for what you get. I mean, it is, like I said, 15 to $22 somewhere in that range on Amazon. And you get, how many total activities are there? You remember off the top? Yeah, 52 I think so. I think you're right. I think I read that when I opened it up earlier today. But yeah, it's there's a lot there. And let's be fair, you can never have enough resources when it comes to like activities that are really this great. And it does give you some way to grade the activities too. So you can go into, you know, a general education classroom, or you can go into a more classroom with students who have more severe disabilities. And there's ways to modify, ways to make it fun. And every kid's gonna enjoy this. So I'm going to, or I look forward to taking it to work and have it on my shelf and being able to reference to be sure to also check out the blog. Lauren did mention how you can get every activity basically for under $50 it sounds like, right? Yep. And so that's a blog post over there. We will find that and make sure we have a link to that on the show notes as well, so that everyone can easily get the stuff to do all the activities in the book. So well, do we miss anything? Is there anything that you wanted to kind of give a shout out to or anything?    Lauren Drobnjak     I don't think so.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. All right. Well, I want to give a shout out to Lauren, to Claire for starting up the inspired tree house, and thank you for coming on the show. A big shout out to any of the Bedford tree house people that are that, for some reason, you know, they want to take a listen. But, yeah, that was great. I'm so happy to have your book. I'm so happy to share your book, because you guys have done a lot, and you guys were even part of the inspiration for the OT school house was the inspired tree house. So, oh, thank you. So, yeah, we appreciate everything that you guys do, and are you ladies do and so, yeah, well.    Lauren Drobnjak     Thank you for having us on, or me on. Yes, on Claire and in spirit. In spirit.    Jayson Davies     yes, we'll, maybe we'll have to get her on another time, sometime to talk some more ot stuff. We'll see. Maybe we can make that happen in Episode 48 I don't know, but we'll see what happens. But thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate you. And again, congratulations on the book. I hope it does super well, and we'll be sure to let everyone know about it over here. Great. Thank you so much. All right, thank you, Lauren. Have a good night. You too. All right. Well, I hope you all enjoyed that interview with the physical therapist Lauren dromniac of the inspiredtree  house.com be sure to head over to amazon.com and pick up your version of playful learning lab for kids. You're sure to find many activities that you will be able to use with all your kids. And of course, every page has and every activity has a way to adapt the activity to make it either more difficult or more simple, depending on the kid you're working with. So head over to Amazon. Check that out. Head over to OT schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 18 to see all the show notes from this page, and we'll see you next time on the OT school house podcast. Bye, bye.     Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.  Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 173 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, Jayson has a compelling conversation with guests Jaime, Kim, and Serena. They discuss their research on the barriers and opportunities for OTP’s aspiring to leadership positions within the educational system.  Discover the historical and legislative challenges OTPs face, the vast impact on school communities, and the innovative ways states are beginning to address these issues. With engaging insights and passionate advocacy, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in transforming the role of OTs in schools and ensuring their potential is fully realized for the benefit of students and educators. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will be able to explain how historical perceptions of OTs influence their current exclusion from leadership roles in education. Learners will identify legislative and credentialing differences that affect OT administrative eligibility across the U.S. Learners will identify the barriers that prevent OTs from being recognized as instructional staff in various states. Guests Bio Kim Wiggins, OTR/L is an experienced occupational therapist specializing in pediatrics who has worked extensively in public school settings, outpatient, and home-based services to children of all ages with a variety of diagnoses and special needs.   Kim is currently a full-time therapist at the Binghamton City School District and the owner of OTKimWiggins LLC, which primarily focuses on providing educational opportunities for parents and professionals. She is an experienced National program developer who has produced and presented training workshops and seminars on a variety of topics related to handwriting, vision, primitive reflexes, sensory techniques, and technology to therapists, teachers, administrators, and parents,  She has presented to audiences nationwide since 2010. She is also the co-author of Just Right! A Sensory Modulation Curriculum for K-5. Jaime Spencer, MEd, OTR/L is a school-based occupational therapist and passionate educational advocate. With a Master’s in Special Education and specialty certifications in Assistive Technology, Handwriting, and PuzzleArt, she works to elevate the role of OTs in school systems. Jaime is the founder of MissJaimeOT.com and author of several books, including The Handwriting Book  and FUNctional Visual Perception . She also leads multiple grassroots advocacy groups across the U.S. focused on improving school-based OT services and expanding leadership pathways for practitioners. Serena S. Zeidle, OTD, OTR/L has over 40 years of experience that includes clinical and school-based practice, and higher education. At the time of this research, Serena was a full-time assistant professor at Tauro University. NY. Serena is a passionate advocate for school-based occupational therapy practitioners and has presented locally and nationally on this topic Quotes "We are not allowed to be leaders because in most states, we're not considered educational or instructional." Jaime spencer, MEd, OTR/L "We have a unique skill set and a different holistic viewpoint, and we have a very creative mindset, and we think outside the box, and we come up with unique alternatives that I think a lot of school administrators would not think of, because they don't have the background that we have." -Jaime spencer, MEd, OTR/L "Awareness of what people know of what they can and can’t do…only 34% of the people were completely aware that they were able to pursue it, so if you're not even aware of what you have to do to get to that spot, it's gonna be really difficult to move forward with that…bringing awareness to all OTs across the nation about what they have to do to advocate is a key factor." - Kim Wiggins, OTR/L “People don't even fully understand how hiring practices, pay equity, and health care benefits can all be impacted by the inability to earn a credential and become an administrator. The power of the unknown is very powerful.” -Jayson Davies, M.A., OTR/L “Going to your state association, talking to other OTs, maybe getting involved with a university in doing a study like we did. Our study focused on New York state, but it could be generalized to any of the other states.” -Serena S Zeidler, OTD, OTR/L Resources 👉Article Title:  Perceptions of occupational therapy practitioners as leaders within the New York state education system 👉Article Title: Examining Occupational Therapists as Potential Special Education Leaders NYSOTA (New York State Occupational Therapy Association) 👉 ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) 👉 Centennial Vision   👉 Vision 2025 👉 Kim Wiggins Website 👉 Miss Jaime Website 👉 Serena's Information Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hello friend. Welcome to Episode 173 of the OT school house podcast. Thanks for being here. As you may know, I'm a huge advocate for ot practitioners having a route to leadership roles in the school setting is something that I once wanted to do even, and our ability to be leaders in a school department I believe is long overdue. Myself and many others have spent a ton of time and energy attempting to make this possible. Unfortunately, though, we have a lot of advocating still to do, and this often has to happen on a state by state basis, so there is still a lot of work that we have to do and make this possible. That's why, on the podcast today, I've invited three therapists who when challenged on the matter of OTs in leadership within their state, they stepped up and completed a research survey to help all of us demonstrate why we would make great leaders in our districts. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast Jamie Spencer Kim Wiggins and Serena Zeidler together. Kim Jamie and Serena conducted some much needed research into the perceptions of occupational therapy practitioners as leaders within the New York State Education System. Their findings and insights challenged the status quo and spark powerful conversations that we're going to have today about the roles that we can play and the impacts that we can have at an administrative level. Now I know you might be thinking to yourself, Jayson, I don't want to be an admin and sit in meetings all day. That is not why I got in to OT, and I get that, but I also know that there are some ot practitioners who would love to be administrators and have an impact on not just the OT department, but also maybe even your entire district as a whole. I mean, wouldn't it be awesome if we just could have an occupational therapy practitioner as the director of special education or pupil services, or maybe in some other amazing role that they could have a huge impact in. Well, to have this conversation and to better understand the research, let's go ahead and dive in with Jamie Serena and Kim to hear what they uncovered within their research and what the next steps are now that we have it.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy, tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jason Davies class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Jamie Kim and Serena, welcome to the OT school house podcast. How are you all doing today?     Jamie Spencer     Great.    Kim Wiggins     Great.    Serena Zeidler     Great. Thanks. Yeah, thanks for your interest in our research.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely, I am excited. Your research actually just dropped about a year ago. We're right at the one year anniversary, I believe, from the published state. And the name of that article is perceptions of occupational therapy practitioners as leaders within the New York State education system. And yes, while it does have New York State education system in the title of the article, as well as I know you all know, and everyone else should know that this is about much more than just the state of New York. So let's go ahead and dive right into that discussion and to get things started right at the top here, let's just dive into the problem. Jamie, what do you see as the main reason, or the collection of reason that we are here, where we are today, where so many ot practitioners are not allowed to be leaders within a school system?    Jamie Spencer     Okay, well, there are a lot of answers, but first, we are not allowed to be leaders, because in most states, we're not considered educational or instructional. And the reason we're not considered educational or instructional is because when the education laws came about that required schools to provide occupational therapy for students who need it, for students with special needs. All of the OTs at that point were medical, and the schools were kind of tasked with hurry. We need to hire OTs to service these students right away, because the law says we do. And so where did they get those occupational therapists from the medical setting? So the OTs came over and they were using their medical know how, and they were widely considered to be medical professionals, and that's how they practice for a very long time. But since then, the education laws have updated dramatically, and our role has changed significantly. So we really are educational, but most states have not updated their legislation to categorize us as So.     Jayson Davies     Absolutely. and I think all of us here, and we talked about on the podcast before with ESSA, especially in 2015 that really kind of ingrained us into. To the educational world, as opposed to an outsider medical professional coming in and and I think we're going to talk more about that a little bit, but Kim Serena, or even Jamie again. Would you like to add on your thoughts as to, you know, why ot practitioners, you know, in today's day and age, aren't really looked as being, I guess, qualified for a leadership position?    Serena Zeidler     Yes. So when we did our research, John sauvignate Kirsch from Connecticut, her research indicated which states have educational credentialing for OTs. And then we our research was a few years later, and there were a few changes, and what we found was that the states of Colorado, New Jersey, Ohio, Washington and Massachusetts, which sort of has a back door way of educational credentialing, are now the five states that, To the best of our knowledge, OTs have the opportunity, if they choose, to take the coursework to obtain an educational administrative certificate. So in New York State, in order to take the coursework to become an administrator, you have to have be educationally credentialed, which we are not in New York. So I think there's and different states call this different things, like in New York, it's educational credentialing. I mean, in other states, they call it different things, but it all really comes down to not having that recognition    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. And that's similar to here in California. We've had this discussion before with Jamie and others on this podcast, that in California, we're having the same problem, and we're trying to overcome that hurdle, and we're having to be persistent about it. We're having to be creative about it, and I'm sure we'll dive more into that in a bit. One of the things that you really pointed out in your answer, though, Serena, was that there are states that do only a handful, but that also means that there are states that don't. This is not necessarily a country wide issue. It sounds like it's more of a state by state issue. Does that seem correct in what I'm saying based upon your findings, or do we feel like this is a larger or maybe it's not, but it should be a larger federal issue that needs to be kind of handled at a more broader issue? Does that make sense?     Jaime Spencer     Well, it's definitely a national issue, and there are a few states that allow occupational therapists to become leaders and really infuse their flavor and their holistic mindset into the school community. But it is also a state by state issue, because each state's legislation, and Serena said it perfectly, is a little bit different. So if I wanted to tell everybody, the big problem is that, for the most part, we're not considered educators. We're not considered instructional, but in each state, that might be worded differently, and the solution to the problem might be a different pathway, depending on the way the state has it set up.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay, so, yeah, I mean, we're all gonna have to tackle this. It sounds like state by state. It's not like one mass legislation is gonna go through in Washington, DC, and make this problem all go away. It sounds like we're going to have to work at this state by state. Correct?     Jaime Spencer     Yes, but we're hoping that we can start an avalanche where one state will pass the law and the other one will also pass the law, and then little by little by little, and that we can all help each other to do that with, you know, educating each other on what we've tried and what key stakeholders we worked with, and what wording we used, and all of that.    Kim Wiggins     I think the other important piece too is that once that happens, then all of the OT schools need to start adding the coursework to their to their curriculum, and move towards that. Because I think that's something that we found in our research too, is that some of the states actually have that coursework included, so then they get kind of like a credential, like a certificate, just like the school counselors do and the psychologists. So it's, it's something that there's lots of steps to that we have to really consider,    Serena Zeidler     yes, that's, I think that's really a really important point to make in our research, we did interview an OT from the state of Washington who basically explained the process to us, and then she referred us to another ot who kindly let us interview her, who went through the process of becoming an administrator, she was eligible to take the coursework and so basically to just piggyback off what Kim said, there are two, she talked about, two schools in the state of Washington. One has that coursework. That Kim talked about, and the other one doesn't. So students graduate from the program that has that coursework, they're, I'm sorry, they're automatically considered educational staff associate, along with other related service providers, like school psychologists, school social workers. So any related service provider in the state of Washington needs to have that educational staff associate credential. Now let's say Jayson, you decide to move to the state of Washington and want to work in the schools, you would then have to take a coursework. And this administrator, it kind of indicated short course. She thought that you can do it online, but anybody that is a related service provider that wants to work in the schools needs to be in the state of Washington and educational staff associate, I hope I have this right, yeah, yes, so and this OT, who took the administrative coursework became a school director, director of special education and secondary program, so it worked out very well for her. But I think it is different in every state. In New York, we have, we're licensed through the office of the professions, but there is also the New York State Education Department, Office of the Teach of teaching initiatives, Office of Teaching initiatives. Ot i and they issue certificates in three categories, to administrators, to teachers and to pupil personnel services or service providers, school psychologists, school social workers, even I believe, master's level nurses, guidance counselors, but we're not in there. Neither is PT, and that's considered an educational credential. And you have to have an educational credential in order to be able to take the coursework to become a school administrator. So that's what we're looking to do. We kind of feel like we would like to follow the path of school social workers, you know, that are educationally credentialed and hold that certificate through the Office of Teaching initiatives. Does that make sense? Yeah,    Jayson Davies     absolutely. I mean, New York and California, sometimes we tend to be similar. And it sounds like it. In this case, it's relatively similar. You know, we're licensed by the state of California as an OT practitioner, but the whole educational side of things is kind of disconnected from the regular licensure, because they have certifications, right or credentials, sorry, not licenses. And same type of thing here. Speech Therapists, you know, they get their C's, and they can be administrators. School psychologists can be administrators, but PTs and OTs can't, because we are licensed on the other side of the government. If you want to kind of segment it that way, I sometimes tell people that if I was able to get a school administrative credential, the OT school house may not exist, because that was my initial long term strategy was to try to figure out how to become an administrator. And I found out that I would have had to go back to school for like five years, get a credential, work for five years, then, because you have to have an experience in order to apply to the admin credential. So it would have taken me like eight years or something like that, to go back and start from scratch, which is just insane, but yeah, here we are. So from what I've heard you all say exact same experience. Jayson, right? It's, it's very unfortunate. So it's great to hear that in five states, you know, they've got this figured out, but it sounds like, from what we've started with here today, there's a few primary problems, Jamie kind of started us off with. We weren't at the table at the right time, when all this was being discussed. We weren't at the table. Kim and Serena, you both brought up the education aspects that you know, we're not necessarily educated as educators. We're educated as medical professionals, and so there's a little bit of that. Then we also talked about the government side of things, where it's just education. Is often its own part of each state's education, right? Each state has a Department of Education, and OTs are not in that department really, like we're not ingrained into that department yet. I think I kind of summarize what we talked about so far in those three but are there any other key areas that we want to talk about as a problem before we move    Jamie Spencer     on. I think you can't not think of the effect. So that's a pro. Those are the main problems, but the trickle down effects of occupational therapists not being allowed to be leaders is just tremendous in terms of everything, in terms of who it affects, how it affects the school community, how it affects the profession, how it affects the stakeholders, the community. I mean you, you name it, and it's just limitless,    Jayson Davies     perfect. And that's exactly where I wanted to go to go next. Because obviously, when we think about this, ot practitioners, we are so unselfish. But at the same time here like it almost feels a little. Little selfish to be advocating for ourselves to be administrators, right? Like we want to be an administrator, that's like we need to be administrators. But it's not just about us. It is about the other stakeholders. So Jamie Kim, maybe one of you want to go a little bit deep into the stakeholders, who are the stakeholders that we might not always think about.    Kim Wiggins     Well, I think that so for I just wanted to also point out, like I actually don't have an interest in being an administrator, but I want, I want to have the opportunity for my colleagues to be administrators, right? And I think that that's super important. So the other stakeholders that are really impacted by all of this is the teachers, right, the NYSED or the education departments. We have all of our advocacy organizations for all of our states, you know, like so in New York, like nysoda, Nyssa, and then obviously the parents and the school community, like everybody involved really is impacted by the OTs not being having the leadership roles in the education system,    Jayson Davies     okay? And so to kind of go a little bit further deeper into that, in what way, like what way would as us being into the administration community, whether it's a assistant principal, a principal or a director or superintendent. What are some of those barriers that we're hoping to overcome so that we can have have an impact on all of those stakeholders?    Jaime Spencer     Well, I think you know when you work, when you work for a school and you're a member of the school community for a little while, you wish to establish a rapport with your colleagues, and you learn from each other, and you learn what a teacher does and how a teacher runs her room, and they learn what you bring to the table. The same would happen if OTs were at the administrative table. We have a unique skill set and a different holistic viewpoint, and we have a very, very creative mindset, and we think outside the box, and we come up with unique alternatives that I think a lot of school administrators would not think of because they don't have the background that we have, and because we're not at that table, we're not at the pro we're not A part of the problem solving teams. We can't show how great our profession is, and that, you know, because of that, administrators don't know exactly what we do, and it just goes on and on. So they don't include the OT and the flexible seating committee, or they don't include the OT in the social emotional learning curriculum development, because they don't think that they don't really know what we do.    Jayson Davies     And serene, if I come back to you, it sounds like you had the opportunity to kind of at least learn about someone who has been in this role and in that case, and this could be a for all of you as well. But from the people that have been in that role, what have they been able to accomplish as an administrator that maybe others weren't able to do like Jamie was talking about, because they aren't in that administrative position?    Serena Zeidler     Well, the administrator that we had interviewed had indicated that she wasn't so much interested in being a school principal, because she wasn't had that hadn't had the experience being a classroom teacher, but she was interested in being a director of special ed, which is, which is what she did. And I think if you know, for even us OTs like you know Kim, that maybe are not interested in securing a leadership position, you know, in the schools, we still may really value having a highly qualified ot in an administrative role, you know, because we want to be recognized and valued and utilized for our full scope of practice, including areas that we saw in our survey. You know, in the results that OTs are not fully, you know, utilizing like MTSS and mental health and health promotion, but if an OT was is there as an administrator, they would, they would be more likely, in our opinion, to recognize our value and utilize us for our full scope of practice.    Jamie Spencer     In Ohio, I actually presented last summer with Kim at the school based conference, and my presentation was about how in Ohio you have these opportunities, so you should take them, because in so many other you know, states, they don't have those opportunities. And I highlighted the success stories of a couple of wonderful occupational therapy leaders that did make a big difference as leaders. So one of them was Kareem Robbins, and she pitched the idea to her district that she should be the coordinator of all the related services. Services, and she wrote it out like a business plan, that we need this position, like, let's create this position. And she got it, and she moved up, and she said that one of the key benefits of her being a leader was that she was able to link the state licensure board to the educational law, and that this was a crucial point, because a teacher who became the special ed director could not do that as well as a related service provider. So it was very cool to hear the success stories of occupational therapy practitioners who did achieve wonderful things as a leader.    Jayson Davies     I think that's a really good point that I've never really thought about Jamie, because we often see school based ot practitioners that get a little conflicted by what the licensure of their state ot license says and what they're being asked upon within the schools. You know, schools might be asking them to document one way or not document because they're trying to save time and the licensing board says you need to document every service you need to do this and that for documentation. Same thing when it comes to evaluations, right? The schools might be trying to cut corners by decrease the expectation of an evaluation when the licensure board says a full evaluation looks like this and you need to do all those pieces. And I could go on and on, but I never really thought about it from that perspective. So that's a really    Jamie Spencer     good point. Yeah, I also interviewed Cheryl van hoose, and she's actually a PT, so shout out to the PTS who also don't have leadership opportunities. But in Ohio, she ended up advancing and advancing and became the liaison between the Ohio Physical Therapy Association and the Ohio Department of Education. So that's huge.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, a lot of.    Jamie Spencer     one of the key quotes that she said was that OTs and PTs have the foundational knowledge that can help kids learn. And I just loved that quote from her.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and it opens up a lot of opportunities. And like I know, a lot of OTs would really appreciate ot practitioners. OTs included, of course, would love if their boss was just an OT and understood their job. And we don't have that fortunate aspect in most of our jobs. Whether or not we are a direct hire in the school district or if we're a contracted therapist. We might have someone, we might have someone who guides us from the contracting position agency, but they're not a direct employee of the school, and therefore they don't know our exact needs, our expectations, you know, our ambitions, and how we can support all the kids. So definitely having someone above us that actually knows what we do right would be really nice.     Kim Wiggins     I was just going to say that actually, I think in 25 years as an OT in various different positions and and schools, I've never had an administrator that was a related service provider. And you can and either have my colleagues and so when we have our our related service staff meetings that are being run and organized by whatever their backgrounds are, if they're teachers, typically, most of them have been teachers that have moved up to it being administrators. It's really hard. It's almost like we're educating them about what OT is first in order for them to be able to help us make decisions that we already have, you know, we think that we have really good answers to or solutions to, but we have to do all this educating and all this extra work before we can get any impact, you know. And so I think that that is a huge it would be a huge benefit to have related service providers as administrators, and I have been in situations where I know my speech pathologist friends have moved up to be administrators, and we're always like, cheering them on, and that's awesome, but it's really a matter of like, you're the people. Are people, and everybody has different qualities and strengths that they can use to be an administrator. So being an OT or a PT or a speech therapist or a teacher, becoming an administrator, I think it, I think it really just depends on the person you know, and why don't we have that chance? It just gives it. We need to have that chance and that option.    Jayson Davies     I'm gonna bring up one more thing that we've seen, at least here in California, in terms of why people are concerned about us looking toward an administrator credential. And I don't know if you can speak to this or not, but I'm going to throw it out there, because we've had people being very and I completely understand why, but we've had people very interested in what is going to happen to either a their status in or not inside of a union as part of an administrative credentialing being changed. That process being changed, and also their retirement. They're worried that they might be reclassified from non credential to credential or in other way, and that could impact the retirement. Right? Obviously, at least in California, I'll say it's not obviously, obvious everywhere, but in California, if you are in the school system, it's your pretty good retirement. Like, they're known for having good retirements in the public school system here, I don't know if that's everywhere, but people are worried about that, right? Like, don't mess with people's retirement, right? From your experience, have you heard anything about that? Is that come up with others or from yourself? Like, is that a perspective that you've looked at?     Kim Wiggins     I think that it's been I've noticed that it's pretty inconsistent. Like, I only can speak for New York, and even within New York, there are OTs that are in the teachers union, and have, they're obviously not in the Teacher's Retirement, but they're in the state retirement, which is very similar. And then there's OTs in New York that are not in the Union, and they, they're just, it just seems to be very, very inconsistent. And that just seems wrong, you know, like it just doesn't make sense to me. Like Jamie, you can speak to your personal experience too    Jamie Spencer     Well, to answer your question. Jayson, I do think that there are occupational therapists who are very concerned about that, and rightly so. But it wouldn't just be like a chop, chop. This is what we're doing. You know, there would have to be a whole transition plan and a process, and it's certainly, you know, we're looking to have equity. We're not looking to harm the profession or the professionals. We want to create opportunities for them so that they have equal opportunities to the rest of the educational staff. So the state or the United you know, the teachers associations, who have all the key stakeholders, would really need to put a smooth transition plan in place so that it wouldn't be harmful, but it's, you know, of course, everyone's going to have concerns. But what I always say, and like Kim said, in New York, things are very varied, from upstate to downstate to the city. We all have a different story, but we all have. A lot of us have similar problems, but different stories, but it doesn't really matter, because if this law changes, I can't tell you what's going to happen to Susie Jones in district two in Building C, with her principal, Mr. Smith, like I don't know, and I just hope that it works out, and there's going to be glitches and there's going to be bumps in the road, but for the profession as a whole, it's just not best practice the way things are right now, and we need to not be scared of change, because change can be a wonderful thing.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And, and I've heard as well that a lot of those decisions on what union you're in and what retirement you're classified are really more done at the even local or area than just the state. And like Kim was saying, right, it's very different. Some people are in the teachers union. Some are not. That's the same thing here in California, and it sounds like that's more related to how the district, the individual district, has decided to classify OTs, as opposed to the state classified OTs in a way that would be impacted by an administrative credential or educational credential. So yeah, kind of kind of similar. I know we're talking about two states here, but I hope this resonates with with more than just the two states, and it sounds like it does.    Jamie Spencer     I think what we're talking about with the advocacy at the local level, it really charges occupational therapy practitioners that they need to be knowledgeable about what's happening, and they need to get involved. Because if you're not going to join the negotiating committee, or if you're not going to say anything to anyone, then you're not having a voice at the table. You need to take your seat, you know, like they say, if you don't have a seat at the table, bring your folding chair. But if you don't educate the decision makers about your role and the fact that you should be equal, that's going to limit the change even more. So we really need people to advocate for themselves and their profession.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, all right, I want to dive into your actual research a little bit here and ask you. A, who did you reach out to? What was the goal for reaching out to people, and what did that end up looking like? And B, what kind of questions did you ask them? What were you trying to trying to get out of these people?    Serena Zeidler     I can tell you a little bit about the the respondents. So we were looking to hear from school based OTs and OT occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants in New York that have practiced, currently practicing or formally practicing in the schools, working in the in the New York State schools, and we were very fortunate that we had the support from nysoda, New York State Occupational Therapy Association. They posted our survey on their website. Jamie and Kim have a big social media presence, and we really able to get. The survey out there, and we're really fortunate. We had good numbers. We were used able to use the data from 714 occupational therapy practitioners. So of those, 714 600 were currently working in the New York State schools, and 114 were formally working. And we had 92% were occupational therapists, and 8% were occupational therapy assistants. And we had representation from throughout the state, although I think there was greater concentration in New York City and maybe Long Island, but there were respondents from from all the different districts. And, you know, Jamie and I had gone to Albany. Jamie, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that. You know, it was on the agenda of the nysoda of the OT board to discuss school based practice. And we were able to go to Albany and speak to the board about our concerns. This is, I think, in 2019 and they said, Well, you know, that's interesting, but with your data, does do occupational therapy practitioners? Are they aware what's there? Are they even aware that they're not eligible, and if they were eligible, would they even consider taking the coursework? Would they, you know, do they think they should advocate for these changes? So that's what you know prompted us to move forward with this research so that we would have the data to present to the OT board.    Jayson Davies     Okay, and so you were trying to figure out, a, do people know that they are not able to become administrators? B, do they want to become administrators if they had that opportunity? And then some other relevant information to kind of better understand the perceptions of the NY, New York ot practitioners.     Jamie Spencer     I think we can add a C and say, how does it impact the profession and the children that we aren't leaders like, what's, what are the current trends? And Can we somehow link it back to the fact that we're not allowed to be leaders. All right. I also want to add that we did go to that board meeting in 2019 and they they did say, well, we need the data, and that was what prompted us, like, okay, I guess we're going to have to be researchers, and we'd better become adjunct faculty at a college and learn how to do like it was, however, Serena and I had been advocated. I personally went to nysoda and drove to Albany in 2006 to complain about this and to ask for help and to advocate, but it never occurred to me that we needed to like, what were the steps to get change? And this was something solid that was given to us. Well, give us numbers. Okay.    Jayson Davies     We'll get numbers right.     Serena Zeidler     And I think also, just to clarify that we were, we were interested in finding out about about pursuing educational, administrative coursework required for administrative positions, not necessarily becoming an administrator, but having the option to pursue the coursework. So we wanted to know the respondents level of agreement that they that we should be able to pursue the coursework. You know, do they strongly agree, somewhat agree? You know, do they feel neutral about it? You know, disagree this, you know, strongly disagree. And, oh, the overwhelming majority. I mean, the numbers were pretty high. Almost 95% agreed that we should be able to pursue educational, administrative coursework required for administrative positions. And also, the same thing with being a, should we, should the profession advocate for for policies, you know, so that, so that we would have the opportunity to pursue administrative coursework. And then we, you know, we, you also asked, Should, well, they would you consider, you know, how many would consider pursuing the coursework required for an administrative, educational, administrative position, if the opportunity was available to us, and we had pretty high numbers in that as well. And we we broke the data down for currently working and formally working. And you know of the respondents, of course, the choices were, would consider, would not consider and not sure the you know. So a good amount, almost 40% would consider of the currently working, and almost 46% of the formally working, you know, which led us to we also had questions about barriers to work satisfaction. And have you ever considered leaving? And for those that did consider leaving? The main reasons we presented like 20 different possible choices and the rack of opportunity for a leadership leadership position were within the top three reasons why respondents considered leaving. Yeah,    Jayson Davies     it's a lot. I totally believe it. I mean, that that's one of my top three reasons for for eventually leaving. I mean, it's hard again. This varies from district to district, obviously, state to state, but, you know, over here, you kind of max out. And it's not just maxing out on the pay scale, but you kind of see the end of a pay scale as also being kind of like the maxing out in your career. Like, where do you go from here? And for me, I think at one district there was five steps to maxing out. At another district there were seven steps to maxing out. I know some districts follow a teacher scale, which tends to be a little bit larger 2025 steps. So in that case, you're constantly moving up in air quotes. But yeah, yeah, and I don't know for me, I've had three jobs, three school based ot jobs that I primarily worked at. One was a contract position. I was there for very short term, but as soon as I got into a district like when you only see that there's five steps and no opportunity to really move outside of being an OT practitioner. And again, for nine I don't know for it sounds like 60% of people that's what they want. They want to go in. They want to be a practitioner. They're not really interested about the academic work, but for the 40% of school based ot practitioners, it sounds like you found like that's a barrier to them, and they might potentially go somewhere else, where they can.    Jamie Spencer     Which impact the children, because we're limiting carryover. We're limiting their relationship and rapport with the staff.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and we, I don't know. I don't have the data on hand. I don't know if any of you do, but turnover in public schools is really high, not just for ot practitioners, but for especially in special education, but also general education.     Jamie Spencer     Yeah, was one of the questions that we asked. Like, you know, how long have you been at your current job? And the answers were scattered. But one of the key points that we found in this research was that 96% of the people we interviewed, or I should say, surveyed, they felt strongly that we should advocate for change in legislative policy. So that was an amazing number that we could then bring to our state association, as well as other key stakeholders in our state, like the New York State Education Department and, you know, legislators and people who we can speak to and say, everyone wants this. It was a strong percentage.     Kim Wiggins     I thought, actually, one of the things that I was actually surprised about, and I think is, is key, is a key factor is just the awareness of what people know about what they can and can't do. So, for example, we asked a question like they were asked their level of awareness that people that are considered under the people personnel services like school counselors and psychologists and social workers, are they eligible to pursue the coursework required for administrative positions, and only 34% of the people were completely aware that they were able to pursue it, where 34% were somewhat aware and 31% were not at all aware. So if you're not even aware of what you know you have to do to get to that spot, you know, it's going to be really difficult to move forward with that. So I think just bringing awareness to all OTs across the nation about what they have to do to advocate, or even knowing what they you know, what their particular state allows them to do or not allows them to do, I think is a key factor, too.    Jamie Spencer     And we also thought then, if the practitioners who are working in the field aren't aware we know that the students aren't being educated about it either.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. I was just looking at your your article, and something that really stood out to me was that people don't even fully understand how hiring practices, pay equity and healthcare benefits can all be impacted by the inability to earn a credential and become an administrator. So, yeah, the power of unknown is very powerful.    Kim Wiggins     What I really liked, I think one of I like a lot of things about our research. But one of the things that I little biased there, but one of the things that I really liked is that just completing or filling out our questionnaire, I think, actually brought awareness to people, because we were asking questions that actually, like, triggered thought, like, oh, I actually don't know about that. Or, of course, I want to advocate for this, or, you know, things, you know, they're just different questions that actually just brought more awareness in general. So I think, you know, doing the research, and I have, you know, in all 25 years, only in the last probably 15 years that I've been a presenter have I really had the time, or not even at the time, but looked into research and appreciated research because it is, it's a lot, but the more of us that are doing things like this really make a difference and bring advocacy to our to our profession.    Jaime Spencer      Absolutely, absolutely go ahead. Serena.     Serena Zeidler     I was just thinking about our statistician, and we were really fortunate that we had some funding for this research through the Torah University's Dean's Research Award, and we use some of that funding to consult with a research expert. But we also had access to a statistician because we we had students, the BSMS students, who are involved in our research, and we were really careful to reduce bias as much as we could by asking questions. You know, we wanted to know that, you know, the level of agreement that we should be able to pursue educational, administrative coursework, but we had to be careful how we sequenced the questions, so that it wasn't presented in a way that, you know, that somebody would want something once they learned they didn't have didn't have it, you know, so, but I think we did a pretty good job with that.     Kim Wiggins     Yeah, yes. We were very, very careful of that, because it's it is hard, you know, like not to infuse your opinions in there, right?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, research is not easy, that is for sure. So kudos to you, to the three of you, for taking this on and getting published within a pretty prominent journal within the school based ot realm, for sure, the Journal of Occupational therapy schools and early intervention. I want to talk about what has happened in the year since you published, and maybe in the two years or so since you probably completed this study and before it was published. But the last question I want to ask before we do that is you made sure to include a, OT, a and Essa within this published article, you mentioned, I believe it was the vision 2025 from a OTA. And you talk a little bit about making sure that you kind of connect ot with ESSA. And I just want to give you the the opportunity to share the importance of that and why you did that.    Jamie Spencer     Well, one of the questions was regarding, did they feel that ot has in New York has met the centennial vision, and the centennial vision spoke about leadership. I don't know it off the top of my head, but we asked, you know, do you think that ot in New York has met this and there was mixed responses, but I feel that we have not met it. And so I wanted to put it out there that, you know, Vision 25 vision 2025 says that we are going to be leaders and that we are going to eliminate barriers in the community and like all these wonderful things. But how can we do that if we're not technically allowed to be real leaders. And I listen, I know maybe I could get promoted to like lead OT or something like that, but that doesn't require a certificate. That's not a formal leadership position within the education department. So it's different, and we need the same opportunities as everyone else. We also wanted to highlight the the disconnect between the federal law ESSA, which says that we are important members of the school community and that we are equal with other s, i, s, p, s, which are social workers, psychologists, speech language pathologists, librarians, and then the state law, which has us classified as non instructional, and when we look at who is classified non instructional, it's people who do not work directly with students on their education. It's people in the transportation department and the clerical department and the sanitation department. It's completely different, and we are instructional. The state just hasn't recognized it yet. So we really wanted to point that out, in addition to going to the key stakeholders and aligning the disconnect with their mission statements. So nice and mission statement is about equity, and, you know, advancing people to leadership opportunities and equal opportunities for women, you. At our profession, which is, you know, the majority women were all limited from these opportunities, so we wanted to highlight that as well.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and I can't remember who it was, but one of you mentioned earlier that, in order to really have schools understand our ability to participate in school wide, district wide initiatives under MTSS, we really have to have OTs in place that understand our potential there and be in the administrative role to, you know, point out to an assistant supervisor that, hey, the OT might be the perfect person to help with this social curriculum or or whatnot like that. So, yeah, definitely. Well, let's go ahead, I want to talk a little bit about what's happened since you got this research out into the world published, and also the future implications from here on out. So what has happened in the last year plus, since this was published, and kind of you collected all this data?    Jamie Spencer     a lot. I'm so excited to say that, because if you would ask me a couple of months ago, I would be like, not much has happened, but just recently, a lot of things have actually come to fruition, which is so amazing and wonderful. We presented the information to our state association, and we also presented it to the New York State United Teachers, and they're huge stakeholders in New York State. They have a lot of power. We sent the information over social media. We've really spread the word as to what we found and why this is important. And just recently, nysoda put forth their priorities for the year for school based occupational therapy and getting us categorized under pupil personnel was on there, and they've always been supportive, but they just recently actually put forth legislation to categorize occupational therapy as pupil personnel, also to ask the commissioner of the education department To put forth a guidance document recognizing what occupational therapists in the schools can do, including early intervening, MTSS mental health, all those things, they kind of all tackle the problem. So we're very, very excited about that. And there was another bill that was introduced by Assemblyman Ari Brown, which actually asked for equal pay and career ladder opportunities for occupational physical therapists. So there's been some chatter on social media like, Is this because we're worried about Trump, you know, blowing up the Federal Department of Education, and then the states are going to be scrambling, and who knows why it's happening. We're just so grateful that it is happening. And then some things on the local level as well. There are districts around here in Long Island that have been hiring occupational therapists directly rather than contracting, and they're putting forth ra like putting forth proposals to their representative assemblies, asking for us to be included in the tenure laws and not even realizing, well, we can't be in the tenure law because we're not considered educators. So, you know, there's all this kind of the ripple effect of knowledge.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's why do you think that you're seeing districts start to hire directly, as opposed to contract positions?     Jamie Spencer     I think they're recognizing the value of occupational therapy more, and also recognizing the cons of contract therapists, how they don't have the time to collaborate as much with the staff, and, you know, really be a part of the school community, and there is high turnover, because a lot of contract therapists aren't they don't love that, or they are just put in a different building the following year, and they're just not included in everything, including professional development opportunities and districts who understand what we do are making changes.     Kim Wiggins     I actually think one of the biggest issues is MTSS, I think that when we have contracted therapists in the schools, they really can participate in MTSS as well, because it's not a billable service, and that's often how they're getting paid. And also, you know, you can't just, you know, a therapist like as a district, I was gonna say, district owned. That's not the right word. A district employee, you can just walk into a first grade classroom and provide tier one interventions or suggestions or ideas, and the same with tier two interventions, but as a contract therapist, you just can't. And so I think that, you know, administrators and school districts are noticing that, wow, maybe we could nip more things in the bud as far as, like, helping as many kids as possible. If these OTs or PTS are participating in MTSS tier one and tier two. But when they're a contract, they just can't do that. They're just not able to do it as much there. I'm sure there's cases where they They do, yeah, you know, whatever? Contract they've come up with, but it's, it's rare it's not, and I don't think that's just New York. I think that's across, I think that's across the United States. Yeah,    Jayson Davies     I mean, I think it's, I've seen in some districts where the contract at OT is almost, basically an in house OT, and that's just the way that the contract with the agency works. But I think in more cases than not, than not, it's more like what you talked about Kim, where you know they're they're getting paid by the half hour session, and that's got to be a billable session, otherwise no one's getting paid. And in that case, right? You want to, you're going to optimize your time toward billable sessions, right?    Kim Wiggins     And more, and there's more instances of pull out and less inclusion and and, you know, you don't have the chance to, like, talk to the teacher and figure out when is the best time for me to push into the classroom. I can come to, like, contract therapist. I can come to this school on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 to 12, you know. And so you can't always push into the most, the best, particular spot in the school you can't push into art, you know, because art is, it might be changing every single day, or what's the time. So, yeah, I think, I think that's a huge piece of it, too. And I, I am and happy with the states and the districts that are starting to hire therapists, because it really does help with our professionals. Definitely.    Jayson Davies     So now that you did this research, what else would you like to know? Like, I don't know. Maybe you're already working on some further research. I don't know that yet, but what would you like to know? What did you not learn in this research that you're like, Darn, we should have asked this question. Or, I guess, what's that next step for you in terms of information that you wish you had, or maybe you're looking for already.     Jamie Spencer     So we actually did another we did this identical study. We had to change some of the questions a little bit regarding physical therapy. We didn't have as many respondents, but we had, I think, I think it was over 100 maybe 109 is sticking out my head. And we had similar results. We didn't write it up, and I did present the information at the A ot children and youth conference last year. But we're not finding that. We're not finding physical therapists like us who are passionately fighting about it. So I would love for PT to get on board with this fight. We also had thought about possibly surveying school administrators about their knowledge about occupational therapists and what we can do, but we actually did put that survey out there, and we had hardly any respondents. So it wasn't, it just wasn't Yeah, can I just anything you could grab on to?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I that's one that I've been very interested in and in on. And I did find one article a while ago, but it was a little dated, and they also had trouble, you know, getting a hold of School Administrators. I think one that I saw, they actually did a focus group with school administrators, which was very eye opening, yes,    Jamie Spencer     and they interviewed them, right? Yeah, yes, I read that article,    Jayson Davies     but yeah, no, I think it's going to be key if we want to convince administrators and education, you know, experts, that we belong in the similar world as them in the educational world, we're going to need to have their input on it, because, you know, I could see you, all three of you, driving down to Albany and them saying, great, cool, you have ot data now. Where's the data that says teachers want you to be part of the team? Where's the data the school administrators want you to be part of the team. And I think that's going to be important for for us to have. And I know there's some are, there are some articles out there about it, and everyone that I've read it's been very positive in relationship to teachers wanting support from OTs and admin wanting support from OTs. It's just a matter of making it happen. Yes, agreed. So any other next steps that you're hoping for? Are you? Are you heading to helping you to share these results with them? Or have you shared it with the New York Education Board, or anything like that yet? Or is that the plan? Or, well,    Jamie Spencer     I'm on the New York State Education Department occupational therapy board, and I did share the information with them and bring it up as a as an issue in the profession. It's a difficult situation, because when you're on the board, you're not necessarily supposed to be promoting changes to legislation and all the things like that. You're supposed to be there to advise the board. But my my take on that was, well, I want to advise the board that there's a major issue in the profession, and it's, you know, we keep trying to talk to the Education Department, and nysoda has reached out and even had a meeting with ot a to meet with the education department about the state of the profession, and this was years ago, and they wouldn't even really entertain it. They wouldn't even take meetings with us or anything like that. So I. I do feel right now, New York State has a new executive director of the occupational therapy board of the Education Department of New York, and it's such a long term but yeah, it's not, it's not the professional association, it's the OT board of the State Education Department. We have a new executive director, and she's very knowledgeable about occupational therapy, she's been very open to listening, and I feel that we're being heard, and it's the whole board. We're all in agreement that this is a topic that's coming up again and again, and that it's impacting the children, and it's impacting the profession and our ability to influence our unique skill set to help the children.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And I think my, my final wrap up question here is really going to be like related to everyone listening here, and they've got this research potentially in front of them. I know, I know not everyone has access to the Journal of Occupational therapy schools and early intervention, but if you have access to a school that does have access to it, be sure to get this, download it, save it to your computer, keep it or at least go get the abstract. But yeah, what? What is your hope that someone an occupational therapy practitioner you know, or maybe even an administrator or a teacher that's reading this article? What is your hope that they'll do with this information?    Serena Zeidler     Well, I think reading the article is going to open their eyes. They not may not even be aware that this is an issue, that this is a problem. And I think that's helpful in and of itself, you know, to understand that we're not eligible to pursue educational administrative coursework. We're not educationally credentialed. Of course, our research focused on New York, but to me, the first step is to become part of the Office of Teaching initiatives and the category pupil personnel, similar to school social workers and school psychologists. And you know, if somebody's reading this article, maybe would kind of open up their eyes to this issue. And in the article, we talk about how it impacts the students, it impacts the whole school community. And maybe if somebody's reading it, they'll realize, you know, what this is impacting my school as well. And, you know, talk to your state association. I think that's always a good start. I mean, we had, we had done this years ago, back in 2009 we had written Jamie and I and two other OTs wrote to the State Education Department, the Commissioner, we wanted to find out about, how do we become pupil personnel. And, you know, we basically were told we're not instructional, we're not pedagogical. And then we went to nysoda. Nysoda folks at that point in time were totally, you know, different professional, different OTs than they are now. And you know it, it's just been a really long process, but I think, you know, going to your state association, talking to OT other OTs, maybe getting involved with a university, and, you know, doing this, getting involved in doing a study, like we did. I mean, this, our study focused on New York State, but it could be generalized to any of the other states as as well.     Jamie Spencer     And I know I think people who are who are completely unaware, or who are not involved in the advocacy, like I've had a lot of OTs say to me like, oh, good for you, that you advocate. I'm not. I'm so out of the loop. And they're not. Those are not going to be the people that are then going to go contact their state association because they don't feel like they know it well enough to speak to it. But even just telling your ot bestie, did you read this article? Did you see what it says and the things that we're talking about, we've we've cited the research behind that. We've cited that OT is historically misunderstood. We've cited that the mission statement of the education department is A, B and C. So at least to give them talking points, you can't advocate without being knowledgeable. So at least this can provide a foundation of the problem and possible solutions.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. And you also never know when you'll be at a holiday party with the principal or superintendent or, yeah, or,    Jamie Spencer     you know, somebody even more important.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. I would love, by the way, you all shared a few stories about administrators that you know. I would love for those administrators to put out their stories OTs practitioners that have become an administrator. I would love for them to share their stories in the OT practice or in the Asia, somehow or anywhere that they can publish anything. I think that would be really powerful for others to see what that has looked like, what they've been able to do as a result of becoming an administrator. Sure,    Jamie Spencer     good point.     Kim Wiggins     That's a great that's a great idea.    Jamie Spencer     There. Actually, there is an article in OT practice a few years back, Jan Hollenback wrote it with a couple of other occupational therapy practitioners, and it did describe their pathway to become leaders. But each one was unique, and it was just a few people, but still, yeah,    Jayson Davies     yeah. I would love to see like one published every year. I don't know that's that may not be realistic, but it would be awesome. All right, Kim, we'll end off with you. What's one thing that you're hoping you know that an OT practitioner reads this article and takes away and maybe they take an action, maybe they don't, but what do you hope that they get from this?    Kim Wiggins     I think my biggest thing, and I've mentioned it a couple times today already, is just awareness. Like Serena said, like, I really believe that the more aware we are as therapists and in the school setting, the better it's going to be, the easier it's going to be for us to advocate. So if, like, I think that number that I shared earlier that people just weren't even aware that it wasn't that it was an issue. Is is a lot, because I think that if we are aware, we'll be able to advocate to our administrators, to our teacher friends, and, you know, OTs are typically very well loved people in the school like we, we really try to help as many people as possible in so many areas. And I really think that all of our colleagues would appreciate that, you know, for us, you know, and cheer us on and and want us to succeed and be able to move forward. I know that in all the schools that I've worked with, it's, you know, the OTs are often the glue, you know, to a lot of the other professions. And so I think that other people see it too. And so just having that awareness, I think, is a really important piece. And so I'm hoping, I'm hoping that that increases after they read it,    Jayson Davies     Kim, you just brought back some great memories of my profession, like just being at the IEP and kind of being that person that kind of hurt. The parent, heard the teacher, heard the administrator, and was kind of able to synthesize it a little bit and get everyone on that same page. Like I don't know that that is something that OTs practitioners, we do pretty well. I think we're good at listening. We're good at observing behavior and kind of keying into important things in each person's life and what they want for the child, and kind of bringing that together. I think that's a great point, and it's also why we might make, yeah, exactly, and it's why we might make great IEP team leaders as an assistant principal, special education provider, something like that. So, yep, superintendent, I have not sat in on an IEP with the superintendent at JP, Jamie and I hope I never will, but that said there's a lot of meetings that they do sit in on that are obviously very important, that an OT practitioner would be a welcome site. So absolutely, thank you all so much for being here. Serena, really appreciate you being here. Kim, appreciate you being here. And Jamie, as always, you're always welcome on the podcast, all three of you, but Jamie, been here before. Thank you all so much. We appreciate it, and we'll definitely keep in touch on your research. Thanks again.    Serena Zeidler     Thank you. Thank you for having us.     Kim Wiggins     Thank you.     Jaime Spencer     Thank you for helping us share the information.    Jayson Davies     All right, that is going to wrap up episode number 173 of the OT school house podcast, I want to extend a very heartfelt thank you to our incredible guest, Jamie Spencer, Kim Wiggins and Serena Zeiler. If you have any questions, well, first and foremost, go check out the research. I will link to it in the show notes. But if you do have questions beyond that, reach out to Jamie Kim and Serena on LinkedIn. Or if you know how to get in touch with them, they're pretty easy people to get in touch with, so give them an email if you have a question, or maybe you want to help out with research, I'm sure they would love to collaborate to make maybe a similar survey happen in your state, or maybe to use their research within your state to get things going. They would love to help you advocate for administrators or for OTs to become administrators in your state. All right. So with that, thank you so much for tuning in. Really appreciate it, and we'll see you next time on the OT squad podcast, take care.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com . Until next time class is dismissed Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Thanks for listening to the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. A podcast for school-based OT practitioners, by school-based OT practitioners! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Subscribe now! Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 17 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. The Occupational Therapy Practice Framework notes that "Clients may require access to and the ability to use technology such as cell or smartphones, computers or tablets, and videogame consoles to carry out their daily routines and occupations." (2004). With this in mind, it is not only important to understand how meaningful it is for our clients and students to access technology and online media, but we also need to understand how we use online media to our personal and professional advantage. In this episode, Jayson and Abby present their findings on how School-based OTs can utilize online media to improve themselves as an OT practitioner. Download the Powerpoint that goes with this episode here! Check out the episode below! Have a listen on Apple Podcasts now! Links to Show References: This episode is one of several episodes we are excited to offer professional development for! If you listened to the episode and would now like to earn a certificate of completion for doing so that you can use toward your NBCOT renewal, Click here to purchase the ability to take a short quiz and earn a certificate of completion. You no longer have to pay to see if a course is worth taking. Now you can listen to a podcast on your time for free and only pay if you feel the course amounts to your need for professional development. We appreciate your support of the OT Schoolhouse! View other episodes we offer continuing education units for here ! Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hey there, and welcome back to the OT school house podcast. The otpf states that clients may require access to and the ability to use technology such as cell or smartphones, computers or tablets and video game consoles to carry out their daily routines and occupations. At the OT school house, we totally understand that, and that's why we're diving deep into the use of online media, both social media, as well as other types of media, in order to help school based OTs help their clients and further their education and professional development. So today is actually going to be the first professional development opportunity through the podcast that we've offered in a while, and you can find that at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash PD, as in professional development. And the objectives for today are for you and everyone out there to understand current trends related to online use among school based OTs, be able to identify locations on the web to find support and guidance, and be able to understand the importance of being self aware when consuming or producing online media. We just actually presented this at a recent conference here in California, and we're excited to be able to share this all with you. So right after the break, we're gonna get into this, and you're gonna hear all the amazing content we have for you. So stick around Abby, and I will be right back.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hey there. Welcome to episode number 17 of the OT school house podcast. You know, it's been a while, but Abby and I are on the podcast for the entire show today. There's no guest. It's just her and I. So Abby, how's it going?     Abby Parana     It's going great. This is like a throwback.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, it's been a while. It's been, I don't know. I don't even remember the last episode where it's just you and I.    Abby Parana     No, it's been a long time. We ought to do this more often. Jayson.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. I mean, I know we have a bunch of guests lined up for the for the upcoming shows, but yeah, we really need to do this a little more often. So maybe we can. We'll see what happens. And yeah, so do you have anything that you want to share before we get on our way?    Abby Parana     No, just we finished up with the occupational therapy conference for the state of California, Occupational Therapy Association of California, of California, yes, thanks for adding that so many letters in the title. Okay, so we just finished up that, and then I'm doing an in service on sensory with the teachers at one of my school sites to kind of build capacity with one of my co workers. And we're getting ready to do that. I think it's going to be pretty interesting. I'm hoping to use it and share it with you guys you know, so that you have information on how to provide an in service. If that's something that you want to do for your school sites, or if you have already maybe I can give you some tips on how to do it better. Or maybe you can give me some tips. Maybe my in service isn't going to be that great. Who knows?    Jayson Davies     Are you doing that with another OT or a different professional?     Abby Parana     No another OT? We're talking a lot about how to help students that are dysregulated becoming dysregulated or have or preventing dysregulation. So I kind of think we give the strategies a lot, and we discuss sensory strategies. And the teachers all tend to really know all the strategies, all the tools, they will come to me and say, Hey, I think so and so needs this, and I'll go and look. And maybe they do, maybe they don't, but I think it's almost the implementation of those strategies and using them in an effective way, and then also just noting that, like some strategies you know you can use would be like behavior modification type things too. They kind of all go together. So it's kind of one of those trainings. It's not a is it sensory or behavior? It's actually, you can't really separate the two. That's kind of our approach to this.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's cool, because I was actually just talking to a speech therapist and her and I, and actually we're going to see if the psychologist would like to get in on it too. But we want to do a training for both the teachers as well as the AIDS, because a lot of times, you know, we teach the teachers, but then it's the AIDS, and especially those months of your classes that are working with the kids so much, and so aids are going to be at our training. Too. Perfect. That's awesome. Are you guys doing it after school, before school, during school, after school on one of the short days. Oh, very cool. A professional, professional development day, or whatever the school has set up.     Abby Parana     Yeah. And then we're also doing a fine motor one where we're running centers, but they're all fine motor based centers, so do that kind of thing too. It's really exciting.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, excited. I look forward to hearing more about that once you're one. You got it done and taken care of is that, when are you doing that?    Abby Parana     Um, the inserts will be next Tuesday. So when we're finishing up our Well, finishing it up, slash starting it, because we're both procrastinators this week, tomorrow and Thursday, and then we'll be presenting next week. So it's kind of cool, though I'm really excited about it, because we're trying to touch on everything and kind of explain it in a more functional way so that teachers can use it versus, I don't know, I think sometimes it can get a little dicey. You're like, oh, they need proprioception for input, but a teacher doesn't understand. Or like, maybe they don't have the theory and the background of recognizing that, so we want to give them those tools.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely. Well, like Abby said, we also attended the Occupational Therapy Association of California conference, OTEC conference, this past weekend. And thank you, Abby. Anyways, Abby and I, we actually presented, and that's what we are going to talk about today, is actually we're going to present, not the entire slideshow slash presentation, though, that we presented at ot but a good portion of it for you all to hear. And that's actually about how OTs, how school based ot specifically, but this kind of equates to all OTs utilize online media, and also a little bit how, how social media affects not only us, but our students, and how we can kind of act upon online media. So we're going to talk about that. But first, I just want to give a big thank you to anyone out there that was at OT and said hello, or all the presenters out there that were at OT, there's a lot of good school based content this. This year we had OTs. Actually one was from, oh man, I think it was Ohio that came out to talk to us. And we had the one of the OT directors from Los Angeles Unified School District that talked a little bit. We had the Pasadena Unified School District special ed director who was actually an occupational therapist and went back to get her psychology credential and is now the sped director. And that was super inspiring to see an OT in such a high level position. So a big shout out to all those people that made OTEC great, as well as the staff up at OT, which is awesome. So before we get into it, Abby's got her finger waving at me like she's got something to say.     Abby Parana     Well, I justwanted to bring up that we had the really cool opportunity to meet up with, well, kind of a meet up situation with Alexis, who organized it at Rubio's, and it was with you and I and Sarah and Jenna. And it was all of us OTs, kind of discussing how OT is doing online, and what are all of our projects, and how we're advocating for the profession, and sort of what what these little projects are, and they're all doing some really cool things.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely a big shout out to Sarah, actually, she's actually doing a podcast, kind of like you're listening to right now. And her podcast is ot for life, l, y, F, E, and it actually just released last week, by the time you're listening to this podcast. So big shout out to her. She's an early intervention OT, and she's her podcast is not just about ei early intervention. She just has this huge mission for sharing OT, like in all capacities, to all people. And so be sure to subscribe to the OT for life podcast as well as ours. What was Jenna?    Abby Parana     Jenna, she Jenna. She works as a professor.    Jayson Davies     but she's a dementia specialist, right?     Abby Parana     Yes, and she consults with nursing homes. I remember her telling me about that part of her position as well. She kind of does multiple things. She has her hand in lots of different practice areas in occupational therapy, very diverse background. And that was kind of cool to see or hear about.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And then you have Alexis, who is kind of doing a little bit of everything. She's all over the place. She has a kind of a Facebook Live that she calls ot scope, or the podcast project. That's kind of one of the areas she's in, but she's really dabbing a little bit of everything she's on social media at eight. Alexis Joel, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 17. But yeah, it was just really cool meeting up with these group of OTs that are doing so much in the profession. I mean, we're all kind of, you know, quote, unquote, younger OTs, and we're we're able to access the internet, we have websites, and we're just trying to get ot out there, not only to other OTs, but to parents, to caregivers. To people working with dementia, educators, everything. You know, we're all OTs, just in a different area, and so we can have a different influence. So, yeah, right.    Abby Parana     Super cool. And it's something that's like an extremely needed area in our profession. OT we're not great at advocating for our profession all the time, particularly online. It seems like nobody really understands occupational therapy. So I think the more voices in social media and that are doing podcasts or having platforms on Instagram or Facebook, I think the better, because if we advocate for our profession, then we legitimize our profession too. So it's kind of owning that what we do is pretty stinking awesome. I mean, for lack of a better way of putting it.    Jayson Davies     No, absolutely right. And you know what, we're definitely gonna have to have a podcast about advocacy, because especially at ot this year, the two key themes that I took away from ot were, one, building capacity within occupational therapists, and the other, which was huge, was becoming a go to OT and that's front line by Sabrina McCarley out here, and she wants, you know, us to stand up, not only in our own jobs, you know, advocating for case loads and workloads and all that good stuff, but also talking to legislators out there and letting them know what our concerns are and how we can better help our population. So, yeah, two big, big key terms this year were, were advocacy and building capacity. So, yeah, all right, well, I think that was a long enough introduction.    Abby Parana     to catch up on.     Jayson Davies     We did. We did. And you know what that's we did miss last week's podcast episode because of OT. Actually, we're just so busy with that, but we're happy to be back. And actually, we're going to share with you exactly what we were doing, what we were doing at ot last week. So sorry for the one week delay, but we're getting this out there to you now, and we're going to jump into our presentation on online media and how it can affect school based OTs, how it can affect students, and how we can have have an effect on social media and online media. So I guess we should jump into it then, yeah, let's get to it. All right. Well, before I forget, I do want to let you all know that since we have this PowerPoint, because we presented it at ot we're actually going to put this PowerPoint up again on the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 17. So you'll have access to these show notes or this PowerPoint. So if you want to take notes or that you're that type of person, go ahead. But if you're driving and you don't want to take notes, feel free to access the podcast over at or not the podcast, the show notes for the podcast at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 17. So, like I kind of mentioned earlier, this presentation was all about online media and how OTs can utilize online media. And I specifically say online media because it's not just social media. We also took into account, you know, the the ability to access Asia online, the ability to listen to podcasts, the ability to access blogs online, the ability to access any journal online. For that matter, you know, of course, you know, putting this presentation together, we did a little background, and we were really surprised to actually to find out that the terminology podcast, while the terminology of podcasts may be new, the idea of streaming audio, of course, has been a long or has been around for a long time. Of course, there's radios, but originally, podcasts kind of started back in 1985 before any social media, of course, and and, or any blogs came out. And then, you know, in 2003 we started to see LinkedIn and WordPress, and then podcast began to get a little bit bigger in 2004 Facebook came around in 2004 YouTube in 2005 and now, you know, we have Pinterest and Instagram in 2010 and there's so many more out there. But as you know, these are kind of like the big ones Twitter in 2006 and so it's really cool that we have access to all these but it's also a little bit scary, because our information is out there. And you know what? Maybe we'll still do our little exercise that we did for this presentation, and at the end, well, we'll ask you all to do something for us at the end of the end of the show. But yeah, we just kind of want to get out there. You know that people are using social media. People are using it, not only for for using their personal lives, but professional lives out there too. I'm sure you are so many of you follow us on the blog, or, you know, you follow our podcast, or you follow ot school house, the Facebook page. And you know, these are all areas where you're able to learn new stuff, just like we follow other blogs and stuff.     Abby Parana     So actually, yeah, social media has taken on kind of a life of its own. And the term occupation, as defined by the occupational therapy practice framework, refers to the daily life activities in which. People engage. And I think a lot of us engage repetitively, almost compulsively, in social media, in online media in general. And that comes a lot from just having it right in the palm of our hand. I think with the fact that we have our mobile devices are pretty much tiny computers that are handheld and allow us to access information and social media nearly regularly that it has become a daily occupation. That could be defined as a daily occupation, I think it's a little bit leisure. I think a lot of us use it also as part of our work occupations, even sometimes it's play, sometimes I'm looking at stupid videos of cats and dogs.     Jayson Davies     That's definitely leisure, right?    Abby Parana     And sometimes it's leisure just in that I'm connecting socially and making plans with friends. You know, I get invites to Facebook group activities, or somebody sets up a page like, Come paint with me. One of my friends does that where she hosts paint nights at her house, and so she'll set up a page for that. So that's kind of a leisure occupation. So if you think about clients that we have or students that we have that are in high school elementary school, they're accessing their Facebook, and a lot of them are using it to find these leisure activities or to like I said, Look at dumb videos or post dumb videos. And too, I think it's interesting to note an interesting statistic by the Pew Research Center, that 51% of Facebook users report accessing Facebook multiple times a day, just like what I was indicating. So I'm not sure how many times you access it. Jayson, but I'm on too many times. Like I've even put my settings on my phone in black and white, just so that I stopped looking at it as often.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, I turned off that. I turned off all my notifications so I don't get notified notifications from Facebook and emails and stuff like that, to try to help out. But even then, I'm not gonna lie, I still find myself, you know, just looking at my phone as I'm walking from one classroom to another. I know I shouldn't be but every now and then, you know, it's kind of that Facebook addiction thing that's out there right now. And you know, I'm kind of there. But.    Abby Parana     Even just etiquette in IEP meetings, like I noticed, a lot of people just have their phones right on the table, I make a conscious decision to either leave my phone in my office or tuck it into my bag and like the very bottom, so that I'm not tempted to pick it up, because I have found myself just compulsively picking it up in meetings, and that is not good etiquette.    Jayson Davies     No, no, definitely not. But, you know, it's, it's not good etiquette, but it's definitely less taboo than it used to be. Like, people understand, you know, no one's no one like, makes a big thing of it. When someone's phone rings in the middle of a meeting anymore, it's just like, oh, that person's phone ringing. Let's keep talking. We know that person's gonna put it on silent in half a second. And same thing, you know, parents and other people, you know they're busy, we understand that you can send a quick text message, then again, you shouldn't be on your phone the entire meeting or anything. But it's kind of like we understand as professionals that people are busy, that this isn't the only thing going on in the world. And you know, 99% of the time that people are using their phone now, is it is business, so, right? But yes, you need to be.     Abby Parana     Would you venture to say, though, however, that if that's the case, then you're not present for the concerns of the IEP meeting. Because I think for me, it's like a state of mind, like I want to be present to address what is happening in that room. You know, we all, we all have busy schedules, and we all have to be there during that time, including the parent. So I'm kind of, while I appreciate the understanding, I just know that, like staying present during those meetings mentally is important, although I'm not good at it all the time.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I'm thinking of like the moments where, you know, a kid or a parent brings up a concern, and really quickly I can find an app that will help that kid like that's kind of the things that I'll often be looking up, whether I'm on my computer, my tablet or my phone. If I know the student has access to an iPad and they're bringing up a concern, I'm gonna real quick grab my phone, do a quick search for speech to text and see what apps are out there that this kid can use. I mean, that's how I found an app called speechify, where I can take a picture of any text, it'll and then it'll read that text to the kid. And I would never have found that. I mean, maybe I would have taken a note on that, gone back to my office the next day, looked it up. But so it's kind of a, you know, we're if you're using it for work, it's a little more appropriate. It obviously looks more appropriate if you're doing it on your computer rather than your smartphone. So, you know, try and if you're going to be on technology, definitely, I would suggest it being either a tablet or that you're taking notes on, or a computer you're taking notes on. But sometimes you do need to use the. Phone to kind of look up something, but.    Abby Parana     Oh yeah, absolutely, it's just a double edged sword.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, that was a huge tangent, but I'm glad we did that, because that is something that a school based therapists do kind of run into. You know, it's IEPs are three hours long sometimes, man, and it gets hard to stay focused for three hours. Our kids know that before we move on. I do want to mention that we're kind of going on this is that there's not a lot of stuff out there about social media and online media from our organizations, the World Federation of OT, W, F, OT, they actually do have a social media guideline document on their website. But a OT, a California OT, even MBs, MB C ot has very, very little, if any, information about how to use, how to use social media, or how we should not use social media, or that much. So it's just something to point out. Yeah, yeah, so we got to get it together. Yeah, right. Surprisingly, although there's not much on the website, the otpf does actually pretty extensively talk about the use of computers, not necessarily social media too much, but the use of computers, tablets and video game consoles and phones, because they understand that, you know what? That is an occupation. And I honestly, some people might have a big issue with me saying this, but I could easily go into high school today and justify making a a goal for a kid to access Facebook, because that is a meaningful occupation for all teenagers.     Abby Parana     Oh, absolutely. And so even more so like Snapchat and Instagram.    Jayson Davies     Well, yeah, right. And so, yeah, I could easily see a parent saying, hey, my kids not able to access leisure and play. They're not able to socialize. And, you know, I mean, how big is texting and being able to access all those social media sites? You know, I'm not going to go in and, like, completely just offer this to every kid on an IEP No, but.    Abby Parana     Calm down everyone.     Jayson Davies     But I could see someone saying they can't access their education because they can't access social media and have those interactions, those typical interactions, with their peers. So all right, there's one more quote that I wanted to or at least a resource. This is actually from the Journal of further and higher education, and it states that Twitter has the potential to become a credible platform for continuing professional development or CPD, not only for clinicians professional development, but also for the advancement of profession itself. And well, I know Abby is huge on advancement of profession. So how do you use How do you use social media, online media, to advance our profession of OT?    Abby Parana     Well, I mean, I think you and I can both definitely vouch for this just I think sharing treatment ideas, you're sharing articles that you're finding, you're sharing your own. I mean, I guess that's really broad way of putting it, but I would say the other way is when you're looking at professional development, I mean, look at the Facebook groups we're both involved in. You get on there and everybody's sharing ideas, and a lot of times you'll get back up from research articles in those groups, like somebody will say, Oh, I do this, this and this, and here's a study. And so those things are pretty cool in that respect, Twitter, I didn't realize I even had a Twitter account still, until I, you know, like we were talking about, we're gonna do an experiment later. So we'll go into that everybody. But I think one of the things I, you know, I could see it being a good continuing professional development. I mean, look at the podcast. I mean, this is a prime example where we're taking in audio platform and giving education. And there's no real reason why this isn't continuing education. We're using research, we're discussing research, and we're promoting educational values of our profession.     Jayson Davies     Exactly, yeah. No doubt about that, I would say that's accurate. Yeah. And so what really led to us completing this, this presentation that we did for ot was actually that we were almost doing research for the OT school house. We wanted to know what people were looking at, specifically, what school based OTs were really looking at when it comes to online media, social media. Were they using social media to access professional development? Were they looking up research articles through Facebook groups, Facebook pages? Podcast, Instagram, Pinterest, and so we actually did a little survey to find out, and I'm sure some of you listening now actually participated in this survey. And thank you so much if that was you, and even if it wasn't you, we thank you for listening right now, because this shows that you're actually interested in knowing the results of that survey. And so appreciate you having to listen.    Abby Parana     Oh, for sure, which also brings up another point, because you just shared another research survey on Facebook from not by us, but somebody else. But that's another way people are utilizing social media for the profession. Is not just to advocate ideas, but to actually do studies of what we're all doing, and it is such a quick, easy with things like Survey Monkey and like all these different things, it's really easy to get a quick participant, yeah, participants in like, a larger sample and a wider ranging sample. So, I mean, this is a great opportunity for OT.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And what she's Yeah, the the link that you're talking about is actually a, I believe, at stanbridge. It's a, it's one of my fellow thesis advisors from stanbridge University down here in Southern California. And she's actually looking at some of the difficulties that new pediatric therapists have. You know, I don't want to lead people into responses, but if you do visit, if you do visit our Facebook page, the link is there as well as the notes. It'll only be up until the early part of November, 2008 18. But yeah, it is about pediatric therapists that are within the first three years of their practice. And so if you're interested, we definitely invite you to have a look at at that so But getting back to our actual little survey that we did, again, this wasn't an IRB approved survey or anything. This is just a a survey that we did, and it started out as kind of like a market research for the OT school house, but we got back information that we thought other OTs might want to know about, and it kind of helped us out, and we think it might be able to help you out. So through this survey, you know, we reached out to OTs in all different realms of social media or online media. We sent it out to our email list, we sent it out on Facebook, we sent it out on Reddit, a few other places, and we had of the 241 respondents, we had 77% occupational therapists feel it out, fill it out. Almost 14% occupational therapy assistants filled this out, and 8.8% of the participants that filled this out were students. There's a small handful of other professionals that also did. But of those people that did fill it out, 42% of them were school based therapists. 10% worked in other pediatric setting, and another 10% about worked in the acute rehab. So it was really cool, the the diverse population that we had, as well, as you know, we had a pretty good spread of not just OTs, but also occupational therapy assistants and students, which is, which was super cool. And so the first question we asked, I'm gonna let Abby tell you a little bit about this. But the first question was, it to those participants, was, which of the following do you regular, regularly read or visit as part of your quest to better yourself as an OT or an OT aide. And so I'm gonna let Abby talk about what the results to that specific question were.    Abby Parana     Right? So the results to that were that the majority of people that responded to this survey, a lot about 48.8% said a jot. Yay. Aja and    Jayson Davies     Ajia, it's actually going all online. It's going paperless, I believe, next year, and so you're gonna have to access it online. You're not gonna get those quarterly journals in your mail.    Abby Parana     Oh, and it should be noted that they didn't have they could pick more than one response, right? So that wasn't actually the highest response level, but also the most another interesting thing were Facebook groups. So they regularly visit Facebook groups. 66.3% of respondents said that they regularly also visited Facebook groups. So those could be two, you know, one person could be going to both of those, right Jayson?     Jayson Davies     Of course, and I'm just double checking that many, many do, yeah?    Abby Parana     Other things that folks are looking at often were professional development websites.    Jayson Davies     And that's like, yeah, sorry. That's like, med bridge and occupational therapy. Throw this out there. Since we did just a med bridge that you can get a discount at Med bridge education the website if you use promo code ot school house. But yeah, that was another big one. Was med bridge and and occupational therapy and those were both actually thrown out during our live presentation that we did at OT. Tech, several people said, Yeah, I have a handful of people at least said, Yeah, I use those for continuing education, right?    Abby Parana     And then just using a ota.org you know? I know I look up things on there. Often I like, kind of their quick back lists for different areas, other journals. So people are still looking at professional journals and then just other websites. Half of everybody responded, you know, 122 people said they're just looking at other websites to better themselves. So maybe that could be blogs potentially, or different things of that nature. Pinterest was another big one, with 87 respondents saying that they use that to better themselves. I'm thinking I use that often for treatment ideas. So if I'm looking for something to do with a kid, I might look on there. So it was a pretty interesting survey in that respect. What I mean, are there anything?    Jayson Davies     You mentioned the the top two, the OT, a slash a, OT, and then Facebook groups and pages. The actual third top one, I guess, was actually Google and Google Scholar and so you can imagine, you know, people, that's where everyone starts nowadays. Just Google type in occupational therapy interventions for kids or pediatric OT or school based ot intervention. Of course, Google is popular, but also, surprisingly, Google Google Scholar was very popular, and of course, that is like Google's version of a search engine for research. And so that was cool to see that people are actually using Google Scholar to find research. And some people, again, just a few, a handful, threw us for a loop and added in their own comment and said, It depends on what I'm looking for. And that kind of is exactly what I was happy to hear. That you know that means not everyone's going to our even our website to find research articles. They're going to where they should be, like as OT, or the Open Journal of OT, or to some other journal to look for that research, you know. So that's good to hear. You know, people aren't going to one place because no website, no website, is like a fit all for everything. So.     Abby Parana     Right? Like you might want to Google the search term, then you might want to check for an article in a dot, and then you might want to go to Pinterest to find the activity that is going to flow with all of those things.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. So the next question that we asked was, how frequently do you consume any of the above content as it relates to improving yourself as an OT or occupational therapy assistant? And do you look for treatment ideas? And so 42% of people that filled out this survey said that they search some sort of the one of those websites that we just mentioned before, five times, or at least up to five times a week. 42% of OTs are searching up to five times a week for ot related content. So that's like every weekday, you know, every day of the week, except for weekends, they are looking for ot content online. And then another 18% said they're going further beyond that. They're saying at least once a day, up to 10 times per week, they're going online. So that's pretty you know, over half of us are basically looking at our computer or at our phone on a daily basis for stuff related to work. Like, I don't know that. It seems like a lot to me. Like, honestly, I don't think everyone does that, but it's cool to know that US OTs are using social media and online media to to find to better ourselves and to better the treatments that we can provide for our kids?     Abby Parana     Oh, yeah, definitely. And then the last question was, How frequently do you seek out research articles to read in order to improve yourself as an OT or an OT A and we had the responses were once a year, up to five times a year, five to 10 times a year, monthly, a few times a month, or several times a month. And it seems that people, I mean, I mean, the responses were pretty Spread out, spread out, but pretty even in a lot of ways, apart from the once a year, it's nice to see that people are looking up things more than once a year, right? One was only 9.2% of responses said once a year they seek out research articles.     Jayson Davies     So yeah, you know about 50% of the participants are looking at journals at least monthly. So again, yeah, that's cool to see that in our profession, people are looking up journals specifically just about monthly or more. And so online is not just for articles or blogs that are opinionated. You know, people are going online to look up the research, and as a science and art based profession, that's important, because we need to make sure that we are keeping our. Up to date on the latest research and using evidence based, you know, interventions. So that's that was a very I really liked the well roundedness that we received on that question. Yeah. Job OTs, yeah. Look up your research Exactly. So to sum all this up, you know, at least that little survey that we did, a OTA is still definitely the go to the go to resource, whether it be the Asia OT or the vast majority of information that a OTA really does have, it is the place where people are most going to. 35% of the respondents are looking specifically for research articles at least a few times a month. And that is fantastic. And a OTA really is that go to place. Of course, there's also ProQuest, if you're an NPC ot member, then you do have access to ProQuest, where you can look up even more articles related to occupational therapists. Facebook pages, and especially groups, those are also extremely popular, and we're seeing that. I mean, there's several groups, so many groups out there specifically related to school based OTs, that have 1000s and 1000s of members of people asking questions. And if you're not part of that group, actually, in our slide show, we have a list of a few groups that we would definitely recommend, so be sure to download that we might get to mentioning those at the very, very end. But the school based ot Facebook group, you got to be a part of that if you're a school based OT.     Abby Parana     Oh, Definitely. There's some good discussions going on. That's a good question.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, for sure, yeah. And then the last thing you know to really sum up is that 75% of all of all the OTs, OTs out there are looking up content online every single day as it relates to OT to better themselves. And that is just fantastic, because we need more OTs out there that are willing to, you know, run into a problem. You know, you're in an IEP, you run into a problem. You don't know how to solve something, and instead of, you know, delaying it, you just get online. You go, you go to Asia, you go do a Facebook group, and you ask questions, and you learn more about what you can do to better help that kid.     Abby Parana     Yeah, and OTs are really friendly online. We're all ready to jump in and provide strategies and help each other out. So if you're afraid to ask a question to a Facebook group, don't be because you'll get 10 to 20 willing participants to give you answers and two, don't be afraid to chime in with your opinion on those groups as well. I've learned a lot just from giving my opinion and then, you know, having a discussion back and forth with other OTs about what they're doing. Mm, hmm,    Jayson Davies     absolutely. Yeah, it's cool. It's also really cool because you get to see responses from OTs from all over the country, if not all over the world. Yeah, and so, and people have debates on there, you know, yes, they're nice about it, but people do have debates, you know, about some topics that aren't as well researched as others, and people are kind of willing to say, you know, what I get, what you're saying, but that may not actually be really research based, and maybe you want to look into it a little bit more. And so I like to see those types of interactions going on on the different pages. It's really cool. Yeah, me too. So we've already mentioned a few of these different types of medias that we talked about. I just want to go over this quick list. You know, these are all the different areas where OTs are utilizing, the different resources OTs are utilizing to learn more information. And that is, of course, a OT, a nb, C OT and Pro Quest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, podcasts like this one, yay. YouTube, that's another one that's up and coming. People are even going, there's even an OT section on Reddit. I mean, you can find people talking on Reddit professional development websites. We talked about med bridge and occupational therapy com. But there's also smaller blogs that provide provide professional development, kind of like we do through the podcast. There's even some apps. There's one called ot at home for iPhones, and it's a college that put together, they actually put together treatment activities. It's like a little Pinterest board, yeah. And then, of course, there is Pinterest. Naturally. Pinterest is everyone loves Pinterest. You can't be, you can't be an OT and not like Pinterest. Doesn't matter what field you work in.    Abby Parana     That's true. So what are school based ot practitioners, looking for online like we've already kind of touched on research intervention, ideas, assistance with writing IEP goals. We are all I see that on Facebook groups constantly, right? Writing those IEP goals, also looking for professional development. You know, those online? Online occupational therapy.com , med bridge are examples of that, but there's also smaller ones for professional development, looking up things for evaluation and other practitioners, as well as documentation and billing. There's a lot of things with that going on right now, across states, across districts, everybody seems to be doing some of these things differently in school based OTs. So I think Online provides a good connection between all of us in the profession, across state lines, but also across district lines, because so much of what we do is different, district to district and state to state, which is, I mean, interesting in itself, considering, you know, just that alone is an interesting topic. We might have to, ah, that could be our next survey,    Jayson Davies     definitely. So when we look at research again, Asia ProQuest, the Open Journal, ot journal for educational research online, which is kind of cool, because it's not an OT journal, but they talk about all educational research. And so you can get a little bit of OT, but you also get a lot of that education side, you know, the side that we may not get through schooling, but the teachers may get a little bit of that. So you get a little you get to dive into the educational realm for a little bit. And then, of course, there's blogs and podcasts that have their citations in there. You know, like, we're going to have all of our citations that we looked at in the show notes, as well as in our slideshow, and you'll be able to look at the evidence that we used. And then you can even look at the citation from those articles. And you can dive even deeper into research. And so if you're interested in learning a little bit more about research, I would definitely recommend that you check out. If you haven't already, Episode 11 of our of our podcast with Dr Amy Sadek, we did a whole episode on how to be an evidence based ot in public schools. And so definitely check that out. That is a good one, yeah. And so the next area is actually going to be intervention ideas, you know? And yeah, we already mentioned Pinterest several times for intervention ideas. But of course, Instagram another huge one, because you can search hashtags. And so one of the more popular hashtags that you can search to find ideas is actually hashtag therapy ideas, right?    Abby Parana     And I think too, you know when we're talking about interventions where, you know, Pinterest and Instagram are great for just the ideas for the activities we're going to do. But I do love the discussion again with Facebook groups on how to, how we're going to implement those activities. So it's kind of like the frequency, the duration, the the you know, how often? What are we more than just the doing, but what? What's the progression of those treatments? And sometimes those discussions are happening more on Facebook?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's the thing about Facebook. You can get a little deeper into stuff, you can actually have a real conversation. You know, Instagram isn't really a conversation driven. It's obviously picture driven. And same thing with with Pinterest, you're not really replying to the people that that posted an activity on on a Pinterest board. You know, you're really just kind of, you're it's click bait, in a way. You know, you click on it, you get the information you want, and then you're on to the next one. Whereas Facebook is definitely more interactive, you have conversations with people.    Abby Parana     And on another note, you know, a OTA also had an article about how, what is a good like, essentially, frequency and duration for pediatric therapies. So it was kind of an interesting like, how what is an effective way of delivering services, was that the OT practice that just came out, ot practice, yep, I think it was an OT practice. I think it    Jayson Davies     was, yeah, the main it's on my, yeah, it's on my to read list,    Abby Parana     it's on my to read list, and I read it, oh, yeah, yeah. That's really pretty interesting. I cannot remember everything that was in it offhand right now. I wish I would have written it down, but things like that, it's kind of nice, because you can, if you can tie it all back together, it's kind of cool. Yeah, all right, that's what it was on, dosage,    Jayson Davies     dosage, yeah. And I was it about school based, or was it about more clinic. I    Abby Parana     think it was more clinic based. But again, I think dosage and school based is an area we could all work on as well.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, another topic for another day, right? Oh, so many topics. All right, all right. So then we get into IEP goals. And like Abby said, you know, Facebook is a great place for IEP goals, but so are blogs. There are different bloggers out there, per se, that have actually created IEP gold banks, and you can find some out there. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but it does exist. There have been some therapists that put together free gold banks. And OTs, you're more than welcome to find them and, you know, edit them to your liking and make it work. So definitely, and I guess I should mention, you know, we also do have a podcast about smart eagles. And real quick, I am going to say that is actually episode number three, way back. Episode number three. Oh my gosh. It seems so long ago now. I know    Abby Parana     Back when we were just babies.     Jayson Davies     Baby OT podcast, but yeah, so ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode three, and that is the link to find out about our we did an entire podcast about smart eagles. And you know your your goals need to be specific, measurable, articulate, relevant, and was the last 1t for time, time based and educational.    Abby Parana     Right? And also, a is attainable, attainable. Sorry, not articulate. But, I mean, you can be articulate. You care to be both.     Jayson Davies     Yes, all right. And then, of course, there are professional development courses out there that that do focus on naive goals. So, all right, I'm going to kind of group these last three together. It's good idea professional development. Yeah, we've talked a lot about professional development already. We have evaluations. And networking, sorry, networking, yeah, and we'll do the last one all myself, because that's a whole nother beast. But professional development, evaluations and networking, just about all the social medias that are very interactive, I would say, you know, blogs are good for getting really deep, such as, like, you know, learning a little bit about evaluations. We did a podcast on evaluations, Episode Six. I believe it was. But when it comes to networking, Instagram, LinkedIn, you know, people, especially OTs, we like to be around OTs. I'm sorry, but, oh, it's so true. We love to talk OT. I don't, I don't know why.    Abby Parana     Special kind of weirdo, I think, no, and I mean that in like, the best way.    Jayson Davies     Geek out.     Abby Parana     Yeah, we're just nerdy about it, which is fantastic. It makes me really happy to be an OT weirdo.    Jayson Davies     I mean, you can say that, no, it's, I mean, come on. Like it. It takes a special group of two people to put a podcast together all about school based. OT, that's true. We're pretty weird over here. Abby, Abby, you and I. Man, all right, we enjoyed it. We hope you guys out there. Yeah, we know. We know there's other people out there that enjoy it like we do. Otherwise, you guys wouldn't be listening to this podcast.    Abby Parana     We wouldn't be making any more of them. Don't make them just be for an audience of two Exactly.    Jayson Davies     So yeah, just about anywhere you can really go for those three things. However, the last one that we really wanted to touch on was documentation and billing. And these are, in my opinion, touchy areas. Yes, there are conversations occurring about documentation and billing, on Facebook, a little bit on Reddit. We haven't mentioned this one a OTs community. OT. It used to be called ot connections, I think, and now it's community OT. There's a little bit going on there, especially in the private practice realm, because, you know, the DSM has changed. All the Medi Cal billing has changed, or Medicare billing has changed. The codes are changing in the last few years. But when it comes to school based, you really need to be looking to a OTs guidelines as well as your state guidelines. And a OTA does have guidelines for early intervention and school based therapists. And then, I mean, we live in California, and California has a good set of guidelines for OT and PT in California public schools and but most states actually have some sort of guidelines for OTs, and usually it's paired with PTS as well. You can find we have a, actually a resource on our website at ot  schoolhouse.com I believe it's forward slash guidelines. And you can click on your state, and you'll be able to see the guidelines for your state if they have them. So that's a good resource in order to find out your guidelines. So go check that out. Yes, yeah, and it's free. It's it's really easy to use. It is, is there for you?    Abby Parana     So the next topic I guess we want to cover about being online and using online media is being self aware of online media and what you're doing online, because what goes online stays online. Absolutely, I found this out when I searched my name in Google. We did a little experiment when we were coming up with this part.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, indeed. And. You know what I think if you're if you haven't done it recently, and I do mean recently, like in the last six months or so, yeah, hit pause right now and just Google your name, maybe add the letters ot after it, so you don't get another person with the same name as you. But just see what comes up. Or maybe put the city you live in or something along with your name. Or Google our names if you're afraid of what you're going to find out about your name, Google. Abby piranha, Jayson Davies,    Abby Parana     you'll see I have incredible fashion sense, incredible clearly in my alpaca fur hat that apparently there's a photo of me wearing and I had forgotten about it. Also, I have a Twitter account that I forgot, but there's no Yeah, well, and it led me to dive even further into like my old Facebook pictures from college, and I realized I have some cleaning up to do in that department as well. So I think if you just know that if you posted it and it was your freshman year of college, it's still up somewhere, somewhere, yes, aware, yeah, of what you're posting.    Jayson Davies     The other things that we also want you to be aware of is how social media has affected people, not maybe not you, but it has affected people, and some ways that, that I've, I've heard people express it, you know, is that they they have FOMO because or fear of missing out FOMO, FOMO. And that's because, you know what, maybe they see, and this goes along with, you know, feelings of inadequacy. Maybe they see Abby's post of her doing this awesome activity with her kids where she cut out these haunted houses and drew pictures. You know, that was a recent thing that she put up on Instagram. It was awesome. But, I mean, can you imagine if you saw that and you just, like, felt so, so defeated, you're like, Man, I wish I could do that. That's just too much. I don't have the right groups to do that with whatever. So it can kind of lead to a little bit of in a feeling of inadequacy, not the actual inadequacy itself, but just a feeling. And, you know, that can lead to to other things, you know, anxiety and depression, potentially. And so be aware that, you know people, when they're posting stuff online is typically like the best of the best thing that they've ever done. Like, you know, not everyone is creating the best thing ever every day, and people aren't traveling all the time. I mean, they post a picture of Hawaii, doesn't mean they're in Hawaii 24/7 it's just that one really good photo that they took there.    Abby Parana     Right? Except for the time I lived there.    Jayson Davies     Don't remind us.    Abby Parana     Just kidding, the word gig a lot of the time too. Yeah, yeah, I would agree.    Jayson Davies     And on the opposite end of that, it can also give people superficial confidence. You know, the people that are posting, you know, they like to post their activities every day, and it makes them feel good because they're getting some likes. I mean, I feel good when I get likes. When all you out there, you know, like our Instagram post or our Facebook post, yeah, it feels good. But I also realize, you know, just because I've I've got a few likes doesn't mean that that's the best thing ever. You know, I can go out there and I can do better, I can do more research, and I can continue to get better. And, you know, my, my ability to become a better OT is never completed, right? And, yeah, you know, the last thing that we put on self awareness is that, you know this, this being online and social media, it's a whole new occupation. And if you don't want to call it an occupation, I'm I'm sorry, but I disagree with that it is an occupation. Not only is it a daily occupation, it's like an hourly occupation for most people, 18 to 35 and so this is definitely something that us OTs can and should address and also maintain self awareness of, Oh,    Abby Parana     definitely, definitely. And that goes into being mindful. You know, not everything that's online is valuable, and not everything belongs online. I mean, we already talked about things that don't belong online. I have quite a few examples of that. But also I think that when you're looking at things online, you need to use a critical eye. You need to use your clinical reasoning skills, and you need to recognize, you know, that not everything online is valuable, and you have to vet what you're seeing. Again, goes to Jayson point about, you know, not everybody's on vacation, 24/7 and that whole fear of missing out, but also just that, you know, there's a lot of information that's sold as information that's critical, but it's actually a marketing tactic. You know, I've seen things like, you know, an article written by an OT to promote a certain sensory item, but that item. May not be completely well researched, and while the article is written by an occupational therapist, you may want to actually go do your own a ot search, or your own ProQuest search before you turn around and buy it for one of your students. And you know, I think too, that goes into us as OTs. We need to be responsible and know that we're a research and evidence based profession. And so if we are putting articles out there, information out there, we need to do the research to back up what we're saying and take responsibility, you know, to make sure that our profession stays credited. Yeah,    Jayson Davies     credible, credible. Credible.    Abby Parana     Credited, credible. I was looking for the word credible.    Jayson Davies     Sometimes we're not too articulate here at the OT school house, but we try our best. And, yeah, hey, we put ourselves out there for all Yeah. One thing that stood out about being mindful that I actually looked this up on the W, F, ot principles for guideline or social media guidelines. And the number one guideline that they had was, you know, recognize that the personal and professional roles cannot always be separated, and this is so true for for social media. I mean, I'm gonna use myself as an example. I kind of have, like, three different roles. I mean, I'm a school based OT. I am a husband to my wife, obviously, and have my friends and my family. And then I am also this figure, this quote, unquote, public figure, if you want to call it that, between this podcast and the blog, and they all kind of merge together. And I love that they merged together. But at the same time, you have to be careful. I mean, you can't, you can't let something that you do in your personal life ruin those other aspects. And in OT anywhere in the medical field and the educational field, that's huge. I mean, those background searches, man, like you're not gonna get a job without your employer googling you. I don't think these days, you know, and so you gotta.    Abby Parana     And to that point too, I have a friend like, I had some friend requests from parents who were also teachers in the district as well that I interacted with. So it was kind of like, ooh, parents of the student and a teacher that worked in the district. And also, you know, a friend of mine on social media, you have to be very conscious that you can't separate, I mean, and you and I really can't separate the professional from the personal, because our faces are a part of the podcast. They're a part of OT school house, and there's a level of trust that's built with that when you are willing to put your face to your you know your brand or your background or your profession, but with that goes a certain level of vulnerability and responsibility to make sure you're kind of putting your best face forward on social media as often as you can. And so I have my privacy settings set to where I can vet things before they get posted.     Jayson Davies     That is very smart. And I would everybody that, yeah. And so, you know, you know, to close this out real quick, to close out what we're talking about, you know, you got to keep in mind, you know, what is on your social media page, whether it's words, pictures, video or even audio. What are you putting as your likes and your dislikes on on your Facebook page? You know, is it? Is it stuff that maybe you liked back in high school, but it's now something that could be demeaning to someone you know you're back in your quote, unquote stupid days and or your whatever days back and then, and you know it needs to be updated. Is your social media profile accessible? And that's what Abby was just talking about. You know, are you closing down your your profile to no one can find you, or are you using it as a tool to help you grow professionally and keeping it open, and depending on what you're doing, whether it's open or closed, you know, are you posting appropriately? And like Abby was saying, you know, what comes up when you Google, when you google your name, that's a huge thing, and you know, you can't control that completely, but there are things that you can take down if you find them. And the other thing that you can do is also dictate what comes up by creating your own professional website, or your own personal website, buying Jayson davies.com or Abby piranha.com and it doesn't cost a whole lot to have a professor like a personal website like that, and then you can kind of dictate what is found when you're when you're a future employer. Google's your name, and you can have on there basically, like a resume, plus a little bit more, you know, maybe a little bit about your family, as well as your resume, or something like that. Whatever you want on there you can have on there so.    Abby Parana     Too, I think there's what was it? Seth Godin talks a lot about your that's one of the best parts of. Out online right now is that people can individualize themselves and put their own personal website out there as their own personal brand, like something like that.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, you have to be. I mean, everyone kind of has to have take control of their online presence.    Abby Parana     Definitely, definitely, and that's something we can help our clients do as well, and it's important to keep that in mind, because we do work with vulnerable populations. If you think about it, you know, working in schools, we are inherently working with children who have disabilities, and we are inherently working with them and their families. So we're privy to information, and we know things about them that other people do not. And so when we are, you know, online or we're using pictures of treatment ideas to help promote not just our profession, but also communicate with other OTs, and we're saying, Oh, this worked really well. We need to be very aware that we're not using those vulnerable populations in a way that's not going to serve them. So I would say, you know, don't post pictures of your kids online with that you're working with. I mean, that's my personal opinion about it, but also noticing too, like if you're using a child that is vulnerable to your advantage in your own personal social media, that's also something that you have to ethically kind of question yourself on. You know, it's okay to think of the activity or say like, oh, this worked really well for a student who had X, Y or Z, but if you are specifically utilizing pictures of a specific student to kind of promote your brand or something like that. I wouldn't recommend doing that.    Jayson Davies     We have a list here on the slide show that kind of just points to some of the websites, the Facebook groups, the podcasts and the different Instagram hashtags that you can use. We mentioned several of them, like the OT for life podcast, we haven't mentioned the milestones podcast, the sensory project show, pocket ot.com the anonymous ot.com as well as our blog and then several Facebook groups. I'm not I guess I might as well. This is a podcast. Why not? School Based occupational and physical therapist Facebook group. So if you want to find that, just click on the Search port the search bar within the Facebook app or page and just type that in there, as well as the California or even USA school based occupational therapist looking for change. That's a group of OTs that's kind of growing so, yeah, definitely keep these all in mind. I mean, yeah, this is the internet. Is here to stay, obviously, social media. I mean, I don't know if it's always going to be the way that it is right now, but I don't see it going anywhere. It might adapt. It might get better, but it's definitely still going to be around. And, yeah, OTs, I mean, we need to figure out how to use online and social media to our benefit, not only for us, but also for the populations that we work with, because, like we said way at the beginning of this, of this podcast, you know, everyone's using the internet, and it absolutely is an occupation, whether it's leisure, whether it's play, whether it's social interaction, it is definitely a meaningful activity.    Abby Parana     Oh, definitely, for sure.    Jayson Davies     All right, well, you have anything left? Abby, I think that about wraps it up for today.    Abby Parana     No, I mean, I think we've covered everything that you and I know about.    Jayson Davies     If not, we'll have a part two, if not    Abby Parana     of a part two, and I'm sure in like a year, there'll be 30 more things to discuss as far as this topic goes, because it's such a new area, it's just going to be constantly evolving and changing. And as ot we got to keep our finger on the pulse of that, yes, definitely.    Jayson Davies     So thank you everyone for listening this I know wasn't the most like ot podcast, like it's not something all about treatments, and it's not all about the fun stuff, but it absolutely is, in our opinion, a necessary piece of information that OTs should be aware about. And so that's why we wanted to bring it here for you all. And so we hope you enjoyed it. We hope you learned a little bit, and you can actually earn some professional development for this podcast that we did. And you will be able to find that at ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash, PD, as in professional development, or on the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 17, so we hope to see you over there and a otherwise we will see you on the next podcast.     Abby Parana     Thanks for stopping by.     Jayson Davies     Take care everyone. Bye, bye.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OTschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed. Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 16 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Join us as Abby has a conversation with fellow pediatric blogger, The Anonymous OT (whose name will be revealed) from TheAnonymousOT.com. An experienced pediatric OT, The Anonymous OT has practiced in school-based settings as well as in a clinic and in-home health settings. Together, Abby and our guest discuss the similarities and differences between school-based and clinic occupational therapy evaluations and services. A new place to review and search for continuing education courses is also reviewed. Check out the episode below! Have a listen on Apple Podcasts now! Links to Show References: TheAnonymousOT We recently named The Anonymous OT as one of our favorite blogs and now we're fortunate enough to have her join us on the podcast. Her post "In Defense of School Therapists" recently went viral in the OT social media world. Be sure to check out her blog at TheAnonymousOT.com AOTA Professional Guidelines for School-Based OT Briefly discussed in the episode, AOTA members can access the "Guidelines for Occupational Therapy Services in Early Intervention and Schools" Every school-based OT should have a general understanding of this document as well as your state guidelines which you can find here. CECourseReview.com Also Announced on this podcast was a new website to review and search for Continuing Education Courses. CEcourseReview.com is a place where you can look up courses before you take them and then review them after you have taken them. It may be small now, but you know this is going to be a valuable resource as it continues to grow. If you have taken any of our podcast professional development courses, you can review them on CEcoursereview.com here! Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hey everyone, welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. My name is Jayson Davies. I'm one of your hosts for the podcast here. Abby piranha is another host, and she will be with us shortly to do an interview with the anonymous ot many of you have probably heard of her. One of her recent blog posts about school based OTs actually went viral recently, kind of about how school based OTs are undervalued and under appreciated, and so we'll get into that interview in just a minute. Today's interview and podcast episode is not a continuing education opportunity for the podcast today. However, just want to remind you all that if you're interested in earning web based professional development, we have a promo code if you use ot school house all one word at medbridge  education.com you'll actually earn $175 off your initial subscription. So be sure to check that out. If you enjoy watching videos to earn professional development, they have a wide assortment of different videos over there, and they actually allow you to watch the first chapter of any video completely for free, even before you sign up. So that's really kind of cool. And so you can watch the video, or maybe the first chapter of a few different videos, to find out which one you really want to watch, or if there's multiple ones that you want to watch. And from there, you can use our promo code, ot schoolhouse, all one word, to get $175 off your subscription. We are an affiliate for them, so we do earn a small commission. However, we do recommend them because they have a ton of courses for OTs and quite a bit of content that's related to school based. So other than that, we just want to remind you all that we'll be at ot the Occupational Therapy Association of California conference and later this month, october 25 I believe it is. We're actually going to be presenting session number 75 on Saturday afternoon, so we'd love to have you there say hi and get to know you a little bit better if you're going to be there. So with all that, I'm going to let Abby take over. She has an introduction and get into her interview with the anonymous OT.    Abby Parana     Hi and welcome to the OT school house podcast today, on the podcast, I have the anonymous OT. She is a pediatric occupational therapist with extensive experience working in home health, community, school and clinic based settings. She began her blog the anonymous ot as a way to provide candid insight and an open forum for both parents and professionals to freely discuss their experiences related to the world of pediatric occupational therapy, and now for the big reveal. Welcome Jessica to OT school, OTs Podcast. I'm super excited to talk to you today.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Well, hello, yeah, hi. I'm a real person. My name is Jessica.    Abby Parana     Now that you've been unveiled, I know    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     it's very exciting. I know everyone's been waiting on pins and needles, but I am a real person. It's    Abby Parana     true. I found your Well, I found your blog a while ago. I have to be honest, and I have always loved reading your blog posts, I found them very valuable, particularly when I first started as a newer therapist working with kids. So I really liked reading them. So thank you.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Oh gosh, thank you. Thank you for reading. It's kind of crazy when you start something and you just kind of put something out in the world, and you kind of wait to hear back, and you kind of wonder how people are receiving it. So I guess five years later, it's definitely kind of caught traction, and I've just really enjoyed kind of the connections that I've made, which sounds weird when you start something called the anonymous OT, that you can actually make great connections and really just be inspired by the OTs that I've met in this process.    Abby Parana     Isn't that true? I think with online media, you get that opportunity to kind of connect with other occupational therapists that are trying to do the same thing, promote our profession, promote our ideas, and just connect with each other so that we can make ourselves better as therapists.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     I completely agree, yes.    Abby Parana     So let's get into your background. What what are you doing currently, and kind of what led you up to doing what you're practicing now as a therapist.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah. So I've been a mostly a clinic base. I would say the majority of my career has been in the clinic. I've definitely done a lot of the other things, but I always come back to clinic. That's kind of, I think, where my bread and butter is. But I was, I was never gonna be a pediatric OT. I went to OT school to be a hand therapist, and, you know, I was gonna, like, make cool splints. And, you know, and it just so happened. I had one of the best field work educators I could have ever asked for in one of my first level ones, you know, like, it was like, week two of school, and I was like, oh, man, pediatrics. I kind of like it. And, you know, I just kind of, I think that's why I tell a lot of my students, even when they come in to do a pediatrics rotation and then they're like, I'm never gonna do pediatrics. I'm like, no, never say, Never, right, you never know what will happen.    Abby Parana     Oh, that's hilarious, because I was the same way when I was in school. I was like, There's no way I'm doing pediatrics. Like, I'm just not gonna do it. I'm not working with kids. I'm not it was too intimidating for me. I got, like, a little nervous about dealing with the whole just kids, parents. I was really anxious about that, and I thought, Oh no, I'm going to do geriatrics, or I'm going to do neuro rehab or those types of things. But school based, I love the kids, like it just turned out that way. So I can really in that experience in that way.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     It's kind of crazy. Sometimes it just you fall into what you do, and you know, been doing it for many years now, and I, you know, it's an awesome experience. And even within pediatrics, there's so much you can do, whether it is school or clinic or home health or, you know, early intervention. So it's kind of great, because I've even explored within that kind of genre, or, you know, area of Pediatrics. But, you know, I think it's, it's clinic has always been my home, so I think that's where I come    Abby Parana     back to. So how long have you been practicing in pediatric therapy?     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     About 10 years now. 10 years, yeah, yeah.    Abby Parana     And, and it's not you've done school based and clinic based as well.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah, yes, I dabble. I do a little bit of school, which is kind of, I just got back into part of my week is a contract in a school system, which prompted me to write a little bit about the school system recently, because you kind of forget about it when you're in the clinic. And I just kind of got back into the groove of school starting, and I'm like, oh, school therapist, like, you're amazing. And, you know, I think we take it for granted what other people are sometimes doing in other settings. So just recently, I kind of just had that right back in my face of like, oh yeah, we're all doing something a little bit different here,    Abby Parana     right? Which is actually how I ended up reaching out to you. I came across on my personal Facebook feed the article that you wrote in defense of school based OTs, which actually was kind of hit me at a time in my own moment as a school based therapist, where I had kind of a contentious IEP maybe not contentious isn't the right word, but it was one of these IEPs where I was very anxious going in, where I was new to the student, and I had too much background information to not be nervous about it.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Sometimes there's too much background, right? Too much.     Abby Parana     And I thought, Oh, if I could just just not know any of this, so that I could just give my you know that I wouldn't, my nerves wouldn't be tainted by this. But when I read it, I thought, Oh, thank you for writing that. Because I just really thought to myself, Oh, my gosh, this gets it. It's a different school based, OT and clinic based are very different. And so what, what kind of led you to write that article? I guess I just what, what were you thinking when you decided that you would write it? Because anonymous, ot seems like a very you're doing that so you can share your opinions.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah, and it's, it's kind of the whole reason that I started it was, you know, I think pediatric OTs, we get kind of categorized in the like, the bubbly, awesome, fun rainbows and butterflies, which is not a bad thing to be associated at, you know, like, there are definitely worse things. But I think it makes talking about the hard stuff even harder, because people associate with us. I hear that all the time. Oh, you work with kids, how cute. And I'm like, Yeah, I got punched in the face yesterday too. But, like, there's, there's different things that people don't know. And I don't know that we always talk about it. We tend to talk about it, you know, in the break room or, you know, or in the waiting room waiting for a parent, you know, we're just having a rough day, and sometimes I think we feel guilty about it, almost like, Oh, we're not allowed to, you know, address how hard this can be. Sometimes, yes and, and, and that's was the, really, the whole point of the blog to begin with, and to kind of acknowledge that some of these things are hard to talk about, but, but everyone's kind of experiencing them. So when I went into this school not too long ago, and I'm like, carrying all this stuff on my shoulder, and there's nowhere for me to go, and I'm like, ooh, and I'm meeting these new kids for the first time, and I'm like, Okay, I don't know how they're gonna react. I'm pulling them from their school, you know, and I don't have anywhere to take them, and I, you know, it's just, and. It's so out of my bubble where if the kid walked into the clinic, you know, I was gonna have it set up perfectly, and it was gonna be, you know, the lighting was gonna be great. And I just had so much less control in that moment. And I was just like, yeah, school therapists do this all the time. And I just kind of felt like we needed to acknowledge that a little bit, that what what you guys do, is hard to do all the time, and I also think that it gets overlooked because people don't have a face a lot of times to put to your name. You know, sometimes you might not see you in an IEP meeting, or they might not know you as well as they know a clinic therapist. And I guess just in that moment when I'm like, in that stress of the school, I'm like, man, like, they really need a little more recognition. So that's kind of where the post came from. It was that moment of like, wow. Like, I wish I could just give you all a hug and say thank you for what you do.    Abby Parana     Thanks. And I think it, you know, I liked as well, that it really touches on that there is a difference really between what an OT does in a medical model or a clinic model versus what a school based ot does. We're kind of beholden to do to two to two different sets of circumstances and kind of rationale behind why we're providing therapy services to begin with. And that really, I mean, and I like that it was kind of like we can't compare the two in a us versus them way that we really need to support each other.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yes, which I, I, sometimes, I, and I've been in those situations where it feels like an us versus them, and I'm like me too. Why? Like, No, we should be on the same team. And I think we get defensive. And I think that as clinicians, as as OTs, we are caregivers, we are problem solvers, and I think a lot of the times we want to be the one to solve all the problems. So sometimes it's hard to, like, no, no, I got this. I got this. No, I'll tell them what to do. And it becomes almost this little like back and forth thing, when really it should be a collaboration. Because, gosh, the school therapist knows the kid in a setting that I never see them in, and I should, like, just take that as, like, awesome information. Like, please tell me everything you see at school, what works, what doesn't work. How can I help? And when I've had those experiences, the child makes so much more progress because we're a team. We're not working against each other    Abby Parana     and vice versa. I think you know, clinicians in a clinic, you guys have access to quite a few tools that we at school do not, you know, I come in with my little wheelie bag full of tricks, and I try to carry as many things as I can in my hands to provide a similar situation to a clinic I'm actually quite lucky to have. I have, like, almost a motor room at one of my schools where we have a swing and we have tunnels and we have, like, just a lot of space. We have a whole classroom to ourselves that is kind of awesome. Yeah, developed for the program that I'm in. So we get an opportunity to kind of give the kids better I want to say just a like, a better experience, as far as getting involved with their gross motor and their sensory motor and all of those components. So I've been lucky, but I've also been the OT that has said, like, where's a room I can see this kid in? Or do, is there an area? And they kind of direct me to a closet that isn't being utilized at the moment, and I have to try and figure out how to turn the hallway into treatment and try to turn these different environments into treatment so, but I know clinic based, so if you're picking up a child in a clinic for services, what kind of does your assessment look like, and what do you, I mean, what is the model that you're using?    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     I mean, I, and this is what I realized from being in the in the school, is, you know, I kind of have the freedom to do what I want, you know, and to an extent, obviously, within the parameters of OT, but there's not necessarily that like that tie directly to the educational program, you know what I mean? So I can do, oh, gosh, I can do, you know, probably a lot of the things that you look at, but I have kind of a lot more wiggle room as far as, Oh, mom says she wants to work on this. Yeah, yeah. We'll throw that in there. I feel like the sensory integration piece, I tend to have a lot more freedom to expand on that, for sure. Yeah, I did. I actually just had a parent in the school system that was like, well, we want to transfer our services into the school because I don't have enough time to take him to the clinic, and he's doing sensory integration therapy in the clinic. Can't you just do that at school? And I'm like, that's not really how it works. No, we're very different models. It's different things. So I kind of had to explain that to her, that it seems more convenient, sure, but you're not getting it's not the same service.    Abby Parana     Right? And it and it just isn't, because we can't do we can provide strategies for children experiencing sensory difficulties if they are impact, if they are impacting their performance in the classroom. It's not that we're trying to fix it from a sensory integration model, like we're not trying to fix the actual deficit area. In those instances we because we don't have the tools.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Exactly, exactly. And sometimes you might have to take more of an adaptive strategy in the classroom, and you know, as whereas sometimes we can use more of that full blown sensory integration theory, right? And so it's, and I think that's kind of the hard part for some parents to understand, is that it is different.    Abby Parana     Yes, definitely.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     But then that is also hard sometimes, when then you get the whole like, well, then tell them to do this. So, you know, they might see us working on a skill in the clinic, and they're like, well, can't you tell his school ot to work on that? Well, no, because they're working on something else, and, you know, they kind of have rules that they have to follow. So I kind of am bummed that there's a lot of times that it like, looks like you guys can't do something to a parent, when really, that's just the model that you guys are working in, right? So I think, I think it's my duty as a clinic therapist to help the parent understand that and to help educate them on what you guys are doing, so that they can really appreciate the services that they are getting in the clinic or in the school that they don't realize that they're getting. If that makes sense.    Abby Parana     No, that makes total sense, because also as a school, OT, I don't want to duplicate anything that you're doing in the clinic, but also the purpose of a child being at school is to be at school and be educated. And so as an OT, we support that because, or as an OT in the school setting, we are supporting that specifically because that is the purpose that that child needs to be at school, is to be educated at school, not to receive occupational therapy, whereas, if they're going to a clinic, they're specifically going there to receive occupational therapy. Perfect, that's    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     perfect. Yes, yes, yes. Pretty accurate.    Abby Parana     Like, because I that to me, I'm because I get frustrated too, because I've also had where, oh, they can just get ot from you, and not at the clinic, but I know that they need kind of something a little bit more than what I can give them in a school setting, and so I encourage them to go get that outside    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     of school. Yeah, and that's and that, I think that all comes from us just kind of working together and seeing each other as as equals. And I think it's hard too, because as a clinic therapist, all of a sudden you're kind of thrown in and you know mom, you know dad, you know grandma, you know the sibling, and you kind of are thrown into this world where, when things don't go right at school, you know, they just hear the teachers report that, Oh, this isn't going well, and then they look to you and you're like, but I also trust your school therapist. I know that they've got this so it's hard because you might have this connection, and parents tend to turn to you, and sometimes that frustration gets misplaced on who you know, what they think someone should be doing at school. And I think as clinic therapists, we really need to stand up for our colleagues and say, like, listen, I know they are working on everything that they can and just and being as supportive as we can to help minimize that kind of separation that we might feel right and    Abby Parana     just Yeah, exactly. Like, if we communicate better between the OTs, you know, in the clinic and at school, as well as just kind of being self aware. I liked how in the article you talk about that, about being kind of more a little bit self aware of your own like, why you might say, like, Oh no, that therapist isn't doing the right thing. Because I've been, I've I've actually done that as well, and I've read it, I've read an assessment, and I just thought I knew more. But I mean, I it was a while ago, because I've also, I'm pretty sure other OTs have read my assessments and thought the same thing. But so that's why I like that idea of just being like, oh, it's, it's being self aware that, okay, this is a snapshot for me and a snapshot for them. Exactly    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     your thoughts. Yeah, it's so easy to be like, I'm not the one being called out right now. Awesome. Okay, yeah, sure, yes. Oh. And what are they doing over there? I don't even know, and it's so like, I did that a lot as an insecure therapist, when you're first starting, because you're like, oh, they like me. Oh, I'm doing a good job, because they're not mad at me. So therefore I'm gonna just roll with this feeling, because this feels good. But then you also have to realize that that could easily flip flop the other way. And I think it's just realizing that it's not about you, you know, it's, it's, it's just the situation and the circumstance. So I'm sure we're all guilty of that, and I know we've all probably read reports, although, haven't you read or, like, written a report, and you're like, oh my gosh, I hope no one judges me when they read this report. Yeah, like, you know,    Abby Parana     three years later, or I, the kid comes up for a triennial assessment, and I look at it again, and I was like, oh, gosh, I tried my best. Like, I always put forth a huge amount of effort into these assessments. You do too. I'm sure you really try to look at every single part that could be but sometimes, over time, I think with, particularly with occupational therapy, the more you practice, the more you see things, and the more you understand the cause, like you just get better at your observation skills. You get better at assessing kids. You just get better at it. And and I in three years, that's a long time to get better at these things. And so some reports that I even wrote, when I reread it and I read my recommendations, and then I realized that over those years, we've implemented them. And oh gosh, I'm really glad I got a chance to reassess this kid, because I need to revamp all of what I recommended before. And I think recognizing that, yes, OTs are humans, yeah, we should all    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     be forced to read our evaluations from like, three to five years ago and just be like, I can never judge anyone. Like we all grow and come from a different place, like,    Abby Parana     it's okay, it's okay. We're all learning together. And I think that's the really cool part about what you're doing with Anonymous OT and you know what we're trying to promote with, like our own podcast too, just that conversation, realizing that we can really learn from each other. And that's really what I took out of the article. I loved that part of it, that don't pin each other against each other, we can really learn from everybody, as OTs in a collective group,    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     yes, yes. I love that. Thank you. I was that was like what I was hoping that we could kind of like a good, like a feel good, we should work together, kind of kind of feeling    Abby Parana     that was totally it, yes, awesome. I also, as I because I loved your blog. You wrote this article that I found that was, Is it ethical? And I just thought that that was a really cool article, just in the sense of Yes, OTs were forced to make difficult decisions. Just what are your thoughts on that?    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah. I mean, think about it. I actually, I thought it was interesting. You know, we talk about what we're willing to do as therapists, because we're usually bending over backwards. Like, think about the fact that you get, you get shown a hallway or, like, a stairwell, and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna treat here, because that's what's available, right? And someone made a really interesting comment on the blog. They were like, okay, but wait a second, in what other profession is that okay to treat under a stairwell, like, Should we be standing up for ourselves more? I was like, Oh, well, that's kind of a good point too. Like, I think we're all very, I don't mean to generalize all of us, but I feel like a lot of us in our profession are very, you know, we're problem solvers. We want people to feel good. We're caregivers, and so when we're given a hallway or a closet, we're like, okay, I'll make it work. And and that happens a lot in other ethical situations too. I mean, you're right. The first the first one I put in there, was like, you know, when your clinic won't even buy the real assessments? And you're like, wait a second, this is not good. I mean, there's so many situations, but you know, you're put in these kind of tough spots where your choice is like, what can I do that's ethical, but also still helps people, right? I think, I think that's what we're striving to do every single day. Like, how can I be the most effective as a therapist? And I think sometimes that takes us to the the ends of what our scope of practice is. I think it takes us to the ends of our own, sometimes our own mental health of you know, definitely to help someone else. We sacrifice a lot in that, which I think is important to remember too, that wait, maybe we should kind of stand up for some of these things and make our thoughts known so that we can be even more effective in our treatments. No,    Abby Parana     you're absolutely right, and that's kind of what I got after reading that. I was thinking to myself, Oh, gosh, yes, we need to be a little bit more assertive in a lot of ways, or I could stand to be a little. Bit more assertive in a lot of ways.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     I think assertive is a great word for it, yeah. Like, yes, assertive, yeah.    Abby Parana     So when you're stuck, like, No, my job is important well, and I know that it is, because when I go to, like, exit a child from services, then it becomes really important. But I need.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     y'all need me, yes, yes.    Abby Parana     But when I go to do the actual work of what I need to do, and all I can find is a hallway or a closet, I need to be a little bit more like, hey, we said this kid needs this. I need to provide it in a in a real way, in a real sense.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Right? And but then there's also that part of you that's like, because I think OTs are very creative too, are I can make this work, this stairwell, okay, we got some proprioception. Like, you know, you're doing whatever.    Abby Parana     Oh, absolutely, I mean, and sometimes it works out. Sometimes you're just like, You know what? This actually works out fine. I've, I could train here every day.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah, you're using the natural environment, right? Like.    Abby Parana     Depth perception, opportunity going up and down stairs. Like, I don't know, you're    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     made for this. We are made to spin a situation in, like, the most positive way.    Abby Parana     Right? So get something functional out of it exactly, exactly. So.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     I mean, I think we're also really good at it, so that sometimes makes it easier for us to be vulnerable, because we try to make the best out of the situation.    Abby Parana     Yes. Oh, definitely. So, if you had so when you're trying, I guess maybe not trying, but when you're recommending discontinuing services in a clinic your help, I guess you have a certain standard, or I'm sure you have a certain plateau, or if a child's met their goals or you can't progress any further. How does that work? Because I found in schools, it's extremely difficult at times to justify exiting a child. Although even if I've done an assessment and I feel they've plateaued, I almost feel like the plateau that's the most difficult time.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah, I think that that's what I always think about. Well, when it's almost like, when you work with a child, I mean, if you were working in another setting and someone had an injury, your goal is to get them back to where they were. You have a baseline of, like, even if you can't get there, you have a baseline of what you want to get to with children. The sky's the limit. Every kid, you know, when it when a child is born like, you know, the parents expectation is infinite, you know. And so it's kind of, it's so hard when you see that plateau to say, hey guys, I think this is where we are right now. And I think that's heartbreaking, and that's really hard, and I think that's sometimes why people end up pushing kids probably past when they should be done with therapy, because it's so hard, you almost feel like you're the bad guy. Like, Oh, you're the one that's gonna say that my child can't make more progress. Like, how dare you and you're like, but I'm also bound by the ethics of my practice and that, you know, right? It's no longer medically necessary. So you kind of have this internal fight of, again, it comes back to the ethical thing, and us trying to be, you know, do the right thing, but also support these families that we're very much a part of. So I think the plateau is the hardest. I think because you I always try to get as much hard evidence as I can, you know, to say, hey, look, here's our functional goals. Here's where we were last. Progress note, the progress note before that. And here we are today. And I can't, you know we need to show progress in order to continue services. And I usually also spin it as in the clinic. I'm like, You know what? Let's take a break. Let's have a moment of not having ot in your life and see what happens. And I will tell you that's usually the best scenario, because often when they get that break and they see everything's gonna be okay. I don't necessarily hear from them again and but it was that option of, like, you can come back if you need to. We'll just get another prescription, We'll reevaluate. But it's kind of giving yourself a little bit of separation, which I know is probably harder in the school. I don't know how,    Abby Parana     yeah, it can be, because typically we provide services for a very long time in school. It seems like there's not this, because I think your frequency and duration is probably    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     greater for a while. Yes, yeah, oh, like that. Most of the times I'm seeing a kid one time a week for like an hour, yes,    Abby Parana     yeah. And most of the time we're doing at the most, it's usually one time a week for 30 minutes. And then we're trying to implement something that can be carried out by other people in the classroom, or we're trying to implement things so ours is kind of more dependent on access to curriculum and and. What they're doing in the classroom. And we're kind of coaching people to do Yes, something daily,    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     yeah, and y'all do that in like, 15 or 30 minute increments a week, which, let me tell you, as a as a clinic therapist coming into the school, I'm like, oh, it's been 30 minutes. Oh, wait, like it's it goes by so fast,    Abby Parana     super fast. And there's a lot of behind the scenes, things that don't get counted into those 30 minutes. I almost feel like the 30 minutes are just the time with the kid, but actually there's, oh, I've printed out all these visuals I've made, you know, these, you know, sensory diet cards, or, like, talk to this teacher, and then I've emailed this person and called this person and observed them in here and there, and those don't really get counted in the 30 minutes sometimes.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, this is just why I need to sing your praises, because you guys get stuck on and say more. But I think that that, I mean, I just feel like that gets under recognized, because, again, it's just something that people can't see. When a parent can watch me in a session and they see me sweating and picking stuff up and doing this and that, like they can kind of put a value to it, right? I think it's harder to put a value to something you don't see day in and day out. So that's again, that just comes back to, like, the whole reason for for for writing that, because they just think, I would love to put value to something that people don't necessarily see,    Abby Parana     Right? And I think to the clinic setting, when you're doing all these things, it's much more active the chat, it's it's kind of a whole different approach, in a way. So in school, you're not going to see a lot of OTs doing the same types of treatments, because we just that's not the goal for a lot of our treatments, or exactly, really, sometimes it's not even treatment. It's more collaborating with staff to make sure that the kids learning.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Oh, totally Yes. I agree. Yeah.    Abby Parana     So, so what do you think about working with children as a therapist? I recently was thinking to myself that I feel like as OTs, we end up being vulnerable, but that also requires us to be brave, and that kind of made me when I'm thinking about exiting kids, those difficult conversations you have to put your professional self out there, and a lot of times it's not received perfectly. So how do you handle that kind of situation?    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     I mean, it's hard. I mean, I think we keep coming back to this idea that like we're human, like we're human, and we have feelings, and, you know, it's hard to maintain a perfect that that kind of almost barrier of professionalism, when people kind of judge you, and we talk about this in school, you know, therapeutic use of self, who you are, is a part of who you are as a therapist. So I think that's really hard when you put yourself out there, and then you get that sort of feedback that's not so positive and right? I've had to let that go again. I think that comes with with age, I don't know, experience time that yeah, that you're you're not gonna please everyone and and that's okay, you know, as long as you follow what you believe is right, and you follow, you know, right? Our profile, you know, our profession has guidelines and things like that that we have to follow. And I think having that in your back end, and also, like some good co workers, that'll, you know, make you feel better.    Abby Parana     Very true, yes. And I think too, remembering right exactly, we have professional guidelines. We have things that, and I've kind of tried to start defaulting to that more often, like these are the guidelines for ot in schools. I have to follow these. And if that's the guideline, that's the guideline, I wish we had some sort of standardized test score, something that could be, like, very definitive. Our guidelines can be a little gray, but that's the beauty and the burden of being an occupational therapist. I think    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     not. I mean, I agree with that so much, like, it's like, it's such an art and a science that it just, it's sometimes it's so hard because you're like, Man, I wish there was a like, a little bit more kind of cut and dry. That would make this a lot easier on me, because then again, you're also wrapped up, and you feel the emotions of the parents and the child, and you're like, Oh, I just want to make it work. And you have to just kind of be the bad guys, like, what it feels like the bad guy sometimes and and that's hard, but also necessary sometimes, and sometimes you're the one that kind of provides that perspective that other people didn't see, or acknowledging that we're at a certain point. So I mean, but the nice thing is that we're coming at it from a very holistic way. You know, we're looking. At the child. We're doing our best to to provide these recommendations with the whole child in mind, right? And I know, and I just feel like sometimes those, especially in an IEP meeting, I feel like there's just all this tension kind of before you even sit down. Because I'll talk to a parent, and they'll be like, I'm going for the IEP meeting tomorrow. And I'm like, okay, they're like, What should I say? And I'm like, what, you know, it's fine, like, it'll be great. Just talk to people like, I try to, like, make it not so intense, because there is just, like, this intensity about it that seems very like, almost unnecessary, but it feels like the parents are gearing up for battle. Everyone there is there to support you. And again, I think that's hard, because I've never met an OT that, like, wants to take services away that are like, I'm gonna take your ot away. No, like we we're there to help you. So when we do say now is, is time. I mean, for the most part, we really mean that like that really means that our hands are tied. We've done what we can do, and sometimes that end result isn't what people want to see, but it's the result of us doing what we can,    Abby Parana     right? And, oh, absolutely, it's just kind of, I almost think, like releasing my idea of how I think other people should react to what I'm saying.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     That's a very sense, yeah, no, that's perfect, yeah, like    Abby Parana     some, I mean, just to sum it up, it's like, Okay, I'm gonna have to, I have to give you this opinion, because you have ot services, and this is based on my assessment and based on what my findings are and the progress and the years and all of that. I have to give you this recommendation, and it's to, you know, exit services, the child can gain more educational benefit just in the classroom, as they are doing, and that can be a difficult thing to say. It's not that I'm giving up. I just feel that they are not getting benefit from my services, but they'll get more benefit in the classroom, yeah, that kind of thing, yeah,    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     no, totally I agree. And, and kind of the same thing in the clinic. It's like, I want to be the one that makes all the difference, and I want to find all the pro the solutions to all the problems, but however, you don't really need me right now, like, you're okay without me, and it's almost exiting yourself too. Of like, hey, they're gonna be fine. Yeah, I don't know if that's more in the clinic, too. Of like, they don't need me. Like, there's like, you gotta kind of let that go. Like, Fly, little bird, you'll be fine. Like, yes, I think we get caught up in that too. And sometimes it's hard to realize, Oh no, they they don't need me. So almost in the clinic, I feel like you get wrapped up a little bit in that too, of like, okay, no, no, no. You can let them go, yes.    Abby Parana     And I worry about those kids too all the time, the ones that I'm not seeing anymore, I still just kind of want to check on them. Or I think I'll rack my brain. What did I miss? Was there something I missed? Like I would replay my assessment. I'll replay the past goals. I'll think and think and think, Oh, I could have done this for their handwriting. You know, even though I know that it probably wouldn't have made a huge difference, I still am like, Oh, I could have tried blue highlight paper and spread the yellow like I don't,    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     yeah, but again, you're also talking about the hard part about OT is that there's not necessarily a cut and dry path that you take. It's not like, oh, handwriting problem. We're gonna do this, then this, then this. Like, Sure, there's evidence and there's best practice standards, but there's also this acceptance that, like, what works for one kid might not work for another, and I think that's what makes our profession messy, is that there's not an X Y Z of what you have to do, right, which can be frustrating, too. Like, oh, if there was only the x y z, I would do that, and they would be great. And we don't, we don't get to do that. We don't get to do that, yeah.    Abby Parana     So do you have any, I guess do you have any stories or any children that you worked with that you can think that you were like, Oh, this was just the best. Like, it's the story you would go to if you're having a rough day anything like, I sometimes I'll think back on my week and I'm like, I'm really grateful for that treatment session, because I had a blast, and that kid was awesome that day. Do you have anything like that that you try to do to just keep yourself fresh?    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     I think that, yeah, you got to think I wrote about that once too, like, the little wins, we need, the little wins. And sometimes it's as much as, like, the kid put their shoes on today, like, yes, yes, that is my win. It made a difference. Yeah, I actually, it's funny you say that because I was actually just like crying the other day because I had this really tough family, and they didn't really believe it. This is also hard because people, like, think that you're like, talking about this crazy stuff when you start talking about sensory like, Who are you crazy? Easy lady, and what are you talking about, right? And I was trying to describe this child sensory issues, and they're like, yeah, yeah, you just want us to pay for services. And I'm like, No, I you know, here's what I found, like, take with it, what you will. And they actually ended up doing OT and they were so skeptical, and I actually just discharged them, and I got this long email from the parent that was like, we don't we didn't realize how bad things were and how far we've come. And we, we just thank you for looking at our child differently. And they sent like, this picture of him, like, going off to kindergarten. And I was just, oh, it's just falling I was like, sometimes it works. You know.    Abby Parana     Exactly, exactly that was.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Actually, I'm gonna call that a big win, because that was, like someone that was making me feel like, oh, they don't even believe that I, like, am a legitimate practitioner. You know, when you start talking about sensors, sometimes you just lose people. And to go from that to this, oh my gosh, this, like, incredibly thoughtful Thank you. Letter was just like, well, I'm good for like, the next six months. Like, I'm good, I'm ready. Let's go.    Abby Parana     Right? It just keeps you going. And I think almost like, as OTs, we just need to focus on those little wins, like you said. Just focus on those little stories, the ones that you're like, oh, like, I, I recently had a student transition out of OT without an issue, when before it was dropping and crying, it's just running around the room trying to hide under things. And when we got him to just, okay, this is your drawer. It's time to go. And he went and put on his shoes, and he had his little thing, and he laughed. And I just remember thinking like, yes, yes, the square is gonna go swimmingly. That only was four sessions of tantrums, and now we're on the road to success. Like it was just those little moments where you're like, oh, transition without dropping to the ground and screaming. Like, this is fantastic. Like, I'm super excited about it.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     It's like, the moments where you feel like I'm actually making a difference. Because sometimes we get lost in that, we forget that. Or when I'm feeling most burnout is when I'm like, am I even, like, making a difference? Like, is this kid gonna be fine if they never see me again? And you like, kind of play that in your head, yeah. And when you have a moment where you're like, oh, oh, that's because of what we did, like, that's that's huge, and that can keep you going and keep you fresh. And you know it, we need those little moments. And you also have to look for them, because it's easy to kind of miss them. When you have those hard days.     Abby Parana     Oh, for sure, it can be really hard to miss though, or really hard to recognize them when you've had a hard day, or even when you're in a meeting and you just start thinking like, Ah, did I write the like, is this the right thing? And you just have to remember that yes, most likely one, you're not going to do any harm, I'm pretty sure, by playing with a child and make trying to promote skills, you're only going to do really good things for them, and they're going to gain something from it, for sure.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah, yeah. I agree. I agree.    Abby Parana     So speaking of staying fresh as an OT, we have to stay educated and of evidence based practice, which you have a really exciting new project that you were telling me about before we started this podcast. And I would love to hear you share it. It has to do with continuing education, and I just really think it's a brilliant idea.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Well, thank you. And I don't know, I think a lot of other people are like this, because I've, I think all too often were picking something quick because it's like, oh my gosh, I don't think I got all my hours. Then, you know, sometimes you have those years where, like, wait, what I'm due Okay, so you end up just going for something quick, or, you know, or I've literally spent like, an hour looking for something like, when I need that motivation, like, I want a really good in person course that's just gonna like, oh, it's gonna give me, like, the motivation and inspiration. And sometimes it's just hard to find it, or it's hard to know if it's really what you want. Actually, just went to this course I was so excited about it. It was all about like, sensory and they spent like, 20 minutes just introducing the sensory systems, and I was like, oh, want, like, you know, it was like, Oh, this is not what I thought it would be, which, it was a great course, but it just wasn't what I was looking for. So what I've started, it's, it's called CE course review, and it's essentially, it's a work in progress, but I'm putting basically every continuing education course from every company in one place. So you can go in, you can put I want feeding courses, and you'll pull up every feeding course from any company. If you can imagine, that's a lot of courses, and I'm just going to keep growing. It, but I'm at the point right now where I'm really looking for a therapist to log on, maybe leave a review on some of your favorite courses. So if someone's pulling them up, they can say, like, Oh, this is a great one for a new grad, or, Oh, I really need to take this course on sensory integration. So that's that's where we are with it. And you can shoot me a message on there if there's, like, a course you want to see, or a feature you'd like to see, but it's called CE course review.com and just take a peek, and I would just be super grateful, because the more people that leave reviews, the better the resource becomes for everyone else. So it's really, it's not about, you know, knocking anything or, you know, it's just basically about helping you find the right course faster.    Abby Parana     I think that it's a brilliant idea. I also love the idea of being able to review a course and see what the other reviews have to offer. Because, yeah, you oftentimes I was thinking, Oh, I get a brochure in the mail, and I flip through it, and then I think this kind of applies. I guess it's in my area. Maybe I'll take it, but it's, I mean, continuing education is expensive, yes, and crazy expensive, crazy expensive, and we need to be able to review it. And I think too, if there is a review system like that that's being reviewed by professionals. I think that probably continuing education will even be a little bit more.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     That was my thought.    Abby Parana     Yeah, it was better, maybe not more better. That's a little.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     definitely older for everyone. I think that. I mean, I think it's holding something to a higher standard, yes. And when I tried to do it, like, when you were review, of course, there's like, five questions, like, what you can add your comments, but it's like, was the presenter effective? Sure, sometimes you go and you're like, oh, this, this instructor doesn't really, you know, they're not keeping my attention. Or even, like, Did you learn something? And some of the choices are like, Yes, I learned something new and it reinforced what I was already doing. Or, Yes, I learned something new and it broadened my skills. So sometimes you go to a course and it just reinforces what you're already doing, which sometimes you need those too, but it's kind of just letting people know kind of where the course is and what you can kind of take away from it. So Right? It's just an information system, basically. So if people were willing to log on, that would be awesome, because the more feedback I get from people, the more we can change it. Make it better, make it, you know, a better resource for everyone.    Abby Parana     Oh, I definitely think so. And as like my partner and I were trying to turn with ot school house into having our podcast be available for Professional Development and Continuing Ed and so I would find the feedback from people listening to the podcast and listening and taking, or, well, listening to the podcast, and then also just taking our quizzes and things that we're offering as Professional Development units, I that feedback to me would be invaluable, like, it would be really helpful at making our courses and presentations better as well.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Totally, yeah, I agree. And, and how, and people might not even know, like, Oh, I could listen to a podcast and get continuing ed. Like, that's great, and maybe that works best for them. So again, it's just, it's having all those resources in one and just, I'm just trying to make life easier. We're gonna try.    Abby Parana     We, we're OTs. We, that's what we do. It's what we do. We try and make you path of least resistance. We're trying to make everybody independent and highly functional.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     That's all we want. That's all we want. Isn't that so much to add?    Abby Parana     Well, it has been a total pleasure, Jessica, having you on the podcast and chatting with you. I think we've covered some really interesting and important topics for OTs, working in schools and clinics, and just actually, in general, it's kind of nice to talk occupational therapy with another ot working in a different setting on the other side of the country.    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Right? We keep it fresh. That's right.     Abby Parana     I'm super glad that hurricane didn't get in the way.     Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     Yeah, we're safe. We're safe over here on the East Coast, but we're we're definitely thinking of those that were in the past, because that is just awful, but and thank you so much for having me. It has been a blast talking with you. I love like connecting with people again, it's awesome to be like behind this computer screen, but like meeting great people across the country. So thank you very much.     Abby Parana     Well, thank you for coming on the podcast, and hopefully we'll get a chance to chat again soon. And if you're ever out in Southern California, if I'm ever in your area, I will also come visit    Jessica (The Anonymous OT)     awesome. Sounds great. Thank you so much.    Abby Parana     All right. Well, take care and have a good night.     Jayson Davies     Thank you. All right. Well, that does it for today's episode of the OT school house podcast. I want to encourage you all to check out Jessica's website, both the anonymous OT and CE course review. It'd be really cool to have some of you actually review our courses over. There. I think she has them up. You just have to search for ot school house, and they pop up. So feel free to head on over there. Give us a quick review. Uh, we'd appreciate it, and I'm sure Jessica from the anonymous ot wood as well. Thank you again, Jessica for coming on. We appreciate having you, and you're welcome back anytime. One last thing before I let you go, be sure to check out ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash Episode 16 for all the show notes and links to any of the content that Jessica and Abby talked about today, so we'll see you over there. Otherwise, take care. Have a good one. Bye, bye.     Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed. Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 15 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, Abby interviews Robert Constantine of OTRobert.wordpress.com about how to assess and address concerns related to visual perception and visual-motor capabilities in our children. In this podcast, you will learn to identify some of the behaviors associated with vision problems and several helpful hints about how to tease out the reason for those behaviors. Robert provides simple steps that you can use tomorrow when you see your students. It is our pleasure to have such a great and knowledgeable guest. We have no doubt that you will thoroughly enjoy and benefit from hearing what Robert has to share. Check out the episode below! Have a listen on Apple Podcasts now! Links to Show References: Robert's Website: https://otrobert.wordpress.com On his website, Robert has a plethora of free resources and information relates to working with clients to demonstrate difficulties with visual perceptual and motor difficulties. Be sure to check it out and shoot him an email to say hello. Robert's Reading List Near the end of the episode, Robert referenced a reading list we would add to the show notes. Well, here it is! There's plenty to keep your reading list busy for a few weeks at least. Robert on PESI : If you enjoyed this podcast, you may enjoy hearing more from Robert in a formal training. PESI is a leading provider of continuing education in all formats. Visit PESI.com to see when Robert will be presenting the visual system in a city near you! Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Episode number 15. And with us today, we have the birthday girl Abby Parana.    Abby Parana     Hello everybody. I am 34 years old today.    Jayson Davies     Do you like long walks on the beach? I do. Sounded like that's where you're going. Anyways, Happy Birthday Abby. I hope you're having a great day. Today is September 26 that we are recording this. And so everyone, please leave Abby some love on the Facebook page and wish you a happy birthday, even if it is a few days late.    Abby Parana     I had I also have to say, I have to give a shout out to my co worker, Gemma, she brought the most amazing cupcakes to work today, and I got to pick first. So just bragging about my birthday.    Jayson Davies     Well, Gemma is fantastic, awesome. So real quick, Hey, you want to tell them what we're doing in a few weeks.     Abby Parana     In a few weeks, we will be going to the Occupational Therapy Association of California conference in Pasadena. It is going to be a good time at per usual.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. In fact, we're actually going to be presenting session number 75 on Saturday afternoon. So if you're there, find us, say hi or come by session number 75 I think it's a 230 on Saturday afternoon. So yeah, that's going to be fun. We're looking forward to talking about social media and the influence online media, all online media, can have on school based ot practitioners. So swing on by. We would love to see you there. So let's jump into our interview today. Go ahead. Abby.    Abby Parana     Well, I had the opportunity to interview Robert Constantine. He is an occupational therapist with over 20 years of experience in the fields of visual and neurological rehab. He presently works for the pearl Nelson Child Development Center, where he focuses on the treatment of eye movement disorders in neurotypical and special needs children. He is also a member of the neuro optometric Rehabilitation Association, which brings together tools from optometry, occupational and physical therapy. If you're looking for show notes and a list of references, just head on over to Episode 15, where you'll find all that information.     Jayson Davies     And you can find those at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 15. And    Abby Parana     now let's jump into the interview. Thank you, Robert for joining me tonight on the podcast, how did you get into practicing vision rehab?     Robert Constantine     So I was working at an local inpatient rehab. Here I'm in Pensacola, Florida. I was working for West Florida rehab, where I had been the OT clinical specialist for TBI for about nine years. I had taken Mary Warren's vision course, which is a very good course if you're looking for a course on that and had a big interest in vision, I started looking for a new adventure, and found on Craigslist a an ad for an optometry practice that was looking for an occupational therapist, really. So there. OT, yeah. So their idea was they were going to offer low vision services at the optometry office. I would be doing, teaching eccentric viewing, Dr Katie spear and cars Carl spear were the owners of that practice at site. And son I worked here in Pensacola. And we were going to be doing, I would be teaching eccentric viewing, teaching patients to do, to use assistive devices, going out, doing some home modifications and those sort of things. So what actually happened was I started getting those TBI patients that were having eye movement problems. I started getting stroke patients with visual field cuts. I started one of our doctors, Dr Charles porch, who was with us at the time, was sending me a lot of kids that were having near vision focusing problems and eye movement problems that was was affecting their academic performance. Yeah. So I had to scramble about to figure out how to to do this job. And as if you've looked around for resources on this, they're kind of hard to find. So I learned a whole bunch real quick, not real quick, about seven or eight months, and it has been, it's been an amazing journey. Also got to do some sports vision training when I was there with with Dr don t, who's one of, sort of the founding fathers of performance vision training. So we got to do cool stuff with that. Worked with some NHRA drag racers, my brother and his buddies. We developed some glasses for that. And it was really, it's been an amazing adventure. A member of the neuro OT. To metric rehab Association, I did their clinical level one and level two training to to learn about better ways to treat those visual and vision related problems with stroke and TBI. So it's been a great adventure. It sounds crazy, but it's amazing what kids can do when they can see and that's why it's really become a passion for me, teaching other therapists, making other therapists aware of this, that this, this such a basic thing, like they can't see the words in front of them. How often we just sort of take that for granted a bit.    Abby Parana     You know? And that is a very good point, and that's why I really was super excited to have you come on the podcast, because I personally have seen this in my own practice and in working with schools, just noticing that students, oftentimes in OT were assessing students in school based practice, but Were not quite sure of, or quite getting the whole picture when we don't have that vision piece. And that was just an area that I know, I personally, have always kind of thought this kid is doing something, and I can't quite put my finger on what is happening here so, and I think it's vision related, but I'm not positive. So that was just, I was very glad that you were coming on the podcast. And so I guess, why do you feel that occupational therapists are well suited to provide interventions in this area, like, how do we tie it back to the functional skills of occupational therapy?     Robert Constantine     So when I first started working at the eye doctor's office, I was around doctors all the time. I was around optometrists. I was around vision therapy doctors. I was around sports vision doctors. I was around brilliant optometrists, and I was very intimidated by that. But what I found out was was those doctors are really good at vision, but they don't have that background in Kinesiology. They don't have that background in activity analysis, where we can look at something and go, how do we incorporate that? They don't get those courses in developmental spectrum in sequence. So they were very interested in how I took what I learned from them and put that together with ot that background for us is is makes us a little more effective, or at least as effective, as what they're doing in vision therapy. The other thing that tends to happen, and what I tell folks as I teach them so we already we get a kiddo who's having problems with visual motor integration, and we're going to look at his posture, and we're going to look at his scapula, and we're going to look at how he's holding the pencil, and we're going to do things to improve those things, but we're kind of leaving out the visual part of visual motor integration, yes, and I kind of think of it as sort of a three step process, where we first have to see and get accurate stimuli in we can then take and manipulate process that visual stimulus, and then we can act and produce a result on that. And we tend to focus much more quickly on the output part, on what is their you know, what is their grip, their posture, those things or we tend to go to while it looks like he's having a processing thing, when a lot of times, we find out, hey, he just can't see the thing you want him to copy. And so what I tell him is, they they draw wonky squares because they're seeing wonky squares.    Abby Parana     Yes, oh, that's exactly it. So I guess some of the assessments, like when I'm looking at a child in their classroom performance, some of the assessments we use, like the very VMI or the ravma, the wide range assessment of visual motor abilities, or even the bot I do pick up on. So what are some of in those assessments when we're looking at students, as you say, drawing wonky shapes, because they're possibly seeing wonky shapes, how can we better tease out or understand the vision part of visual motor integration, or, for instance, The bot with the tennis ball that that sub test or the fine precision fine motor integrate, actually, all of those sub tests require vision, right?    Robert Constantine     So, so all of and right? All of these things require and assume that you have best corrected visual acuity and that your eyes are moving well together things you can look for before you even start the assessment. Yes, so is this kiddo rubbing their eyes? Are they blinking a whole lot there? Those are signs that this this child is potentially having a having an accommodative problem. They're having problem with accommodation in their eyes. What did the teacher say? Hey, he's skipping lines when he's. Reading. He's reading words backwards, or he reads the first half of the sentence, pretty good, and then the second half, he sort of gets really creative. What's going on there, and what happens is, so their eyes stay focused for that first half of the sentence, they become fatigue and get blurry. So our buddy attempts to make up, or guess what? That the rest of that sentence is going on there? Oh, wow. You're gonna see things like head turns. I'm gonna try this eye and see if I can see out of this one. I'm gonna try that eye and see if I can see out of that one. Maybe those kiddos that Prop their head up and they cover up one eye when they're reading, yes. Okay, so their brain is figured out. Hey, I have a binocular vision problem. Here's the solution to that. I'm going to read without binocular vision, and I'm going to cover one eye. So those sort of behavioral things are very common, that inability to catch a ball, so as a as a ball comes toward us, our two eyes lock on that ball, and your brain gets cues from proprioception as your eyes converge, as the ball comes closer, and the visual flow on that ball, and they tell you to lift your hands up and catch the ball, right? So we know how our kids catch our kids hold their hands up and they turn away from the ball because they've been hit in the face with the ball a whole lot. Yeah. So they're hoping you aim for their hands. And this becomes sort of a reaction time test. How quick can I close my hands and catch the ball? Because their eyes aren't teaming. Well, their brain doesn't get that cue about now it's time to reach up and catch the ball. Those things are very common, those unexplained headaches, kids who have kids who kind of look like they have ADHD, but when you give them ADHD medication, it doesn't help. Okay, ADHD looks a little mild, but so, so those are all the things. And this is such a predictable pattern as behaviorally, as you see this, I was reading things as I read things on the internet. I hear, you know, oh, I have this kid, O who's been diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, but his medication isn't working, so immediately, that sends up a red flag for me. Hey, what's his eyes look like? Can he see up close? So those are going to be the common things you're going to find with kids that are having these sort of near vision focusing problems. Okay.    Abby Parana     that is very helpful, because that and you do have on your website, ot  robert.wordpress.com , you that I loved the resource you have of it's a PDF of those things to look for. I think I read. It's like a checklist. It's the.    Robert Constantine     Is that the convergence insufficient?     Abby Parana     Yes, the conversion survey, yep. Okay, and I thought that that was a pretty good kind of reference tool for convergence insufficiency. Which brings me to because I'm not a vision specialist. You mentioned binocular vision convergence insufficiency. What are some other Would you mind defining those terms and maybe some other terms that you know we might be needing to know OTs.    Robert Constantine     So when you head to the eye doctor's office, the doctor plays a little better. Worse game is it A or B or one or two, and all optometry jokes are based on one or two, A or B, they're hilarious. So, so they're all based on that. So that's called a refraction. And what that refraction is doing is just adjusting for the fact that your eye is most likely not perfectly spherical, like a golf ball. So you get glasses, or you get contacts that helps to redirect the path the image in so it falls directly on your fovea, and you see nice and clear with those glasses don't influence or are those two eyes coordinated and working well together? Are the muscles in the eyes? Are they nice and balanced? Are they both equally strong and up to the task for what they're doing? So these eye movements are controlled by muscles, and they they behave like most other muscles, they fatigue. They can be imbalanced. So what happens with Well, let's talk about convergence insufficiency, because that's going to be the thing that's going to be the most common, depending on the study you look at, about 8% of kiddos, neurotypical kids are walking around with convergence insufficiency, with an eye movement problem. That's a lot a lot of kids.     Abby Parana     That is a lot of kids.    Robert Constantine     So convergence insufficiency is a problem with the near vision focusing system. So what's supposed to happen? As we see up close, our eyes should converge. Urge. They should move in towards the nose, nice and strong. They should stay there. At the same time, we have a lens in each eye. That lens is attached to muscles. The peripheral of that lens is attached to muscles in the eye. That muscle contracts and allows for that lens to focus. That part of the near vision system is called accommodation, okay, very closely at tied to that accommodation is going to be pupillary constriction. So as that child, as their as that lens is accommodating, we're going to see their pupil constrict as well. So as you bring something closer, you should see their pupils get nice and small as well. As their eyes move towards their nose with convergence insufficiency. There tends to be a lack of coordination or a muscle imbalance, particularly where the medial rectus muscles, the one closest to the nose, are too weak to overcome the lateral ones as they come in. So what you see as you assess this, as you bring a target towards a child's nose, rather than following that target all the way to their nose, you're going to see their eyes kind of they're going to separate, and one eye is not going to follow that in okay? And that's going to let you know, hey, this kid O, that's one of the diagnostic criteria that's called near point of convergence. As we assess that, I'll describe it, but it's better if you see it. And you can go to my blog, there's a video on how to do this. You're going to start with a target about 2430, inches away, and you tell your kid, O, tell me if you see two. And you're going to bring this target towards their nose and watch their eyes. And you want to see their eyes come all the way in, right until you get to their nose, and they stay there. And you're going to do this five times, you're going to do five trials with this. Okay, so normal is going to be within six centimeters after those five trials. And that's going to tell you, hey, this kiddo has a good, strong convergence system. The convergence is working well, and generally, one or the other doesn't go bad. If convergence is bad, the accommodation is bad and vice versa. Okay, so, but this is the quickest way to find those, to find those kids that are having near vision focusing problems, okay?    Abby Parana     And so this is going to impact in the classroom. This is going to impact their copying ability, their attention, their reading, and all of those.    Robert Constantine     So while those eyes are sort of weak up close as they go out to the board, their eyes are going to diverge and then come back in again and then diverge and then converge and diverge and converge. So this becomes really calisthenics, calisthenics for those eye muscles. This becomes a very aggressive eye exercise. And when it started off when our buddy couldn't see up close within going to that board and back, three or four times, he can't see the board or up close because His eyes are so fatigued, he's he's seeing double in both places. Generally, the kids don't know that they're not supposed to see that way. Oh, so they won't tell you. They won't tell you. The words are moving around on the page, or I see double up close. They might mention I I'm having trouble seeing the board. And then they go down to the to the hall, and they, they read the chart, and the the school nurse goes, he read the chart, he was fine. And most of the kids who come to see me are 2020.    Abby Parana     Okay, yeah, that was my next question. Because when I was reading on your website, which has a ton of amazing information, I was up late reading through it, because I just my brain kept going. I read that only about 40% of children have their eyes actually examined by an eye doctor, and that possibly even with 2020 vision, their eye exam may not include things like this, absolutely    Robert Constantine     so um, so that 2020 means that that image falls perfectly on euphovia And you see, you see clearly without any blur. Okay? It does not talk about any of those dynamic processes that we talked about as we're seeing near vision, as we're doing saccades across the paper. So that 2020, means, yes, that static error has been corrected for, but it doesn't affect the movement of the eyes at all. 2020 as the the eye doctors tell you, 2020 is not enough,    Abby Parana     right? And, yeah. And so when we're talking about saccades, would you mind just kind of elaborating a little bit on saccades and reading and how all of that kind of works, right?    Robert Constantine     So a saccade is going to be a very small, very fast movement. So this was saccades originally, sort of developed evolutionarily. So we could, we could they respond to changes in the peripheral as we were out hiking, hunting in the woods, if there was a bear off to the side of the trail, the bear would move, and our eyes would very quickly pop over there and go, Hey, look out there. To bear. So as we, as we evolved and we started to read, these very short, fast movements are now how we go about reading. So it's going to be a series of fixations and saccades that allow us to read accurately. So it becomes a coordination thing. So are those two eyes coordinating correctly. It's, it's pretty easy to improve those with some with some basic exercises and things, but saccades are very important. Saccades are also how we define visual space. So Okay, as you, as you walk into a room, you're with your nice still head, your eyes very quickly pop around the room, and you set up a nice spatial map of the room where you can close your eyes and find things in the room. Our kid, OTs, with inaccurate saccades, with excessive head movement during those saccades, don't get an accurate spatial map. So what happens is, we send them to find their shoes after our treatment session, and they tell you, I can't find my shoes. So this is another thing, though, saccades are very important about defining those that that spatial sort of defining the size of the universe, right?    Abby Parana     And that, you know, that makes a whole lot of sense, because, well, it i when I've been working in OT when you have the kids that are very inattentive, and then in the classroom you they kind of almost seem really unaware of things in their environment. They run into kids they have no concept, really, of their body position in relation to other objects in the room? Would those be sort of behaviors? I know there's sensory processing involved with that, but also this seems like it would play a big role too.    Robert Constantine     Yeah, I see where a lot of times the kids with eye movement problems in general tend to be a little clumsy, and part of that is there is a lack of awareness of you know, if I if I close my eyes, I know I have stuff over to my right. If I fall to my right, I'm going to trip over things that lack of that spatial map can affect that. But they also because those eyes don't work well. So there, they should focus on the edge of a step as they're walking towards the step, and again on that convergence, should send a signal that says, now it's time to step up over the step. When their eyes don't work well together, they don't get that signal for now it's time to step over the step. So they trip over the edge of the step. So all of those movements are affecting those functional things, but Right? They're not getting a good spatial map, so they don't know where the Buddy is, so they bump into him, or they can't find their book bag, or they trip over a desk, or whatever,    Abby Parana     right? Oh, that just I had not even thought of it that way, because I think, and I think the way, or why these are just such light bulb moments for me is because we give assessments such as the sensory processing measure for the sensory profile, and they and we do that kind of assuming, again, that these skills are all intact, and that when we're looking at the behaviors related to sensory processing, we're not really or at least when I've done it, I've not considered these other deficit area or possible areas of need. Well,    Robert Constantine     it's crazy. We get kids in our practice who have had early intervention, PT, OT, speech, neuropsych evaluations, ABA, all of these services. And so we just sort of assume, well, of course he can see at some point, someone took him to the eye doctor, someone he's wearing glasses, so that means his vision is good. So we tend to to just sort of take it for granted, and and I love the light bulb moments as I as I present my course around, I'll I talk, and I look out over the folks, and you'll see, I'll say something, and you can almost see that little light bulb go off on top of their head. They're like, Oh, that's why that kiddo is doing that. So it's, it's, it's really cool to do that, but it's, we just sort of take it for granted. We get 75% of our information about the universe around us from vision, right? We're not even asking, Hey, have you had an eye exam? And so that's, you know, we need to, we need to step up on that as therapists, but we need to be able the next part of that is, is we need to have optometrists behind us. We need to have eye doctors behind us who are going to do that complete eye exam, who are going to make sure that these things are appropriately assessed. And sometimes that's not always easy to find, right?    Abby Parana     And I guess that was kind of one of my questions, and I'm not sure if you can answer it, but how can us at school? They. Based OTs, kind of refer kids for those more comprehensive.    Robert Constantine     So the magic words are a binocular vision exam. Okay, that was what my question. That's the magic words. The magic words are binocular vision exam. I know a lot of times with the school based OTs, you can't say your child needs a binocular vision exam or an eye exam, because then the school system becomes financially burdened with that, as I understand it. So what I have is a sheet of reading tips, and it's things like, so your Hey, your kiddo. Is your child having trouble reading? Is he holding the reading material at 20 centimeters away. Is he reading in a well lit area? Is he sitting upright and showing good posture while he's reading? Has he had a binocular vision assessment eye movements can affect reading performance. So this becomes a way where it's not, it's it's more a tip sheet for reading, and it doesn't say take your child to a binocular vision exam, but it does give some folks some words to use that they can google and find those folks out. The most reliable source is COVID doctors, the doctors who are doing vision therapy, okay? They have had special training to so all all optometrists and ophthalmologists know how to do a binocular vision exam. Okay? It is the standard of care for a pediatric eye exam. For both of those professions. Okay, do a binocular vision exam a psycho plegic. Dilation, which is a specialized dilation and and to to refract using a technique called retinoscopy, as opposed to better worse. They use this very objective way of doing that with our kids. So they all know how to do this. They all know this is the this is a thing. They all learned it in school. They all learned how they all had to do it in order to pass their boards, so they will know that this is a thing. Now, whether they feel comfortable doing it or not, is going to be something else. Oh, so some of the optometrists kind of like, if I had to treat an extensor tendon repair, okay, so I would be like, Oh, I remember those words being together, but yeah, I don't really want to treat an extensor tendon repair, right? So there's going to be some doctors that are more comfortable with it than others, the vision therapy doctors, the covd doctors. And Codd is the College of optometrists and visual development. These are the doctors that offer vision therapy. Okay, they're going to be the most reliable source, but a lot of times these doctors are cash only, and so that's going to limit access. There's also a lot of communities, even here in Pensacola, where I'm at, we don't have a COPD doctor, and there's a lot of communities that don't have access to a VT doctor at all. Yeah, what I will tell the therapist is, so the optometrists, they want to work with us, because we have all the kids that have the eye movement problems and need glasses. So the opportunities there to talk with some docs and go, Hey, I need someone to do this. I need someone that can reliably do this. And you may have to call up and and kiss a couple of frogs before you find the prince. But I think in those in those rural communities, in those communities that don't have a vision therapy doctor, you're going to find a doc who is interested in doing this, who wants to do this assessment. I think sometimes they don't do it because they don't have a way to treat it. If they're not, apparently. So. So a lot of times in the community, as well as I go around and teach someone knows who, who the good Doc is. And a lot of times in my class, someone will say, Oh, you got to send them to this, to this person over here. They do a great job. They're they're pretty reliable. They take all the the the insurances and that sort of thing.    Abby Parana     Okay, that makes a lot of sense, and it's important, it seems, to get these kind of vision issues diagnosed, so then we can come up with better accommodations and strategies for the classroom. Which leads me to my kind of next question. When we're talking about I often get parents and teachers and psychologists and just staff in general mentioning dyslexia, and how does that differ from what you're talking about with the movement of the eyes? What? And it's my understanding, has to do with auditory processing. A bit it has.    Robert Constantine     It has a it's a phonological problem. So I work a lot. I talk a lot with the folks at the Read, Write Learning Center. Here, and they have offices in Daphne, Alabama, in Montgomery, Alabama and Mobile, Alabama. But they also can do dyslexia assessment and treatment over Skype. So if you do not have, and I haven't been to any city yet in America where they say, we have great dyslexia resources here, and you can get an assessment, here's the people you go to, so read, write, Learning Center, com, they can help you out with that. So all of the kids who come to see me are typically have the signs of that you typically think of as dyslexia. They have letter reversals. They may be flipping whole words was, become saw, that they're generally not very good readers. Okay, so over the six years I've worked with the with these kiddos, after we've cleaned up their eye movements, I've had, I've have had 14 children who have tested positive for dyslexia. So what happens with dyslexia is it's a it's a problem of encoding and decoding phonetics. Okay, and I'll tell you some of the things that I see with in those kids. As you have them write the alphabet, they consistently leave out the same letters. Oh, and I had two, I had two kiddos that left out the whole middle of the alphabet from j to q1. Of them was in fifth grade, and I cued him after writing the uppercase alphabet. Hey, hey, my dude, you left out the whole middle of the alphabet. And he did the same thing. So you see that very hard time learning the letters. I had another young lady that was five, and she was very closely watching my mouth as I was saying letters, B, C, D, V, trying to figure out what letter I was saying. So you're going to see that. You're going to see kids with dyslexia. They're going to have a hard time phonetically spelling words. Okay. So their, their command of how phonetics works is is not very good. So if you tell them, hey, take a guess at how you spell that. A lot of times, their go to strategy is, I stick an E on the end of the word. Okay, so they, they don't have good, good enough command of those phonetics in order to be able to do that. So this is a highly specialized area. There's 150 different types of dyslexia. It is, it's fascinating. It is, like I said, those 14 other kids that I saw had binocular vision problems, and they had dyslexia underneath that. Okay, so you can have both. We absolutely when we cleaned up the binocular vision problems, what we saw was I had one young lady who actually became a very proficient reader. She was reading above her age, her grade level, wow, but she couldn't she couldn't spell her words. She could orally spell them. She could verbally take her spelling test and do fine when it came time to translate that sound into symbols, that's when she had the problem and she would fail her spelling tests. Okay, so there we're looking at that encoding of sounds or decoding of sounds, is the word, is the reading part of that, and those are going to be more typical of the of children with dyslexia, again, though they can have both of these and and Hunter OST, the director of the readwrite Learning Center, recently sent me a child over who said, you know, I don't think this kiddo has has dyslexia. I think he's got that eye movement thing that you do. So we're finishing up with him, and it's really interesting, his sister had the same thing. He's 12, and his sister, as well, had convergence problems. Oh, wow, I've had, I've had, now 15 or 16 sets of siblings. So I won't say this runs in the family, right, but it certainly tends to cluster up. I went, I went, two out of three on, on one of one of the OTs kids here, two of her three kids out. So it'll tend to sort of run in the family a little bit. I see Dyslexia as well. It's going to have a genetic component to it as well. Okay, so, so those are going to be the things you're looking for. Is it tends to look like a visual problem. And again, I was able to take them to a certain point with reading, right? But it's going to come back to that difficulty encoding and decoding, those phonetics, those sounds, okay?    Abby Parana     That helps me tremendously, because that was that's kind of one of those areas where you think you know what it is or what it looks like, but you're only really you know. As OTs, we look a lot at the writing and and sometimes I think we're missing certain components, or if the child's not making progress, it's good to kind of you. Just look at what it is the actual deficit areas are, or the areas of need for the child, which so when you're working with children, oftentimes in school based practice, we're not given the same level of we don't give the same level of services and supports for the children, as one would in a medical setting. So with these types of difficulties, I guess, how often do you see the kids in the clinic, and how, what's the duration of sessions? And sort of, how do you monitor, measure progress for these kids?    Robert Constantine     So for me, all of my kids are coming with a vision problem. Two thirds of them, it is a diagnosed vision problem. Okay, so you already know, so I already know that they're coming with that that said, I see my kids twice a week for an hour. Okay? The convergence insufficiency treatment trial, which gave us the the symptom survey we talked about earlier in that trial, they used a protocol that consisted of 12 visits, okay, and that would that that protocol was 75% effective. I tend to see kids, neurotypical kids, I can generally correct their convergence and near vision eye movement problems in eight to 10 visits. Wow. That's so the Wow. No, it comes along very quickly. Okay, so what I found is, if I can do those eight to 10 visits twice a week, or I can do those eight to 10 visits once a week, and it still takes eight to 10 visits. Okay, so unlike looking for that elbow. Because, again, what we're going to be doing is exercises that are just going to strengthen muscles. That's all this that's happening here. So as we as we stop and think about an elbow that's weak, we do have to stop, and we have to grab some theraband and do some exercises to strengthen that elbow. Our eyes, as we strengthen those muscles, they're up there all the time attempting to figure out the best possible strategy. As we strengthen those muscles, the eyes are going to practice those strategies as best they can. So I tend not to, you know, if I get from from zero to four on this visit, when I come back for the next visit, we don't start at zero. Again, we start at four, okay, go from four to eight, and then on the next visit, we might go from six to 10. So we tend to jump and make cops very, very quickly, okay, so even in if you're just getting a half an hour a week, even making simple modifications, we we love midline crossing tasks, right? So what if we take midline crossing tasks and we turn them near far and we put them in the Z axis, and now, rather than a midline crossing task, we're now working near farping, that near far near vision system. But even in those half hour sessions you guys are getting once a week, within three or four sessions, you're going to see some improvement there. Okay, make sure you're holding their their little head still. That's a big one. I used to get a lot of questions on that. So what we're supposed to see with the with the still head is by by 10 years old, we should see a still head that decline should start to happen beginning at five years old. Okay, so some that that head movement is going to decrease until 10 years old, and then we shouldn't see that anymore as we're assessing eye movements. Our kids, our 10 year olds, all have excessive head movements. That's because there are 10 year olds. They've been referred because that, that head movement separation is very much tied to vestibular development, yeah, it's tied to pro proprioceptive development. It's tied to overall brain development. So where we're getting referred to kiddo who's having trouble with body awareness, who's having trouble with balance, yeah, those other systems are not developed. We're going to find the ocular motor system is not developed. Along with that. And you may pick that up as rough CAES as lousy tracking, and you're going to see that with excessive head movement, because all those systems rely upon one another in order to get stronger as they develop, right?    Abby Parana     And that sort of leads me right into my next kind of set of questions, I guess, or next topic area would be, I work in a program, one of the programs I provide support for, has a many children with autism, and oftentimes we're looking at sensory processing difficulties with that population related to self regulation. But also what I noticed is it's kind of what came first, the chicken or the egg, kind of situation where they're having trouble with self regulation, but they're also not processing things in their environment. And we see a lot of seeking movement, vestibular proprioceptive movement, and then. And I often have found as well, the coordination of their body movements in relation to what they're seeing in the environment, or their response to stimuli in the environment, can be clumsy. So what is your background? I guess, how does vision and autism, how do these skills go to    Robert Constantine     there has been, I just recently updated my my presentation concerning autism, because there's been several studies late 2017 early 2018 that are showing, showing some interesting things. Yeah, so, so the first thing with our kids with autism is they're going to have a higher rate of accommodative problems. They're going to have more trouble seeing up close than than the neurotypical population. So what that means is that eye exam for them is going to be very important. Okay, so it's sort of worst case scenario for the parents, because they need that psychoplegic dilation, which is going to help assess that near vision system better, okay? And so the parents know, you know, my my kiddo is going to have a meltdown when we try to do this, but they have a higher rate of problems seeing up close. And so now we think about handwriting. We think about those visual motor integrations problems, those fine motor deficit threatening and those sort of things, right? So those sort of things there, this sort of gazing at things in the peripheral, yes. Okay, so that is another way of squinting. That's another way of attempting to squint. It is also there they're shown so let's see. So we actually have two visual systems. We have we have two things happening in our brain with vision. We have this central, the central visual field, and then we have our peripheral visual field. So that peripheral visual field is called a magnocellular tract, and it's, it's very much involved in balance. It's involved in gait. The easiest way to describe this magnocellular track, so if you're taking a hike in the woods and the trail goes uphill, your magnocellular track sees the the tilt of the trail change, and it automatically adjusts your posture and gait so you can continue to walk up the hill. Okay, okay, so what we're finding in kids with autism is a decreased integration of connections between the cerebellum and this magnocellular tract, okay, and so they are thinking this could be part of why we see things first, those fine motor problems, why we're seeing problems with increased toe walking in children, yes, with with autism as well. Another study, and I think we're going to have the list of resources up on your website. Yeah, all of the articles are out there, and I encourage you to go read them up, because they're they're absolutely fascinating. If you want to be an eyeball nerd, you got to go to the source. So go read the resources. So some of the so they're finding this lack of integration between those two pathways. What they found was the the children with autism did not make that postural shift in response to a visual change, so their brain sees the trail go uphill, it does not adjust their gait to help them walk up that hill without difficulty. So pretty consistently this this was coming back to a lack of connections into and out of the cerebellum, and a lack of integration between the cerebellum and this magnocellular postural tract couple that with difficulty seeing up close, with a higher rate of seeing up close, and suddenly maybe some of these gazes off to the side, this toe walking. One of the other things that was suggested was, our kids with autism have a very narrow attentional visual field. Okay, so this isn't it doesn't mean they have poor peripheral vision. It means, rather than seeing a whole forest, they only see a tree at a time, okay? And so they were suggesting that this small, central attentional field, they were having difficulty getting all the sensory input into there as they're looking at your face and you're giving instructions and your mouth is moving, they're attempting to process that auditory information, it becomes overwhelming, so they look away and they lose eye contact. Okay, so there was some things that were tried with that, and sometimes it's effective and sometimes it's not, but you may see some of those, some of that eye eye contact behavior as well. You may find that some of the eye doctors are trying some things to help with that as well. So it sounds like,    Abby Parana     sorry to interrupt. It just sounds like it's. A somewhat of a newer research area like this is kind of an emerging area of research, as far as the children with autism that population.    Robert Constantine     Well, what happened was, as we lost Asperger's, we lost pervasive developmental disorder, and all of that became ASD, we now had a much broader population to look at, okay, and several of the studies that I read talked about how earlier studies showed things differently. OT, studies on ocular motor problems in kids with autism, half of them say yes, they have a higher rate of ocular motor problems, and the other half say no, they have a regular rate of OT motor problems. That just means we need to check that out as well. But because of this redefinition of autism, we're finding some different data, and they're finding some different trends as well.    Abby Parana     Okay, that, I mean, that's certainly an area that I'm very interested in as well. So I know we've touched on so many topics, and I am very grateful for this podcast, opportunity to speak with you. I just know right now my wheels are turning in my head of different ways that I'm going to be able to my students, and so I know I will probably be visiting your site more often, but also I know that you offer continuing education courses through pesi. Is that right? P, E, S, I?     Robert Constantine     So what's happening right now is, at the end of the month, I'm going to be in Northern California, I'm going to be starting in Reno and I'll be in Sacramento, San Jose, Walnut Creek. I skipped somewhere. Anyway, I'll be in Northern California at the end of the month, starting on September 24 that course is through vine. Okay? V, Y, N, E, the course is called vision, vision rehabilitation for pediatrics. Okay, seeing the whole picture, so you can go over to vines website, and they have where you can get registered to see those. There's also a digital seminar where you can go in and watch that as a webinar. Oh, very good. So that's there. So that's my last tour with the vine name. So pessi is a is a larger continuing education provider, okay? And they bought vine. So what's happening is my course is changing names and it's changing sponsors, but the course material wise is going to be the same thing. So you can go to pesi.com Okay? And the new title of the course is called assessing and treating the visual system in children and a lesson and adolescents. So it's kind of a longer name. You can actually go to pass E, P, E, S, i.com and just search for my last name if you want Constantine, C, O, N, S, T, A N, T, I N, E, and by searching for my name, it's going to pull up those courses. So I'm going to be in in Wichita, in Overland Park, Kansas, in St Louis in October, and then in November, I'm going back out west to Phoenix, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins. So I will be spending a lot of time out west in the next couple months, and I am looking forward to that. I I've been all over the place. It's interesting. Therapists are all the same. Doesn't matter if it's in if it's in Manhattan, if it's in Grand Rapids, if it's in Iowa, we're all sort of the same. Interestingly quirky sort of folks. Isn't that true? It is. We're all, yeah, we're all the same sort of folks. We're all griped about the same we're all irritated about the same thing. One more thing on the course, on November 21 that's a fun day. Yeah, of course, is going to be done live. Oh, that was my if you're hanging out at the house on November I'm sorry, November 12. So the house on a Monday, November the 12th, and you can watch this live. And we'll go into how to assess for eye movement problems, standardized testing, all of those sort of things, the research that supports everything that I do. And then in the afternoon, we talk about treatment, and I show you some videos of what I do in the clinic.     Abby Parana     That's fantastic, because I know that I can't get up to northern California by the end of the month because I'm in Southern California. So I'm super bummed that you're not going to be in Southern California at the end of the month, but if you ever are, I will be signing up for your class.    Robert Constantine     I was there. I was in San Diego, LA area, I guess, three tours ago and and so part of what we're hoping for with the change to pessi. Pessi is a mighty marketing machine, so hopefully, if I end up back in Southern California, you're gonna get emails. And things in your mailbox and all kind of stuff to make sure everybody knows I'm there. You can always go to I have a Facebook group as well. It's called Vision rehab OT, and you can always go to vision rehab OT, and I post where I'm going next. I post cheesy eyeball jokes and all sort of vision related things. And you never know 2019 I'm gonna I'm waiting on where I'm going in February and March in 2019 I haven't heard back yet. Could be doing an adult course, if you're doing some things so that could be happening in 2019.    Abby Parana     Well, sounds like you're a busy man. I appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time to record this podcast, and I know I personally have found a lot of your videos very interesting, and a lot of good tools and tricks that we can be trying to practice and help these kids out. And I just now I know kind of a couple of the key phrases to throw out there. The binocular vision exam was just, it's one of those things where that's a very specific phrase that I know. Well, I'm sure if a parent takes that to an optometrist or eye doctor, they're going to get something out of that.    Robert Constantine     Hopefully they're going to get the thing that they need to get. Yes, and that's and the key, like I said, they they are aware that this is the standard of care, and to some extent, it's done, it's done one way or the other, but it needs to be the doctor I work with here in Pensacola, Dr Mark obenchain, OBS OTs does this complete eye exam on every person under 18 years old, and so he will frequently find problems that have been overlooked for years. I had a I had a level one ot student who came in and saw me, and as I was explaining how we assess this, I said, So, do you get headaches at night? Yeah, I get migraines sometimes. Yeah, she had convergence insufficiency. 24 years old, working on her master's in OT doing her level one. Wow, it's out there. It's all over the place. Looks like    Abby Parana     she was. It must have been a Devine intervention that her level one field work was with you.     Robert Constantine     Yeah, It happens a lot. It happens a lot. Where the folks who come to my class go, You know what? I think I have this? Yeah, it looks like you do. So it happens?     Abby Parana     Well, I know I will be looking at things no pun intended.     Robert Constantine     Quite. Puns are great. We all love puns. That's true. Anyone who's been to my class knows that I am the punniest guy around.    Abby Parana     Well, I can tell you, it has been a real pleasure talking to you about this. So thank you so much, and hopefully we can talk about it again at some point, maybe even get even more in depth.    Robert Constantine     absolutely, I'm always here to help.     Abby Parana     Awesome. Thank you, Robert. Thank you special. Thank you to Robert Constantine for the interview, and thank you all for listening. We'll see you next time.     Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 14 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, Jayson interviews Jason Gonzales of DoubleTimeDocs.com (Affiliate link for your convenience) about some of the Laws, regulations and state guidelines that help OTs understand what should be in (or omitted from) our reports. Also discussed is when you should use standardized assessments, how to choose what assessment to use, and how to decrease the amount of time it takes to complete an OT evaluation report. Get your free 7-day trial to DTD and use promo code FALL18 for 20% off your order for a limited time. (Now Available for PTs as well) Links to Show References: Want to see the unedited webinar including all of the weird hand gestures we make? Watch the full webinar complete with live feedback and Q&A, HERE ! The NY Times Article: Sharp Rise in Occupational Therapy Cases at New York’s Schools by Elizabeth A Harris who covers Education at The New York Times. This 2015 article documents the dramatic increase of students receiving occupational services in New York and Chicago. Find your State Guidelines: We have compiled all of the OT and OT/PT State Guidelines on one easy clickable map for you! Check it out here to find your state's guidelines. Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT School House email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript.   Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hello everybody. And welcome to episode number 14 of the OT school house Podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about how to write effective and quicker assessments. This is actually going to be a replay of our live Facebook webinar that we did two weeks ago. That was actually the first time that we had ever done a live webinar on Facebook, and Jayson Gonzalez and I got hopped on there and answered some questions from others, as well as dropped some knowledge on the ways that we tried to make our assessments as reliable as possible, as ethical as possible, as well as speed it up a little bit, but make sure that we get all the information in there that the parents, the teachers and maybe even the advocate or lawyers might want to see, should it come to that. So be sure to stick around. We're going to get into that in just a minute, but first, I do want to say next week, or sorry, two weeks from now, the next podcast is going to be a very special interview. And doing that interview actually, Abby is going to be returning, so she will be back around. I know some of you have been wondering where she's been. Well, she's back, and she's gonna be conducting an interview with another occupational therapist on vision rehab. And so stick around for that. I've listened to a part of that recording already, and I can tell you right now you will not want to miss that. It's going to be fantastic. So that will be released sometime in early October. So stick around for that. With that said, we're going to hop into today's interview with Jayson Gonzalez. And like I said, this was a replay from a live webinar that we did a few weeks back. And if you'd like to watch that entire webinar, be sure to click on over to the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 14, and we'll have a link to the entire webinar if you want to see everything. This is going to be a slightly edited version of that, but it's still some great content. So stick around. Jayson is going to go over a brief introduction of who he is and the experiences that he has been through to get to the point where he has created double time docs, and then you will hear the rest of our webinar together. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button, put your phone in your pocket and relax, and I will check back in with you in about 45 minutes. Here's Jayson Gonzalez,    Jason Gonzalez     so like Jayson said, I've been an occupational therapist for 16 years, and I moved from New York to Maui to San Diego, to Oakland, to new to Massachusetts, then back to Jersey. So I've worked pretty much all in schools in over like 12 different school districts. And yeah, started off in New York, and when I started, I never took any peat classes. It was the first job available, and I worked in Brooklyn, and they just kind of threw me in, and they had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know really how to find a caseload or anything like that. Principal had no idea what I was doing, and I had to learn from the PT. So the PT pretty much taught me how to do an OT job, which is great. And then so I moved to Hawaii where my contract job was, and they taught me how to do assessments, but nobody really taught me how to do write an evaluation report, so I kind of had the piecemeal ones that I looked in, like through files and stuff like that, and find old reports so and just kind of figure out how people wrote evaluations. We didn't have any mentors. I think companies are much better now with providing mentors to show you how to, you know, write reports and do your job. Grant, I graduated 2001 so things probably have changed in school, also, they probably teach you better than they did for me, but here I am now. And started a company called Double time docs with my business partner, Scott Liza wit and yeah, and we found a need. I've seen lots of reports. I've had lots of parents, a lot of teachers, comment on other people's reports, including mine, and that's how I learned how to write better reports. So we're just trying to figure out why, why do we all write different reports, and why is there no standard to how we should write reports when our job across any state is pretty much the same. We look at, you know, children, how they perform in school, and you know what is impacting their education and why they can't do what you know, the average your typical child can do, and why do we all have to write different reports? Guess. So I guess we can kind of go from there.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely. And so, you know, that's really what we wanted to come on here, just like share with everyone, you know, let's try and get something similar, I guess, in a way, you know, you we read a lot of OT reports that come in from one district or another or another state, and sometimes it looks so different, they're like, man, like, Am I doing my reports wrong? Like, sometimes I think that, like, what am I doing wrong? You know, this report looks so different from mine. But, you know, going through double time Docs is nice, because I've seen what you put together and and more people are kind of taking on that, that type of template a little bit. And we're going to talk about that.    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, should we just talk about, like, a little bit about, like, how that New York Times article that showed up in, I don't know if anybody, if everybody saw but in New York Times in 2015 they wrote, she wrote an article called sharp rise in occupational therapy cases and New York City schools. And it's just amazing on how much an increase in referrals have been across the country, in all major cities. Like the example they gave is that in New York City alone, there's been a 30% increase in the number of referrals to nearly 42,000 and that's just in New York City. And in Chicago, it's 6600 students receive OT, and that's up 20% in three years. So we're just seeing an influx of evaluations and referrals, and all those kids have to be tested. And then they all, most of them have to be tested every three years. And you know, the school day doesn't is still six and a half, seven hours long. So that's not changing. And you know, even on the Facebook groups, you just see everybody talking about case loads that are like 8090 kids. Where do you find the time to write your reports? But at home and not too many people like writing reports. So very little when I hear it's one of the most common complaints I get I've seen in like the OT meetings, is that, you know, I don't have time to read the support. There's so many referrals, which will be a whole nother topic. I'm sure you'll sometime in podcast.    Jayson Davies     We'll have to do another live about that alone. Yeah, just about caseloads. So, yeah, all right. So let's get dive into that, the regulations a OTA or, sorry, first idea, the individual disabilities, Education Act. What about that? What? What have you seen that the IDEA says about ot reports or OT.    Jason Gonzalez     just like, from doing the research and doing, like, looking up, you know, a OT, a stuff, and like, how come? Why aren't there guidelines to writing reports. I mean, there are some guidelines, and they're pretty vague. They just, you know, one word answers that you should be looking at certain things. I mean, on the OT website, they said, like, since idea does not specify the process or the methods for a discipline specific evaluation, therapists should follow the OT occupational therapy practice framework. So that's probably the next thing to look at. Is what you know our job is requiring us to do our framework.    Jayson Davies     No, you're right idea. I think the only thing IDEA says about occupational therapy is, one, that we're related service, and two, it defines what we can do. It says that we can do preventative care as well, as you know, helping kids who have a disability from just about any onset, whether it's a developmental disability or some sort of traumatic disability. But it doesn't say anything about reports for ot specifically, it does say stuff about reports like eligibility for a student. But of course, as OTs, we typically aren't saying a student is eligible for special education. You know, that's that's oftentimes the psychologist, the speech therapist. So some of that stuff doesn't seem like it would really be part of what we would look at, necessarily. You know we're not giving the student a qualifying condition. We're not doing one of the 13 qualifying conditions. We're just saying that that qualifying condition is affecting the student's ability to access their education, and this is how we can help. So yeah, idea not a lot of help when it comes to actually how to write an assessment or what we need to do an assessment. So then, like you said that we jumped down to a OTA, which a OT, a you just said, kind of says, look at the practice guidelines.    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, they also get, I mean, they tell you, you know, the every evaluation should include an OT profile, and that's, and we can discuss that when we go through content, but it's, you know, they know, they have some guidelines. They show you how to fill out an OT profile, but like, and then they reference like, the best practice book, and those do have examples of OT evaluations. But you know, I from all the reports I've seen in, you know, hundreds of therapists I've worked with. Um, I've none of them look like that from the example, so it's funny on how much they vary on, like, just structure and format. I mean, generally speaking, we all kind of cover the same thing in our reports. But, you know, be so much easier if we can just be like, this is where this is in this report. This is where this is in this report. And you know, when you get transfer students and stuff like that, and I'm sure, you know, some people have three page reports, some people have 12 page reports. And why is there such a big difference, like, why so? And I guess it's all individualized per therapist and child, but.    Jayson Davies     No, you're right. And then, so a OTA, you know, you got to do that practice the which is called the occupational profile. And, yeah, we have an example of an occupational profile that people can download@otschoolhouse.com as well. And but then you go down to the next thing, and you kind of, okay, now you've looked at idea. I have to do this. A ot a kind of has some guidelines for this. But now a lot of states have guidelines as well for school based OTs and school based PTS, and so you can find your specific states guidelines. And I know not every state has ot PT guidelines, but you can definitely check out like California, I know, has some good ones. New York State, I believe, has, I think you were saying Wisconsin has a decent.     Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, and Surrey has a good one. Illinois, I think North Carolina actually has really good one, and they actually have samples of PT and OT reports, yeah, most of the state guidelines that I was able to find. And actually, you have a lot of the state guidelines on your website, in the resource tab of your website, but they have, most of them contain both OT and PT and how to write what the evaluation should include. And it's just, you know, very general, but you can look up those some states I couldn't find. And you know, the fact that it's hard to find is probably not a good thing, even.    Jayson Davies     I can see your dog wiggling around behind you. So state guidelines, and then I also feel like I see your question. Shannon, I'm gonna ask this question. Jayson, real quick. First is district and school, you know we do? Yes, we do have guidelines, state guidelines. But then each you know, you get down to your to your individual district and school level, and they want you to do certain things too on your reports, you know they want you to have, I don't know, most of it's just general wording that they want you to use. They want you to say something this way versus another way. Or sometimes, when it comes to providing services, they kind of want to do it one way or the other way. So have you found, you know, in the district, different districts that you've worked in, they kind of want you to do it a different way?    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, some of them, a lot of them, don't actually tell, like, the school district I've worked in, yeah, they don't really tell you much. You're just kind of free for all. And it's, uh, the one thing I did notice in some of them is, like, whether or not you include age equivalencies on like, just like, Yeah, I guess they're requirements, but they I feel like, just the fact that, you know, if I'm working with five therapists in a school district, we don't, we all write different reports. So there's, we don't have, there's not a consistency between therapists, and which makes it you know that when I did a Facebook poll last year, a lot of people did want consistency between their colleagues. It just makes it easier when you have kids going from, you know, elementary school to middle school, and you want to read a report and you just want to, you know, you don't want to read 60 reports or whatever, but if you need information, you just briefly look at it. So, I mean, it'll be great to have that a guideline. And I know, like some contract companies, that one of that work for, in particular, is that they do send out all the OTs a guideline of like, what the report should look like, which is great, and I think that's where the need is, and where the trend is starting to go, is that we just need a lot more consistency in our profession. But you know, as you know, since you mentioned the district, I haven't had a lot of people tell me that this is what your report should look like. And I think that's, you know, one of the issues that we have is that we're not covering what we need to cover, and that we don't even know what we need to cover, because nobody really has told us, and the OTA doesn't really have that much of an answer, because I've talked to them a little bit about it too. I think they're working on it.     Jayson Davies     Oh, yeah, okay. And that kind of leads a little bit into, let me we wanted to talk about content and format, which I'm going to start off, because I really want to talk about what the people out there want us to talk about. And right now, Shannon from. Texas, you know, she says that their evaluations in Texas are less formal testing and more functional observations. And, you know, I'm starting to see a trend kind of toward that out here in California, a little bit strength and weaknesses is a better view than using age equivalent so, yeah, I stopped using age equivalencies, I don't know, maybe three years ago or so?    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, I don't use them either.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, because it's, it's at the point where we're not necessarily giving something that tells what this student can do. And I don't think if we tell a teacher they're functioning at a, you know, three year old level fine motor wise, that they're really going to change the way that they're teaching that student. And so it's more important about me giving the ideas that they can use to help that student more so than me telling them they're at a three year old level. And so that's where I think that functionality really comes into play. Because during my assessment, I can test out different things, I can test out different pencils, I can test out different types of scissors and stuff like that that are more functional. And then I can give those scissors or that pencil to the teacher, and now it doesn't matter that they're functioning at a third grade or three year old level with their fine motor skills, but they can get some more they're getting more function with the adaptive tools.    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, I think I was just looking at some notes talking about the state guidelines in in the Missouri guideline was in Missouri, actually, in the Illinois guideline, they say in there specifically, like norm reference tests are not always necessary and often do not provide the occupational therapist or educational team with the best information. And says these tests are best safe for diagnostic purposes. If they're they should be used for specific purposes, and the information they provide should be verified with other methods. And then says, although schools may suggest that these tools are required or that they are only incredible source of information, they often are not valid for the purposes of any of an occupational therapy evaluation in school. So I thought that was kind of interesting. And then last example, Missouri guidelines says most standardized tests used by OTs and PTs that assess student abilities are very developmentally based and look at various performance components and underlying sensory motor skills. Often these standardized tests do not assess student performance within the academic setting, leaving school therapists with a difficult task of relating information to the students goals on the IEP and how to support access to the general curriculum. And I think that is another, you know, and following so many Facebook groups, that's another podcast you can have, it's goal writing, because I've seen so, I mean, people have been talking about it just, you know, as the school starts and they're reviewing IPs and just seeing how terrible some of the goals are, and how a lot of goals are based on, you know, doing better on the assessment that they test on. But it's just, you know, those are some of the things you can find on the guidelines if you find your own state guideline.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. Hey, quick question, everyone out there. I'd love to hear your responses, and if the answer is zero, so be it put zero on average, how many standardized or criterion reference tests are you using with the student when you do an assessment? Are using 01235? How many are you using? I typically probably use about two. I'll use I love the school function assessment. It's not, I mean, it's not a hands on assessment, it's a questionnaire. But I love the SFA, because it gets the teachers opinion on what the student can do. And then, typically, I will do either the bot or the M fun. Sometimes I'll throw in the ravma if I really need it. And then if it is something where sensory is a very big concern, I will use the SPM, but that that may be in instead of something else. So I would say two to three is my average. All right, so one to two, one to 311, to 230, and less, told to do by my parent, by the parents. All right, there you go. So a lot of different answers there. Good to know. Oh, my goodness, I can't keep up with it. I like scoodles more. The noodle I haven't seen that one yet. Have you seen the skenoodles? Or.    Jason Gonzalez     I have, I see a lot of people asking about it on Facebook. Maybe it's her well.    Jayson Davies     Get more information on that one.    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, that can be another podcast, just on a second.    Jayson Davies     Oh, we got plenty of ideas. We got plenty ideas.    Jason Gonzalez     Why? For people who do like more than two or three. Like, what is it just, you know, are you doing, like, the visual motor or like, a visual perceptual standardized test and a sensory profile and something else for you? Okay,    Jayson Davies     I'll do the fine motor part on the bot, fine motor integration, fine motor precision, but then I'll do like. Like the the visual perceptual on the ram I won't do the the visual motor on the Rama, because I already did it with the bot or vice versa, but I'll do the perception. And then the SPM is obviously very unless you're doing the sensory profile, those two are kind of similar, yeah, then the SFA is very different from everything we're used to questionnaires. But, and I don't know about skenoodles, but yeah. So you don't necessarily, I pick and choose the sub test that I want to take. I'm sure most people do something like that. Yeah. So I think we kind of go over this real quick. How do you choose to do an asset? How do you choose which assessment to do and to put into your    Jason Gonzalez     report. If you well assessment, I mean, from my experience, and what I do is, what's the deficit, I guess, if the what's the reason for a referral, obviously, if it's a sensory concern, you want to do a sensory assessment. And so, you know, sometimes I just, you know, I always do an informal observation, and I always do something like, I pretty much follow the same sequence. And when we can talk about that with strategies on how to make the whole process a little bit faster, is that, regardless of age, I kind of do the same activity, and it just something I actually learned in the stone Institute of Psychiatry when I worked there. But I can see, like, I guess it's, I would kind of jump in the gun, though, but it's giving you night. It just kind of overlooks, like a whole bunch of areas in one activity. And you know, if you in that example, an observation if he's having a fine motor issue or anything like that, I'll choose to do, like the dtvp, and then, like, just seeing how he reacts with an environment and stuff like that, and what the parent and teacher concerns are. Through consultation, I will do the sensory profile or whatever is relevant. But it's, yeah, it's kind of just choosing an assessment. You choose what the issue, yeah, based on the media.    Jayson Davies     And I think that's why it's super important to start like, what you talked about earlier, going back to the occupational profile, you know, a lot of people want to sit behind their sit in their classroom, have the kid come to them, and they just want to, like, be isolated, and they just want to do their testing in the room. And like, I feel like it's OTs, we can't do that. We got to get out of our room. We got to go to got to go see the kid, potentially at recess, see them in the classroom, see them and the cafeteria. We need to call the parents and see what their concerns are. I mean, if you talk to people, you talk to the teacher and everyone, you get so much information that then, yeah, you can say, Oh, I don't need to do the I don't know, maybe you don't need to do the visual motor you know, it's not, it's not the handwriting that they're having difficulty. It's a sensory processing, or vice versa, you know, just by doing that, that profile, you can weed out some of the assessments that you may have wanted to do in the beginning. So, yeah, all right, Kristen, I don't know if she's on right now, but she had a comment earlier, and she wanted to know what the difference in reports are between different ages of kids. So do you alter your report? Or maybe on double time docs? Is the does the report change based upon how old the student is?    Jason Gonzalez     So on double time docs, if anybody's not familiar with that, it's a it's a software program that you pretty much just answer questions and write your report, long story short, and what I found is that, you know, when I look at a student, when I was developing the software or whatever, I didn't develop it, Scott, you did, and I won't take credit for that, but when I was thinking of the questions, is that, you know, every kid I test, regardless of what age, you know, preschool to high school, which I've tested, which I've worked in, every single age group, I look at the same thing. And it comes back to that activity that we can discuss later. Is that, you know, you looked at handedness. It's like the easiest thing. Are they right hand, left hand or undetermined? Um, so regardless of age, but it's all developmental like on the development of the DTD software, you answer questions that are developmentally appropriate, obviously not going to answer the question that's for written expression when it's a two and a half year old or a three year old, because, you know, it's not applicable at that age. So my template, or the program, can be used from two and a half to 22 because it covers, you know, the, you know, snipping and cutting all the way to vocational skills. Yeah. So I only use one template, and because we look at the same areas, and I guess that's what we look at content. You're looking at ADL, so you're looking at, you know, motor development, and you're looking at, you know, fine motor skills, whatever, like, all that stuff, regardless of age, you're still looking at and it's just that, just looking at different type, different things developmentally.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And I honestly so this is the first time. I've been in a high school in five years. I'm getting back to used to being in a high school, and, you know, I'm using the template that the district has, you know, and I use that template right now. And some of the stuff, I almost feel embarrassed going into a high school. IEP and saying, your kid can use a scissors, he can imitate a straight line. My kid is 14 years old. Of course, they can imitate a straight line, but, you know, I think that is still important just to have in there, because our report, yes, it is for the parent, but it's also for the I, for the OT, the or the psychologist that we're sending that student to. When they transfer to another district and they haven't even met that student, yet they still need to know, kind of, based upon your report, what that student, you know, what to expect when they go in and see that student. So I get it, I get leaving all that stuff in, and it's important. And then you can just go above and beyond, like you said, into the vocational stuff.     Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, and you know, in the example, like, if you're talking about, like pre writing strokes on the software. It goes from like, developmentally, it goes from like, drawing, you know, straight line, diagonal line, to going to more like, simple shapes, to more complex shapes. And you know, if I'm testing a preschool kid, I will just answer those pre writing strokes or not. Preschool kid, well, I guess technically now, but it's uh, those pre writing strokes, and you're like, can he copy, you know, or draw a straight line? But then when, if I'm testing, you know, an older kid, a high school kid, it's just more, I don't answer those questions, because if he answer, if he can do an irregular shape or a simple shape, he obviously can do a straight line and then diagonal line. So I just, you have that option on the program to just click Square, circle or irregular shape. And then, to me, it's a given that, yes, you can draw horizontal and a vertical line. Yes, you know Shannon's combination reminds me of something interesting. Back to the reports. And relates to that is that I went to the OT, a school youth conference last year in Florida, and Dr lamb at the time, and she's still president whenever I follow that transition. Oh, okay, well, she had a really good speech, and she was talking about, you know, how in schools that we should be covering, she wants us to, you know, obviously empower our profession and, you know, grow it and all this stuff, and how to that. She wants school based OTs to start looking into these seven different areas. And it was like bullying, anxiety or mental health transitions, teen driving, like adaptive sports and stuff like that. And there's like, transitions. I don't know if I named that ready, but I think there's more. And after that, I went up to her, and I was a great speech, whatever, very motivating. And I told her, I was like, I have the best idea for how you can get everybody to do to cover those areas quickly. It's like, you just tell us this is what you need to put in your reports. You just had to mention it. If you want to mention bullying or anything, any of those, like small categories that you want us to cover, and you make us put in a report. You give us guidelines and say you should include transition. You should include, you know, what they do in the cafeteria, if they're being bullied, then we all have to write about that. And even we just mentioned like, Tommy is not being bullied, or is a bully, or is being bullied, everybody who reads those reports, the principal, the teacher, the parent, they will be like, Oh, OTs, can do that. They look at that. I agree. And just empower us. Now we look at much more, and then you have that 5% of our population of OTs that are like, I have an idea about that. I'm gonna make this product. I'm gonna make a better system for this like, like, social and all that stuff. Like, I brought up social thinking at a school the other day, and the speech therapist got so frustrated that I was covering social stuff. And I was like, social such a great program. I mean, you know, that's my opinion, but it's, you know, it's like we're stepping on, kind of something on other people's toes, but it's also empowering us. And I thought that was the best way. The A OTA just tells everybody, this is how you should. We usually include a report. Then we all have to kind of look at it and it's and you just empower this even more and give us a standardized guideline. That's fine with me. It's just the information that we're giving.     Jayson Davies     All right. On your next ballot, everyone needs to write in Jayson Gonzalez for President. No, but you're right. I think, you know, a ot has got a lot on their plate. But, yeah, I agree with you. You know, we need to, if no one says anything, then it's not going to change. So we got to kind of figure out, and that's honestly part of the reason that we kind of OT school house, you know, we wanted to help therapists out there. We understand that, that a lot of school based OTs were often. Alone at our site, by ourselves or and we don't see the other OTs like a rehab therapist would see the OTs in the hallways and stuff. And so that's why we kind of created the OT school house. So I'm hoping you guys are enjoying the content, and we're gonna keep it going.     Jason Gonzalez     The one thing I just wanted to mention that I found in those guidelines is, and this is a question I always come up with other OTs is like? What you should include like? So two of the Louisiana and Illinois said that there should be no reference to levels of frequency or duration of services should be cited in the evaluation report for Louisiana, Illinois says in their guidelines any recommendations regarding therapy needs as a part of the student's educational program should be made without reference to therapy levels, frequency or duration.    Jayson Davies     So they don't want you to put any recommendation in the report as far as how much ot the student needs.     Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, so that, because that always comes up, even like special ed directors in a couple school district wanted to be like, You need to put how often they're seen on the report and stuff like that. But,    Jayson Davies     okay, that's it. That's because you're right. Every district does that a little bit a little bit different. Okay, so same in Ohio. About the whole, no, don't put recommendations in there. What? No recommendation. Scary. Says Shannon. I know Shannon's in Texas. She's been going crazy, and she's been doing well on here. Frozen stream, oh, I'm sorry, Alicia, I hope it unfreezes for you here in a second. It's a team decision, yes, so that's what I'm going to speak to Gigi. Is that the way that I've been doing it the last few years, and I think I'm going to have to stop because of the district that I'm on. They're doing it the same way you're talking about but I always put kind of a caveat in there. I said, Yes, I do recommend ot based upon what I think. I do think the student needs ot once a week for 25 minutes to work on this and this skill, because to make them more functional. And then I sometimes I'll even write a goal. This is the goal I'm working on, and that's why they need this much service. But then I also say this is up to the team. This is my recommendation, but ultimately, it's the team decision to say whether or not my recommendation is the way that we go or not, yeah. And so again, kind of making a caveat in there in a way, you know, kind of, again, covering your own but, you know, but yeah, that's how I was doing it for a while. Again, that's kind of up in the air, you know. And it sounds like some states don't want you to do it. Other states are okay about you doing it, and other states don't have guidelines. So it's kind of up in the air a little bit. You know, what do you do? You don't put recommendations.    Jason Gonzalez     Like, either it's recommended. I don't put anything and then, like, level service or whatever would be recommended by the team. I just say whether or not OT is recommended or not.    Jayson Davies     Okay? And then at the IEP team, you come ready with kind of a recommendation, if they agree with you that OT is needed, then you kind of speak up to twice a month, yeah, 30 minutes.    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, yeah. And then we do the service page, I mean, but that's a whole nother. Another podcast is the whole IEP thing. Like I've been in so many school districts where they have the IEP set already, you know, written and stuff like that. And I heard that wasn't that's frowned upon, because it's a team decision. But, yeah, you know, that's hard, because all that paperwork.     Jayson Davies     As long as they edit it during the during the IEP, it should be okay. They shouldn't be coming and just saying, Here's your IEP sign this, you know, yeah, like, a lot of districts now they have technology, yeah, it's a draft. And a lot of schools now have the technology where they're putting it up on the wall so everyone can see it while they're live editing it.     Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, that's what, yeah, another school district, they used to write it during the IEP.    Jayson Davies     And that's the thing, is, like, every OT is every ot does a little bit different. Every district does a little bit different. Some people, some schools, and I don't want to jump down this rabbit hole, but some schools are doing five times a week, OT, oh, yeah, for sensory integration. Other schools, you know, some more rural areas, are doing once a month, because there's no way, you know, the therapist goes to 11 different schools, and they just, it's, it's impossible. And so you do have to take into consideration the resources that you have available. So, yeah, I it's, it's different. Everywhere, everywhere you go, is different. And oh my goodness.    Jason Gonzalez     We used to do like, 180 minutes per year, and that was, like, every other month, 30 minutes. But it could do that. You know, if you miss a week, you can make it up and you're not like or you can front load and stuff like that. But yeah, everything's so different. It's a Yeah, at    Jayson Davies     my district, we're doing 30 sessions a year for weekly. Or 15 sessions for twice a month per year for 30 minutes. And then it calculates however total minute minutes that would be. So it's like 15 times 30 minutes per year, equaling, what is that? 450 minutes per per year? Yeah. So yeah for us.    Jason Gonzalez     Good job about being short staffed. Yeah, and I know a lot of people have made that comment, but like, I can't see him because there's no room in my schedule. That's very frowned upon. Don't do that.    Jayson Davies     No, you cannot say that, if you can justify, if you can justify, because you and your teachers have a great collaborative approach, and that you know that if you put something into place, and your teachers will carry that over, and if you if that can work in the team that you're working with, then it's not unfair to say, you know if the students going to meet their goals by doing that collaborative approach, then, by all means, go for it. You're leaving the kid in the most restrictive or in the least restrictive environment. They're getting the least amount of OT they need to be successful in the classroom. So I'm all okay with that, but you're right. Do not go in there telling a parent sorry, we're only gonna see your kid twice this year because we only have one ot at 20 schools. Yeah, no, don't go doing that. A district can't go in there saying, Sorry, we don't want to hire another ot like you just you can't idea will, well, you get sued quicker than I don't know anyone, but All right, so talked a little bit, and we kind of gone off sidetrack. We were talking about how long it takes to write a report. A lot of people were saying, I saw someone say 30 to 60 minutes, which is unbelievable for me. I guess on a good day, I can get what's that.    Jason Gonzalez     it takes me, like, 10 minutes to just to do the demographics Right?     Jayson Davies     Exactly, exactly. So that's quick, but I saw most people were kind of in the one to three hours it looked like. And so I think that kind of, you know, and of course, that's already after observing the student for a half hour, pulling the student out to work with them for an hour, if not more, scoring the assessments. If you're doing assessments, which, you know, takes a half hour, depending on how many assessments you got. And so, I mean, you're right there. You're already looking already looking at three hours, and then you have another one to three hours on top of that you're looking at. Basically, it takes one full work day, of course, spread out, but about one full work day almost to complete an assessment when it's all said and done sometimes, and that's a long time.    Jason Gonzalez     Especially if you have 50 kids, yeah, whatever. I mean, on average. And I think when I did the polls, it was like about two to two and a half hours it takes an average OT and that's not even based on experience. I A lot of people, even who had 20 years more they take, still take four hours of rain evaluation. So it's just on average, regardless of experience, it takes us about two two and a half hours to write a report. So those people can write in under an hour. That's great. But the Yeah, the whole like process of evaluating, it just takes a long time, and then, you know, you miss kids and have to end up writing it at home because, yeah.    Jayson Davies     All right, so now we're going to talk about some ways that you can try and shorten that amount of time.    Jason Gonzalez     Um, no, I don't think so. Um, I mean, I guess, well, I guess, on average, how many emails do you do? I do about 30 eval? 3035?     Jayson Davies     I think I have 19 tries alone at the high school. I have another I think I have like six or so at the elementary school. So that's 25 already. And that doesn't include the, you know, I already have five initials waiting on my desk. So I'm at 30 right there.    Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, so and imagine that's, you know, whole 30 days of your OT. But, yeah, what was the next topic we were going to talk about? Well, how to speed them up, use double time docs.    Jayson Davies     Docs. So we're gonna go over that through some strategies. And double time Docs is not our only strategy, but it is one of the strategies. And I don't know, do you have any data on how long it takes double time to do a report on double time docs?     Jason Gonzalez     You know, it's for the use of double time docs. I think we haven't taken any data, and it varies depending on the kid. So I've actually for if I don't need to do an assessment, if I'm just discharging a kid, and, you know, I can just, he's independent on a lot of things, or almost everything. I literally can write a report in eight minutes. But it's, it's, I mean, it's just because everything's click, click, you know, click, button. And I guess we can talk about double time docs and, um. Well, I guess we mentioned a bunch of times, but if you want to go into the strategies of so I'm not jumping around on like my evaluation process, which I still do evaluations at home, because, you know, I do have a high caseload also, and I, you know, can't help it, but what I do is, what the benefit of using the double time.is that it comes with a questionnaire, or whatever. It's all question based. It's kind of like, kind of like the school functional assessment and like OT, easy OT, where you just, you know, look at different areas and you click things. But while you're doing that or taking notes and you're observing, I literally have my the phone open, and I when I consult with parents, I tell them I'm taking notes on my phone so it doesn't look like I'm being rude, and I ask them straight questions, straight through my template, and as I answer it, it's right, automatically running my report. So the only thing I have to do is go home and do the interpretation of the test results. I do is I base all my testing regardless of what age kid I have, and I do the same activity, and that's where it comes to that stone Institute of Health, where I learned it's a fish, and it has three directions, and it says, Pick three colors, color fish, cut fish out, and then I added, you know, right, you know, three sentences about the fish, or right in the alphabet, depending on what the age of the child is. And so what you can look at that is, I can have my DTD app open, and as he's doing, looking at that, I can see attention. I can see sitting posture. I can see, you know, how many verbal cues can he read? Can he follow verbal directions? Can he stay organized? Was his task? Initiation, sequencing, oh, and then like and I can see hand positioning for scissor skills. I can see, can you color within the lines? I can see, can he write the alphabet? Can you write a sentence? Can he generate his own sentences? And I get, you know, so much information from that. And then I also do have that app open when I look at when I consult with a teacher, because I always, do, always have to consult the teacher. They usually have the issue or the referral reason, and so when I consult with them, I go through every single question on there, and I really like, How is his ADLs? Can he bund his shirt at school? Can he do this? Can he manage his clothing? Does he wash his hands? And you can just click, literally those options, and it automatically writes your report so you don't have to organize, you don't have to worry about names. You don't have to worry about pronoun errors. It has all the recommend, has recommendations on there and has like 20 assessments on there, from what I got from Facebook, a poll of the most commonly used assessments. But so that is the how I feel like and you know, it's a learning curve too. It's, you know, you have to know where the questions are. It's kind of like typing, knowing where the keys are. Once you start, it kind of gets low, but once you get the hang of it, you just, you already know what questions to ask. You already know to observe in the classroom, sustained attention and stuff like that. And so that's how I found it to be so easy. And so when you know a kid and you're doing a three year, if you've known a kid for 12 years, you can just quickly answer those because you didn't already know his Yeah, and it's all function, yeah. So.    Jayson Davies     But you do have, I mean, in a way, double time docs, it's, it's a quote, unquote, fillable template. In a way, it is a template that you kind of go through, but it's great because it creates a narrative for you automatically, versus a regular template, you have to go back and put that narrative in, yeah. But as far as if you're not using double time docs, you know, some of the simple ways that I've done, or what I've done to make writing a report quicker, and sometimes it's only like mini school, like I have both a female report and a male report, or at least I did in the past. And so that way, if I was doing a mail I opened up the mail report all the he's were, he's rather in hims versus hers, and she's and so, and then other vice versa, I would open up the female report, and everything was already there. Yeah, it took a little bit of time upfront to do that, but to answer a few of the questions, yes, double time Docs is a there is a speed to it based upon, if you do a monthly plan or yearly plan, go to double time docs.com . And remind me again, you have a promo going on right now, don't you Jason?     Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, fall 18, and it's 20% off. So, yeah, 20% off. So you can check that out near on our website. Also cool,    Jayson Davies     also to speed up your evaluation. You know, just having some sort of template, definitely have a template you. Know, have all it's easier. It's quicker to delete stuff than it is to add stuff, obviously. So you know what? Have the template in there for every single standardized assessment that you're going to have, and then just quickly delete the ones that you're not going to going to use again. What's cool about double time docs, and I've gone through the trial and I've used it a little bit, is that it only puts on to your assessment, the stuff that you fill out. And so you don't have to go through and delete stuff because it never got added. You put in your bot scores on the template that's already really there for you, and then that's what shows up, and the other stuff doesn't. Is that, right Jason?     Jason Gonzalez     Yeah, yeah. And you know, if you don't answer questions, they don't show up either. So it's not like a blank spot, like, you know, we have vocational skills, and if, you know, driving car, doing laundry and all that stuff, obviously, like, if you have a, you know, five year old, you don't need to answer that. You don't have to say they don't if you don't answer, it doesn't show up at all. So if you only answer one question, you're gonna have like, one or two sentences on your report, so you don't have weird blank spots or anything like that, and there's comment boxes everywhere, so you can always add comments because, you know, obviously kids don't always act the same or do things the same way, but we have most of the you can pretty much write a fully functional report without adding Any comments. That's cool, just by clicking buttons. And I know somebody wrote easy ot on there, I actually, literally took as many questions from all the templates that I saw online, from reports, and even just compiling as many questions as I can so and yeah, like you said, those questionnaires where you just click things, or you still have to transfer that information into a narrative report, yeah, figure out the you know, how it flows, and stuff like that. And I think that usually kind of took me the longest time is like, am I using he too much? Am I is it sounding very redundant? Is it always he is able, he is able. He is able. We try to mix it up a little bit.    Jayson Davies     All right? Well, we're coming up here on the one hour mark. I want to ask, or I want to mention real quick, something you talked about, I think you said, app. Do you have an app yet, or is it just where you go online?    Jason Gonzalez     It's all online. We can go    Jayson Davies     online on your phone, right, and check the box, yeah, or on your iPad,    Jason Gonzalez     it saves every 30 seconds, I think. And you know, I obviously you have to have Wi Fi, because if you don't, and then it probably won't save, and then you'll just lose all that information. But yeah, I pretty much every school I've worked in has Wi Fi. So not every place I have has phone reception, but you know, it has printable questions and also has, like a principal, teacher questionnaire and parent and if I don't have time to consult with them, I just email them that and they fill it out and send it back. Covers pretty much whatever this very is generalized. It's just like ADLs make comments, you know what he's independent on? It's just a blank box, and they can just say, like, you know what he can do, or if he's independent, or he has told her trouble tying a shoe or something, but it just like what their perceptions are, yeah,    Jayson Davies     and so Christina says she used the trial, the seven day trial, and I did too. And I do agree with her. It does take, you know, the first time you go through it, just like anything that's new, it's gonna take you a minute to get through your first, your first eval or two. But I think once you start learning where stuff is really quickly, it's like learning a new IEP system. You know, everywhere you go, the IEP is still the same. It's just a different system. But with double time docs, you can quickly figure out, okay, boom, you just go down. I know I took my iPad into a classroom and was just, boom, boom, boom, clicking the stuff as I saw the kid mark them off the checklist. And so I do think, yeah, it can get quick. It does take a little while that first time, because, just like any new program, you got to learn the program. But I can see how it can be super quick. Well,    Jason Gonzalez     especially if you take four hours to write email, it still say, I mean, yeah, it still takes me 3040, minutes to write some emails. I mean, just the ones, you know, the kid. It can be really fast, but it's, it's not the benefit. Isn't only the you know, that it can, it can possibly save you lots of time. And then, you know, I understand that some people write their emails an hour. I don't think I can cut that back, yeah, but it's just the structure of it. And that's where we got a lot of the feedback. You know, I got a lot of feedback saying, like, hey, it didn't save me as much time. But, you know, I don't forget to look at things. I know I have everything there. Like, I don't be like, Oh, I've got to ask about whether or not he can, you know, tie a shoe, or what he does at recess, or something like those questions where you're like, Oh, I forgot who said that it's just right there. Like I used to, you know, sometimes I email three. In the day. And, I mean, like, oh man, did Charlie say he liked being this, or did, or was it, you know, Robert or something. So it's just more that organization and that convenience and the structure and and, you know, and the benefit, one of the reasons we developed it was having that consistency in the school district, or if I work for a contract company having a bunch of us being able to write similar reports. So those, you know, we represent the company we work for or the district we work for. So you want to give something that has, you know, good quality. And, you know, new grads. I was a new grad, and I was new to the setting, I didn't know what I was doing. And to me, that is one of the most beneficial parts of it, too. It's like you have so much to worry about when you start out in a new school or in a new job. Why this is one less thing you need to worry about? I mean, I have no idea what if I was put in a school right now, when I graduate, I would have no idea what I was supposed to look for. And if I looked at old evals, it would be very like, you know, the deficit base like that function. Because when I'm looking at evals three years ago, it's all like, yeah, they're like, very medically sounding that parent friendly as parent friendly as they should be. But the the D, our program, really makes it parent friendly is very function based. It's what they can do in the class, what they can do independently. And then you have comments. You can write whatever you want. I wanted to    Jayson Davies     ask you this one real quick. Brenda brought up an important one that I hadn't thought about, is confidentiality. How is your website confidential? It's secured.    Jason Gonzalez     And even like so we have a team function also where districts have been using and it's and there's on the free like Scott, if he's still there, I don't know if you can type in, but he does more of the confidential website stuff than we abide by certain regulations. But it's for like the team. We have a team function for like the school districts have been purchasing, and you have one lead therapist, and they could do they distribute how many docs everybody gets, whatever, but they never see the names of it. No, if you're, if you're on a team function, nobody sees other evals that everybody else is writing. So you have, you only see your own. And if you look in the corner of our website, it has a little lock, so it's secured. What's that I can't see the evals that I'm    Jayson Davies     writing? Right? No, no, I can't do that. Okay? I think that's what people want to make sure, you know, HIPAA and FERPA are very, are very tricky, and no one wants to break HIPAA or FERPA. So, all right, oh,    Jason Gonzalez     yeah. And then we're also coming out with a PT template, hopefully in the next couple weeks, and a speech template and a clinical version of, you know, for clinics, which takes out, like the school terminology. It looks more of the, you know, the range of motion stuff like that. Alrighty,    Jayson Davies     guys, we're gonna kind of finish up. So thank you, Jayson, so much for coming on. I appreciate it. We'll have to do another one of these sometime and keep    Jason Gonzalez     it. Yeah, I think we came up with a bunch of topics.    Jayson Davies     Have a good night, and we will see you all next time. Thanks for having me. Bye, Jason. Have a good one. Yeah, you too. Bye. All right. Well, there you have it. That was Jayson Gonzalez of double timed.com you can be sure to get all the information on double time docs, either at his website, double timed docs.com or you can use the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com episode or forward slash episode 14 to get a link to double time docs. If you do that, that kind of helps us out. We are an affiliate for double time docs, which just means that at no additional cost for you, we get compensated for letting you know about them and and pointing you in the right direction so that you can find materials that help you and your practice. So with that, we're going to sign off. I'm Jayson. I will see you next time on the OT school house podcast. Take care.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

As school-based OT practitioners, we know how fast our days fill up. Between therapy sessions, IEP meetings, documentation, teacher consultations, and the unexpected challenges that pop up, finding enough time to do everything well can feel impossible. But, small shifts in how we plan, document, and communicate can make a big difference in how efficiently we work without sacrificing the quality of the services we provide. Let’s explore some time-saving hacks for school-based OT practitioners to reclaim our time and focus on what truly matters: supporting our students. Time-Saving Hacks for School-Based OT Planning Smarter with Multi-Session Programs Planning therapy sessions every week from scratch can be exhausting, and eventually, you will likely give up. Instead of reinventing the wheel every week, we can save time by developing programs or even simple treatment plans that last multiple sessions . Whether it’s a four-week fine motor program, a self-regulation series, or an executive functioning intervention plan, using multi-session programs allows us to plan weeks in advance while ensuring consistency for our students. For example, I once helped a student to write a short book over 6 weeks . Of course, she had no idea this was really a six-week executive functioning program. Here’s what it looked like: Week 1: Brainstorming and planning out the structure of the book. Week 2: Outlining the content, breaking it down into manageable sections. Week 3: Writing an initial draft, focusing on organizing thoughts. Week 4: Editing and refining ideas with executive functioning strategies. Week 5: Adding images, finalizing content, and ensuring completion. Week 6: Reviewing the entire process, self-assessing progress, and celebrating the finished project. Sure, this took some planning on the front end, but then I didn't have to worry about planning for this session for over a month. Maximizing Our Therapy Time Scheduling Back-to-Back Students in the Same Class When possible, scheduling students from the same classroom back-to-back allows us to maximize our time in one location. Fewer transitions mean less time spent walking across campus and more time spent working with students. This also gives us flexibility. If one student is absent, we can see another from the same class instead of losing that time altogether. And when an entire class is unavailable due to a field trip or special event, we suddenly have a larger block of time to use for make-up sessions, documentation, or starting an evaluation. Using Warm-Up and Wind-Down Routines Predictable routines at the start and end of sessions can help us make the most of our therapy time. They may also give you a much-needed three minutes to plan your first session of the day.  A structured warm-up, like a quick fine motor, sensory-motor, or executive functioning task, helps students transition into therapy mode, reducing wasted time. Similarly, a consistent wind-down routine, such as deep breathing or a quick reflection, helps students prepare to return to class. So long as you are using these warm-ups and cool-downs in a way that supports goal achievement, then it is perfectly fine. A warning, though: don’t use a fine motor warm-up for a student who has an executive functioning goal (unless you can justify it, of course). As a bonus, wind-down time gives us a moment to jot down notes while students complete a quiet activity. When this isn’t possible, batching documentation (more on that next) can help us stay on top of paperwork. Looking for school-based OT mentorship? Join the OT Schoolhouse Collaborative & attend our live Q+A sessions! Inside the Collaborative, we host live Q&A Zoom sessions to support one another every month. These calls allow you to receive immediate feedback from me (Jayson) and other school-based OT practitioners who want to help you. Join the OT Schoolhouse Collaborative today to attend our next Collaboration Hour! Get your questions answered inside the Collaborative! Streamlining Documentation Using AI to Turn Voice Memos into Notes Instead of trying to recall every detail from our sessions at the end of the day, we can use AI tools to transcribe quick voice memos into structured notes. A short recording after a session (covering what we worked on, how the student responded, and any key observations) can be turned into a formatted SOAP note, progress update, or IEP present level with just a little refinement. Quick reminder:  When in doubt, avoid any personally identifiable information. Use initials or some other identifier that will help you remember who the note is about later.  Batching Documentation When Needed If you don’t have time to take notes during sessions, setting aside dedicated time to batch your documentation can be an effective alternative. Blocking off 30 minutes at the end of the day (or another consistent time) allows us to focus on paperwork without constant interruptions. By grouping similar tasks together, we reduce the mental load of switching between therapy, meetings, and documentation, making the process more efficient. Here are a few other time blocks to add to your calendar each week: MTSS intervention time Time for Evals Tx planning time Time for consults Lunch Speeding Up Goal Writing with a Goal Bank Writing individualized goals from scratch for every student is time-consuming, but we don’t have to start from zero each time. A well-organized goal bank allows us to pull from pre-written, customizable goals that align with our students' needs. If the idea of creating a goal bank is overwhelming, the  OT Schoolhouse Goal Bank is a great resource for fine motor, sensory, social-emotional, executive functioning, and other functional goals. Having access to structured goals helps us ensure we are writing high-quality, meaningful objectives while also saving time during IEP season. Using SMART goal templates can also help us maintain consistency across our documentation while ensuring that goals are functional and measurable. To help get you started, here is one of the templates I often use when writing a new goal: By [date], [student name] will [specific skill] with [measurable criteria] in [number] out of [number] consecutive trials, using [accommodations/supports] as needed. Simplifying Teacher & Parent Communication Using Email Templates & Google Forms We often find ourselves sending similar emails, whether it’s requesting teacher feedback, updating parents, or scheduling meetings. Instead of typing out new messages each time, using pre-written email templates allows us to quickly adjust and send what we need. This can be done in both G-Mail and Outlook.  Google/Microsoft Forms can also be a game-changer when it comes to collecting teacher and parent input. Instead of sending multiple emails back and forth, we can create a simple form where teachers can provide quick updates on student progress. Not only does this save time, but it also keeps all responses organized in one place. Bonus tip:  At the start of the school year, pre-schedule a data form to go out to a teacher once every 2-3 months. That way, you don't forget to send it later in the year.  Providing Quick-Reference Guides for Teachers How many times have you answered the same pencil grasp question from the same three teachers?  Instead of explaining the same strategies over and over, consider creating a few quick-reference guides that offer practical, easy-to-implement strategies. A great place to start is with these  free OT Month handouts  I created a few years ago. These resources help you share with your school colleagues about OT and how you can directly support them and the students.  Final Thoughts Time is one of our most valuable resources as school-based OT practitioners, and small changes in how we plan, document, and communicate can make a huge difference in how we manage our workload.  Whether it’s developing multi-session programs, batching documentation, using AI for notes, or scheduling smarter, these strategies help us focus more on student support and less on administrative tasks. What time-saving strategies have worked for you? Share this article on Facebook, LinkedIn, or your IG story, along with your top time-saving tip for school-based OT practitioners.  Thanks for having a read and I hope this can help to save you at least 1-2 hours every week! 👋 Jayson Ps. Thank you to everyone who responded to my weekly newsletter asking about this topic. There were many of you, so I hope this helps.

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 170 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Discover the transformative power of nature in the classroom with this episode of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast! Join host Jayson Davies as he chats with Alex Thompson, an experienced occupational therapist and former teacher, who has devoted her career to blending nature with school-based OT practices. Learn how Alex empowers teachers and students by redesigning classrooms, creating sensory-friendly environments, and fostering self-regulation through the innovative use of outdoor and nature-inspired strategies. Don’t miss the chance to reimagine classroom design with nature as your guide! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will recognize…the significance of collaborating with teachers and students to create learning environments (via classroom makeovers or modifications) that address the diverse sensory, emotional, and learning needs of all students. Learners will identify the role of occupational therapy in classroom design and understand how incorporating nature and holistic approaches can improve self-regulation and learning outcomes in students. Learners will associate that supporting teachers' self-regulation and wellness directly impacts the classroom atmosphere and student outcomes. Guests Bio Alex Thompson is an occupational therapist in British Columbia Canada. She is the founder of a charity that offers nature-based occupational therapy services to schools, local Parks and Recreation boards, community organizations, and private families amongst some of her clients. She has a background as an outdoor recreation educator and as an OT. 15 years ago she put together her love for nature and passion to make the outdoors accessible to all abilities.  In her work as a consultant for a variety of school districts in Canada, she has been able to bring the love and passion for nature and the outdoors to her occupational therapy practice to address referrals related to self-regulation, motor and executive function skills, mental health and trauma and even social skills. She provides school services through the RTI, response to intervention model of services.  Quotes “The OT research shows that OT is effective, but we don't have to limit ourselves to just understanding the OT research. There's so much else out there that we can bring into our practice.” -Jayson Davies, MA, OTR/L “I love that occupational therapy is one of the few professions that the ethos of who we are has to do with seeing the human being as a holistic person.”  -Alex Thomson, OTR/L “The users of the room are your space directors. They are the ones who tell you what they want. And we as OTs, with our knowledge of the neurobiology of how the body works and what's best for learning and the senses, we give ideas and choices, and then they choose what they want.”  -Alex Thomson, OTR/L "If we can see the Earth and the planet more as a person or a being rather than an object, we have more empathy and more care towards it." -Alex Thomson, OTR/L Resources 👉 Research 👉 Research Digest 👉 Membership 👉 Webinar 👉 Connectedness to Nature Research  Other Resources: 👉 University of Derby Research 👉 Our Wild Calling Book 👉 Power For All Website 👉 Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) 👉 Nature-based  Therapy Book 👉 The Association for Experiential Education  👉 powerforallats@gmail.com   👉 Linkedin 👉 IG 👉 Facebook Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hey  there OT friend, welcome to episode 170 of the OT school house podcast. A few weeks ago, we spoke to Angela Hanscom about the impact nature has as children's sensory systems develop. This week, we are following up on that episode with Alex Thompson, an occupational therapist from Canada who has used the evidence on using nature to guide the way she supports students and teachers using a collaborative model in the schools based in British Columbia, Alex weaves nature into classroom design in a way that's practical and makes a real difference in both students and teacher outcomes. With her background as a former teacher, Alex knows firsthand the balance and creativity needed to make classrooms functional, vibrant and engaging. After all, students spend a lot of time in their classrooms, and those classrooms can have a profound influence on students ability to learn and stay focused. So that is why Alex is here today to share how nature inspired elements can transform learning spaces, breathe life into classrooms and empower you to advocate for these changes with confidence. So get comfy and join us for what promises to be an eye opening conversation. Let's unlock the potential of the classrooms on your campus with a touch of nature's magic. Please help me in welcoming Alex Thompson to the OT schoolhouse podcast.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for school based occupational therapy, tips, interviews and professional development now to get the conversation started, here is your host. Jayson Davies class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hey, Alex, welcome to the OT school health podcast. How you doing today?    Alex Thompson     I'm doing great. Jayson, thanks for having me.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. It's a pleasure. We've had the had a chance to talk a few times. Now I'm just super excited to talk to you, because it sounds like you are doing amazing things where you're at and I'm excited to let everyone else hear what you're doing and how they can kind of use that in their school based ot practice. So yeah, excited to have you here. Why don't you start by just sharing us, sharing with us a little bit about where you fit into the role of occupational therapy right now.    Alex Thompson     Okay, yeah, so I'm gonna register and license occupational therapist in British Columbia, Canada, for those of you have been here, Vancouver is kind of close to where I am, and I guess upon graduation, I just started on this pathway of trying to bring nature into my practice. And yeah, for the last 10 years or so, I have been working in the schools as a consultant, and also a bit on the side, running our nature based occupational therapy practice in the community. And I established a charity that's how we deliver the services in the clinic and community setting. And I love going back to the schools, because I was a teacher before I was an OT, I taught kindergarten, grade one and two. And of course, after choosing OT and going back to the schools, like it just felt so at home, I felt more at home in the schools than in the hospitals and stuff like that. So yeah,    Jayson Davies     totally relate to that. Yeah, yeah. So, very cool, very cool. So now you're in you're in Canada, and so my first question has to be to talk about the difference between Canada and America when it comes occupational therapy in the schools. You know, in America, everything is very idea centric. We all revolve around IEP services, and basically, we have goals for a specific student, we have services for a specific student typically. However, I hear things that are are a little bit different in the way that ot services with within the schools work in Canada. So I'd love for you to share just a little bit about how that is a little different. You mentioned consulting. Is that kind of the primary route, or what does that look like? Yeah.    Alex Thompson     So the services are dictated, not just in like by the school district, but by the province that you're in. So I was working in the province of Alberta, for example, and that is a little bit more similar to the states, because I only had three schools that I belong to, and so I would take two days at each school, and because the week only has five days, of course, like I had, kind of had to rotate, but then those were the kids in my caseload I will get to go in The classroom and and do my treatment sessions at that time. Being a teacher, like in my background, there wasn't the push in and push out vocabulary, but like, I found it super helpful to be in the classroom, co teaching with the teacher, so without having the right to have. Terminology, I guess. Like if I had seven kids, you know, in a classroom, in a kindergarten classroom, like I would just run a center, and I would do fine motor and stuff like that, instead of pulling out seven kids, you know, for half an hour or 45 minutes. So that's like in Alberta, in BC, we don't do the direct service delivery. It is more consultative approach. But regardless of the province, the kids need to have a diagnosis, and according to the diagnosis, they fit into a category, and that category dictates how complex or simple the IEP would be. And then, of course, as OTs, you know, we're only seeing the kids that have an IEP, so very similar to the states, in that regard, the only direct service that we would do is, of course, you can't make recommendations if you haven't trialed them, and if you don't know how the kid is going to be right. So I do get that time with the kiddos to trial what I'm saying or suggesting, and if it works, then it goes as a recommendation. But in the last after COVID, I got a lot of evidence, actually, from your podcast and from the back to school conference as to how teachers were preferring that camaraderie and that co teaching and mentoring, if we could do that Response to Intervention model. And so I proposed that in one of the districts, and I was able to do that. So I did a pilot project, and it was more regarding cell regulation needs. And I will be in the schools, you know, for three months and run a program, and I could see kids through tier one approaches, so like, do Pro D for the teachers, but also going a couple or four classrooms. And then also see my outliers. I call them kiddos who you know 50% or more of the time their self regulation is get in the way of participating at school. So that project, I would say I've noticed the success in being able to have that freedom in your caseload, to look at the different tiers and to get the most bang for your buck. And that is what I've been doing. And then other districts heard about it, so, like, I kind of had to split myself now, you know, like amongst districts to help out so we can run that sort of pilot project. Yeah, wow,    Jayson Davies     that's awesome. So you're kind of doing a level one, two and three RTI program at a few different districts now, congratulations.    Alex Thompson     Thank you. Yeah, it's, I mean, you know, it's funny, right? Like we have to present that evidence and advocate for it, but I feel like it speaks for itself. Once you get it going, people can see how much more efficient we are as OTs with the little time that we have. But also, like I found that teachers feel empowered, because it's one thing to go into their class and give them a list of things to do and leave and they really never look at it again, but it's another to actually be like, No, I'm gonna be with you. Let's, let's roll this out. Let, let's connect. What did you think, how it went? And like, I have felt that is a bit more of a sustainable way to encourage change and for teachers to feel inspired, I guess, by OT, yeah, yeah, absolutely,    Jayson Davies     now really quickly, because you were a teacher beforehand. Did you have much interactions with occupational therapy practitioners as a teacher or no?    Alex Thompson     Nothing, no. And I was in an inner, inner city school in Toronto, and you know, as a newbie on the block, like you have to earn your credits right as a teacher, so you usually would get the roughest, like classroom, and yeah, I, I remember, like my kindergarten class. I mean, now I could say, you know, some of them had anger management, like OCD, DCD, you know. But at that time, as a teacher, I didn't know, and in a class of 20 like I could tell you, 14 of them had something going on. And even at that time, because of my background in Outdoor and Experiential, you know, education, and even me like I was a tough kid in school, so I could identify, you know, and so I feel like that's why I only lasted, like, a couple of years as a teacher, because I really love working with the kids who were challenging and I wanted to do more for them. And I didn't find that as a teacher, I was able to follow that. Yeah,    Jayson Davies     that's unfortunate. Yeah, you talked about the back to school conference, and I'm pretty sure you're referring to my session, where I did show some research from educators that showed that educators wanted support from OTs and they appreciated the hand on hands on support from occupational therapy practitioners coming into the classroom and then showing them how to do stuff, not just giving them a list of stuff to do. So yeah, that's awesome that you were able to kind of make that transition. And I think that that's got to really help you having that background as a teacher, because now you're supporting teachers and kind of understanding and having some empathy for what they're going through and what they do, and being able to support them, I'm sure that has come in quite a bit of handiness. So, very cool,    Alex Thompson     yeah, absolutely. Like, I really, I feel like that. Back to School conference, like the research that you presented, I literally like that was in August, you know, and one week before school started, I'm looking at all the references that you provided. I'm looking into it further. And I'm like, I'm gonna present this. Like, this is great, you know, awesome. But even to having worked in Alberta and knowing what it was like to have only three schools and to just work with teachers on a regular basis, like that was much more rewarding position for me, you know, like, two years later, getting an email from a teacher who says that she still remembers what you know we had done in the class, about how the kids held the scissors, and still remembering, you know, How to Do the developmental like readiness assessment for handwriting like that, to me, makes my job worthwhile, right? Like, if you because it kind of multiplies that ripple effect, rather than me pulling out kids one by one, and I'm the only one who knows what I'm doing, or, yeah, giving the list of stuff to do, and it just gathers dust and never gets done, right?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, so when you first started kind of in the schools, were you already incorporating nature, or did that come a little bit later?    Alex Thompson     No, I was already doing it, because, I guess I should say this, so I had a rough time in high school, like personally as a student, and I think grade 11 and 12 was when it was really tough, and I basically was labeled as a defiant student and rude, because I was very good at argumenting with adults and like putting them in their spot, and teachers didn't like that, and I found these Outward Bound program for high schoolers. So my mom basically dropped me off a summer, and I stay there, and I came back a few weeks before school started again, and in that Outward Bound program, you know, we did everything, like kayaking, horseback ride like you. You just name it. We did it. But the first week, right off the bat, one of the leaders, I remember, we were going on a hike, and he said to me, you have the courage to question why we do things. And he's like, that is called Leadership. Here is a map. You're gonna lead us on the hike we're gonna follow. And I remember as a teenager being like, what, oh, I'm a leader. Like, it was such a different perspective on what I had been called defiant, you know, and so I feel like that was the beginning of a positive kind of root, like I saw myself in a different light. And then I also learned that I was a very experiential learner, and so I started to look for those opportunities and advocating for myself in high school to have that. So that's why it became so natural when I saw kids like that. You know that maybe eating in a classroom, listening was not the thing for them. I could easily relate to them, so I was just trying to look for ways to make it very experiential. And that's where nature is such a great, you know, environment, you don't have to do much. So, yeah, yeah,    Jayson Davies     very cool. So then you started up in the schools, and you wanted to start to integrate some nature. What were some of the first things that you started to kind of, what were the easy things, I guess, what was the low hanging fruit that was just so easy to incorporate that you couldn't not incorporate, I guess,    Alex Thompson     I guess the first few things, you know, when I was working with the teachers, was like, oh, you know, can we do this lesson outside? You know? So, like doing numeracy, literacy outside, some schools had a. Backyard? Well, not a backyard, sorry, a courtyard, I should say, and we could go there others. I remember being in some kindergarten and grade one and two classes, and after lunch, like, you know, there was a lot of meltdowns and kids who wanted to go home and and I remember just telling the teachers, like, hey, you know, what if we go for a walk after, you know, we do free play, just to transition them back in. And so we will go for a walk. Some teachers that seem like dead teaching time, like they just didn't see the value. I'm just going for a walk. So, you know, I will have like, a scavenger hunt, and it was related to whatever we were learning in numeracy or literacy, you know. And I feel like those were easy wins, because even the teachers like you could tell they're breathing in the fresh air. It's a bit of a mental break, and everybody will come back in. So that was, that was, like an easy start, yeah, yeah.    Jayson Davies     And, you know, we, we often have to, I don't want to necessarily say, convince teachers, but we have to collaborate with them to help them see the value. And it sounds like for some things, you know, that's easier, and for other things, that's a little bit more difficult. Teachers, obviously, I don't want to say they want to do this, but they need to maximize the amount of time that they have. Right? Kids are only in school for a finite amount of time, and they have so many standards that they have to cover. And so when you're recommending a walk or go noodle or exercise, right, they're kind of like, well, I need to fit in my math standards, or I need to fit in my literacy standards. And so I guess the question here, and you kind of started down this route, but I'd love just to let you you talk even more. What were some of those things that you were able to do, or how did you overcome some of the the feedback or comments or questions from teachers about doing some of these things?    Alex Thompson     Yeah, so, so, like I said, so, like at first, especially with the teachers who were worried about dead time, you know, like trying to incorporate activities into that as the kids were moving so we could still complete or meet some learning outcomes. But I found and the reason why I went down researching learning more about self regulation and nature, it was because the teachers would be like, oh, you know, we've been dealing with so and so and his meltdowns, and we couldn't complete what we were supposed to in the morning, and now you want us to go for a 20 minute walk, you know? Like, how is that gonna help? Like, the overall class, like, he's still gonna have a meltdown. So this is where I started to join that self regulation piece to nature and explaining that, like, what's going on in the nervous system. And, you know, why is it that nature was helpful, but even more powerful it was to be able to hear the teachers and say to them like, you know, I was looking I was observing this morning, and it looked like after recess, it was a very stressful time for you. I could see that there was a lot in your play, you know, there was all these kids doing this and that, that it seems like that's a tough time during the day, and then they'll be like, Oh, yes, you know. And they'll open up, right? Or I had a few teachers do that, I would say, oh, you know, like, I came to observe a few of the kids, but I noticed, you know, that you're moving differently, like, Are you in pain? And they'll be like, yes. How did you know, you know. And so started to more talk to the teachers and try to, I guess, empathize and highlight their own self regulation needs. And how, by doing the going outside, or maybe by, you know, doing this bit of bringing plants in my classroom and all that, how overall, it will help the kids. But I was caring about them, because if they could be regulated, there would be so much more hope and positive outcomes for the classroom. So when I started to switch that more to them that I care about you, and what can I do to make this better? I feel like that's where I got a lot of more. Oh my gosh, please come to my classroom like, yeah, I love it, yep, yeah,    Jayson Davies     I love it, yeah. You know, we're always so focused on the kids and also our own. Personal needs, but we forget that sometimes you can help kids by helping the adults in the classroom, whether that's the teachers, the paraprofessionals, or anyone else on campus, right? Like, that's great. I I was expecting you to, like, say, after recess, you asked the teacher, how can I help the kids? But that's not where you went. You asked, How can I help you, the teacher? How can I support you? And I think that's awesome, because a lot of times when you support the teacher, you end up supporting end up supporting the kids too. So fantastic. I love that, yeah,    Alex Thompson     like, I had a very rough school, you know, it's an inner city school. A lot of itinerant workers had gone in, and they didn't really get far because, like, the school, we called it that it was on fire, you know, like, there's all these crises happening. And there was this one resource teacher, and it was really tough for me to get in there, but the counselor kind of got me in. And I noticed that she was limping. I noticed, you know, her movement was changing from the morning to after lunch. So after the thing you could tell she's like, Okay, well, what are you going to give me to do get it over with, right? And I just said to her, I'm like, you know, I want to say I really admire and appreciate how you went through the day. I could see that you were in a lot of pain, and the pain was increasing, and she stopped, and her eyes got watery, and she's like, you saw that? And I'm like, yeah. I said, like, I wonder, like, are you having, like, back pain or hip pain? And then she's like, Yes. And she started describing it, you know. And so then I said to her, I'm like, Okay, well, before we get any plants, you know, before we declutter the classroom and open up the windows. I am going to ask for some things for your station, because here in BC, like the Union for the teachers, they have a wellness program, and so you can actually have someone come and do an ergonomic assessment and and do things. So I put in there that I was wondering, you know, if we could get an ergonomic assessment for her, and that I was recommending, like, anti fatigue mats that sit to stand stool and, you know, like ergonomics for her. And I even said to her, I'm like, you know, there's a physio in town. I would recommend for you to see him. They're going to do a gait assessment. You're probably going to use some orthotics, which will be helpful for standing. So I saw her, and we were putting a proposal to change her room. Four weeks later, Jayson, I came, and the first thing I'm just coming in the classroom in the hallway, she's with a huge smile, comes to hug me, and she's like, this has changed everything for me. And she's like, please come to my classroom. What else can we do? You know? And because of her and what we did in her room, there was three other teachers that then invited me to their classroom to do like the classroom makeover, we called it in. I love that,    Jayson Davies     yeah, I love that. That's like exactly what I talk about, right? Like, help one teacher, and by helping one teacher, you're gonna end up helping so many more teachers than you ever thought you would have able to help. So awesome, yeah? So that total classroom makeover, it should have a reality show, by the way, is that part of your your RTI pilot program, yeah.    Alex Thompson     So there's different tiers to it, right? But when you get the whole combo, we call it the deluxe package, you know? And so, so what it is is I just actually, on Friday, I had a meeting with one of the schools in the district that I'm starting, so I'm going to be in the school for three months. And so how it goes is that we call it the sense of regulation, and the word sense, each letter stands for something, and that's actually an acronym that I did not come up with. There's an OT here in Vancouver, Island. Her name is Michelle riddle, and she's also very focused on nature and the holistics of how our body works with, you know, food, with the air and all of that. And so she has done research where we can link a lot of the aspects of nature and how they contribute to self regulation. So the S is for stress management, the E is for environment and emotions. The N is for nourishment and nature. S is for sleep and E is for exercise. And so we train the teachers, the kids and sometimes the parents. We provide education in all those different areas and how all of those play a role in self regulation, and clearly, like how you show up in the world. So. Basically what happens then I'm in the School for those three months, for the tier one, a lot of the staff professional development opportunities, if they want them to have like a lunch and learn or something after school or during the staff meeting. We will talk about, for example, stress management for teachers, and we give them some tips, and we do the exercises together. We also draft a goal related to cell regulation for the whole staff team, something that they're going to tackle this year, right? So doing that this three months, I am doing the different pretty opportunities for the teachers, and then at the same time, we invite two or three teachers who wanna do the classroom work. And so those three teachers, they will be the ones that can have the classroom make over. And the outliers for the tier three interventions come from those three classrooms. So what I usually recommend to the staff team when they're deciding who's going to do what I say, okay, so when you look at your school population, who are the the frequent flyers in the outlier club, right? So, and most of the time they're gonna have, like, you know, 20 of them. And I say, okay, which classroom do this 20 come from? Which three classrooms? And so they will say, Oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah, Mrs. So and So, Mrs. So and so. And then I'm like, Okay, so from those four classrooms, which are the two teachers that you can see could be the most open and the most comfortable with having the OT come and collaborate with them, co teach, change the environment, all of that. So that's how we get our two classrooms. And then I usually take on the six outliers of the whole school who are the ones that are going to get the tier three services now for the classroom as part of the environment makeover, I also offer that sense of regulation, which is an education program. So the kids visit me once or twice a week for a 45 minute class on self regulation. And the kids come and I structure the environment like what we OTs, know, it should be like teachers get to see it. I have a lot of dynamic seating. I set up a lot of micro environments, you know? So there's like, a calm zone, there's a group learning zone, there's an individual learning zone, like, it's just lots of micro environments. Really quickly,    Jayson Davies     I want to pause because I want to touch on that, because, like, I know that ot practitioners are going to be listening right now and saying, like, where, where does this come from? Like, where did the budget for this come from? And so I obviously they're bringing you in for three months that is an individual, you know, contract, per se, whatever it might be. But for the extra stuff, bringing in the seating, bringing in some of the other things, are they setting aside an additional budget for that? Or how does that work    Alex Thompson     some schools do, and when they when we're talking about the referral and who wants to be a part of it, we talk about that, but some schools may not have like I'll give you an example. One middle school gave me $10,000 that was my budget, which is quite generous, actually. But at the same time, I had another Middle School that all I had was $1,500 Wow. So what I do? I literally go into addicts storage areas for the whole district. I go into the classrooms and we have swaps, you know, because I've had classrooms that the teacher order rocking chairs for the whole classrooms, or exercise ball chairs for the whole classroom. So we do trades. I'm like, Okay, well, you don't need 24 rocking chairs. So can we give you four regular chairs? And you give us, you know? So a lot of trades like that. But I also go in the attics and find a lot of stuff the school district storage areas, you'd be surprised at all the stuff I've been able to find. And we also go on Facebook. The schools have groups, and we will ask parents for things. So I don't do this anymore, because we don't have them, but in the past, like there's no way we could have bought, you know, like, 10 foot stools for a classroom. So I will ask parents to bring their phone directory books, and some of the kids we they'll help me to duct tape them, and we will use those as food stools, for example. So we just asked for the variety of things that we. Need. And I also go to the thrift stores. The thrift stores are my best friend. I'm actually always going and I have stuff in my garage. I have found new I don't know if you know the karma or stadium chairs. I don't know if you know they're used in yoga. They're usually like, $90 well, I have found two of those new ones, $5 each. So I always have those, and I keep the receipts. So when I do have a project, I just basically go to my garage and grab some of those and can give the receipt to the school. But that's where the budget comes from, and I have my own personal kit that I bring, and I literally move into the school for those three months. And that's why I asked for a space so I can demonstrate. So like in my kit, you know, I have these different kinds of timers. I have these sort of traffic light timer that when you have a lot of time left, there's green. When you only have a little bit of time, is yellow. When you only have five minutes, is red. I also have nature scenes, you know, that I can just roll out. They're printed on a piece of fabric, so I can just put them around in the room. I got Christmas lights like it's just it's a suitcase that I carry with me, you know. But the idea is that when the kids come, I structure it, you know, they come in, we they do a check in, like, how is your energy going? We can do we do it with thumbs, you know. And then we do movement and rhythmic activity to regulate them. Then we do an activity to connect with each other. Sometimes they go to centers, and all the activities that are happening are related to the topic. So like the first two weeks, we're talking about stress, and I set up these sensory motor labs, so each center has a sense, and I am asking the teacher, the SCA, so the student, education assistant that's in there to help me document the reactions. So as much as these activities look like fun, I am doing assessment too, especially of my outliers, you know, like when they're looking at the lava lamp, like, is there energy going up or is it going down? I've also created these passports for the stations so the kids themselves can tell me how, you know, how did this dice fidget help your energy? Did it go up? Did it go down? Did it stay the same? And so we're we're doing assessment, but we're also doing activities. We're regulating them. Then we have the little lesson that I do, which is quite experiential. We we may go outside for that, depending on the the classroom is, and then we come back. I always tell them to there's a pass to leave the group. You know. It could be like, tell me the high and low of today, or tell me something that stuck with you, or something that rock or, you know, like whatever it all comes from the research of the SEL signatures of practice, you know. So finish with optimism, or finished with gratitude. So that's how we end, and that's how I'm starting to document my outliers, and that's how I know, how you know, did the environment impact them? What are the things that work, even my interactions with them? What am I finding useful? My tone, my pace, like? What is it? And the teachers are seeing it, and what I have heard from them is that this is where is so important, because they're like, Oh, it was so great to see you deal with so and so when he's telling you that the game is stupid, and he throws a chair, you know, because I can see them, what I can do, Right? Like, and that is the learning that carries over. So that's what the classroom gets. So it's not only the makeover, the assessment of their outliers, but it's also this program. And this program takes place. The list amount of sessions that we could do it in is eight. The best number is 10 to 12, and that's going into the classroom. Well, they the school gives me a space, and it's my classroom, and they come for the cell regulation. Gotcha. Sometimes the school cannot give me 45 minutes, and I have to do it in 30 but the whole classroom comes in and I walk them through this. And so they learn about stress management, you know, they learn about the environment. What are the things that help you to, you know, go down, what are the things that help your energy go up, and what has been happening? Which was, to my surprise, in a couple of the schools, there was a mom that. She was driving, apparently, and like she was honking and screaming. And one of her kids said, Mom, it looks like you're stressed out. You should do the pause button with me. And he walked his mom to the breath, you know. So the mom came into the school as the principal, where did my kid learn about this pause button, breath, like, what is that? They called me to the office. I talked to the mom, and then she's like, well, I want to learn that I can get a group of parents to learn this. And so I basically partner with the counselor. So I started a book study on cell regulation, but the counselor kept it going because that's more within her wheelhouse, and I was gonna leave in three months, right? So, yeah, yeah,    Jayson Davies     that's awesome. First of all, going back a few minutes, where you where we started this, this wonderful answer was about the financial piece of it, and I just want to say kudos to you for getting a little creative. I think it's great that you have some stuff on hand, right, that you can show what works, and then the district principal might be a little more more open to getting it. Something else that you kind of alluded to, too, was there might not be funds for the OT, but the teachers might have funds. And so if you can convince the teacher what what they need, then they could be the ones to put that order in. And then from there, you can share some stuff around. Other ways that I know some OTs have done this, like really quickly, is Donors Choose. And I was just gonna say that it's like some people go on Donors Choose, and they get funded by random people. So, but yeah, go ahead.    Alex Thompson     Well. And the other thing that has happened too is every school district, and every school has this right at some point in the year, oh my gosh, the budget is closing. We got $10,000 we gotta spend it, you know? So I every time I've gone to a school, I said to him, like, you know what, when you have that time where you have to spend money, here's the list that we created as a team, and this is where you could spend your money. So they may not buy it while I'm there, but, you know, in April, when the budget closes, maybe they go on this shopping spree and they can get all of that stuff. And a lot of teachers had said, and the principals especially, like, that's really helpful, because they kind of feel bad when they just have to buy whatever, just so that they use the budget. So this is more intentional and more evidence based, like spending. Yeah, yeah.    Jayson Davies     And the key word you said, you didn't say, here's a list that I created. You said, here's a list of the team created. And so that was all created during your sessions with the teachers. And so it's a, you know, the principal gets this list, and they know it's not just coming from you, it's coming from you, but from you, but it's also coming from the teachers. They want this stuff too. So, yeah, that's really impactful. That's awesome.     Alex Thompson     Yeah, yeah. And, you know, for the the classroom, like the how the nature piece comes in, so for example, for the environment we talk about, you know, cause kind of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Like, how can we get air into the classroom, fresh air? So we talk about, you know, opening the windows. You know, bringing plants like NASA has documented studies, you know, of which plants are better for filtering the air. So when COVID happened that was really popular. I had my little list of plants, you know. And then one question that the teachers will always ask is, oh, you know, who's going to take care of the plants? And I'm like, well, the kids will right, like, when we and this is something that I've learned from my indigenous colleagues, if we can see the Earth and the planet more as a person or a being rather than an object. We have more empathy and more care towards it. And if we can teach the kids to care and that there's a reciprocity between the Earth and us, they are least likely to want to dominate, to want to waste, you know, and to want to see, like the Earth, just like as this source of resources that we got to spend and use, you know, unlimitedly. So, so, yeah, so the kids, there's like, a little sign up, and there's kids who will take, you know, the snake plant for Christmas and like, and Johnny takes it for spring break, right? Like, just like they take pets. So that's how we do that with the plants. We talk about, when are the good times of the day to have the windows open and let the sun in? Of course, writing and reading should be done closer to the natural light. So that's kind of how we start to bring nature into those inside spaces. We talk about having nature scenes as part of the display in the classroom. Also, if you are the kids are coming in, you know, having. Nature scenes with nature sounds, the rhythms of those sounds regulate or heartbeat and our breathing rate and even our brain right, like the rhythm of our wave, waves in there. And so we talk about that. I show that research to the teachers so they can have that using less plastic, more natural, you know, products. So like, instead of buying, you know, a lot of plastic puzzles, like, can you buy wooden ones? We talk about snacks the schools helping them to instead of just giving, you know, what is it like those fruit gummies or granola bars, like, can you partner with farmers? And can we have fruits and vegetables for nourishment? Anyways, there's like, a list of things you know of what to use in the classroom so that you can bring the air having water available. One of my middle schools, there was a lot of Indigenous students. And, you know, they the moon and how it influences our body. It's a strong belief for them. And so after we have a full moon, our tidal waves, you know, the tide, the tides change. And so our body is 70% water. So there has to be some change in the water in our body. So our indigenous colleagues suggested, you know, maybe having, like, more nourishment for thirst. So the teacher set up like a tea, hot chocolate and water station, and the kids just help themselves as they're working. I have a grade two teacher that did that too. She felt comfortable with the kids being able to manage that and be safe, and they have been. So those are the pieces, you know, for nourishment and nature. We talk about the rhythms. I asked the teachers to notice their own rhythm. Like, when are you most alert? Some teachers is first thing in the morning. Some teachers is after lunch, right? And so can we set up the most demanding activities for the times where you're most alert, right? So, like, math shouldn't be after lunch if after lunch is the most chaotic time. So what are your natural rhythms that you can follow in your body? And this is where some teachers, you know, giving them the freedom, like, Okay, well, after lunch, you crash. You're tired. That's okay. You're human. The kids are crashing too. So why don't we book the courtyard, and that's where you can do your class. Then you know, your lesson for reading. And so the kids will go in the courtyard and they have their books and they read. So scheduling those natural rhythms, paying attention to those so those activities go accordingly. That has been something that's super helpful. And you know, having like window covers. So here we have to worry a lot about the winter, right? So sometimes the temperature in the classrooms is really cold or really warm. So using window coverings to mitigate and to control temperature a little bit better. That way, opening the windows like it said, we talk about natural sound sources in the rooms, and what is an ideal station to be there, you know, because it can be distracting. Like I had a teacher that he did a lot of his teaching from the middle of the classroom, and when I was walking around with him, I showed him that was the most echoey part of his classroom, so that was not the best space. So then, as we went around and he heard me and saw it, then we moved that, you know, he needed to be more close to one side of the room, right, and some teachers placed themselves their desk right beside the door. Well, that's very distracting, if that's where you're teaching from. So just talking about that, I had to collaborate with acoustic engineers, you know, to kind of teach me a little bit about the acoustic over room. And what can we do to address those so I could use that to explain to teachers. And funny enough, you know this teacher, the one that had the echoey part, he he called me, like, a year after, and he's like, You know what's funny is, like, I haven't had a lot of calls and, like, throat infections, right? Which is something that the research said it was an outcome. So I said, DM I can I use your name? Can I tell teachers about you? It's like, absolutely. But now, like, I even have a partnership with a speech clinic in town. She helps teachers to use their breathing, you know, to be able to speak, because they speak for a long period of time. So a lot of teachers end up having issues with their voice and their throat and a lot of infections. So yeah, like all these things have come out of it, because we're trying to tune into your your body and what it needs, and those natural rhythms, and how can you bring those into the school classroom routine?     Jayson Davies     And, yeah, yeah. I love how you have kind of paired the research in the OT world, along with the culture of the indigenous people, along with audiologists and what they're saying about echoes and room like you have gone way outside this. I don't want to say you've gone outside the scope of OT, because you haven't, but you've gone outside the research of OT, which is what I'm like, always asking people and begging people to sometimes do a little bit like there is ot research, and the OT research shows that OT is effective. But we don't have to limit ourselves to just understanding the OT research. There's so much else out there that we can bring into our practice, right? Like, especially when it comes to, like, self regulation and social emotional learning. Like you talked about a counselor earlier, and you talked about, like, the audiologist, right? Like, all of that stuff is so important, and we can learn that, and we can use it. So just kudos to you for kind of getting outside the box. I love that.    Alex Thompson     Thank you. Yeah, I find that with nature, like, personally, it was very limited, like, I mean, you and I were talking before recording, the only book that I found as an OT with ot research for nature was balance and barefoot, literally, right? And a lot of the other research, you know, it came from counseling psychology, outdoor education, like, I'm a member of the American Experiential Education Association, and that's where a lot of my research comes from, for what I do in nature, because OTs are not doing that a lot yet, you know, it's a nuisance still, yeah, but there is evidence and and the reason why I thought ot was such a good choice to be doing this work, I love that occupational therapy is one of the few professional professions that the ethos of who We are has to do with seeing the human being as a holistic person. Yep, most of their healthcare disciplines focus on one thing, right? And we divide the human being into these one layer. But I'm like, OTs, you know, we are like, Shrek. We like the whole onion. We have to look at all the layers, and I feel like that's why I love being an OT and I love using nature, because it's so fitting with the layers of what makes human beings.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. All right, as we get to the last section of our podcast today, we had a question from someone in the OT schoolhouse collaborative community, and I want to give a shout out to epiphany for this question. She asked, Has anyone helped a teacher modify or rearrange an ex a classroom for Exceptional Children related to middle school. She's leaving it. She just left an IEP, you know, a team meeting, and the parent is very critical of the room, stating that is just sterile, and she didn't know how anyone could learn in that environment. So the room is arranged based on the autism teams recommendations, and they can't put a whole lot on the walls due to quote, behaviors of students destroying things. I guess I'm looking for ways to structure the room to help make it better. So I want to give you the opportunity to answer that one, right? Like, just put yourself in the situation a middle school classroom, super sterile. You've mentioned some general ideas already on this podcast, but what are some of the first things that you would try and want to do?    Alex Thompson     Well, so this is another aspect of the project. So when I am invited to do the classroom makeover, of course, I talk to the teacher first, and I say to her, you know, what are you seeing? Are the needs? What is the room used for throughout the day? And I get a schedule, but I also have a survey that I go and I do with the students starting in the preschool class all the way to high school, and the this survey goes through the census. So I say to them, like, okay, when you look around the classroom, what is very helpful to learn, what's not helpful, you know? What do you like the best? What would you like to see here? You know? And I. Get ideas. And I go through, you know, seeing, hearing, touching, feeling like literally every sense. And we also talk about community, like, what are some things in this room that help you to make friends and to feel part of the classroom? What are some things that are not helpful? So I will do that survey with the kids who use the room that you know, is it epiphany, right? That's her name. Yeah, yep. I will do a survey. So do a survey of the staff who uses the room, and do a survey of the kids, and then you're gonna get lots of ideas. I had a middle school, the one that I mentioned before, where the principal was kind and he gave us $10,000 to use, we had a quarter, well, even a third, a little bit less than a third of the room was designed to be a space where they could be free, They said, the kids, and they didn't have to worry about damaging stuff. And so in that room, the kids asked me we had a basketball net, you know, those little ones that you can just put on. We had some bean bags. What else did they OT, we had a big exercise ball, like the kids asked me what they wanted in that room, and that was the area designed for that. Right outside of that, there was another group of kids, a lot of them were autistic. They don't like a room with the exercise ball and stuff like that, feels too much for them, and so I partner. Actually, he was my neighbor. He was a retired woodworker, but he made toys. And I just showed him this picture of a cube, like a gigantic tube. Like, it's like, maybe, I don't know, four by two the cube. And we it has like holes all around, but they're in the shape of a circle, and so the kids called it the cat house. And inside the cube, there's the one area that doesn't have a hole, where it's where we put the cushion and we had a see through, kind of like mosquito netting on and that's where the Autistics wanted freedom and nothing to worry about in the environment will go to so there was those two kind of, you know, micro environments there. Then we also had another corner that it was more for movement. So I had, you know, one of those exercise ladders. That's where there was a swing, oh, I had some dumbbells. Like, there was a few choices to use for a movement break. There was the visuals for it. And we had the visual too. Like, when you went into that side of the room, you know, first you do, like an alerting, then you do a calming and centering activity, so the kids could choose and structure their own break. And there were the materials there on the shelf. Sometimes, though, those materials were kept in a hockey bag, because if there was another teacher using that space, they could just pull that out and go and do it in the hallway. So a lot of things, you have to be flexible, right? And it sounds me with epiphanies question that that room has to have the ability to be a flexible environment, so you set up for it. But I guess in a nutshell, what I would say is the users of the room. Are your space directors. They are the ones who tell you what they want, and we, as OTs, with our knowledge of you know the neurobiology of how the body works and what's best for learning and the senses, we give ideas and choices, and then they choose what they want.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. I think we can end the podcast on that. Honestly, no, I'm just kidding. Like that is such that is such great advice. Like we are always searching for data, always right, not just us. The teachers are trying to use best practices via data. The the principals are looking at school culture and data, and we're looking at data when it comes to sensory processing and fine motor skills and all that fun stuff. And the speech therapists are doing the same, the school counselors are doing the same, but we do so much of looking for data outside that we forget to do data inside and collect the individual or collective data that's right in front of us. And so I love that. You just said, You know what? I've got the data that shows this stuff helps, but I don't know which data to necessarily look at until I understand what the students need. And that is just a great way to go about it. And you said, you do it from like the whole school, right? But you could do this. One classroom. You could do it for a sub classroom, a group in the classroom. Absolutely, that's fantastic.     Alex Thompson     And that's how the classroom makeover goes. Like, it's not me saying, Oh, and you need these curtains and you need like, no, no, it's the kids. And the funny thing, you know, in that middle school I brought I have a in the survey, there's these pictures of all these chairs. Now that I had a budget, I could give them the choices that we could afford, and the kids pick the ones. And we talked about what each of those chairs, what the function was for their body, through their senses. And I said to them, like, I build up the enthusiasm, like, okay, guys like the chairs are gonna arrive in two weeks. I'm gonna come in my truck and we're gonna open them. Can you guys help me? So I had the whole class come down. 14 kids came to help me unload the stuff from the truck. We had carts and everything. As we are opening and unwrapping, we're talking about how, you know, chairs are tools, and chairs help us to modify how our energy is going. And what does it look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like when you're ready to learn and when you use the chair? And so I said, Okay, so we only have three Yogi bowls, the bean bag chairs that I suggest, because the yogi bowls have the air beads that can modify so they feel a little bit more like encompassing of the human being. They're very expensive, but we only had three of them, and there's 14 kids, and they all like it, so we came up with a system for them to sign up. And then I said, tools are very effective when they're used to help us learn. If they're being flung around, thrown around, they're not safe. And so I said, you know, Mrs. Mr. So and So gave us this money, and I spent all this money, and I'm gonna trust you with all these treasures. So show me that I can trust you if I see them thrown, pick, you know, destroy. That tells me that these are not you. These classes not ready for them. And I come and I'm going to pick them up. So the teacher and the SCA rolled out, and one of the Fridays, the chairs got flung around, thrown around. They were wrestling with them, and one of my autistic kids, he said, We need to call Mrs. T the chairs were not used as tools. And the teacher called me, and I came back, we had a classroom meeting, and I said, Hey guys, what happened? And they were explaining. And I said, So what do you think? And a few of the kids were like, Yeah, you said that we're not supposed to use the chairs like that. I'm like, That's right. So what? What should happen? And they're like, you're gonna take them like I will. And are you taking them forever? I'm like, No, we're gonna we're gonna have a pause and a reset. I'm gonna take them away, and you guys can call me and you can tell me when you're ready to try again, and we will. So everybody pick chairs, and they load them in my truck, and I took them away, and a month later, I came back and they try them again. To this day, the one kid that I was saying, yeah, he, you know, he's the one that called he would still, if I saw him in the hallway, he'll still tell me they're using the chairs, Mrs. T You know, like, yeah, which is great, because you're teaching them self management and self evaluation, right? Like, are we using things as we are supposed to, are they helping? Are they not? And that self awareness helps with interoception, right? Like, so those are the bonuses of that, too, that you're teaching so much. It's not just the chair and how to use it.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. I love everything that we talked about. Like, we going into this podcast, right? I really assumed that it was going to be a lot about sensory in nature, and we've touched on those we have, but we've also touched on so many other aspects of occupational therapy. We've touched on behavior, we've touched on social, emotional we've touched on social, social interactions, right? We've touched on so many pieces, and all of that has kind of been combined, and it's all happening in like, this democratic way, per se, like within the student. I love that it is not you really saying anything here in this program. It is the students that are providing the information, and you're helping to interpret that information to help the teachers. I mean, that's just just fantastic. I love it. We're going to have to move on today. But before we do, I want to give you the opportunity to kind of share a little bit a about your nonprofit, which we didn't have as much time as I would have liked. Maybe we'll have to do another day to talk more about that, but but share just a little bit about what that is, how it kind of aligns. Aligns with everything you're doing, and then, and then share where people can go to learn more about you and what you're doing.    Alex Thompson     Yeah, so the the charity that we establish here in Canada is called Power for All. And I actually started that charity before I became an OT because I wanted the outdoor adventures to be accessible to all abilities. I myself, you know, I'm a neuro divergent learner, and I also have my invisible disabilities, and so it was important for me to figure out a way that people could access the outdoors, even if you couldn't move or, you know, if you have pain and things like that. So that's how it started. And because of wanting to create devices, I had ideas of devices that could be used to help to compensate for certain abilities. I was like, what do you need to do to create these devices? And that's how I came across. OT and so basically, married with a mortgage, left my job, and went back to school, got another, you know, undergrad that could help me to get into OT, and that's why I became an OT. So Power for All we have, you know, biking, climbing, paddling, we do parkour like there's a ton of different outdoor adventure activities that we use, and that is how we deliver occupational therapy services in the community. I wanted it to be a charity, a not for profit, because a lot of our fundraising efforts are for people who can't afford the services they can still come in and enjoy, you know, ot if they need it. And the referrals come from partner community service organizations, the school districts, so that we can really target the families that need it. And yeah, like, it's funny enough, this is going to age me, but yeah, we're going into our 16th year as a charity, and now we do, at first it was just summers. That's why I work for the schools, right? So we have the summers off, but in the last three years, we have been doing it all year long. So that's why I kind of have to spread my time and, you know, we contract other OTs physios. We're looking for physios. We're looking for species counselors to contract so we can offer that holistic perspective. We already have partnerships, like with clinics, you know, like a naturopathic clinic, audiologist, different things, because the kids come to us for cell regulation, but sometimes, you know, I need help, because I see that maybe there's some undiagnosed pain or there's undiagnosed deficiencies. And I had one of my kids come for cell regulation, you know, for two years, and it ended up being that he had an undiagnosed ulcer at the mouth of his stomach, and he was nine years old, and that's why he was having meltdowns. Wow. So again, right? Like the self regulation piece, when it's holistic, it you can you go into all these different areas, and that's why we have partnerships with a lot of disciplines so that we can serve our families better. So, yeah, Power for All ATS, so adventures, therapy, society, that's what the  ats.com , that's where our website is. That's where you can connect. We're in Lincoln. Instagram, Facebook, absolutely.    Jayson Davies     Thank you, Alex, and we'll link to all that also really quickly. I just found out, right before we started this podcast episode, Alex shared with me this link, and we'll drop it in the show notes as well. But it is like a research library dedicated to basically nature based everything, therapy and all that good stuff, and that is at children and nature.org/research , library, research dash library, again, we'll put the link in the show notes. But Alex, thank you so much for sharing all the resources, all the great again. Everything that you said was about we, not me. I love that. Everything that you said was about doing the best for the children, even if it's difficult, like seeking out an audiologist or something like that. So you are obviously doing amazing things, helping everyone in your area. I love that, and now you're sharing that news with the entire world, which is fantastic. So thank you so much, Alex. We really appreciate it.    Alex Thompson     Thanks, Jayson, it's been a pleasure, until next time, I guess.     Jayson Davies     Next time, thank you. Bye. And with that, we wrap up this episode. Thank you so much for joining Alex and I on this enlightening episode of the OT school house podcast. Alex is doing such amazing things up in British Columbia, and I want to extend a big thank you to her as well for sharing her innovative approach to integrating nature into. Classroom design. We hope this episode has sparked new ideas and encourage you to consider how nature can play a role in enhancing learning spaces inside of the classrooms that you support and also the students that you serve, as you reflect on what you've heard today, I invite you to join our community of school based ot practitioners inside the OT schoolhouse collaborative by visiting ot  schoolhouse.com/collab , you can earn a certificate of completion for engaging in this very episode, as well as others. You'll also be able to dive deeper into topics just like this and others and gain additional support in your practice. In the collaborative, we provide mentorship, ongoing support, and, of course, professional development courses. Thank you for listening. And here's to incorporating the tranquility and resilience of nature in to your daily practices. Until next time, take care and keep making a difference.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succee Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Thanks for listening to the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. A podcast for school-based OT practitioners, by school-based OT practitioners! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Subscribe now! Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 13 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Do you run a handwriting group? Do you use a specific program? In this episode, Jayson is diving into the recent literature on handwriting to help you with your decision-making when it comes to supporting your students' handwriting goals. We'll discuss everything from which programs work in what setting, to who can benefit from handwriting instruction and more. Specifically, we will be looking at 4 articles that support the instruction of handwriting in the classroom through a collaborative approach. Be sure to check out the articles in addition to listening to the article; they are cited below. Have a listen on Apple Podcasts if you are interested in hearing about recent handwriting research. Links to Show References: The first article mentioned: Debra Collette, Kylie Anson, Nora Halabi, April Schlierman, Allison Suriner; Handwriting and Common Core State Standards: Teacher, Occupational Therapist, and Administrator Perceptions From New York State Public Schools. Am J Occup Ther2017;71(6):7106220010p1-7106220010p9. DOI: 10.5014/ajot.2017.021808. The second article mentioned: Tsu-Hsin Howe, Karen Laurie Roston, Ching-Fan Sheu, Jim Hinojosa; Assessing Handwriting Intervention Effectiveness in Elementary School Students: A Two-Group Controlled Study. Am J Occup Ther 2013;67(1):19-26. DOI: 10.5014/ajot.2013.005470. The third article mentioned: Sheryl Eckberg Zylstra, Beth Pfeiffer; Effectiveness of a Handwriting Intervention With At-Risk Kindergarteners. Am J Occup Ther2016;70(3):7003220020p1-7003220020p8. DOI: 10.5014/ajot.2016.018820. The final article mentioned: Courtney Engel, Kristin Lillie, Sarah Zurawski, Brittany G. Travers; Curriculum-Based Handwriting Programs: A Systematic Review With Effect Sizes. Am J Occup Ther 2018;72(3):7203205010p1-7203205010p8. DOI: 10.5014/ajot.2018.027110. ​ Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript.   Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hey everyone, and welcome to September. I hope you all had a fantastic Labor Day weekend, and I hope you're all getting back to school and having a good time at school, meeting the kids, meeting the staff, or just getting back into the flow. I'm at a new school, as I said last episode, I believe. And you know, it's, it's tough because I'm trying to get the printers to work and everything. But you know what? I'm loving it, I'm loving the kids. I'm loving what we're doing there. So welcome everyone to episode number 13 of the OT school house podcast. This episode is very meaningful to myself and Abby. And you know what this is our 13th episode, which means that we've officially been doing this for six months now. And you know what? It's September, school is getting back into session, and we're so happy to be here. August was awesome. We actually had episode six, which was about the difference between the M fun and the bot two assessment that that podcast reached 1000 downloads this past month, and we actually had over 2000 total downloads of the podcast in the month of August, which was just mind blowing. We couldn't be more thankful. So we appreciate everyone for for letting us be a part of your daily lives, or maybe your weekly lives, I guess, and listening to the podcast. Yeah, so six months and a lot longer to go. Hopefully, I hope you guys will keep on listening. So for today, we have a short Well, we'll see how long it goes. But I the last week, I've been looking at handwriting articles. Earlier this year, there the as ot published a handwriting article about common core and what handwriting means in the Common Core, and just how much common core and handwriting go together. And so that that article got me, you know, really interested in handwriting. And then just recently, in June, I believe it was, another article was published about handwriting, and this was actually a systematic review about all the previous studies in the past 10 years about related to handwriting. So I'm excited to kind of do my own little synthesis on about three articles, three or four articles for you to let you know about handwriting and what's been shown to be effective. And that way, when you go to IEPs, or when you're talking to teachers and administrators, you can say, Hey, I know what works. And maybe you can get something started. So you know what? Let's jump into it. This is episode number 13, and we're discussing handwriting, alright? So the first article that I was just referencing, it's titled handwriting and Common Core State Standards, teacher, occupational therapist and administrator perceptions from New York State Public Schools. And this one came out in October, 2017 I might have just said January, a second ago, came out a little earlier than I thought, back in October and Well, this was the data was collected by Deborah Collette, Kylie Anson, Nora Halabi, April, I'm sorry. April Schlierman and Allison Suriner. So these group of researchers, they basically did a little survey, it sounds like, and they talked to teachers, administrators and OTs, and I'm not going to go into detail on this one, but it really sets up what we're going to talk about right now. And that is, I think they confirm what a lot of us, OTs, especially, and probably other special educators, already know, and that's that there's less and less time for handwriting instruction, you know, actually going over formation, sizing, spacing, all that good stuff that so many referrals come in for, ot for, and instead they're focusing on math or focusing on that content of writing, you know. And a lot of kindergarten classes, they're already expecting the kid to come in knowing how to write their name, and, you know, it just doesn't happen. And those kids that aren't quite there, you know, they're not getting the instruction they need, because there's other kids that are already there, and they're kind of focusing on those kids, in my opinion. And so the outcome of this study, like I said, you know, they found that there's less and less time, but you know, there are really advocating, you know, for handwriting to be more more ingrained in Common Core, there is not a single standard in Common Core that says a child should know how to write the letters. It's more of the child will write their name, but it doesn't really take into effect any of that actual how to write, or the very foundations of writing, like I said, those are kind of just expected among kids now. So that kind of lays down our foundation for the next three articles that I really want to get into. And for those we're going to actually use the. The article analysis that we went over in episode number 11, I believe it was with Dr Amy Sadek. And we're going to kind of break down those articles a little bit and share what they mean, what their limitations were, how they're going to be beneficial to us as well as why and what we can do in the future. So let's jump into the next article that, like I said, you know, kind of feeds off of this common core article. Alright, so this next article is titled, assessing handwriting and intervention effectiveness in elementary school students a two group control study, and this was done or published at least in 2013 the actual study was, of course, done a few years before that. It takes some time to write that all up, but it was completed by Hal rotten shoe and Hinojosa. And you know what they wanted to do was examine exactly what it says in the title. They wanted to examine the effectiveness of two common approaches in improving general education children's handwriting, and so they wanted to look at legibility as well as speed. And they also used the VMI to get some scores to see if, if the VMI scores improved by practicing handwriting. So they used a practice based motor learning approach in the control group. And they actually kind of had two control groups. The other control group was a visual perceptual motor approach. And so they, of course, you know, they did the lit review, and they found that, based on previous research, a practice based approach on motor learning has been shown to be a useful strategy in handwriting remediation. So that's kind of why they went with that. And they also cited a common visual perceptual motor approach and remediation of handwriting skills, and so several studies have linked visual motor integration to be one of the most important predictors of handwriting performance. I think a lot of us know that, but it's also been documented that children with poor handwriting skills also score poorly on the VMI. There was also a little bit of confliction there, because not every kid that scores high on the VMI has good handwriting. And of course, you know, there's multiple factors that go into it, but they were kind of saying, you know, the VMI, the berry VMI, doesn't necessarily predict good or poor handwriting skills, so we can't just assume that every kid who scores high on the VMI is going to have great handwriting, and that's why it's important when we're assessing to make sure that we actually get a writing sample and see how they write in the classroom. And then also, you know, use another test, you know, try and see maybe what the ravma shows, or what the bot shows, or the M fun, you know. And so you just got to be careful with the VMI, because sometimes there can be kind of a false positive. So, so the way that they set up this study was as a non equivalent pre test post test group, aka, basically, the non equivalent means that it wasn't randomized, as you can, you know, likely understand, it's hard to do a randomized study in a school. You know, kids are already separated by their classroom. And so it's kind of hard to say, let's randomize it. So they use, they started off by using what's called the Minnesota handwriting assessment to gather baseline, baseline data. And based upon that data, they actually use kind of a unique method, in the sense that the way that they they distributed children was, they kind of took the first kid that was above the mean scores. So you know, if you have 100 kids, they took kid number 51 and they put them on one side, and then we're just going to pretend like there's not a kid number 50 they put 49 on the other side, and then so they put the kid 48 with number 51 and 52 with 49 and they kept going back and forth until they had, well, not 100 kids, but they had eight kids on each side, so a total of 16 kids per cohort, I guess you could say. And so it's almost like the way that kids would pick kickball. You know, Team One takes this kid, Team Two takes this kid, except they took the best and then they took the worst, then they took the best or the next best, and then the next worst. So that's kind of how they got the fair teams, or fair cohorts. So you could say, and so after they gave them the Minnesota handwriting assessment, they went ahead and also gave them the berry VMI to get some some baselines, but it was not used to separate the cohorts. That was after they had already separated the cohorts. So I know I wasn't very familiar with the Minnesota handwriting assessment, but it is a norm referenced and the It tests the child's ability to copy 34 letters in two and a half minutes. And we'll get into that two and a half minutes thing in a minute. But they did use the berry VMI, which most of us, I think, are familiar with, and it is normed reference, and it assesses visual motor integration using a pencil and paper test, where students copy increasingly more difficult geometric shapes. I think most of us are pretty familiar with that one, and the assess. Sirs, that the assessors that did complete the evaluations, they were blinded, and so they did not know what group that that child was in, neither pre nor post testing. So that, of course, now leads into the intervention which this intervention occurred twice a week. For 12 weeks, it took about 40 to 45 minutes at the end of the school day. And both groups were part of a quote, unquote, handwriting club. But the handwriting club differed, like I said. One was really focused on on practicing handwriting, and the other was kind of focused more on the using Visual motor integration type of activities to see if handwriting would increase. So that intensive practice group, they had 20 minutes of grade level handwriting curriculum and grade level writing task, and they were encouraged to participate in various writing different writing tasks. The other group, the visual perceptual motor group, had 20 minutes of activities from the my book of letters and numbers and the my book of shapes, both published by the the same Barry that published the VMI back in 2004 so both students from both groups, they worked in a Handwriting Without Tears book as well, because this was part of the school curriculum. So they're both using the Handwriting Without Tears book, but one had extra practice on specifically handwriting, while the other group had more practice on different visual motor integration activities, maybe copying different shapes and just other things where we're working on that eye hand coordination and putting together stuff like that. So that leads us into our results. When if you just look at the two different groups, there weren't really significant differences, or at least they weren't clear. You kind of had to get into the nitty gritty, where they kind of more broke down the two cohorts, the two groups, they kind of had to break that down even further to compare kids that had similar pre test scores and so but once you got into that area, there was definitely more improvements in the handwriting legibility scene, in those students that participated in the intensive practice than the students that participated in the visual perceptual motor group. And so it's kind of hard to understand how they did that, that separation. To really get these scores, they use a number of clusters, and when they break it down into the clusters, you can actually see how, how that was actually beneficial and and how it really did help. They have three clusters, I believe it was, and one cluster didn't quite work out that way, but those were also kids that several of those kids ended up being or needing a special education, IEP. And the other two kids that were in that cohort actually ended up being like very smart kids, and their pre test scores were just super high, and so they didn't make a lot of improvement because they were already doing so well in terms of speed. Sorry, that was in that was in terms of legibility, where we saw those differences in terms of speed, no significant differences were noted. And like I kind of mentioned earlier, the Minnesota handwriting assessment, the MHA, the way that it assesses speed is whether or not a student can copy 34 letters in a two and a half minute period. And so by the time the post test came around, just about every student was able to do that. I mean, 34 students, or 34 letters in two and a half minutes. That's not, you know, a whole lot of letters to copy, in fact, in that time period. So, and it didn't matter if you if you finished 34 letters in one minute. Or if you finish 34 letters in two minutes and four or 29 seconds, you still got that same score. You passed the handwriting speed, and so they just didn't see a significant difference in the speed. Or if there was a difference in speed. So all in all this, this, this study supports the idea that general education students do need intensive practice writing more so than intensive visual perceptual motor programs. So again, we're talking general education students. And previous studies had linked the VMI skills, or have linked that VMI skills can have a direct effect on legibility and the speed of writing, but, but, you know, they didn't expect to see a significant difference in the VMI scores because they were trying to work on handwriting. No, they weren't. These were general education students, not students who had a disability, and so a lot of the VMI scores weren't really that low, so they didn't see an increase in VMI scores in either group. They were all pretty similar. The study also reinforced the previous studies, finding that the VMI as a tool to measure handwriting legibility, like I said earlier, must be used cautiously, and we already kind of went over that, so I'm not going to beat it. Beat it day. Horse or anything. But I do want to go over some of the limitations, and that was, like I said earlier, they did lack some randomization, and that's kind of because of the study, and it's really hard to have a randomized studying in a school, because groups are already kind of pulled out, and that's kind of common among all the handwriting groups. And we'll get into that in a minute too. So there was also a lack of blinding group leaders, like I said earlier, the actual assessments were blinded, but the people, the therapists that were leading the groups, were not blinded. Of course, as you can imagine, like I said, they were only separated into groups of eight. And I believe there are three cohorts total that they that they sampled. And so it was a relatively small sample size, and earlier, like I said, the the Minnesota handwriting assessment obviously had limitations in the sense that you scored, you passed, quote, unquote, you passed if you wrote 34 letters in one minute versus 34 letters in two and a half minutes. So that's the gist of the limitations there was, you know, a possibility of subjectivity, of legibility, and that's always going to be a factor until, you know, like, there's some sort of computer generated test, but going forward, the implications on everyday OT, if this is important enough to test, then you know, maybe there should be that computerized test that can determine what is legible. You know, I always kind of tell people, you know, I literally go through and I'll look at each individual letter, and I'll put three check marks under it. I'll put S for size, I'll put F for formation, and I'll put what's the other one? I put Oh, l for, for linear, if it's sitting on the line correctly. And then I'll, you know, make a mark if there's space correctly. And then I go back and I count up every single, every single one that I put, if I didn't put something, then that means they missed it. And I have to, kind of, you know, do this whole thing where I count up the score and divide it by the total possibility, which, you know, is like three for each letter. It can be time consuming. So if someone's able to develop a computerized assessment, they can just look at handwriting or an app that can do that, I'd be down totally do that. So with that said, the other implications, of course, is that repetition and practice are important in developing handwriting skills, especially for general education students. You got to remember that this was with general education students and the handwriting club, like this handwriting club is what they did, was like 40 minutes. 4045 minutes at the end of the school day. These kids got to participate in this handwriting club. And you know what? They found that that can work a little bit so ot should be entwined into the school system, we should be working on handwriting. I know there's a lot of people that say, You know what, we're not handwriting specialists, but you know what an opportunity we have to help our teachers and help our students with handwriting, and so we should be working alongside of those teachers, to work with them to improve the skills of our students handwriting. So I hope that article makes sense. And again, that article was titled assessing handwriting intervention effectiveness in elementary school students, a two group control study in 2013 and we will be sure to link to that study in the show notes. Of course, if you are an agent, member, an OT a member, you will be able to have access to that study. Alright? So now we're about 20 minutes in. I just want to take a quick break, you know, and let everyone just take a nice deep breath, relax a little bit, and while you're doing that, I do just want to ask real quick, if you're enjoying this podcast, will you go ahead and just click that subscribe button on your iTunes Apple podcast or or Stitcher, or maybe you're on Spotify. Would you just hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes. It would really mean a lot to us, and we're gonna get right back here into the rest of the episode and look at two more, two more research based articles. But I just want to ask you all to take a minute to take a breath and let us know that you're enjoying this show by by hitting that subscribe button. And we very much appreciate that. So all right, so let's get into article number three. This article is titled effectiveness of a handwriting intervention with at risk kindergarteners. And so this one is different in the sense that the study looked at at risk kindergarteners rather than general education students. So they were looking at students that were either on an IEP or receiving RTI strategies or RTI services. However, their district was doing it, and so they wanted to see if these at risk students could improve their writing and early reading skills actually, which is also different. They looked at reading skills by participating in an occupational therapist led handwriting instruction using the Size Matters handwriting program. Of course, you know, they started off their article by looking at previous research. And you know, they found that 36 to 66% of the time that kindergarteners are in school, they they're focusing on fine motor activities. And of that, you know, one. Third to two thirds of their time, 42% of that that fine motor time is spent writing. So I mean, that could be anywhere up to almost. I mean, 20 to 40% of their day, I guess, is spent writing. And so they also looked and they found that difficulties with writing can have an effect on a child's self esteem as well as academic success. But there's also some, some inquiry as to whether or not writing can have an effect on reading. And so they wanted to look like, I said, you know, to see if reading was involved, if they could improve a child's reading by incorporating handwriting. So previous studies found, you know, that explicit handwriting instruction is important to learning to write, and in terms of how writing can affect reading, studies were also cited that state that handwriting recruits parts of the brain associated with reading, so they want to not only see if they can improve the writing, but also the like I said, the reading skills in the intro of this article, they also cited a study that I think most OTs know in their heart. You know, maybe you haven't read it, but you know it in your heart, and that is that working on performance components does not necessarily lead to increased handwriting capabilities, kind of like the last article we went over, working on visual motor integration, or visual motor skills, doesn't necessarily lead to improved handwriting. So they also mentioned that not all children with handwriting difficulties need ot and I completely agree with that, and some just need intensive practice, like the previous article said, but they do state, and again, I agree that as school based OTs, we are perfectly positioned to provide this practice to students that are not on an IEP. And this, of course, goes against the grain in many districts, but with RTI and MTSS kind of stepping up their game a little bit, it's it's something that we might be able to do. And IDEA says that ot can be used as a preventative service, to prevent disability, not just to build up a student who already has a disability, and so with handwriting referrals being the main source of OT referrals, then why not try to prevent those referrals through the RTI process? So after that, we jump into the methods of the study, and the two specific research questions proposed in this study were will at risk kindergarteners participating in a 16 week ot led Size Matters handwriting program intervention group show improved handwriting legibility. That was number one. And the second question is, will they also make considerable gains in early reading skills, including letter name recognition and letter sound recollection? And so again, like the previous study, they had two convenience groups, because this is a school, you know, the groups are already kind of separated out. And so the they did use a pre post test design. 23 students were in the intervention group and 12 students were in the control group. And again, this was not blinded. So one of the things about that is that there were different teachers as well as different schools. They didn't quite have enough kids all at one school, so these kids were spread out at a few different schools, and instruction was provided in the intervention class. I'm thinking they didn't really explicitly say this, but it kind of sounded like this was maybe an A Resource Specialist program type of classroom, an RSP classroom. And so again, this is important, because the students were still exposed to normal handwriting instruction in their general education kindergarten classroom. So both groups were receiving some sort of handwriting instruction in their class, but they were also in different classes, so you don't know whether or not teachers at different classes at different schools, even we're teaching to the same extent handwriting or effective handwriting curriculum. So that's one thing that again, when we get to the to the limitations, that's kind of a something that we'd like to see taken into account for. So this handwriting program consisted of a 16 week intervention period consisting of 30 instructional slots, basically twice a week that that comes out to being, and they use the Size Matters handwriting program by Beverly muskowit. So the reason that they use twice a week for 16 weeks was based upon a study by Holly and others in 2011 which noted their lit review of handwriting programs. And so when they did this lit review of handwriting programs, they found that studies that did not include twice a week instruction or fewer than 20 total instructional periods were not successful. And so by doing twice a week for 16 week, they met both criteria of meeting twice a week and having more than 20 total instructional periods. So going a little bit further. Sessions lasted 30 minutes and were led by the lead researcher, and she had assistance from three additional adult during the lesson period, including a certified ot assistant, an educational assistant, and support from the classroom teacher, who was also encouraged. To use the Size Matters handwriting programs during the week, even when they weren't during the session. So again, if this was like an RSP type of classroom, every time those kids were coming to her classroom or to the teacher's classroom, he or she may have been using the Size Matters handwriting program strategies that can assist children in more than just those 230 minute periods every week. And so, of course, they needed to use an assessment for a pre test, post test. And unfortunately for them, they there is no normed handwriting assessment in existence for children that are younger than six. And so since they were working with kindergarteners, you know, everyone's four and a half, five, five and a half, maybe, and so they ended up using the test of handwriting skills revised the thsr, and unfortunately, the thsr is only norm for kids six or above. So they found that this was going to be the most useful tool. And so they did end up using that. And they used scores for the lowest age, for the six years old when they were grading. So again, it's not norm for that age, but it's kind of the closest thing you're going to get to working with that that population that they had, which were those younger kids. They also used the North Dakota Title One Kinder reading standards assessment to assess the early reading skills. Specifically, they used the letter identification of letter names and letter sounds portions of this assessment. So demographics wise, the students in both both groups were pretty similar, except for the fact that there were significantly more students, percentage wise, that were on IEPs in the control group. So 83% of the students in the control group were on IEPs, versus 39% of the students in the intervention group were on the IEP and that does matter, because, you know, students who are on an IEP have been identified as having difficulties with learning, and 83% of those students on the control group were in IEPs. So that could have a little bit of an influence. Considering this, the area where we saw improvement was in the the intervention group, but more kids that were on IEP, that may have had more difficulty learning, were in that control group. Aside from that, there were no significant differences in handwriting legibility scores on the ths during the pre test, and because the scores were similar on both sides of the groups, the researchers continued with the study. So for 16 weeks, they completed their intervention using the Size Matters handwriting program, and then they completed the post test, which showed that the intervention group indeed did make significant progress. Significant progress was made both on the handwriting legibility as well as with the reading scores, specifically uppercase letter name recognition, as well as lowercase name recognition and uppercase sound recall, all increased in the intervention group. This is really important, because when it comes to fighting in our schools, you know, letting our administrators letting our teachers know how important it is to have a handwriting curriculum in the classroom? Well, we're not only just justifying now to increase the student's ability to write nicely, but we're also showing that this can have an effect on their reading scores as well. And so of course, starting early is always best. You know, getting into those kindergarten classrooms can be so beneficial, and this study is kind of showing that it's not just in that writing capabilities, but also in a student's ability to read. So of course, I want to make sure that we go over the limitations, and the researchers did do a good job at identifying limitations in the study, including that the study wasn't blinded. The lead researcher conducted both the pre and post tests, and she was also the lead in the intervention session, so not blinded. Both groups did continue to receive standard handwriting instruction, which was not well defined and was also completed by different teachers in the at different schools and the general education curriculum. So we don't exactly know what type of handwriting instruction these kids were receiving outside of also receiving the Size Matters handwriting program. So other things that did get mentioned by the researchers was that, you know, the skill of the teacher, school wide philosophies, those could both play into the facts, as well as the three to one ratio that was in the control group. You know, there were three specialists working in the classroom with the control group, versus probably only one teacher working with that control group in the general education classroom. Also, the like I said earlier, the RSP teacher was using size matters, handwriting program strategies throughout the week, not during just those two days a week periods. There was also a relatively small sample size, you know, there were only 36 kids or so, and it wasn't randomized, like we said earlier. So these are all things you have to take into consideration when we look at an article, primarily what they really wanted to. Take away from this article, or what they wanted us as the readers to take away from this article is that as OTs, we are in a prime position to really help students with writing and apparently also a little bit of reading through writing instruction. And that brings us to our last article that we're going to look at today, which is actually very new. It's actually published this year 2018 and it is titled, curriculum based handwriting programs, a systematic review with effect sizes. And this was also taken from the American Journal of Occupational Therapy. Unlike the previous two articles we just looked at, this is a systematic review. So they did not actually do a full blown pre test, post test research. However, the previous two articles were looked at in order to determine if a handwriting curriculum was effective. Because this is a systematic review. I'm going to go a little less into detail about the methods and all that good stuff for this article, but I do want to definitely go over the results, what they found out, and where they feel that this can lead handwriting curriculums as well as research on handwriting curriculum. So to get started, these are some of the programs that they actually did look at the right start. Program, the handwriting without tears. Program, the Peterson directed handwriting curriculum, the fine motor and early writing pre K curriculum, the size matters, handwriting program, right direction, handwriting clubs, and last but not least, explicit handwriting program. In completing their review, they found that eight out of the 13 total studies that they found from 2006 to 2015 showed significant improvements in at least one component of legibility. Therefore, moderate evidence was shown to exist in handwriting programs working to help legibility. Out of the 13 studies, there were also mixed results in terms of speed of writing. And in fact, actually one program, the size matters, handwriting program, actually, while it had one of the larger effects of legibility, it showed a decrease in speed. And so that is something to consider going forward when you're working with students, is what is your main focus, and are you willing to give up some of that speed for legibility? An additional factor that they looked at was the time, or the amount of sessions required in order to make this progress. If you recall, earlier, I mentioned a study in 2011 that that noted that handwriting curriculum should last a total of at least 20 sessions and be more than twice a week in frequency. The systematic review showed no correlation between all the studies researched and the amount of time that those studies worked with students individually to make progress. So there were mixed reviews there. In fact, I'll even quote the study here for a second where they say we found that more intervention hours did not appear to lead to substantially higher handwriting improvements. Additionally, they also found that kids in older grades actually had larger effect sizes, which goes against what some believe that as a student gets older, the less likely they are to make improvements on handwriting. So all in all, based upon their comparison of effect sizes, they found that no one program really stood out from the others. There were two programs, the Right Start Program and the explicit handwriting program, had non small effects on both legibility and speed. So they were both kind of in the upper, upper size of effects. However, they all varied. Some had larger effects in one area, versus versus smaller effects in another area. And some kind of had medium and medium in two areas. So they didn't want to point out, or they basically they couldn't point out one specific handwriting program that, you know, maybe you should use in your program. That's all up for debate, but they did say, based upon what I was talking about, the speed is that you need to take into account what area you want to work on. Do you want to work on speed, or do you want to work on that legibility? And maybe you can work on both, but you need to kind of focus on one area first, so maybe you want to work on that legibility and then work on the speed, all right? And that's what we're going to wrap it up today. I hope you all learned a little bit about different handwriting curriculums today. We went over quite a bit. I'm going to definitely post all those articles up on the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 13 for you to all review. This podcast is not actually going to be a professional development opportunity. However, MB, cot does allow you to earn one hour professional development when you read two articles and do a summary on those articles. So you've already basically listened to my summary. So now I suggest you go look up the articles, read them real quick, review them, write your own summary, and that way you can actually submit them and request one hour of professional development for two articles. So go ahead and do that. Also, if you have a minute, please subscribe as well as scroll on down to the bottom of this podcast and leave a comment. Let other people know what they're going to learn in this in this podcast, and appreciate it if you have any questions. Jeff. Finally, shoot us an email over at podcast@otschoolhouse.com and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you and have a good rest of your week. Everyone. Take care.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otsoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed. Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 12 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, Jayson interviews his older sister and fellow occupational therapist, Akemi McNeil (formerly Davies). Akemi is currently the Academic Fieldwork Coordinator at Stanbridge University's Master's of Science in Occupational Therapy program where she works with hospitals, clinics, schools, and other employers in order to place upwards of 120 students in an appropriate fieldwork setting. In this podcast, Jayson and Akemi talk over what it means to be a fieldwork educator and what every school-based OT should know before taking on a student. Have a listen if you are interested in the following objectives: Listeners will understand the fundamental requirements for being a level 1 and/or level 2 fieldwork educator. Listeners will understand the basics of what is expected of both fieldwork educators and fieldwork students. Listeners will understand the basics to provide learning experiences to fieldwork students in a school-based setting Links to Show References: Have a question for Akemi McNeil? You can contact her at Adavies@stanbridge.edu AOTA's Fieldwork Educators Certificate Workshop - If you would like to further dive into the theory and supervision models of being a fieldwork educator, check out AOTA's certificate workshop. AOTA Official Document: "Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Education: Value and Purpose" - Check out this document to solidify your understanding of the purpose of fieldwork education. AJOT Article: "Supervision of Occupational Therapy Level II Fieldwork Students: Impact on and Predictors of Clinician Productivity" - While this study was not conducted in a school district, their findings do support the idea that taking on a fieldwork student does not typically cause a decrease in productivity. Earn Professional Development for being a Fieldwork Educator: Click here to see what counts toward your NBCOT renewal. ​ Click here to see what your state's OT board says about earning PDUs as an educator. More Helpful Resources not mentioned in the podcast, but passed on from Akemi McNeil (Affiliate links for your convenience) The Essential Guide to Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Education: Resources for Educators and Practitioners 2nd Revised edition Clinical Supervision in Occupational Therapy: A Guide for Fieldwork and Practice (With DVD) Perfect Paperback When someone asks Akemi for references on how to improve as a fieldwork coordinator, these two books by Donna Costa are her go-to recommendations. Check them out on Amazon if you would like to dive even deeper into being a fieldwork educator. Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hey, everyone, I want to try something different real quick. I want you all to think about that first day that you walked into your first level two field work, or maybe even your first level one field work, and you met your clinical instructor or your field work educator that day, and you really had no idea what you were doing there, whether it was a school based or if it was an acute rehab or whatever type of facility it was. You had no idea what you doing, probably, but you know, week one went by, week two went by, and the next thing you know, you're already on week 12, and you're possibly putting together your presentation to present to the the other occupational therapists that work there, or maybe you're taking on full 100% of the case load, and everything's going great, and you're feeling confident and you're feeling so thankful for your clinical instructor. Well, today, that's what we're here to talk about clinical instructors, and how to be one, in fact. And so we have a special guest for you, but first, let's Cue the intro.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research. Now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hello and welcome to episode number 12 of the OT school house podcast. I hope you all are having a great start to your school year. By the time this episode comes out, I will have just began, started seeing the kids both in a pull out and push in models. So this is a new job for me, and I'm super excited today though we have a very special guest. She's not only a fantastic occupational therapist, but you will also quickly come to learn the close connection we have, and I can't wait to share that with you here in just a minute, before we get into that. I do want to just remind everyone that you can find just about anything that we talk about today on the podcast at the show notes. And the show notes for today's episode will be at ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash episode 12, episode and then the numbers one and two to see those show notes. Also on the show notes, you'll have the opportunity to purchase the professional development opportunity for this podcast, which basically just consists of you listening to this podcast, learning a little bit about being a field work educator, and then taking a short quiz to show that you understood what was discussed in this episode. And so for a small fee of $10 you can do that, and we will send you out a certificate of completion. All right now, getting into today's objectives, number one, listeners will understand the requirements for being a level one and or level two field work educator. Number two, listeners will also understand what is expected of both field work educators as well as field work students. And number three listeners will understand how they can provide learning experiences to fieldwork students in a school based setting. So that's what we're going to get into today. And now let's go ahead and meet our special guest, Akemi McNeil. Akemi is a local academic fieldwork coordinator at stanbridge University here in Southern California, Orange County, to be exact. And she's here today to talk a little bit about paying it forward. You know, in the intro, we talked about remembering your field work experiences when you were a student. Well, now we're talking about being that field work educator, being that clinical instructor, and then paying it forward to the future generation of occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants that are, you know, working toward getting their credential and becoming MBC OTs certified. And so today we have, like I said, with us, Akemi McNeil. And you know, she's a great person, a great therapist, and she's doing wonderful things down there at stanbridge with connecting field work educators, with field work students. And so Akemi has over 10 years in a pediatric experience, she worked both in a private clinic or multiple private clinics, as well as being a school based therapist. So she's right up our alley, and she has a lot to share with us about what it means to be a clinical instructor or a field work educator in a school system. So let's do this. Here's Akemi McNeil. Hey there, Akemi. How's it going today?    Akemi McNeil     I'm great. Thank you. Hope everybody out there is doing well too.    Jayson Davies     Yes, school is getting back started in session. So I hope you all are getting off to a good, productive start over there. So all right, well, to get started, I guess I should tell you how I know Akemi, Akemi is actually my older sister, and has obviously had a huge impact on my life. She's the reason I'm an OT and she allowed me to shadow her at a pediatric clinic for hours upon hours before finally committing to OT over film production, as I was also pursuing at the time. And now she's here on the OT schoolhouse podcast to talk to us about what it means to be an academic field work coordinator. So we're also going to talk about being an educator as well, but she is a coordinator. So first of all, can you give us a rundown of what a field work coordinator of a master's occupational therapy program does?     Akemi McNeil     Yes, I'd be happy to thanks. Jayson, the academic field work coordinator, or we often are called an afwc, often acts like a liaison. Uh or a support system. We are basically liaisons between the schools, the students and the sites to coordinate with and support all parties before, during and after field work rotations. This usually involves getting to know the personalities and strengths of our students, and at the end of the day, we really look at the services and specialties of each of the clinics, as well as the personalities of the students and how they might fit together or be a good match for each other. So getting to know everybody involved is really important in what I do. I'm also a support system to our students and our sites. If something is not quite working out, I can always come help assess and provide our sites or students or resources that will help field work experiences go as smoothly as possible.    Jayson Davies     All right, so how do you get to know both the students and the sites? Because, I mean, you have to kind of pair them, right? So how do you go about getting to know them?    Akemi McNeil     Yeah, we have a lot of students that we work with. Each year we take in 60 more 64 more students, and I do my best to get to know them through giving orientations, meeting them in class. Sometimes the students will come to me and meet with me one on one. We do a lot of email correspondence and then with the sites. Oftentimes, when I have the opportunities, or as often as I can go out, I will go directly to the sites and meet all of the OTs that we work directly with.    Jayson Davies     Oh, wow. So just to clarify, you work at stanbridge University, and that is in Southern California. So I'm assuming you go to many places in Southern California. But how far do you venture out of Southern California?    Akemi McNeil     So far, I've been in most of the Southern California area, as far down as San Diego, but I do have access and ability to go to any of our sites at any given time, especially if a student is struggling, or if a site makes a request for us to be there, we would definitely make the trip.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. So how far do some of the students end up traveling for their field work Then?    Akemi McNeil     we currently have students as far north as Sacramento and San Francisco area and as far south as San Diego.    Jayson Davies     Oh, so they're mostly all in California, or they all are in California?    Akemi McNeil     Right now, stanbridge follows one of California's laws, which I can go into maybe later in this discussion or another day, but we follow some standards that keep our students right now in state and different schools have different programs, but That is what our program follows currently.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay? So as you know, most of our listeners are school based, OTRS and CODAs, and I don't know how many of them have ever had the opportunity to host a fieldwork student. Well, I guess that's not totally true. I did an Instagram questionnaire earlier, and about a little over 50% have hosted a student. But today, I wanted to get into what the school based OTs and CODAs may need to know about hosting a student. So to start off with that, what are some of the requirements for someone to be a level one or a level two field work educator?    Akemi McNeil     So a level one field work focuses on professionalism and interacting with a variety of populations and those populations who receive services. So this is really about anyone who is on the rehab team, the medical team, the Special Education team, who is willing to take a time out, basically 40 hours out of their week to help supervise the students. Now there are different types of level ones. It could be one time a week for 40 to 80 hours. It could be a one week for 40 hours. There are different structures for different programs, but this is really a good opportunity for students to observe all team members. And so it doesn't have to be an OT for the level one. However, an OT or an OT A can be the main supervisor, but you might want to take the opportunity to schedule out the student to see different types of professionals working or who work with you.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I remember on one of, I think it was my level two, actually, or my occupational therapy fieldwork supervisor set up a she set up a time for me to observe a surgery, actually. So I was in the operating room observing the surgery, which is kind of cool once in a probably lifetime experience, but that was really cool. I know that was a level two, and you're talking a little more about a level one, but still really cool experience that we wouldn't get to know and get to see. And I mean, we end up working with those patients after the surgery, so it's kind of good to see what happens before we get to work with them.    Akemi McNeil     Absolutely and a level one in the school system. From my experience, we often would take a level one under an OT but then maybe work with the speech therapist or. A special, special ed teacher, or even an adaptive PE teacher, and have that student follow that person out for a couple hours or a full day, and that way they start to gather, you know, what each person on the team actually does and how they might contribute to the team later on, when they're in an OT role and so and so that the level two is much more focused on specialized skills and building and using those skills as an OT. So masters ot students need to be primarily supervised by licensed OTs. Well, an OT a student might be supervised by an OT a or an OTR, these OTs who supervise students must have at least one year of experience, and really you can learn to supervise in any way. Maybe you've seen it happen. Maybe you just realize that you have more experience than a new grad or a student, and you just are ready to take on hosting. So there are some the basic requirements to have that one year of experience.    Jayson Davies     Oh, that's really not that much. So most people that are going to be listening to this podcast can do it then, as long as you have that one year of experience. So what about for coda? Do they also have to have one year of experience?    Akemi McNeil     Yes, they should have one year of experience to take an OT student.    Jayson Davies     Okay, and just to clarify, can a OT, a COTA supervise a level two Master's ot at any point    Akemi McNeil     a level two ot student might be I'll spend some time with an OT A, but an OT a or CODA should not be supervising an OT student.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay, all right. Well, as you know, I have yet to take on a student, something that I'm looking forward to do, hopefully in the near future. But if I were to do so, what are some of the commitments I would be signing myself up for?    Akemi McNeil     Yeah, I get this question a lot, actually, and I think it's one of the it's a popular question, but from my experience, I actually got more from the student than I saw loss in time. So just from experience sake, I've had many students over the years, and I might put a little extra time in at the beginning to make sure that they have their foundational skills, to make sure that they know they have the schedule and all their expectations, that they might know what the policies and procedures are the facility I work in, so that they're familiar and comfortable with the environment. But then once I get them, you know, rolling on their first week and they're comfortable, I start giving them tasks that are at their level. You know, I'm assessing their skills as I go each and every day, each and every week. And so I might give them an assessment to score. I might have them take over an activity that I start. So I start building things very early on, and start tossing different skills at them very early on, and as I watch and observe what they can do, I grade that expectation to be higher and higher. So as they take on more I'm able to do more things on the back end. Maybe I'm sitting in a session, you know, having my student finish an activity with one of my clients while I look at one of their their notes that they've written they've written for another client. So I'm always going back and forth with my time and filling in the gaps. But by having an extra hand there, you know, I'm able to do the work that it requires of me, of being a supervisor, but it also gives me a couple more minutes to maybe look at a chart while that student is working with my client. So it's just a balance, and as long as you know how to delegate the work appropriately and give the right amount of work to the student, it's a beautiful balance, and I actually have gotten my productivity up to above 100% by the end of a rotation.     Jayson Davies     Oh, wow. So sometimes maybe we're looking at it the wrong way, then where, instead of taking time from us, it can help us actually gain time.     Akemi McNeil     Absolutely.     Jayson Davies     Very cool. And before I forget, Do you by chance know of any evidence that supports that about the productivity?    Akemi McNeil     Oh, thanks. Jayson, yes, I forgot there's an article in a ot from 2014 that says there's no significant difference in productivity between clinicians with students and without students. So that might be a really helpful article for those out there.    Jayson Davies     Definitely. I'll be sure to post that in the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 12. So I was browsing the A o t a website before I got on this call with you, and I saw that a o t a does have a actual course for field work educators. Is that a requirement? To be an educator, or no, because you just said it takes one year of experience, right?    Akemi McNeil     Yes, that's absolutely true. It is not a requirement, but it's an extremely helpful resource.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay. All right, I want to get into this because I know some other people have this question, what are the benefits to taking on a student you kind of turned a negative into a positive with a time. But what other benefits are there for taking on a student?    Akemi McNeil     Not only is there a benefit of looking at your skills and turning what you do every day into words and being able to teach somebody else and pass on all of your amazing knowledge, because there's always you look at a student, you go, Oh, they're not going to ever do it as good as I will. But the reality is, that's not true. You have the power to teach that student and push them to their levels and make sure that they have the most accurate and up to date information from the field, because they're coming in with accurate and up to date resources from school, but that's the research, and that's the theory, right? You have the ability to turn that theory into actual practice, so you're creating the next generation. However, the benefits to you also is sometimes time, or it can be financial, because you can get PD use by hosting a student. So instead of paying for PD use, you can host a student and get 12, which is about half in some places, remember to check your licensure for what allowances you get for student supervision as well.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's absolutely true. I know many states require about 12 per year, is what it comes out to, even though it's over the course of two to three years. NBC OT is 36 in three years. So again, that's about 12 a year. So we'll definitely link to NBC OT and the individual state's requirements in the show notes, so be sure to check that out there. Alright, jumping back to some people who may not their field work may not have been in the most recent past. How long is a field work, or what is the commitment for the student for the field work?    Akemi McNeil     the students have their level ones are one week or 40 hours. Sometimes that can vary by school. The level twos are pretty standardized, at 12 weeks for the OTR student and eight weeks for the OT a student.     Jayson Davies     Okay, so it's a little bit different depending on if you're doing the assistant or the master's program. Okay, I did not realize that, all right, so and then, so now you know a little bit about what it what a student is going to be there for, how long they're going to be there for? What do you recommend on that first day? What should we expect from a level two student coming from a college?    Akemi McNeil     Level two students, I think, as open and resourceful and organized, you know they're still coming in, a bit a bit nervous, so helping them to get organized, maybe giving them a schedule, setting the expectations early. You know, you should expect them to be willing and jumping into a learning experience, but we should also make sure that if we build foundational skills, they'll be ready to actually use all the information that they're bringing in from school, in most cases, from my experience in this position, all of the students have passed and gotten to this point with flying colors. Now it's more about, if you will. It's like their motor planning, their praxis. It's putting all this information to use and executing what you know we we hope for them to do.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. And there's two different level twos, right? So would you say that there's different expectations for a first level two student and a second level two student?    Akemi McNeil     Some people think that, but because the students have two completely different rotations, they really are. They're not really linked. They're very different. We think that a level a first level two student has less experience versus the second level two student. And a lot of sites will say, Oh, we only take a second level two student. I would say sometimes these students are a little bit more comfortable. They're starting to understand what field work is all about. But their first rotation may have had nothing to do with their second rotation. So I've actually had students be really successful in their first rotation and struggle more in their second rotation because it was just an area they were less familiar in or with.    Jayson Davies     So in general, students don't go to the same area of practice for the level twos. Is that correct?    Akemi McNeil     Yes, a co our accreditation requires all students to be trained in two completely different areas of practice.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And do you mind me asking where you did your two level twos at no    Akemi McNeil     not at all. I did one at Casa clean, it in the pediatric department or unit, and then another one in Pasadena at the della Martin Center for in psychosocial.    Jayson Davies     Oh, okay. Very interesting. And this kind of leads into my next question, did they have you do any project while you were working at those two locations?     Akemi McNeil     Yes, and now you're going to test my memory a little bit. I believe my project at Casa cleana was taking information that my CI had gathered and about riding a bike and putting it into almost like a manual form or instructions form. So, you know, trying to help others learn, or help other OTs learn how to structure activities for other clients to learn how to ride a bike. So I think that was one of them. And I'm not sure if I had a full on project for my other rotation.    Jayson Davies     Okay, yeah, I remember I had a project when I was at the California Children's Services CCS. But then when I was at the VA I didn't have a project. So you're right, it very much depends. So is it pretty common now for Level Two students to take on a project at their field work sites.    Akemi McNeil     I know for our school at stanbridge, we actually assign that they do an in service or a project, and it can be up to the collaboration of the student and the CI or fieldwork educator to determine what that will be. Sometimes I encourage students to take what they've learned as part of a thesis project or a project that they've done in school, or maybe look at the site from a needs perspective, kind of way, and share something or share some kind of knowledge that they feel could benefit the site, almost as a thank you. Some sites require it. Others don't. We just happen to have it as part of our syllabus, and I can't say that all schools would have that as a requirement, so you should always check their syllabus.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay, I don't know. I kind of feel like they should have some sort of project, even if it's just something small, there's just so much that they can do and help out in a little ways. So I think it's a good idea to have a project. All right. I know this is a big question. A lot of people want to know, how hands on Can students be level two students, how hands on should they be during their field work, and both for level one or level two.    Akemi McNeil     So level one, that's where I think more people are confused than not. Level one is generally labeled as observation time, and sometimes the students might misconstrue that and misunderstand how much effort they have to put in. So setting expectations from day one is absolutely key, and this goes for students and sites alike. Is if the structure is outlined from the beginning, everybody might Bill stay on the same page easier. And of course, level two is kind of like all hands on deck. You know, learn as much as you can in 12 weeks. I don't think you can teach them enough it should be graded and pushing them to the next level at an appropriate pace for that individual student.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and, you know, I wanted to come on here and ask you, kind of, in relation to that, like, how do you grade? You know, what percentage of your caseload should the student have? Week one, week two, week three and and I just, I don't know maybe you can speak to this, but can you do that? Can you expect something?    Akemi McNeil     Oh, it's absolutely, we should definitely, for every site, have some kind of laid out expectations for all of our students. I found it really helpful at places that I worked that we had a week one through 12 guideline that somebody had sat down and figured out, you know, what should we expect of our students at week one, week four, week six, week 10, whichever week you are in. And when I was a first year supervisor, I thought, Oh, this is really helpful. It teaches me what to expect of my students, but it also kept my students on track. And as I became more experienced, it was something that I just said, Oh, this will help you stay on track, right? I would just tell my students, because I practically had it memorized. And then, as I got into being a busier therapist, and was sometimes, to be honest, lose track of, you know, where we were in the education process when having a student, it even kept me on track, so I couldn't get distracted by my reports or my caseload or whatever else was happening, because I could go through the checklist of what do I need to train my student in this week, and how could we combine it with something that's already happening on our caseload? Or I. You know, what could we look forward to? And maybe switch out something that we think might or should happen in week six, and maybe we need to put it in week four, because that's when our IEP is, you know, we adjust it as we all do with everything else.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, of course, it's just a guideline that you kind of use and manipulate as needed. So absolutely and hey, that could be a potential project for a field work student right there, just putting together some sort of field work guideline type of thing.     Akemi McNeil     It's also something that I think most AFW sees, you know, pick the school you want to work with, pick the AFW see you want to work with. Invite them, you know, have them come to your site for lunch or a in person meeting, and they can bring samples of these week by week guidelines and help you structure it out so that you pick an appropriate set of guidelines for your site.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay, so diving a little bit more now into the specific school based side of being a field work coordinator. What can a student in a school based setting do in terms of work that an OT would do? So what can a field work student do?     Akemi McNeil     I think a field work can do just about anything. Of course, you should consider that they're still practicing under your license and check that they can safely and ethically perform the skill that you're asking them to do. But we should be including our students in everything from practice to engaging parents to going to IEPs and anything that an OTR is responsible for. There's a lot of sites out there that once you graduate, you don't get a lot of mentorship. So this is really the time to to expose them, to expose students to anything that you might possibly see out there, and get them mentorship and guidance on how to navigate these situations.    Jayson Davies     And do you have a lot of a lot of school districts that work with you guys to bring on students we do, we actually we do. That's really good. Another big one that people have a question for is, how close or how what in what proximity do I need to be with my level two field work student? As you know, school based therapists were traveling. Some of us have one school, but many of us have multiple schools, so say, say, a level two student, we feel that they're comfortable working more independently. Can they be at a different school site than us, or do they always need to be right there with us?    Akemi McNeil     This is definitely a question that gets asked a lot of the time, and it's hard because there are some gray areas. Now, as we talk to this audience, we should definitely say there are people you need to check in first because, of course, every site or school district or clinic has their own set of policies, and first and foremost, you should be following those policies. And then, of course, you need to look at your state guidelines. California has guidelines that, to be fair, are a little bit vague, but also are that way so that they can accommodate a lot of different settings and students under different supervision styles. And so you need to look at all the different parties involved and work with your afwc to see what is appropriate. Now I can tell you, from experience that it did work really well for me to have a student treating a client in maybe we'll call it the OT space of a school. And while that student was treating the client, I would go grab another client, or I might go check in and do a consult with the teacher. And this might be later on in the field work rotation, where I knew that that student, you know, we had cell phones. We connect with each other immediately, if needed, and I would be back 10 or 15 minutes later at the most. So that's what I was comfortable with. Now there are definitely are situations where we have OTs in the field with different areas of practice, where students are off site at a separate site than the supervisor, but that is definitely collaborated with the school and the supervisor, and we know what's happening. Does the school or the NWC should always know what the structure is at your site and what the supervision limits are?     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. I don't know if I would let a student go into an IEP by themselves at another school, but, you know, maybe treatment, if they're doing collaborative type of treatment or something, I could see them being off a little bit on their own. So okay, the the student completed a treatment. Now comes to the actual part of documenting, taking notes and even billing for. Medi, Cal, Medicaid. How about that? What does that require of both the student as well as the field work educator?    Akemi McNeil     The general rule is that OTs sign off on anything that a student does. Now you should always check with your facility, because there are different rules for different funding sources in the schools, I felt most comfortable with having them do their documentation once they were competent in that and then going back and doing a quick review. Now, occasionally, there might be a wording error that I would go back and train the student on, or a suggestion on how to I would say the wording or how they described a behavior potentially. And so those are simple changes. It might require the student rewriting the entire note, or it might just require a scratch out an initial and moving forward here in the world of doing online documentation and digital documentation, it's very different. Sometimes it has to be the OTR to click that button. So those kinds of things really come down to policies and what you feel comfortable with doing under your license.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, because I know on some of the online platforms, it's hard enough to co sign a cotas notes, and so I can't imagine a school district is going to create an entire account for this student to write up a note, which then gets sent to the OT to co sign in a way. So I can imagine the different the different ways that OTs and their students, as well as the administrative staff, get creative to figure out how to do that. So definitely understand that.     Akemi McNeil     And we're really fortunate. There are some sites that do take that into consideration, where they host students often enough, where they have extra online accounts solely for students to use, but sometimes it also limits how many students they can take at one time. So it's changed the game a little bit in that regard.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay. And while we're on with billing, do you feel that it's a field work educators role to explain some of the billing, where the funding comes from for for instance, I mean, we're talking school based, so where the money comes from for school based, is that an important conversation to have with a level two field work student.    Akemi McNeil     I think so, as an experienced OT, I think it's important for me to know when I'm practicing where the money is coming from, because it can affect, you know, how I bill or how I code my treatment, or how I write my note. It can play a large part in documentation. So it is important for us to not take light the concepts or all the dynamics going around funding sources.     Jayson Davies     Definitely. I agree. And I want to ask you this one, which was not on the note, so you're going to have to ad lib this one treatment or assessments first, Which way would you tend to go to when it comes to having a level two student?    Akemi McNeil     trick question, this actually, I had a different concept of this when I was earlier on in my career, but as I've had experience hosting students and now watching students in different types of practice areas. I truly believe it comes down to how your practice setting is set up. I've worked in both types of settings where we did mostly practice and a few evals, maybe a couple a week, to the area of practice where I did multiple evals a week, and there are more eval hours than there were treatment hours. So I actually am in favor of setting the student up with the thing that happens most frequently, getting that thing, getting the thing in, or the action in that happens the most so that they get the most repetition of that. You know, whatever that activity is getting the repetition so that they can start developing some healthy habits, healthy roles, things that they can learn quickly, so that that's their fall back. That's what becomes easy for them, so that they can spend more time learning the harder concepts, or the things you don't do as often.     Jayson Davies     That makes sense. I mean, take a straight, a strengths based approach, and, you know, get, get what is the quote, unquote easy stuff or things that they're going to do frequently out of the way, and then, kind of, like you said, gradually increase the expectation. So makes sense to me. All right. And another one, I don't know, just we're talking about so much stuff with school based that we don't usually talk about, because we're talking about a whole nother concept of having a student with you. And so I just feel like everything's different when you have a student with you. Yeah, you may be great at IEPs, but are you great at IEPs when you have a student sitting next to you? Or you may be great at treatments, but are you great at treatments when you have a student there with you? Yeah? And so when it comes to IEPs, what is, what is the role? What role do we play in teaching students about IEPs?    Akemi McNeil     One of the things that I remember doing when I had students in IEPs was teaching them the process. And I think it took me a year or two of doing IEPs to really understand what my process was, or how I was part of the team. And so if I was able to pass that on, I would make tip sheets for myself that I eventually passed on to students, you know, how to prepare for an IEP, all the different steps that I did before I even walked into the meeting. And those are things that some of our students kind of learn the hard way, or some of the OTs who don't get that step by step guidance, they might miss something along the way. And so I highly encourage the OTs to not only teach those their students how to navigate the IEP once they're in the meeting, but how to prepare for them successfully, because that really does lead to a successful meeting, usually.    Jayson Davies     Very true. And so in that sense, they should obviously attend. Should they be signing the notes or signing the signature page on the IEP then?     Akemi McNeil     Absolutely, they can sign the attendance. I might check with the principal or the people who the person who is running the meeting, just to see, is it okay for a student to sit in on the meeting? You should definitely check that whenever possible. I was very lucky to always have student friendly teams who felt it was important for students to witness some of the things. And then I would have meetings with my student and say, you know, this is a meeting that I'd like you to help in. You can present this portion of it. Or will you tell me how you're going to present it before we go into the meeting? Or I might say, you know, this is probably not the meeting for us to practice in, you know, why don't you take notes while I provide all the information? And, of course, anything in between that.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, did you ever have a time, because I can just imagine having potentially some feedback from the parent. Did you ever have a time when the parent was like, Who is this person sitting here? Why are they here and have some trouble with it? Or were they always pretty good about it?     Akemi McNeil     I want to say that because I was so open with my parents to begin with, from day one, you know, I was an OT that often sent messages home, or called the parent occasionally, or called a parent before IEPs when possible, so sometimes they already knew that the student was going to be in the meeting and expected it. Now, of course, if it was unexpected or last minute plans, like I said, I would have already checked in with the team to see, you know, is this an appropriate family to bring a student into? And if they agreed, then we might present to the family say this is a student they'll be sitting in to learn the OTs role and describe why they're there, and to say, you know, it's they're not here to necessarily learn more about your students. Specifically, they're really here to watch the process of what the OT is doing.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, with that every, especially every school district, should have a process in making sure that all the students understand HIPAA, understand fairpa, understand their roles and what they can and can't say whether they're on the job or off the job. So that's another important concept that every school should prepare for if they're going to take on a student. Absolutely correct me if I'm wrong, but they do tend to get HIPAA training right students before they go out to the field work.    Akemi McNeil     I think most schools have adopted this. All of our students do take a HIPAA training and get a certification that they've taken that training.     Jayson Davies     Great. So. That's an easy one. Then to check out the list, all right? So we have the student, they're going to IEPs, they're doing some treatments. I don't think we touched upon assessments yet. Really, should they be doing the full standardized assessments, observations, writing the entire report, providing summary and all that good stuff. By the time they're done with their 12 weeks?     Akemi McNeil     By the time I would like to see students at least have two or three assessments that they know. Well. Now I would say it's impossible to know every single assessment. There are ones you're just going to learn. You know, job by job, potentially depending on the site that you work for or the clientele you work with, but you know, yes, you should be able to check most of those things off. Now, the performance evaluation that you do at midterm, and the final does give you the opportunity to break down that process, and they might score very well in one area and a little bit lower in in a different area. And that's totally okay as well. A lot of the students that I hosted definitely struggled in a couple areas. Of evals, mostly when I had a student, maybe over the summer, times in the school setting where I didn't have as many IEPs or as many evals, and the opportunity just was not there. So yes, you still have to grade to some sense and do the best you can, letting them maybe find appropriate clients to practice with when possible in those situations as well.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, that's a good way to do it. I like that. So again, as I mentioned earlier, I've never had a field work student. I am on a new job at a new district, and there's no students there. And talking to people, it doesn't sound like they've had students there in a long time, or if ever. And so in my role, in my capacity as an OT, you know, I'm interested in taking on a field work student. What? What can I do now to, you know, improve my chances at taking on a student soon?    Akemi McNeil     So I say, let's just get in connection with the people we need to talk to. And that involves you, maybe talking to whoever your supervisor might be, and asking them how you would like them to be connected to a school. Now, maybe it's somebody above them, but really it's all about getting your site or facility connected with the school, because the AFW, see the academic field work coordinator can really facilitate a lot of those conversations and get to the right person once we have a contact.     Jayson Davies     And at school districts, does there tend to be a specific person? Is it principals? Is it vice principals or the special education director? Does it tend to be kind of one person or the other at schools?     Akemi McNeil     I'm still learning a lot about this process, but I would say the special education director is has a big key part in it. We often will meet in with different people at the director level, but then I believe they also push it up to get approved by the board as well, because a contract or an agreement has to be done between the site and the school before we can even consider sending a student to a facility or school district.     Jayson Davies     I guess that makes sense. I know there's a reason that every district has a board, so you know that's what they're there to do, is protect the students foremost. And yeah, all right, so another question, what if I'm absent to work? Can the students still be there? Should they be with another occupational therapist, potentially, if I'm not there, or what about that?    Akemi McNeil     Another really good question, we do we have OTs that get sick, and that's totally okay. Occasionally, an OT who has the day off or a vacation plan, might ask that student to do a makeup day, but they can also shadow somebody else. They can be in a special ed classroom and maybe helping out a teacher that day, maybe implementing some classroom strategies that are not billed by OT. You would never Bill ot without the OT there or present or in some way able to sign off on that. I don't recommend an OT who is sick or absent doing any kind of billing with the student, but they can, or maybe they can help a coda out that day, there's a lot of opportunities for learning without the OT being on site, but there are a certain amount of hours that supervision does need to happen, and you should never leave the student in this with this supervision style without consulting the afwc first. So if you know that you're going to be on vacation, or if you have an illness, the afwc should be the first person you call that morning after maybe your job, definitely connect with them and let them know what's happening.     Jayson Davies     So that academic field work coordinators kind of that go to person, that go to liaison in the middle of all this, so.    Akemi McNeil     Absolutely, and they're the main person that's going to know all these policies backwards and forwards and how they relate to that student and that student's placement.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. All right. So will it also be the academic field work coordinator that's telling us how to grade a student then? Or how do we know? Do we get some sort of form that we follow when we're grading the student. Or how does that work?    Akemi McNeil     You do? You get an academic performance evaluation. And this, there's one for the OTR students and one for the OT a students, and it basically sets the expectations of what the students need to have skill wise by the time that they finish their rotation. And so you do that at the midterm, which would be six weeks for the OT student, and then again at 12 weeks for the OT student.    Jayson Davies     Okay, so twice, good review. At what point? What's the earliest You should probably be contacting the field work coordinator if you have concerns?    Akemi McNeil     Yes, the minute you feel, or even if you have a gut feeling that it's there's a concern, it's worth contacting the coordinator at that point in time, because there's a lot that can be done, and the coordinator might already know that student well enough. Or maybe it's just a strategy that needs to be implemented. Maybe it's a practice setting concern. I've seen a lot of students have difficulty in one practice setting, but then somehow, you know, push through and make it through that practice setting and get to their stronger suit in the next rotation.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha, I can just imagine, you know, there's always going to be either one, people that just kind of butt heads a little bit or two, you know, just people that struggle a little bit. And, you know, people are going through life. So it's not like people are trying to do harm. It's not like people are trying to do a bad job. You know, everyone's there trying to learn, and so we just got to keep at it and get the help that we need. So yeah, so getting now toward the toward the end of our discussion today, what's one piece of advice you find yourself regularly giving to field work instructors you work with?     Akemi McNeil     I would say, remember to get to know your students, academic field work coordinator and that hosting a student can really be fun and collaborative process. We're naturally really great teachers. We should probably be using this, you know, anytime we host a student, and know that students go in there really trying to do their best, and usually when they get all the supports they need, all I see is success across the board. Occasionally, a student or two will maybe need a pep talk or have put a different filter on and what they're hearing or help them understand what a CI is saying, I know that sounds strange, but I think students get so wrapped up in some of the details, or get overwhelmed by the newness, that sometimes they miss what is being said. And oftentimes in the coordinator position, we can have those back end conversations and really dive into what a student is thinking, hearing and processing, and we work as again, as a liaison to help everybody get back on the same page so we can have a successful rotation.    Jayson Davies     Sounds good. Sounds like that may be a a fulfilling but tricky job sometimes, because you gotta kind of, I don't want to use this term lightly, but tread water. You know, you have to make sure you're talking to the right people the right time and and, like you said, communication is key, you know, making sure that you get in contact with your your coordinator the second that you feel like there might be something going on and not let it drag on and wait until you're really having some difficulties with a student, or if you're a student with your with your educator. So definitely. So all right, can you think of a story that you can tell us about, maybe a time that you had difficulty hosting a student and how that ended up working out for you?    Akemi McNeil     I have hosted supervisors, a lot of students, but I've really been very fortunate to have hosted many talented students that I had, you know, not too many concerns about, but there were a couple that occasionally in the process I questioned their safety or their clinical reasoning, But usually is creative and use just different teaching strategies to get to get them through these challenging sessions. Unfortunately, I didn't know that there were so many supports on the school side, so I didn't use that. But I generally was in clinics that had a lot of supports when I was hosting these students, I would say more on the side that I'm on now, I usually see that students are struggling for different reasons. It's rarely because of their skills or their skills related to OT and it sometimes takes some digging a little bit deeper to find out what's holding them back. And I find that once I get to that, sometimes we can make the decisions of you know, is this going to hinder their rotations, or are there ways and supports that even the school can do or support them in a way that they can get through their rotations despite what's happening in their lives, or is it time to take a break and take care of themselves before they can continue?    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And you know what? We're all occupational therapists. We know how to how to take all the different sides into consideration and be fair and work together to get stuff done. So.    Akemi McNeil     Yeah. I don't think yeah and an OT should never be fearful of getting the student that's going to be difficult, because in this position, I see that it there's so few of those students. You know, in the last couple years I've had this job, every one of my students has made it through at the end. So occasionally you can hit a little bump in the road, but that's maybe one week out of the entire rotation that was a little bit tough. And once we got everybody on the same page, it was easy again. And so we just have to remember, you know, a majority of the students are the ones that are building bridges and creating pathways for the next student.     Jayson Davies     Definitely. Well, I want to say thank you for coming on to the podcast and sharing with us everything about field work, education and being an educator as well as a coordinator. And yeah, it was a great conversation, and I look forward to more and more talks with you. But for anyone out there who may want to have a chat with you or ask you a question, is there somewhere that they can reach out to you?     Akemi McNeil     Yes, my email is adavies@stanbridge.edu and I'm sure that Jayson will add it, post it somewhere where you can find it.     Jayson Davies     Of course, no doubt. And one last thing, congratulations to Kimmy on your new name a Davies is still your email, but I know you are now, Mrs. McNeil, so congratulations, and I hope you're enjoying that. So alrighty. Well, thank you again, Kimmy, and I'll talk to you later.    Akemi McNeil     Thank you everyone. Thank you, Jayson, bye.     Jayson Davies     All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening in today on episode 12. We much appreciate it. And thank you very much to akimi for coming on and talking to us about how to be a clinical educator, field work educator. I'm looking forward to taking on a student, and I hope many of you out there are as well. After we got done recording, actually sent me some links to different books and different articles. So if you're interested in checking those books and articles out, definitely head over to OT schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 12 for the show notes, so you can see what she recommends reading if you're taking on a student. So with that, I hope you all have a great week and see you next time bye bye.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.  Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Press play below to listen to the podcast Or click on your preferred podcast player link! Welcome to the show notes for Episode 11 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, Jayson Interviews Dr. Amy Sadek about how every school-based OT should be using evidence-based practices and how to find the research to guide their interventions. Dr. Sadek's research has focused on linking nutrition with behavioral changes in children with Autism. While completing her research she quickly learned how difficult it can be to establish herself as an evidence-based practitioner, as well as how difficult it can be to conduct research in public schools. Listen in as Dr. Amy Sadek shares how any school-based OT can take part in evidence-based practices & research opportunities. Have a listen if you would like to freshen up on today's learning objectives, which are: Understand the barriers to practicing EBP and conducting further research within Public schools. Understand the steps to implement evidence-based practices (EBP) in a school setting. Understand the levels of research and the steps to appraising a research article Links to Show References: Have a question for Dr. Sadek? You can contact her at ASadek22@gmail.com "Antioxidants and Autism: Teachers' Perceptions of Behavioral Changes" - This is a link to Dr. Sadek's study in the Advances in Mind-Body Medicines Journal. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AJOT) - Often referenced in the show as the AJOT, this is one of most attributed journals as it relates to occupational therapy. Guidelines for Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy In California Public Schools - Referred to in the show as the OTPT Guidelines, this document published by the California Department of Education is a useful resource to all School-based OTs, not just those in California. To access it, visit OTSchoolhouse.com/guidelines and click on the state of California. ProQuest - ProQuest is a research search engine that is accessible to all National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) certificants. Just one more reason why each and every OT and OTA should maintain their NBCOT certification. Autism spectrum disorder: interaction of air pollution with the MET receptor tyrosine kinase gene - This article referenced by Jayson is related to Autism and the effects of air pollution. Google Scholar - This is another one of the many free Google tools that are so helpful. Dr. Sadek uses Google Scholar as a starting point to look up the research. While you may not be able to access every article you come across, it provides a great starting point. FERPA - Briefly referenced in the show as the "HIPPA for schools," FERPA is indeed a privacy act that schools must abide by. All school-based personnel OTs should be familiar with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA Freebies! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com Well, Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Amazing Narrator     Hello, and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy, tips, interviews and research. Now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hey, what's up everyone? Today is Tuesday, and it is officially August, and I'm sure many of you are probably already starting to get back into your routine, and we are here for episode number 11 of the OT school house podcast. And I am so glad that you are here with us today. Can't wait to get into today's content. Today we have a very special guest, and before I get into introducing her, I want to let you all know that this podcast is going to be a lot about evidence based practices and conducting research and school based settings. So with that, there are some objectives for today's professional development opportunity for those of you wishing to earn professional development after listening to this podcast. And those objectives for today are for you, the listeners, to learn the steps to conducting evidence based practices in a school setting. Number two, you will also be introduced to the steps needed to appraise a research article. And finally, we're also going to talk about the barriers to practicing evidence based practice in a school setting, as well as the barriers to conducting further research within a school setting. So stay tuned to hear a little bit more about all that. Like I said, today is going to be a professional development opportunity for those of you listening to the podcast, and you can earn your professional development by heading on over to OT schoolhouse.com forward slash, PD, as in professional development, or you can head over to the show notes at ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash Episode 11. With that, I am excited to introduce to you, Dr Amy Sadek. Amy Sadek and I actually worked briefly in a school based setting when both of us were brand new OTs, and since then, we've both gone on to do much bigger and better things and understand school based occupational therapy much further than we did about six years ago. But you know, she's just an amazing person. She recently was featured in the newsletter by the Occupational Therapy Association of California, with an article that we will talk a little bit about later in the episode. But she's also awaiting publication of one of her articles in the advances in mind body journal, and that should be coming out any day now. It's supposed to come out in June, but as you know, journals are a little a little slow to get online and get to your mailbox. So we will put a link in the show notes about where to find her research article. So without further ado, I give to you all. Dr. Amy Sadek, hey Amy, welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. How are you today?    Amy Sadek     Hey, Jayson, I'm doing good. Thanks for having me.     Jayson Davies     Definitely. This is kind of the earliest I think I've ever recorded a podcast. So for anyone out there listening, hopefully we'll wake up and get going, but let's do this. So I just finished giving a quick intro into who you are, but I wanted to give you a chance to share a little bit, wow, I can't even talk, but a little bit about your education and where you are now today.    Amy Sadek     Yeah, so I kind of have a somewhat of an eclectic background. I am. I have a bachelor's in nutrition and food science, and then, as you know, I'm an Occupational Therapist with my biggest emphasis being in the pediatric population. And then, more recently, I kind of merged those two backgrounds to get my PhD in Rehabilitation Science, so I kind of took a few turns, but have been able to utilize all degrees into one. So.    Jayson Davies     Wow. So how'd you go from you said your Bachelor's was in nutrition, or you had a background in nutrition. So how do you go from nutrition to OT?     Amy Sadek     I know it was kind of a random jump. So when I was getting my bachelor's degree, we had to do like, 100 hour internship observing a registered dietitian. And although it was really fun and I liked the information, it was kind of missing some of the creativity and more, like patient interaction that I was looking for. So I actually had a friend in PT school who was like, why don't you look into OT? Because I knew I wanted to stay in healthcare and have, you know, as much time as possible with patients and that kind of interaction. So I observed an OT in an acute rehab setting, and just kind of fell in love with it. From there.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha very cool a follow up to that, why the PhD in rehab sciences and not an OTD or a PHD in OT?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, good question. You know, I wasn't even planning to go back doctorate at all. I was like, I love OT. Like, this is awesome. I was on a school calendar. Like, didn't feel the need to really go back to school, but things just kind of aligned for me to. To get involved back in in school. And, you know, with the OTD, I think I just kind of heard different feedback from different mentors that I had had during my ot program. And the rehab science degree was kind of nice, because you have to have a clinical background to enter the program, and it was really research focused and kind of from an interdisciplinary perspective, and I could kind of take the reins with it a little bit more. So it just kind of allowed me to use some of my nutrition lifestyle interests coupled with with ot interests. So.     Jayson Davies     Oh, that's a great reason to do that. That's really cool. I'm glad you were able to find a program that kind of was able to put together everything that you wanted to do. That's cool, yeah. So you know what right there? I know we'll get into it a little bit later, but tell us a little bit about your study.    Amy Sadek     Yeah. So I looked at the effects of antioxidants on behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorder. So just to give you, like a cliff notes, version of it a clinical trial, and we gave the kids, actually, believe it or not, dark chocolate that was 70% cacao, 30% organic cane sugar, and had been measured by a scientific lab for total antioxidant activity. And it was really high. I mean, the highest food in the world and antioxidants is cloves. But we didn't think we'd get a good turnout if we gave kids cloves for four weeks. Clothes, kind of in the similar category is like ginger and, yeah, so it's not, not a very good flavor. And and actually, in the US, chocolate is the number one source of antioxidants, followed by fruits and vegetables. So it just kind of made sense to use a potent food and antioxidant that's also palatable, and, you know, one of the most desired foods in the world. So we actually did find significant results from both parent and teacher ratings and children in this study demonstrated reduced hyperactivity, reduced irritability, reduced unusual behaviors, improved self regulation, and some parents even reported that their child's anxiety reduced. So we could do a whole nother podcast on the effects of antioxidants on the brick.    Jayson Davies     But why everyone needs to eat chocolate? Yeah, basically, sounds good. All right, so I guess we should jump into the real content for today. The what we really wanted to talk about, and there are a few things, but the first thing that we wanted to talk about was how to appraise research articles. And so I know most people, most occupational therapists, you know, we'll skim through the Asia when we get it in the mail. I know the most recent one was all about older adults, so I barely looked at it. But honestly, when I do look at them, oftentimes I read the abstract after reading the title. Obviously, I might skip down to the results. If it's really catches my eye, I'll go into the methodology, but I know there is kind of a real process to appraising articles, and I know you're pretty good at explaining it. So what would be the first step that we should look for when we come across an article that might be worth our reading?     Amy Sadek     Right, so that's a great question, and that was something I kind of struggled with when I was a new OT and kind of after grad school, it really helped me refine that process. So there's kind of six key steps that usually you just kind of follow the titles of the categories in the article. So like you said, the title kind of orients us to the article. What is it about? You know, is it a topic related to our practice area? And the second part you need to look at is the abstract. So that's just kind of a brief synopsis of the study, and really tells us, is this worth me reading any further? Then we move on to the introduction, which is really a somewhat comprehensive literature review on that particular topic, and it also shows us the gap in the literature. So think about the introduction as the why, why are these researchers doing this study? What has been missing, and where are they bridging that gap? And then we move on to Section four, which is the methods. And the methods are really, honestly, I used to skip over them too, but now I realize they're kind of the most important section, because it tells us who was their population. Who were they studying? How did they recruit them? You know, what tools and assessments did they use? Were they standardized? Were they valid and reliable tools? How long was the intervention really the nitty gritty of the study? So think about the methods section as the how, how was the study conducted? And the fifth step is the results. So most of us know what that is. Those are the findings. So the part we all jump to, yeah, exactly. So was there statistical significance? But the results also gives us detail on, you know, what wasn't significant and maybe why it wasn't significant. In, and then the last section is the discussion section. So that's kind of a recap of the study, a little bit more of a literature review, kind of to tie everything together. But most importantly, it comes with sort of the author's interpretations of practical implications and recommendations for future studies. So we can think of the discussion as now, what? So, what do we do now that we have this information? And that's kind of the beauty of science, is it always leads us to more discovery and more questions.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and that's always the part where it says More research is needed on this topic. I feel like there's always more needed. So, okay, cool. So title, abstract, intro, methods, results and the discussion part. So what about limitations? Where do those fit in there? Because I know every study always has some section about limitations.    Amy Sadek     Right? Yeah, that's a good point. So we would find strengths and limitations of a study in the discussion section. So that's where they discuss, you know, did they have a small sample size, you know, was it only males or only females? You know, was there differences in gender? Things like that, recruitment usually is an issue, particularly with vulnerable populations. Maybe there was a low or a high attrition rate or dropout rate, so they lost a lot of subjects throughout the study. Other limitations could be maybe there was no follow up to see if the intervention kind of lasted beyond the experiment of the study. So things like that.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay. And ethical considerations is also something I often kind of look for. What are some ethical considerations that must be or are often prevalent in a research article.    Amy Sadek     Right, so ethical considerations you might find at the beginning but sometimes at the end of the article. I've kind of seen them in different places, in manuscripts, but for that, we need to see that it was IRB approved or institutional review board approved. So the ethical statement should relate to whatever IRB institution approved the study. We also want to see if there was any conflict of interests, maybe, who funded the study, information like that. So it'll usually just be a few sentences on basically ethical approval for a human subjects research conflict and then funding.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. And so if someone's going through, they're doing a research article through a college. Is it fair to say that the funding should be pretty typical, that the college is the one paying for it, or is it a, I mean, who can provide these grants and stuff?    Amy Sadek     Yeah. So if it was a student, you mean, yeah, okay, yeah. So in student cases, depending on the program, usually they'll have an allotted amount. Like for my program, for example, they gave us a certain dollar amount to complete our dissertation, for supplies, recruitment, all that stuff, but it really depends. Like even for my study, we ended up needing a little bit more. So you can always search grants through the state, through your professional associations, or, you know, I've even heard people using Go Fund Me. I don't know the rules are on that, but there are lots of resources out there. You just kind of have to dig for them.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. And when reading an article, you know, we've kind of gone over, you know, the six steps or the six parts of an article, as well as limitations and ethical considerations. What should we really be looking out for? Are there any red flags or green lights that we really want to see in an article?    Amy Sadek     Yeah. So when you look at kind of the reputation of the article or the journal that it was found in, there's a couple of things to keep in mind. So I just learned this recently. So there are predatory journals. So those are journals that you might look on their website, and they have, or publishers that have, like 1000 journals that they publish, and it might be like somebody's home address in another country. So those are typically not reputable. So the green lights we want to look for are that it was a peer reviewed article, so experts in that field can sort of critique or critically appraise the work that we submit. So always being mindful of that, and then open access journals, I wouldn't say it falls under red or green. It's kind of in this middle gray area. Because on the one hand, you have one school of thought where open access journals are great, because if you're not a paying member or subscribed member to a journal, you can still access that information and read it and use it in your your research or your clinical skills. But on the other hand, people say, because you have to pay to publish, there's kind of this gray sort of, is it a conflict of interest, or are people more published because they're paying versus submitting a manuscript for free, kind of thing? So Gotcha. Just things to keep in mind.     Jayson Davies     Okay, and likely then in the Open Journal is not peer review. Right?    Amy Sadek     It depends. Some of them are. You just have to make sure you go to the journals homepage, and if it doesn't clearly say it, then look on the editorial board and contact one of the editors to make sure.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay. So in, for example, in the Asia are you familiar with how it's peer reviewed at all, or any articles or any journals. I mean.    Amy Sadek     Yeah. So typically it's going to be a blinded peer review, so the person that's receiving my manuscript submission, like when I submitted to a journal, I had to remove my name and all of my co authors, names, our address, any contact or identifying information. So that way there's no bias when they're reviewing it. Because, let's say, you know, you're on the editorial board of a jot, and you're like, Oh, this is Amy steady, awesome. I'm gonna publish this. But you know, to keep it ethical, it's typically peer reviewed. Should be blind review, so they shouldn't know who the author was. They're strictly critiquing it based on content and quality.    Jayson Davies     Okay. Very cool. All right, I faintly remember back in college learning about different levels of evidence. You know, there's some levels that are better, some that are worse. What is like that gold standard that we're looking for when it comes to an article and we're searching ProQuest or Google Scholar.     Amy Sadek     Right? So the gold standard and research really is a randomized control trial or RCT so we can kind of go over some of the levels. So level one is really evidence from a systematic review or a meta analysis of all RCTs on a given topic. So that's kind of the highest level of research, because it's collected all of these gold standard manuscripts or research articles and summarize them. So what can we take from, for example, all the research on handwriting, in handwriting instruction in, you know, the school system for OT? So that's really that's kind of the top tier. And then level two is, again from RCTs, but at least one well designed RCT, so it's not a comprehensive overview. It's like one really solid article.     Jayson Davies     Okay, an RCT may be something like a project that someone did, and it was a control study with a control group as well as a experimental group and blinded and all that. Right? Exactly, yeah. All right, perfect. So, and then the you said, level one, the meta analysis is kind of like a bunch of those put together and studied, right, right? All right. So level three.     Amy Sadek     So level three is evidence from well designed control trials that might not have randomization. So we call these quasi experimental studies because there was an intervention, but either there was no control or no randomization. But if you don't have a control group, typically you're not going to have randomization, because there's only one group anyway. So those are typically seem like my study kind of fell under this category because it was a pilot study. So maybe you don't want to have a control group until the intervention shows some sort of efficacy, and then you can do a follow up study with a control group to see if the difference, if the true difference, was related to the intervention. So I would say quasi experimental studies are either for small studies, maybe small sample size or pilot studies kind of thing.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay, and we move on to we won't go through all seven, because by time you get to level five or so, you should really be looking for something above that, but level four is evidence from a well designed case control or cohort study. So what's a case control study?    Amy Sadek     So a case control study is often used in epidemiological studies, and it's typically retrospective in nature. So we have the cases, which are the people that have developed the disease or disorder that we're studying, and the control group are people who don't develop that disease. So they look back to see, you know, who had exposure to what, and that's how they kind of determine, you know, correlation to the cases versus the controls.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay, this kind of reminds me of a study. I've never actually read this study, but I've heard about it several times. Is the autism study, where they found that kids that lived within so many miles of a freeway had developed autism. I know this is an older study, but they kind of looked at it and they found that if you lived within so many feet, or whatever they want to whatever measurement of distance they use, but that was used to go back in time to say, oh, you know what? For some reason there's a large population of kids with autism that live within so much distance from a freeway, so that might have been something like a case control.     Amy Sadek     Yeah, exactly. So the people already have the disease or disorder of interest, and we're kind of looking back to see, what were they exposed to that made them develop the case versus controls and not develop the case.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay, cool. So I want to move on to our next topic, but first, I've been getting some questions lately, just in conversation with other OTs about IRB. I'm a master's thesis advisor, and so right now, we're going through the IRB process. But I didn't realize how few people really understand an IRB could you in a short way, I guess, kind of explain what an IRB is, and who needs to work with an IRB?     Amy Sadek     Right? So IRB stands for Institutional Review Board, and really it's essentially a human subjects research ethics committee. So their primary goal is to make sure that you are not causing, you know, unnecessary harm to the subjects you want to recruit in your study. That's really the Cliff Notes version of, you know, the purpose of an IRB, and really it's related to any human subjects research. And there are kind of different levels of IRB, like, if you do need to do full board review, that's when you're collecting, like, biomarkers, maybe urine or blood serum samples from your subjects in your study, or you can do more of an expedited review, if it's just maybe a survey or a questionnaire type of thing. So there are different levels depending on how quote, unquote invasive your intervention is.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, it's just that they're out there to protect the community. They're there to make sure that we don't harm anyone. Right? Exactly, perfect. Yeah, I don't know how we have to fill out our IRB in the next two weeks, and I'm a little nervous because I've never done one before, so I'm gonna have to contact you for a little help on that, but we'll see. So, all right, so now, in school based OT. Usually we're looking at the age OT, just because that's what most OTs kind of default to. But once we decide, You know what, hey, we've got this kid, we don't know exactly what to do with this kid. How do we go about in practicing evidence based practice?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, so that was something that's to answer one of your questions from earlier. That's another reason why I went back to school. It, you know, being a school based ot myself, I realized kind of the limited skill set I had in appraising literature and implementing ebp for some of those more challenging cases, and just to make sure we have credibility among our our peers and administrators in the schools. So the there's a really awesome resource that we have in California. It's the OT PT guidelines, which I know you guys have on your ot School House website, right?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, we have a clickable map that you can just click on whatever state and you'll find the OT PT guidelines. It's actually ot  schoolhouse.com forward slash guidelines. And if you want to find a little more detail into what Amy is about to talk about, you can just click on the state of California, and that will guide you to the OT PT guidelines for California.    Amy Sadek     Right? So they have a really, really nice process that I wish I would have read like years ago, but it's okay, better late than never. So they have kind of five steps, and the first step is really with any research process is asking ourselves a question, a research question. So why am I using this particular intervention? Is there evidence supporting it? Is it as effective, more or less effective than maybe another intervention? Step two is essentially a literature review. So going into our, you know, search engines like ProQuest or Google Scholar, or if you're a student through your university library, and typing in, you know, keywords related to whatever topic it is you're trying to find information on for a specific intervention, and then step three, I'm really glad they talk about this is appraising articles. So those were those six key steps we kind of went over earlier. So remember going over the introduction, methods, discussion, results, all that good stuff. So once you have those skills, then number four is really critical for OTs, because that's where we use our professional expertise coupled with our knowledge of the child's needs or clients needs, to best integrate the research evidence we found into our service delivery model. And then step five is really evaluating the use of our intervention in our practice, and we can measure outcomes through a variety of ways, maybe it's through observation of the clients performing the occupation or activity. It can be through formal data collection, maybe interviews with parent, caregiver or teacher, again, using standardized or criterion reference tools, and analyzing that data work samples is another great way rating skills, goal, attainment, scaling, and even our treatment notes. So there's a variety of ways to assess whether an intervention that we've chosen is in fact, you know, working for our client.    Jayson Davies     Definitely. And I know a lot of people have difficulty with coming up with an initial question, or what should what's the intervention? Attention. And what I will sometimes find myself doing is it's during the IEP that I often come up with those questions. You know, you're sitting there, you're listening to the family, you're listening to the to the teacher, maybe the administrator that knows the kid really well, and that's where the questions start to pop up in my mind. And so sometimes I kind of start this process right there in the IEP, like I jot down a few of those questions that I have for myself during the IEP, and that way, when I get back home or to that little office that I actually kind of have, I can go back and and open up Pro Quest, open up Google Scholar, so getting into that lit review process. What do you have any recommendations for how to find something like, Are there keywords that you should try and use? Or do you have any, even just different resources that might help?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, so keywords was always something I struggled with myself. But you know, if maybe you start with the keyword, that's exactly the intervention you're looking for, let's say, for example, handwriting. Maybe you just type in handwriting intervention or handwriting, and then the word and, and then, you know, school based, and then and, and then OT or something. But you kind of have to play around with key words. But I would say, once I find a solid article that starts my literature review, I look at not only their references on the reference page. But also, one of my favorite search engines is actually Google Scholar, because once you find that article, there's an icon that says cited by so you can see not only their work, but everyone after them that cited their work. So again, along the lines of that same topic. So that was kind of a nice trick, too. Instead of going down a rabbit hole with keywords, you can kind of, once you find a solid article, check their references and check everyone that cited them.    Jayson Davies     Had to tell my thesis group to do that over the past few months, because they found a lot of meta reviews or meta analysis. And while they're great, they provide so much information, we wanted to get into the nitty gritty of stuff. And so they were actually a little worried about having too many meta analysis in their references. And so I told them, I was like, yeah, just go down into those reviews or into the references from that meta analysis and pick out, you know, find five that seem interesting, and look up those, and that way it kind of helps you get to the real bottom of something.    Amy Sadek     Right? That's a good point, because the although the meta analysis of an RCT is kind of the gold standard, sometimes we do, like you said, have to get into the nitty gritty and figure out because the meta analysis isn't giving us detailed description of each study's methods and how, what intervention they used, how they used it, and all that stuff. So, I mean, it is detailed, but sometimes you have to go through each RCT with a kind of fine tooth comb to get out, you know, specific mechanisms for using an intervention.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, because with meta analysis, too, you just never know what they really used. And, you know, you know, you can read the article, and you look at the limitations, and you look at their what they use to qualify an article as being part of their meta analysis. But in the end, I really think you want to look at those individual articles, in my opinion. So definitely, for those of you out there, I do want to give a quick mention to NBC OT. If you are a member of NBC OT, you have access to ProQuest through NBC OT. Amy was just talking. She likes to use, what was it? Google Scholar. Okay, and Google Scholar, do they limit you at all, or can you access just about everything that you find there?    Amy Sadek     You there are some limitations that I had to then find the article on my university's library website, but for the most part, it's a great place to start, I would say, because again, maybe that original article you found on Google Scholar. You can't download the PDF, but you might find people that cited them, and then those manuscripts might be available. So it just, it kind of just depends where the journal was published, and that's kind of related to the open access stuff. So if you have to be a member of that journal, then typically you wouldn't be able to download it. So.    Jayson Davies     All right, good to know before you went back and got your PhD, what would you say was like the most difficult part of practicing evidence based practices within a school based setting.    Amy Sadek     Yeah, I think, honestly, time was an issue. You know, when you're, you know, running between schools, travel time, IEP time, report writing time and kind of getting support from the district and seeing what resources we can use there. And prior to, you know, my recent endeavors was being able to critically appraise research on given interventions that I could present at an IEP or discuss in a report, or, you know, go over with a teacher or whatnot. So I think it was kind of a culmination of things, because it's not just. Just reading an article and spewing the results out to somebody. I think it's really being able to see why it was used, how it was used, who it's appropriate for.    Jayson Davies     Definitely. Did you ever take articles with you to IEPs? I know some people do.    Amy Sadek     I didn't. I would usually do that reading kind of on my own, but in some of the places I worked, we would cite stuff occasionally, either in our reports or whatnot, just to, you know, show reputability, and.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I know in our assessments, sometimes I have the OT pf the or not, sorry, not the OT pf the OT California state guidelines. Sometimes I quote a little bit from there and then, yes, if there is an article that I looked up during my evaluation, for some reason, I might cite that or at least give mention to it. So I don't think I have a folder of different articles, you know, at work that I keep in my binder just to refer to. But, yeah, I don't think I would take an article and just be like, Hi parent. This is an article I found, and that's why I want to do this. I would just summarize that in the evaluation. I think.     Amy Sadek     Right, right. Yeah, the parent is just going to want the Cliff Notes version. And I think with that, you know, you just kind of, I mean, it's a good idea to have a binder of articles, but I think just giving them the kind of cream of the crop of, hey, like this, you know, there's a lot of research on this particular intervention, and I think it would be, you know, applicable to your child, but just for the listeners out there, really like evidence based practice is mostly based on literature within the last five years. And typically, if you go beyond that, it's only for kind of foundational or theory based knowledge. So try and keep your searches within the last five to maybe seven years for the most relevant.    Jayson Davies     Good to know. So Amy, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about the challenges you had with getting into a school district to do some research.     Amy Sadek     Yeah, so I was in for a big surprise because I thought, Oh, I'm an OT it'll be so easy to get all these special ed departments on board with my study like I've got, you know, a common denominator I've worked in special ed, but I was quickly surprised that that was not the case. So there were a few challenges I ran into, and one of them was honestly just making sense to them, so being able to clearly and quickly articulate kind of the purpose of my study, or anyone out there, if you're trying to conduct a study in the schools and make sure they understand, I mean, I had people that I called at different school districts that didn't know what an IRB was, or didn't know what evidence based practice was. So not only was I trying to get their buy in for my study, I was also having to educate them on, you know, the process of researching what's involved. And I think for some school districts, it was intimidating, because when there was that lack of awareness, it kind of shut people down to the interest or being open to participating in this study. Other things that came up were, you know, each school district I contacted, I think I contacted 33 in Southern California for my clinical trial, and some of them had really strict policies, like you had to fill out an application for them to review in terms of why they should participate in your research, what's involved, and others had no policy. People just gave me kind of a hard No. So being clear, because sometimes you only get that one phone call and then kind of investigating what's the priority of research in schools. So I've worked in a few different school districts, and there's always kind of talk of doing research or, you know, checking student outcomes and things like that, but knowing the history of that school or that district and what they've done with research, maybe it's a novel concept to them. So kind of gathering that stuff ahead of time would have been really helpful for the purposes of my study, and knowing who to speak to. So I would get tossed around from secretaries to special ed directors, even superintendents. So there wasn't really a go to person at each district in terms of who do I talk to, to kind of pitch my research to and propose it to. So usually it's best. Particularly, I was working with kids with autism, so I think the best person in my case was the director of special ed, and then they could kind of take it from there, gotcha. But knowing who to speak to was really important, and connecting with parents. So in terms of recruitment, like, you know, oftentimes parents of kids with special needs, know other parents of kids with special needs, so they really honestly helped with recruitment. And then the length of the study. So school districts, you know, teachers, as we know, have limited time, and maybe they're, you know, even struggling to carry over some of our interventions. So the length of the study is something to keep in mind. Mine was four weeks, and we felt like That was just enough time to see if there was going to be behavior change, but not too much. Where you. Know It interrupted the teacher's prep time or curriculum time or anything like that. So I think those are kind of key things, and make sure to be clear on how much time you're spending in the classroom, if any, and how much time you're taking from the teacher and the child. So in my study, I was never in the classroom. I only met the teacher at the beginning of the study and at the end of the study for 15 minutes at each time slot. So making it as least intrusive as possible really helped.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, we all know how busy teachers are. I mean, we're running around, and we try to catch teachers in between passing period or on their way to lunch, because we don't want to take away their lunch. But how did you I'm sure you took in time, obviously into account. When you were asking these teachers, how did you try and limit the amount of time that you needed from the teachers, like you said you met with them 15 minutes pre and post of the four weeks? Did they have any other obligations to help you out with?    Amy Sadek     No, so. Well, other than their informed consent process, but typically, I would give them the pre questionnaires after they agreed to participate in the study. But we couldn't really get teacher involvement until, of course, we got parents to agree to allow their child to participate in the study. So other things we did was we offered an incentive, just a small thank you gift card to the teachers, because, you know, we know their time is limited, so I specifically chose behavioral questionnaires that were quick and easy to administer, that wouldn't take up, honestly, more than 15 minutes of their time. So.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, yeah. I mean, that's kind of what you really have to think about when it comes to teachers. I know my wife's a fourth grade teacher, and she is consistently busy. And I know running around all the OTs that are listening to this that work in schools, they know how hard it can be to just get a few minutes of a teacher's time. So completely understand that. So you gave us, what was it about six different challenges that were difficult, needing to make sense to the people that you're going to talk to, knowing what the policies are and the prior priority of research are in schools who to speak to, connecting with parents, which I thought was a great you have to connect with parents for two reasons. One, because parents tend to get things done in school districts, and two, because obviously, when you're doing a study, you have to have that parent consent. So and then, of course, length of study. So those were some of the challenges. What were there solutions that you had to kind of combat these? Or what did you learn from this?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, so I learned a lot along the way. I think when I talked about preparing to make sense, I think even in OT we talk about having our elevator speech on, you know, what is OT? So having an elevator speech on, you know, the purpose and sort of premise of your study. Why are you doing it? How's it going to help them? How's it going to benefit them, and what do you need from them? So being really, really short and sweet and quick and to the point about that, was something that I learned after calling a few districts asking about research processes. Was another thing. So there isn't really a formal process in the state of California that I have come across, but my study was approved by my university's IRB, and some districts wanted to do their own IRB, even though mine had already gone through IRB. So I don't know if any of the listeners have feedback on that, but from my understanding, they definitely are allowed to review my IRB approved documents and protocol and assessments. But what I understood is that they don't actually have to. I don't I shouldn't have to, or researchers shouldn't have to go through a second IRB process with the district. They're welcome to review it, of course, to determine if they want to participate. But my understanding is that one IRB process should be enough. So that was just one thing. But if anyone knows differently, I would love to hear that.    Jayson Davies     Definitely. I didn't even realize that school districts had RRBs?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, some of them do. A lot of them didn't. It. Just it really all varies. But the other thing I would say is really just to ask questions to anyone you can get on the phone in the school district to contact, because sometimes you'll get that one person that you know knows how to lead you in the right direction. So building that relationship ahead of time would have been really valuable. So I just thought, because I was an OT I'd be able to get all these schools involved, particularly the districts I'd already worked in. But it wasn't that simple. So I think what I learned, probably the most valuable lesson is kind of building the relationship almost before you need it, um, and then communicating details and being transparent, be be open about these are the tools I'm using. You can look at the questionnaires. You can look at the intervention. I won't be in the classroom, or I will be in the classroom, so they're going to want to know, really, all the details, because they also. I have to consider FERPA, which is kind of like the HIPAA for the school system. So how much information are you getting from the teachers? How sort of intrusive is it is the parent on board? So details and transparency are key. And then recruitment was another thing. So broadening recruitment was important. Initially, I was only recruiting five to 12 year olds, and then I realized that other people that were younger and older wanted to participate, and we were kind of low on numbers in the beginning, so it helped to get a larger in order to get a larger, larger sample, we had to kind of broaden our recruitment criteria without compromising the integrity of the study. And I would say lastly was timing. So like I said, ours was four weeks. But as you know, kids get, you know, week two, week three, week long break. So making sure that there wasn't an interruption to the study with some of those holiday breaks was important as well. So getting the school calendars ahead of time, I would say, is critical, because I was working with several different districts, so all of their calendars were very different. So prior to your study, contact the district, build those relationships, get their calendars and and make sure you have someone on your team from the district that will kind of support you through the process.    Jayson Davies     I can't imagine with the timing, because I know so many districts have different schedules. Some of us have like, fall breaks in the middle of October. Most of us don't some of us have week long breaks for Thanksgiving. So that must have been tricky. Did they all end up like? Did you have to select a specific time that every single kid was in school for four straight weeks?    Amy Sadek     So, you know, basically I had to consider all of the breaks. So because I wasn't interrupting instructional time, we would give the chocolate to and mine is unique, right? It's not like directly OT, but we would give the chocolate to the parents and have them give it to the child. We legally and ethically couldn't give it to the teacher to administer to the child. So I was lucky in that sense, that we didn't really have to consider instructional time or what class period they were in. But I did have to consider breaks, because if there was an interruption to the study, not only could there be dietary or time confounds with the children, the teacher would have missed a week of observations for behavior change. So depending on what your study is looking at, those components will vary.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Cool. All right. So you mentioned that you talked to several different people throughout the districts. I can only imagine, I can just imagine calling, getting the receptionist, and then saying, hey, I want to talk about research. Can you point me in the right direction. You must have talked to so many different people. What was Was there a time that you were just completely shocked by a response that you got from a district?    Amy Sadek     I was hung up on once? That's funny. That was kind of a bummer, but you just move on and go to the next district.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. So how many total districts did you end up working with?     Amy Sadek     I think we had a total of I'd have to go back to my sheet. Actually, that's a good question. I want to say it was somewhere from 10 to 15 districts and but we contacted 33 Oh,    Jayson Davies     wow. So less than 50% of them actually were able to help you out in some way. Right, right, right. Wow. So to follow up with that, I have a few questions. Are you familiar with whether or not CODAs can help out with researching and taking data?     Amy Sadek     Oh my gosh. I'm so happy you asked this question, because I just learned that this year. So CODAs can actually act as research assistants, or RAs in research studies, so they can collect data, they can input data. Obviously, they they're not always specifically trained to analyze and, you know, put data together, but they can definitely be used as RAs, which would be really awesome in the school setting, because they can, you know, maybe our form of data collection is work samples. CODAs can help with that, but they definitely have a place in the research process. And I was really happy to learn that because research, it oftentimes takes a village to get it done. So definitely, CODIS can definitely be RAs.    Jayson Davies     Great. And then one really last follow up question, I think, to this is, what advice would you give to an OT who's in a district right now and kind of has an idea about a research study?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, um, so they have an idea, you're saying    Jayson Davies     they have an idea. They want to do some sort of research. They kind of think they've got something on their mind that they kind of want to prove maybe, and they're working at the school district right now. Is there one piece of advice that you can think that might help them out?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, there's a couple of things I would, you know, get your, you know, OT department kind of on board with that, because I think to. Together, you can brainstorm ways to navigate, how to get it implemented in the district. And two, I would say, talk to your special ed director. And really the biggest, I know, I'm giving three pieces of advice.    Jayson Davies     No problem, the more the merrier.    Amy Sadek     Yeah, the biggest piece is getting that district buy in. And how do we get that? We get that by showing them the value of this research to their students and their teachers. And maybe we offer them, you know, program development at the end, or maybe we offer them an in service at the end, showing, like full circle, how their participation contributed to, you know, research and special education. And you know what district or administrator wouldn't want their district to be, you know, up to speed with appropriate evidence based practice, not just in their curriculum, but in their special education related services. So I think getting their support and buy in is probably number one.     Jayson Davies     There you go. That also led me to ask one more thing. Sorry, I lied. I have one more question. Does someone need to be in a master's or a doctoral program in order to attempt a research study like going back to this ot who, you know, they've got their buy in from the OT department, their sped director and maybe even the superintendent, do they need to be part of a doctoral program like you were when you did this research, or can someone kind of do research on their own?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, great question. So you do not, you definitely don't need to have a doctorate to do research. I mean, even at our master's levels in OT we did research going through the IRB process and everything. So I would say if you're at the bachelor's level, it might be helpful to have a mentor, or some somebody who's already done research to kind of help you through that process, because typically BS or ba programs don't go as in depth through the research process, but a master's OT is plenty to get a research project done. I think as long as you know they kind of go through the stuff we went through today on critically appraising literature, knowing the IRB process. And, like I said, you know, research takes a village to get done, so I think anybody with a master's degree could easily conduct a research study.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, I guess, what begs the question for me there is, if they're School District, if they're there. You know, I'm in a school district. I don't think my school district has an IRB. Can I apply to an IRB at a college, or do I have to be enrolled at that college? Do you know?    Amy Sadek     that's a good question. So I was just an adjunct faculty at a local university, and being adjunct somewhere, you have access to their IRB. So you can propose an IRB project that you want to use in the school district through a university's IRB. But I'd have to dig a little further to determine, and I think that's another barrier, honestly, to school based EBP, is how do we then, you know, because it is a human subjects research, and it's a vulnerable population. How do we navigate the IRB process if a district doesn't already have an IRB or access to one? So I think you and I have more research to do.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, I agree. We'll have to look into it. So great. Well, thank you. That was so much, a handful, if not, like, three handfuls of information. So I hope everyone enjoys that out there, and that's going to wrap it up for today. Congratulations on getting your your PhD, and I just wish you all the best. Is there anywhere if someone wants to get a hold of you, is there a way that people can get a hold of you to ask you questions? Maybe they have about an IRB or how to do research?    Amy Sadek     Yeah, definitely. People can reach me at my personal Gmail address, which is a for Amy, and then my last name, Sadiq, S, A, D, E, K, and the number 20 two@gmail.com so I'd love to hear from anybody. And thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.     Jayson Davies     Perfect, definitely. And we will link to that on the show notes, which will be ot  schoolhouse.com , forward slash Episode 11 now, so be sure to visit the show notes so that you can click on the link to contact Amy. So great. Well, thank you again, so much Amy, and wish you all the luck in the world.     Amy Sadek     Awesome. Thanks. Jayson, you too.     Jayson Davies     Take care. Bye, bye. All right. Well, that's going to do it for today's episode of the OT school house podcast. I hope you all enjoyed listening to Dr Amy today on how to conduct evidence based practice in your school based setting. If you're interested in receiving a certificate of completion for this professional development of the podcast, you can head on over to OT schoolhouse.com forward, slash P, D, as in professional development, and click on Episode 11. There, you'll take a short quiz and we will send you a certificate of completion. So thank you again, everyone for hanging around and we'll see you next time. Bye, bye.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students. And succeed right now. Head on over to otschoolhouse.com . Until next time class is dismissed. Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast