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Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 150 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Abe Saffer and Dr. Miranda Virone are here to dive into the roots of occupational therapy’s involvement in mental health, uncover current challenges, and explore practical strategies for integrating effective mental health interventions in schools. If you're looking to expand your impact and equip yourself with the necessary skills and knowledge to address these kinds of challenges, or are just curious about the evolution of school-based mental health strategies, this discussion is for you. Tune in to learn more! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify strategies for advocating the role of OT in mental health Learners will be able to apply strategies for integrating mental health interventions into their practice Learners will be able to analyze the biopsychosocial approach Guests Bios Dr. Miranda Virone Dr. Miranda Virone, OTD, MS OTR/L, PhD(c) is an Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy, Educational Consultant, and passionate advocate for youth mental health. She serves as the co-facilitator of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) School Mental Health Community of Practice, the AOTA representative for the National Center of School Mental Health Advisory Board and served as a co-author of the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association School Based Guidelines. Dr. Virone educates and advocates for occupational therapy’s role in school mental health by presenting at the state and national level, conducting and mentoring research projects, and leading student fieldwork experiences in school mental health initiatives. Abe Saffer Abe Saffer has over 15 years working in policy and lobbying, political communication, political organizing, and campaign management. He has established, maintained, and led successful coalitions on local, state, and national levels to educate and advance issues. Abe possesses specialized skills in crafting comprehensive messaging and advocacy strategies tailored to ensure complex policies effectively resonate with a wide range of audiences. He has extensive experience in analyzing and drafting legislation. He has also been quoted in multiple publications, and has authored several articles and editorials. He has an ability to thrive in high paced and intense work environments. Abe is currently a federal lobbyist for the American Occupational Therapy Association, lobbying Congress and the Administration on a number of issues, including: special and general education, early intervention, workforce, diversity and equity, health, appropriations, mental health, Medicaid in schools, and general disability. Quotes “I really think that we need to inject mental health and just about to every session like we can't just ignore mental health, it is really a backbone of every single thing that a child does”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “OTs eligible in every single state as a mental health profession” -Abe Saffer “Our lens is so very different from everybody else's that if we can just build the courage to talk about it and feel comfortable and confident talking about it we can break down a lot of barriers.”  -Dr. Miranda Virone “It's usually not a federal barrier that is preventing you from doing something it is generally if anything, it might be a state law. But more often than not, it's just people who don't understand what OTs is. -Abe Saffer “The biggest barrier that we face is misconceptions that have solidified that schools are so risk averse” -Abe Saffer “You need to be able to convince the administrator” -Abe Saffer “You can't assume that your school administrators know anything about ESSA there's a very strong chance that they don't… it can open up a lot of doors, it can open up a lot of conversations too” -Dr. Miranda Virone Resources 👉 Every Moment Counts 👉 MHSP(grant department of health ) 👉 Safer Communities Act  👉 ESSA   👉 IDEA 👉 Abe Saffer Twitter/x  👉 Congressional Affairs AOTA 👉 Specialized Instructional Support Personnel 👉 SASISP Guidance Brief  👉 Episode 91 Of OT Schoolhouse with Abe Saffer 👉 Making the Shift: Caseload to Workload Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hello and welcome to another insightful episode of the OT schoolhouse Podcast. Today we're diving into the critical integration of mental health and occupational therapy in the school settings. I'm your host, Jayson Davies and OT practitioner based in Southern California. And I really appreciate you joining us today. For our 100 and 50th episode, I wanted to address a topic I know so many school based OT practitioners have questioned in their careers, you probably have as well, and that is are OT practitioners, mental health providers, and if so, what does that mean for our role as school based OT practitioners? That's why today I'm excited to be joined by two distinguished guest, Miranda Varun, an Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy with a rich background in school based practice and mental health advocacy, and a returning guest to the show ape Saffer, a federal lobbyist for a OTA who focuses on school based work and pediatric initiatives. As you will soon find out Miranda and Ava are the perfect duo to be helping us out today with answering these questions, and they aren't afraid to tackle the tough questions that I throw at them. And this episode Miranda and Abe will help us to explore the historical roots of OT and addressing psychological components of trauma, the importance of using a bio psychosocial approach, and how we can effectively integrate mental health interventions into our everyday practice as school based OT practitioners. To go a little bit further, Miranda will share invaluable tactics for building rapport with teachers and obtaining the necessary buy in for implementing OT strategies within the classroom. While he will really dive into overcoming federal and local barriers to providing comprehensive mental health services and the schools, no matter your experience with implementing mental health services in the schools, this discussion will provide you with a deeper understanding of the challenges, opportunities and crucial roles that we play and fostering mental health in educational settings. Stay tuned as we unpack how you can support mental well being within occupational therapy. We'll be right back.    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's your host, Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Miranda and Abe. Welcome to the OTs schoolhouse podcast. How are you doing today?    Miranda Virone     I'm doing great. Thank you. It's sunny here in western PA. So I'm soaking that up a little bit. It's enjoyable.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, take advantage of it while you can. Right?  Yes, we're hopefully getting a little bit of what the West Coast experiences more often. So it's looking good out there. But yeah, I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. I'm proud and glad and excited to be here and pursuing good company with ape. So it's all good. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm pretty sure the way that I first learned about yourself Miranda is actually through Abe, and we have Abe joining us from the DC area. How are you doing today Abe?    Abe Saffer     Good. How are you all doing?     Jayson Davies     Doing pretty darn well excited to talk about mental health and what it should look like? What it is what it actually can be? And how we can kind of merge everything all together between mental health and school based occupational therapy. Sound good?     Miranda Virone     Yeah, let's do it.     Abe Saffer     I can't wait.     Jayson Davies     Well, to get us started for today, I want to give you both a quick minute or two to kind of share where you are in the world of occupational therapy, how you fit into that. And Abe if you want to quickly share your responsibility, if you want to call it that in the world of OT go for it.    Abe Saffer     Yeah, so I'm the biggest fan of OT that is not an OT practitioner. I've been working for AOTA now for about seven and a half years or so. And I am one of their federal lobbyists and handle all of their, all of the school based work essentially for for the association. So that's anything pediatric is sort of in my portfolio.    Jayson Davies     Awesome. And that's what we're going to talk about ESA, ESSA talk about mental health with you, especially from that DC level, and then even at the state level as well. Great. It's great to have you here. And Miranda, what about you? Where are you in the world of occupational therapy today.    Miranda Virone     So I am currently an Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Therapy Dr. Program in western Pennsylvania. So that's where I spend the majority of my time but also do consulting on the side in public schools for OT, related and OT supported mental health programming using a tiered approach. I've been for about the past three to four years now. CO facilitator of the AOTA school mental health community of practice, we fall under the realm of the Mental Health special intersection and about two years ago I accepted a role on the advisory board of the National Center for School Mental Health out of the University of Maryland, a great group of individuals that are doing a lot of great work to advance comprehensive school mental health. And then at a state level, the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association, we have a mental health task force that kind of encompasses the realm of school mental health as well, looking at state level legislation and advocacy efforts to kind of support this work in schools where we can on a state level. Oh, yeah.     Jayson Davies     Oh, wow. So you are ingrained into it both at the federal and the state side? And it also looks like or sounds like you're working with local districts, even with consulting or whatnot. So you're just kind of everywhere?     Miranda Virone     Yeah, I try to be just I, yeah, I caught myself mildly intrusive, fertilise stuff like because I, I kind of invite myself into those arenas, where I think that OTs should be and try to convince people why we should be there. So I find myself in some interesting meetings sometimes. But, you know, it's all part of the advocacy work that you have to do to get the word out and to take to take your profession to the places that it really should be.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and, you know, to be honest, I think any good advocate would say that you're right on target with that, like, you kind of have to be intrusive to be an advocate a little bit, sometimes that shoot from the hip and ask questions later, mentality gets yourself into a meeting, and then you get to figure out what you're doing once you're in the meeting. So yeah, just thank you so much for joining us. And really quickly, I do actually want to give you Miranda, just a quick moment to actually talk a little bit about your previous experience with school based occupational therapy.     Miranda Virone     Yeah, I was a school based practitioner for about 10 years in the State of Pennsylvania, during that time, direct services I provided. And then I kind of advanced to the point where I was supervising a group of five employees, we had four different school districts, we were providing services to small rural school districts. So there were pretty tiny, but all of the services that we provided to the students at the time, and the very beginning was, you know, strictly through IDEA services students that were identified with an educational exceptionality, we were providing direct support direct services that were, you know, sometimes they were billable services, that we also had a times a handful of students with 504 service agreements that we were providing services for as well. So really kind of under that umbrella of IDEA in the beginning and about five years into it, my interest kind of peeked into, you know, the mental health component of what we were doing with kids, you know, after seeing a lot of, you know, a lot of mental health kind of creeping into their daily routines and education, whether be regulation issues, or some situational stress or kind of issues. I thought, gosh, you know, we need to address this, this as part of what we do. And at the time, and the schools that I was working in, there were really no other services with the exception of school counseling, to provide those types of interventions. And, you know, they were being done more on kind of the universal level, but not necessarily targeted, or intensive approaches. So, you know, I just started digging around seeing what was out there seeing what available supports or things that were already existing and practice and hooked up with Su basic, which, you know, is kind of notorious in the world of positive mental health and OT, right.     Jayson Davies     Yeah.    Miranda Virone     Just from there just took off and went running with the concept of yeah, this is what we do. And if anybody's ever talked to sue, she's incredibly empowering. She'll make you feel like you can ride a unicorn to the moon, So.    Jayson Davies     Yep, yep, definitely no, Sue. Well, she's been on the podcast. And she's actually speaking with our OT Schoolhouse collaborative membership very soon. So always excited to have Sue on and I don't think you can even talk about mental health and occupational therapy without bringing Sue into the conversation. Every moment counts, that entire organization is just fantastic. So we're very lucky to have someone like her in the profession.     Miranda Virone     Okay, great.     Jayson Davies     All right. Well, we are diving into the world of mental health and school based OT here. And I first want to kind of ask you both, and we can choose who takes this one on first. But you know, OT really started within the world of mental health over 100 years ago. And when I went to school, you know, a little over a decade ago, mental health was really disappearing as mostly phys does. We have school based OT, but we're starting to see that resurgence of mental health into the world of occupational therapy. And Miranda, you kind of started down the road a little bit. So maybe you can take this one first. But why is it so important for you to really bring OT and mental health together again, especially as a school based therapist?    Miranda Virone     Yeah, definitely. It is. You're right. Jason, it's our roots. It's who we are. It's the fiber of our, you know, our beginnings of, of OT back 100 years ago when we saw returning soldiers from World War One and at the time, you know, They were experiencing what we refer to as shell shock, which now we know is PTSD, right? So we were enabling these soldiers with occupations as a means of doing and being becoming right and putting some very famous OT practitioners out there. But we gave people a sense of purpose or use of their hands. And in that respect, where we were addressing the psychological components of what they were experiencing, by allowing them to feel meaning and purpose in the daily occupations of their lives, and it's no different today, we talk a lot about how we use our occupation based lens to provide supports and services and interventions to the people that we, you know, we serve, and you can't separate that, and we learn in school. It's a biopsychosocial approach, right? We are holistic practitioners. And that is the absolute truth. And, you know, deviating from that, over the last 100 years has really kind of been a source of kind of the, you know, I personally think it's like a socio political kind of impact, right. And aid can attest to that a little bit more. You know, we saw in the 60s and 70s, deinstitutionalization, they had people spread into into the community, but we had no means of supporting them at the time, it was kind of a disaster happening in the world of mental health. And we lost a lot of footing in that sector. And I think we're realizing with current trends and mental health that we need to return to our roots, we need to become part of that response in the workforce to the growing mental health needs, especially among our youth.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And I just posted on social media the other day that, you know, whenever you work on mental health with the student, I truly believe that you're working on every single IEP goal, and then some and so I absolutely believe that we need to focus more on mental health because, yeah, you know, a famous quote, right, like, and I'm gonna butcher this, but just because a student has increased fine motor skills doesn't mean that they are going to be able to handwrite just because they have increased, any sort of, you know, the those minor detail performance skills doesn't mean that they're actually going to be able to function in real life. But I think with mental health, right, like that is such a baseline that everyone needs mental well being in order to do all the things. And so I want to jump to you aid now. And why do you feel that OT is the right profession, especially within school based OT, that's what we're always talking about here on the podcast. But why is OT the right profession to address mental health.    Abe Saffer     So I'm going t o admit that I'm biased here, because, you know, obviously, my paycheck comes from AOTA. But that all being said, as I've mentioned before, I am the biggest fan of the profession. Mental health, for me is something really personal. I've had family members that I've dealt with my own self, I've dealt with mental health stuff in my life. And so for me, I don't feel like there's anything more important for children, especially as the father of a child was in middle school, like, the idea of a child having healthy being, you know, mentally healthy is just really important for so many different reasons. And OT has this magic where they can, practitioners can really address things more than one thing at once, which I love. And so you can say, I use myself as an example all the time, as someone who has ADHD with anxiety, if you're able to have someone come in and work with me, which they have, it's all been for free, because it's been folks that I have meetings with, and they sort of give me tips here and there that I've picked up over the years, but they helped me get organized, which lowers my anxiety. And it's so rare that you're able to get both of those things. And so whenever I see my son feeling anxious or nervous about being around friends, or not knowing, you know, being embarrassed if he can't, if he's not as good at soccer, or whatever, as someone else, like I can understand how that can impact his day to day life and how that can impact his growth and sort of the his trajectory. And OTs is, again, magical profession that can not only help someone participate in their life, but in a way that they feel good about it. And I just imagine if we hadn't just gone, you know, probably still somewhere in the middle of a, you know, dealing with this global pandemic, pre COVID We still had a mental health crisis. And if you can bring, if you can inject professionals into a problem that they can, you know, accomplish more goals than you even realize was possible. Like, I'm all for that. And it's only gotten, you know, gotten more intensive for me since since the pandemic.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, I know, we'd like to say, right, that we're in a mental health crisis now. But like you've said, you know, it's, it's extended before the pandemic, definitely. And so, yeah, I mean, we're very fortunate in the sense that ESA came around in 2015. I know we're gonna dive more into that. And ESA it's really about serving all students, not just those on an IEP. And I think that definitely plays into a role of what we're going to talk about. But before we get into the kind of how to address mental health as a school based OT, let's kind of talk about what it actually looks like to address mental health as a school based OT practitioner, and Miranda, I think this might be the perfect place for you to kind of come in and share what you've done and kind of what it can look like when a school based practitioners supporting mental health or either an individual student or maybe even a larger population.    Miranda Virone     Yeah, definitely, there are definitely ways that OT practitioners can provide those mental health interventions to students that are currently on their caseload Absolutely. And it is supported through IDA, because we understand that our kids with educational exceptionalities actually do experience a higher incidence of mental health disorders than compared to our regular ed population. So you know, that is built into the IDEA system, when we're working with kids on caseload, we can integrate mental health strategies into our goals and into our interventions. And that's something that we should never separate even we're working on collaborative goals, which is really what we're trying to strive for now, in school based practice, right? But we look at those social emotional skills that are happening within the classroom, we can collaborate together on those using some of our mental health intervention strategies that, you know, we're taught, and we're grounded in through our education and through our history. So it's absolutely we are capable of doing this work. Now with that kind of caseload approach that is happening a lot across the United States. So it is possible. But obviously, we want to shift when we can, and in some ways to making things you know, more workload based, ideally, there's a lot of talk of that going on right now in AOTA and across the nation, because our OTPs are just in school based practice there, they are overworked, we acknowledge that it is a real problem. And, you know, we're looking to AOTA to provide us some guidance with some ratios and numbers and caseload workload data in the future. So, you know, if we take that workload approach, we have the ability to really serve under both of those umbrellas, you know, we have the ability to serve under ide a, with our traditional approaches, because we have kids that have those needs, and we need to make sure we're addressing those, and we have the ability to put our ESA hat on and serve the general school population. I would love ideally, to see kind of like that 50/50 model where 50% of our time is spent working under the IDEA and 50% is spent under our ESA hat, where we can provide those tier one and tier two, universal and targeted support throughout our schools with some of these programs that are embedded into the natural environment. And that's so occupation based, right? Those programs that can happen at recess, during lunchtime in the cafeteria out on, you know, the playgrounds, wherever, wherever our kids are, together and engaging in, you know, all those aspects of occupation that happened at school social participation, you know, health management is happening at school, like leisure, it's all happening there. When we can't just single it out it only being education that's happening in the environment, because all of those things are what makes the education successful. Right. So I'd love to see the ability for us as OTPs in schools to wear both of those hats successfully. And to have the support, we need to do it effectively.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and if I ask you really quickly, just in a quote unquote, ideal world, what might a tier one and tier two Mental Health Initiative look like?    Miranda Virone     Yeah, so those will be universal support. So those are school wide programming, programming or services that we can either provide ourselves or we can collaborate with, among other team members in their schools, such as the school counselors, or school social workers, if we're lucky enough to have those in our district, right? Even our school if we have some mental health counselors in our schools, which is just absolutely fabulous to see that happen. But it can be individual types of approaches where, you know, we as a loan profession are targeting some needs. And I love to start with like some mental health literacy programs or some emotional literacy programs for the real little ones, pre K, kindergarten, first grade kids. Those are great universal programs to start with. And then you know, moving up to tier two, we can get some targeted groups together or working on small groups within classrooms on some of those social emotional skills. We can also talk about I love talking about social inclusion. I think that's a really great tier one and tier two strategy, especially in small groups. We talked about how to include people, and how to be sure we're not intentionally or unintentionally exploiting people. So there's a lot of different ways that we can be involved in those tier one and tier two strategies through MTSS. You know, they're, they're wonderful. It's just finding that place to start Right.     Jayson Davies     Yeah.    Miranda Virone     that's always the challenge. How do you get started? And you know, I'd love to share some ideas about that with everybody today.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I love that and excited to get into that, especially the idea of OT supporting inclusion from an RTI MTSS model, like, how often do we talk about inclusion within an IEP about a single student, but then we do nothing other than trying to push that student into a classroom to actually support that student in the classroom. Like, we need to be talking to the general classroom, the entire school, about how to support this student and all the other students in the included classrooms, as opposed to just like, send a one on one aid and with this one student, and just magically, everything's going to be better. So, before we move on, I do just want to ask you really quickly for the OT practitioners out there, they say, you know, I kind of addressed mental health, but I don't have a specific goal to address mental health, you know, for my students on an IEP. So from your perspective, what does it look like to actually support a student on an IEP via mental health type of services? Does there need to be a specific mental health goal? Or is it just kind of something you do every day?    Miranda Virone     Yeah, I think that incorporating mental health interventions and strategies is a natural pairing with any intervention strategy that we attempt that does address goals that students might have, whether they're collaborative goals, or freestanding goals. When we think about our interventions, we can choose from a wide array of things to address those goals. We are not pigeon holed into something very specific, like we can not just do handwriting, because we have a handwriting goal. So we can only address handwriting, if we want to address the mental health component that is associated with maybe the handwriting struggles, because that child can't keep up with the handwriting challenges in the classroom, they feel excluded, they feel isolated, they feel embarrassed, you know, turn that handwriting opportunity into a journaling opportunity where that child gets to express their feelings and emotions about those situations, turn it into some sort of an artistic expression activity where the child can draw or create something through your interventions that expresses what they're feeling, or what their world might look like, if everybody else understood a little bit better, or push into that classroom, and address some social emotional topics during a group handwriting activity in the classroom. There are so many different ways, we just have to be willing to think outside the box, push a few little buttons here and there and get some buy in, always look for that one person in your school that's willing to give you an opportunity. That's a great way to start establishing some buy in with your partners in the school setting.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I really think that we need to inject mental health and just about to every session, like we can't just ignore mental health, like it is really a backbone of every single thing that a child does. And you know, if their handwriting impacts them in the classroom, then you can bet that there might feel a little self conscious about their handwriting. I know I did as a kid, and I'm sure there are others that feel the same way. Alright, Abe, coming back to you now, because we're going to talk a little bit about government affairs. You already talked a little bit about how the mental health crisis was here before the pandemic, but obviously, during the pandemic, like mental health was actually on the news much more often. What does that look like in DC? What are you seeing at the legislative level when it comes to mental health? It sounds like it's more of a buzzword in DC. Is that the case right now?    Abe Saffer     Definitely more of a buzz word on the Hill in Congress where things are very contentious. When you talk about mental health, it's one of those bipartisan issues where people on both sides will agree oh, we need to do something. And actually Congress in 2020, to pass the Safer Communities Act, which to show you how much of a bipartisan issue mental health is and how big of a priority it is. The Safer Communities Act was in response to the mass shooting at Uvalde, Texas, which was, you know, horrific. And Congress, in its way, Congress passed the largest, most expansive gun control legislation in 30 years. But on top of that, it also included a huge amount of money and funding and support for mental health in schools. And so it's so it's such a big deal that this is something that is uniting folks to do actually make a change and do something. On the mental health side. It's, you definitely see a lot more folks that are lobbying, talking about their role in mental health, but because we've been doing this and why we I mean, OT, AOTA and practitioners have been doing this for years prior. We sort of have a little bit more credibility on that and we can talk about it because we have that long history of mental health and the profession. You know, it was 2016 was one of the first times I don't, I can't confirm. But I think it's first time in a either a long time or ever that like federal legislation actually included, was included to or amended to include OT into it. So it was this behavioral health workforce program through HERSA. That actually added OT to it. And since then you just sort of the way because he works in policies, you just build on past successes until you can get to a place where, you know, hopefully you want to be and that's sort of the way it works. And so, you know, in the last now, it would have been eight years since 2016, where we've made a ton of progress. And since COVID, it's just been taking off, like we've been able to make leaps and bounds because first of all, there's just such a huge need. So even, you know, I hate to talk about like turf wars, but that was sort of a DC reality. But now it's like, there's just such a huge shortage of mental health professionals in general, and school folks in general, that when we do talk about this, there's not as much, you know, no, that's mine, or are you stick to yours, that sort of thing, it's if someone can help in a way that, you know, that they're trained to help, please come in and help, like, we need all of it that we can get. So it's definitely become one of those huge issues in DC, as well, you know, at the state level, and I know that schools are talking about it, as well. And I think over the next couple of years, we're gonna see a lot of change related to it. And we'll just, you know, hope to keep it going on a positive trajectory.    Jayson Davies     Awesome, awesome, man. And you mentioned that, you know, national shortage of mental health providers, and I've actually ran into some OT practitioners across the, across the spectrum, and they really aren't sure if they are a mental health provider. And I think that's not uncommon. I think a lot of us question, right, because like, we're an OT, we didn't necessarily get a lot of mental health training as a therapist and OT school, maybe we haven't gone to a lot of mental health trainings, do we still constitute as a mental health provider and who judges whether or not that's accurate or not.     Abe Saffer     So in the policy realm, there's a bunch of different judges, most of them will look to the states. And so I'll talk about one mental health grant that the Department of ED releases, so they released this every year, they announced that every year, it's called the mental health service professionals demonstration program, or MHSP. And it's one of the few if not the only, like specific workforce grant for mental health, that the Department of Education administers all the rest are usually done through other agencies. Okay, so it got supersized with the Safer Communities Act that I mentioned, and went from roughly 100 million dollars a year to 500 million on top of that 100 million in 2022. And so, in that grant, it specifies and sort of this is the common theme when I talk mental health in schools is the grants best four buckets of eligibility, and it's schools, school counselors, school psychologists, social workers. And then number four is sort of the catch all in any other profession that is eligible to provide sorry, allowed by state law to provide mental health services to children. And so while there's a, you know, a federal law, or, you know, definition of what mental health providers in school looks like, because they, you know, they look to, they include three professions specifically, and then this catch all, they want to make sure that they're getting as many folks as possible. And so, because of that, in 2022, we were able to get a couple prob, a number of programs to apply for this mental health grant. And two of them got it. And that represents the first two programs that have ever gotten any, like, mental health education funding from the Department of Ed, like specific for just mental health. And both grants totaled about over almost $10 million. One was in Texas at the University of Incarnate Word, and the other one was in Minnesota, with the College of St. Scholastica. And it's just been, it's just been incredible. And I shared with both of you just as we were starting up, but the Department of Ed actually released new guidance on this grant. And there's two or frequently asked questions and one of them is is OTs eligible? And they said, Yes, OTs can apply for this can be eligible for this, as long as their state law says this, and I had the pleasure and honor of going through every single state Practice Act that defines the scope and every single one of them includes either cognitive psychosocial or psychological. So we are and by we I try to be cool and put myself in the category of a practitioner, but OT is eligible in every single state as a mental health profession. And if anyone ever says well Why, you know, if OT should be included? Why not X, Y and Z, you can say, look a state law, like, if they say that they should be a mental health professional and their scope of practice is defined by the state law, like, then yeah, we need all the help we can get and let them bring them in. But if they don't, if they're not, if that's not included in their scope, like, that shouldn't be part of their their efforts.     Jayson Davies     Well.    Miranda Virone     I'd love to answer this from an educational perspective to Miranda, like, I would love to just jump right in because that, you know, acknowledging the government's view, right, and federal legislation and language, and then state level language that's in our, you know, our not only our practice acts, but also in state level legislation is so important, but it's empowering to hear that, right? You hear that and you like it's there, we have the language there to support this. And when we go to our educational standards, right are a code standards. You look at how many times psychosocial or mental health is mentioned, in our accreditation standards, it would blow your mind because our educational accrediting body acknowledges that this is a component of who we are, you're never going to separate this from physical, the physical health and well being of individuals, because there's parity between the two, psychological and physical health, and social health are all equally important across the board, because they're so interconnected. So the Educational Standards support that. Not only that, when you compare our educational standards to some of the other acknowledged providers of mental health services, we meet or exceed, and educational standards, what they are seeing. So it is there, we just have this fierce impostor syndrome, we truly do, we don't know where we belong, we don't know where we fit, especially in schools. We don't know what we can do, we don't want to step on toes. But our lens is so very different from everybody else's, that if we can just build the courage to talk about it, and feel comfortable and confident talking about it, we can break down a lot of barriers that way.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and something that I see here in Southern California, and thank you for sharing about the imposter syndrome, I was gonna bring that up, but you went right into it. So awesome. But something I'm seeing here in Southern California, at least is that we are one of the more easily accessible mental health providers within the schools. Psychologists do a lot of testing, but they don't do a lot of therapy. Getting into a program for counseling or talking to a school psychologist is very difficult for some kids. I mean, you think it's hard to get into OT it's really hard to get, like in touch with a counselor. I mean, there's just, I think that because of that, that shortage, school districts have put up probably illegal barriers to kids getting those services, and at least they can get OT and we can be that quote unquote, Frontline, for lack of better and we're not really frontline and when I call it it, but I mean, compared to the others, were frontline mental health providers, per se. And I think that's important. And like you said, it's something that we do need to embrace ame shared exactly what our state practice x, x have proven it. And like you said, right, we need to get over that impostor syndrome and just kind of take it on. So thank you both. That was a great tag team applaud. All right. So Abe I want to come back to you, because there's something that you have mentioned to me, that has really has kind of like almost made me rethink everything I know. And I think other OT practitioners need to hear this as well, because we always want to kind of blame the laws blame the federal laws that don't allow us to do this or that when it comes to mental health. Are there laws either in place or that just don't exist? That are barriers or facilitators? And you kind of dove into this a minute ago, but just want to give you a second to talk about that?    Abe Saffer     Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Um, I get a lot of calls and emails from OTs and OTAs, from all over the country. And what I found is that the majority of them and I would say I use the, say 99 out of 100 of them. When people are complaining, I can't do whatever X, Y or Z and it could be anything. They sort of asked like what needs to be changed on the federal level. And I say probably nothing like it's usually not a federal barrier that is preventing you from doing something it is generally, if anything, it might be a state law, but more often than not, it's just people who don't understand what OTs is, what it does, what it's capable of, and what federal and state law allows by it. I can't tell you how many times I've heard and so much that it became my number one myth on my myth document. You know, OTs are not a lot of provides services to any student with an IEP, because they're paid entirely under IDEA part B, like, I'm gonna get that tattooed on my forehead, because I've heard it so much. And I would say to them, let's just assume for a fact that you are paid entirely under Part B, which RP accounts for about 3% of national education funding, so the chances of that being the case is very small. Even if that was the case, you're still allowed to provide spent use use about 15%, up to 15% of your IDEA funding for early intervening services, which is a multi tiered system of support services. So there are schools out there that just, you know, Miranda said that things could be different from district to district. And I would just one up her and say, I've seen things that are different from school to school that an OT or an OTA is going from multiple schools in the same district and are dealing with two different, you know, realities. So as, as I've talked about on this podcast, and everywhere else, even dinner with my family and noise them, but where I talk about is that it just it never had that implementation. And so people don't know what a specialized instructional support personnel means what that term is. And it's just the related, it's just the list under the general ed law as the Every Student Succeeds Act that is the exact same as under IDEA. And it just allows for multi tiered systems of support. It allows for OTs, and OTAs, to work in General Ed. And so someone told me, a longtime education advocate a while ago, that something that they said to me, I just I loved. And it was the biggest issue, the biggest barrier that we face is misconceptions that have solidified that schools are so risk averse, which they you know, they, for obvious reasons, and I don't begrudge them at all for being risk averse. Having both my parents be retired teachers, like, I, I'm glad that they are a little risk averse, sometimes. But I will say that there are, that there are things that they have always done. And when you try to change that, you have to provide them with just overwhelming evidence that it's allowed, it's that they're not gonna get in trouble for it, because their administrators are very nervous. So when it comes to the ability to be able to provide mental health services, or, you know, to be frank and anything other than handwritings support in a school, you need to be able to convince that administrator. And the issue is most school based practitioners, you know, I won't say all just because I'm sure there's a couple that are other fine, but probably all, are so busy, that they don't have the time to like, research this and look this up, you know, some of them know to call me and, you know, my hobby at this point is just like helping look up laws, because I'm a lobbyist, I'm confrontational, like I want to win a fight, but they don't have the time to look it up. And administrators are just again, risk averse, and they don't have the time to sort of like, explore something that they're not sure about. They always sort of do what has been acceptable in the past. And so one of my goals for this year, which our fiscal year ends at the end of June, but so it'll bleed over into 2025 is to just develop resources for practitioners, or at least start doing it, to be able to let them advocate and talk about, you know, explain what is OTs role in mental health, explain why they are allowed to provide services, like what Universal Supports, they could actually provide, you know, like, basically just the fact sheet version of Miranda to be able to walk around and say like, this is, folks like this is the this is what your goal should be like, you can go ahead and do that. So it's it's the most frustrating, but it's also the area of my job where I see the most room for progress, because I don't have to get Congress to do anything to change this. And if you haven't been paying attention, that's not the easiest thing to do, do these days is to get Congress to do something even more difficult than usual. So it's exciting. And I do feel like we're right at the cusp of just seismic change in the profession in terms of school base for, you know, practice if we can just harness it.    Miranda Virone     And our advocacy has to start on a micro level, right? I mean, Abe got us he's got us covered at that macro level. But you can't assume that your school administrators know anything about ESA, there's a very strong chance that they don't. So you going to them with this information, maybe the first time they're ever hearing of it, and it can open up a lot of doors. It can open up a lot of conversations too, which I think is fabulous. So don't be afraid to have a conversation. You're coming in with the best interests of your students in mind. That's all it's about. It's not about who's right, who's wrong. It's not about I want to do this and prove to you that I can do this. It's about This is what these kids need. They fundamentally need these programs, they need the skills to build these skills. So they can be successful in all areas of occupation, right, and they can, in turn someday be successful adults too. So don't be afraid to have those conversations again, mildly intrusive, it's okay. It's okay to be that way. It can open up a lot of doors for you. That's why I'm here today.    Abe Saffer     I'll build on it. Just Just one last pitch is that? is absolutely right. Like it does begin on that level. And my plea to everyone who is listening is don't keep it on that level. So if you do have that victory, if you do, you know, if you are able to convince an administrator, let me know, like, I would absolutely love to hear that. Because the more times that I hear about stuff like that happening on the local level, or a state that's doing something innovative, the easier it is, for me to be able to sell that nationwide, whether that's state to state or, you know, on the to the federal government. So please don't keep it a secret.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And if you need Abe's contact information, he's all over Twitter. And we will definitely have it on the show notes. So or acts as I guess it's called now. But anyways, continuing on Miranda, we've already talked about some of the barriers, age definitely kind of brought it down, kind of put the onus on us a little bit at the micro level. But from your perspective, what you have seen both as a practitioner and in talking to, you know, current ongoing, school based OT practitioners, what are you seeing as the biggest barriers to kind of getting going with with supporting mental health?     Miranda Virone     Yeah, I mean, it's definitely starts with ridiculous case loads. I, I can't not say that, because I know that your listeners feel that pain. And that's the first pain that they feel in practice, you know, and the reality is, you know, the AOTA workforce survey tells us that 25% of our OT practitioners are in schools, they're operating and functioning in schools. So that's a huge component of our workforce. And I think I'm so glad that Aotea is listening to our call, and need to establish some guidelines, some parity in what we're doing, you know, in comparison to other professionals in schools. You know, it's hard, because, you know, how do you advocate for workload approach, you really have to do you know, we talked about time studies, how you can you do this within your school to show what it is that you're doing, and show the overall need of the students in the building, based upon the climate and culture of the school, based upon the increase in mental health demands that are happening in the schools? I mean, gosh, all you have to do is ask for truancy reports, ask for behavioral reports and incidents reports. There's the data right there on a school and district level, that data, right, there is very telling of what's happening within our schools, we do have the skills to support that and we don't have to go hiring another individual to do it, you know, completely, we just need some additional support, we need some additional time. So again, that comes down to that advocacy piece, what can we do to advocate for that workload approach? What can we do to advocate for more time, in our week to address some of these needs that are happening among the regular population, we have to feel comfortable in our own skin, addressing our administrators again, you know, join some of these communities that practice, educate yourself, be amongst the people that share your interests and values, because they're the ones that are going to support you. We've got lots and lots of people out there that are doing amazing things. And they will inspire you every time you meet with them, or surround yourself with them. Even in a virtual contexts. You can take that and use it as fuel for your energy. And also, as you know, collecting data on how to proceed with those things, then the last piece is really funding and he touched a bit on this too, you know, we're talking about either additional hours in a week to address these mental health programs, you know, under that umbrella of ESA, not every school receives any funding from ESA, right. Not every district receives funding from ESA, it's really based kind of on some other methodology. So, you know, ESA provides us with great language. And it provides us with legislation and great support, but it doesn't always necessarily provide us with funding. And in my experience is schools that do receive as a funding, have kind of already appropriated it elsewhere, to ask them to redirect those funds towards some of these OT initiatives might be a little bit of a challenge. So we had to look for other ways to find funding. You know, I think a might have touched on free free care role expansion through ma that's one way that we can talk about that on a state level. You know, we might be asked to find the money to support this. So we need to be creative. We need to practice our grant writing skills, we may need to get in touch with some community agencies and partnerships to help us do this work to and they're out there. I've seen it happen. There are community businesses and agencies that are willing to give money to schools to support these efforts because they appreciate the need and value of what's happening.    Jayson Davies     That's awesome. Yeah. And I know by time this episode gets published, a OTA is having a webinar on grants and how to potentially find grants and apply for grants. But that webinar is likely available on a replay as my guest. And if we can find it, we'll definitely link to it for everyone to watch it. That's a big thing. I do want to dive into so little bit, I don't think we've addressed s fully since episode 91, when he was last with us. We've talked a little bit about ESA already today. But if there was a quick overview of ESA, I don't know who wants to take this one. But just kind of a quick overview and how it applies to school based OT practitioners.    Abe Saffer     That's all AYP. So Essa, for those who don't know, Every Student Succeeds Act is actually the reauthorization that was passed of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. So the SCA, as it's called, was created in start with first pass in 65. And it created the department of education and public education in the nation as we know it. And so, as with every other major piece of legislation, the Congress sets it up to be nice to be be authorized, you know, regularly, usually every five or 10 years just depending on or even shorter, just depending on what type of legislation it is. But if you're ever if you've ever heard of No Child Left Behind, that was a bill that was passed in early 2000s That reauthorize EFCA. That's a replay replace that. And so when ESA was being debated in Congress, and it was before my time at MCA, but there was a huge emphasis on sort of creating this continuum, this sort of continuum of care for students of services with IDA. And so that's where assist comes from the specialized instructional support personnel, the brand new term that was created in 2015, to be able to say that these folks, you know, OTs OTAs, should be able to provide services in the general ed space. Now, the way that the system works is that the process works is first Congress passes a major piece of legislation, then the relevant agency will develop regulations in order to let folks know how you know, fill in the blank, so to speak. So in 2015, the bill was passed 2016, Department of Ed rolled out new regulations around it. And then what normally happens next is that the agency will say, here are some documents that aren't law, but it's like us, trying to make it easier for you to understand what the law says, which is called our guidance documents. That would have happened in 2017. And at that point, it was a new administration that took over for the Obama administration. And they just weren't got, they just had even told us point blank as one of my first things meetings I had with the Department of Ed, in my role, they said, This is just not what we do. And so we're now seven years, eight years, almost no, sorry, nine years from when si was passed. And there's never been a guidance document released that says, This is what this brand new term is, and why it's such a huge deal. You know, most, most OTs and OTAs. And states are usually under the Office of Special Education. And if not, it's usually the office of Pupil services. And pupil services isn't a thing anymore. And it's just states haven't made that change and districts don't know. And so I am happy that I'm proud to be able to share and I'll make sure we can link this for your folks, Jason. But the National Alliance of specialized instructional support personnel, the Coalition of all the professional associations that represent all these professions, as well as the teachers unions and the principals and the special ed administrators and a lot of others, we came together and worked on guidance, because if the department isn't going to release something, we wanted to make sure that states had that, that they had that tool at their disposal. So we have that on an Asus website now. And folks can can share that as widely as they want. It's, it's hot off the presses. So that so to speak. But essay is here until it needs to get reauthorized, which could be could be any year, but it might have come and gone without anyone really knowing it. But the policies within it, I think are here to stay because they really were intended to allow for a lot of flexibility, making sure that schools and districts weren't told what to do meanwhile giving them options. And I think that a lot of districts when they find out about it, love that.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at that document that from NSSP that you just talked about, and I'm just looking at some of the titles, the subtitles, and we're talking about school climate, chronic absenteeism, bullying, discipline, mental and physical health. I mean, these are all I'm pretty sure there's been a topic or a podcast episode on the daily and many other the most popular podcasts out there on each of these topics because they are such a big thing right now, within schools. I mean, I know the daily just the other day had one. Absenteeism, like 28% of kids chronically absent. I mean, it's just amazing. So I love that the NASSISP, sorry, nassisp. Is that how you say it Abe?     Abe Saffer     It is, it's a great term, but it does not roll off the tongue very.    Jayson Davies     But yeah, I love how they're basically just correlating everything that is research based and hot right now, and saying, Hey, we've got all the people right here that can address those things. And here they are. They're all under this term. They're all under this umbrella. And they're available. So that is awesome. All right. In this episode, we have talked a lot about the problem. We've talked about the problem from many different angles. And I want to spend the last few minutes here talking about how we can be the solution we dipped in dabbled a little bit in that over over the last 45 minutes. But I really want to talk about starting from the ground level school based OT practitioners who are excited to say, Hey, I'm assist, I can work on mental health or I'm a related service provider, I can work on mental health and a one on one setting where they can get started with that. And so if we start with what I think is the potentially the most easy to understand the most palpable because I think we're all doing that is those one on one services, IDE related services. So maybe Miranda, if you want to take this? How can we just start to get into the world of mental health and working with our one on one students?    Miranda Virone     Well, think about it this way, right? We don't have to define where we're working with those one on one students what environment that's happening. And we know what's happening in the walls of the school, but it doesn't mean we have to take them out of the classroom, and take them into a therapy room or a hallway or a closet for some of us, right? It means that we can work with them in their natural environment, their natural environment, is the classroom. It is the cafeteria, it is the playground, all of those environments within natural environments for the students that we work with. So we can go into those environments. And again, as we talked about before, it doesn't necessarily mean that we are only addressing that particular student, we might be addressing the whole classroom, who responds to that student and interacts with that student, those one on one services are still reflective of that embedded approach where we can go into the classroom and address the needs of one student and inadvertently dress the address the needs of the entire classroom, right, which is really cool. And that's a way for us to show. Our educators and our faculty in schools are distinct value. And when you do that you get buy in. So if one classroom teacher sees what you can do and your capability, you know, when you're really focusing your efforts on one student, but every student benefits in the classroom, that's still an intense target an intense intervention, that's still tier three support, you're still working through ide a to provide that services, students still billable, you can still bill for that service, you are just choosing the context in which you're providing that service in. So think about it that way and your documentation, your documentation has to be reflective of that too, right and supporting why it's necessary to provide that in that environment. So that's definitely where to start. When we're talking about one on one services.     Jayson Davies     you will follow up really quickly. A lot of therapists I find get hung up on the idea that a goal must be academic ly relevant. And then we talk about services that are taking place outside of the classroom outside of the OT room, out on the playground, cafeteria and whatnot. How would you address that?    Miranda Virone     Yeah, definitely. So the purpose when you create goals where you collaborate on goals, it is the success of the student in the educational environment. That's what Id EA is looking for. So what contributes to that success, right? It's not just education, specific focus, it's also social focus. It's also leisure focus of play participation, all of those factors contribute to educational success of that student. So use your OT lens, use your occupations. If you can justify it in your documentation, then you've done what you need to do. And so just go back to making sure that you're justifying what you're doing. And you're supporting it using that holistic lens. That's, that is what we do. And ide a acknowledges that we are related service providers with a distinct set of skills. So that that's already in place. They know that you just have to document it as such.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and then one more, if I may, because we talked a little bit about documentation. I think therapists are a little scared to use the word mental health or the phrase mental health within an IEP because they're told you're the fine motor. They don't want to use it anywhere other than maybe on those more internal treatment plan document or a soap note. So should therapists have permission to use mental health on an IEP to use that term? Or should they? Do they need permission? Or, like, how do we get over this fear of like, I can't use the word mental health?     Miranda Virone     Absolutely. Well, the reality is, you know, we are not died, we cannot diagnose, right, we cannot diagnose a child with a mental health disorder, we may not even have the kids that are on our caseload may not have an identified mental health disorder, but you may have symptoms, that we might be helping them manage their symptoms. So think about it that way. So when we see, you know, the mental health symptoms that we see externally, and sometimes they internalize them, too, right? Those are what we call psychosocial factors. Those are how they influence these are the mental health signs and symptoms that influence their ability to interact with their environment. So when we revert and use that language, that's very much within our scope of practice. And that supersedes all practice acts, all, you know, that's within all of our federal language. So if you use that language, it's very supportive of what we do in our profession, and then we're not encroaching upon any potentially questionable language use.    Jayson Davies     I love that. That was like the perfect answer. I think we all need to just internalize that and remember that we have all this language to fall back on to support ourselves. So great, thank you so much. All right. Now if we go a little bit more broad, and someone is thinking, You know what, all right, I got the I got the one on one sessions. Even in some group sessions, I'm addressing some psychosocial factors. Beyond that. Now, I want to start getting into the MTS s s around and supporting larger groups. How can I get started?    Miranda Virone     Yeah, so you've, you've done some push in, you've done some embeddable strategies with maybe one of your one on one students, you've created this great rapport with that classroom teacher, you build this relationship, you have wild that teacher with your abilities. That's your buy in, right. Yeah, that's your person. So now you say, Hey, would you mind if I came into your classroom and did just a little segment, 10 minutes on emotional literacy? What do you think about that we're going to identify emotions, we're going to talk about what emotions look like, what they feel like, how to manage these challenging emotions. I can't imagine too many educators that are going to say, No, emotions aren't a problem in our classroom. Right. So that's just a way to get that small by and start with the littles, right, your kindergarten, first grade, they love having people come in, you know, there's a lot of energy in those classrooms. So having even a 10 or 15 minute reprieve, by having somebody else come in to do some programming is usually fairly welcome. So that's a great way to start. And then work your way up, you know, work your way up through your intermediate schools. And then you see all these great things happening, you start collecting some data, right, just some easy simple data, using maybe an exit ticket with the teacher on the, you know, the climate of the room, once you leave, or maybe some changes that they see in the next couple of hours after you've left the classroom. Or if they see any strategies that kids are starting to use independently after you've taught them to the classroom. That is great evidence right there that what you have done is supportive and effective. And then you can present this information to the administration. Look what I've done. This is all the great stuff that is happening just in this one classroom. Imagine if I could do this in the entire school. Right?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, All right. There's gonna be some people if I don't ask you about exit ticket and how that worked.    Miranda Virone     Yeah, exit ticket is really just kind of a little survey that the classroom teacher would take, you give a couple of questions. So you're not collecting, you know, that's not research data. You're not collecting, you don't need an IRB to do that. Right? You're just collecting some survey data from that classroom teacher on how things went, what they liked, what we could do differently, and then maybe follow up a day later with another survey, asking, you know, some getting some qualitative information. What strategies did you observe your kids using after I left or the day after? What has what carryover has occurred since we met last, and that is great information that you can take to your administrator, you know, the proof is in the pudding. Right? Right there it shows you some great solid evidence that your efforts are working.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and I personally, I've just found that once you get in with one teacher, you never know what's gonna take you. It's amazing, right? Like you really do meet that one teacher because you had one student in their classroom. And now because you know that one teacher now you know, the one administrator and because you know, the one administrator, you know, the one district level administrator and the next thing you know, they're asking you to do an entire presentation to all the kindergarten teachers on something because they've seen you kind of go through the ranks and just help everyone so absolutely. All right, I want to come back to a but really quickly and ask kind of your last minute thoughts at the end of this podcast on individual OT practitioners being able to advocate for themselves and to work their way up within the realm of mental health at individual school.    Abe Saffer     Yeah, I think it's a great, great way to sort of end it. But my colleague, Jill has a fantastic way of saying this, where she wants people to advocate up and out. And that is the way of saying, you know, there's advocacy is not just one thing, it's not just what I do, or what people do, you know, on a grassroots level, there's advocacy is trying to get laws changed, or, you know, on the federal or state level advocacy, is trying to get something changed in your school, to be able to say, I want to be able to do you know, this intervention. Advocacy is also about trying to convince a client or a parent of a student to accept your plan of care, like, those are all advocacy. And so as you're looking through this, and as you're looking through your day, I would say that efficacy is also telling people what occupational therapy is not just parents and teachers, but friends and family, because the more that people know about it, the more that people can understand it, even if they don't understand the full scope. And I will say, I do not have any OT training than an AMC for seven and a half years, I think I have, okay, understanding of the profession. But there's still things I learned constantly where I'm like, Oh, you can do that, too. That makes sense. So just being able to sort of share that with as many people as possible, because when you find people that understand occupational therapy and are pushing for it, then that's gonna lead to policies being created at the, you know, the building level or the federal level, that are working to try to make sure that OTs and OTs can do what they do. You know, Miranda talked about workload, and caseload, and that's something that is, you know, is extremely important. And we're trying to find a way to be able to sort of start to move in that direction of workload without, you know, just not dumping a ton of extra work on folks right now. But we're also worried about, we want to make sure that like, there's such a demand that that, that schools are willing to say, in order, while we're changing this, we're going to figure out a way to make it as easy as possible on you. And so advocate to everyone, you know, talk about it at the Thanksgiving table, talk about it, and you're in line to the grocery store, talk about it anywhere you can, I can tell you that there's been a few times where I've been able to advocate it not in an official capacity, but just like talking to my family and friends about this. And it's it's everyone, I think, who who graduates from a program understands how amazing their profession is, and share that with others, because you want to make sure that they it's not just being kept a secret. And that way, selfishly, it makes my job easier. So that's, you know, a lobbyist is kind of one of my defining traits, but like the idea of being able to go into a meeting and say, Are you familiar with occupational therapy, and then say, well, I've never had it, and I'm not only but like, my cousin down the street has it. And, you know, I know, three or four OTs that I'm friends with. And so they've talked about it. That is such a much different meeting for me than if I go into a meeting. And they're like, no relation to it at all. And I started talking about it, and then they say, oh, yeah, my grandmother got that. Or my, my son got that you're like, yes. So talk to everyone about it never stopped bragging. Like, it might feel weird for you. But it might be the difference between someone in your life getting access to OT and that, and it might be the x the difference between them having independence and success. And that, and I want to look at any case studies Look at me, like I view myself as the product of OT. And it just happened to be that that OT was my boss. So please, just advocate everywhere you can. And tell me about it, too.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, you know, and we as as especially a school based OT practitioners like to almost brag that our bosses know nothing about what we do. And that shouldn't be the case. And the onus is on us to explain to them what OT is. And you might have to do it three, four or five a dozen times before they really understand. But we also shouldn't shy away from making sure that they understand, especially when they're our own boss. I like to say that with one of my previous special education coordinators who oversaw occupational therapy, we had a love, hate respect Um, relationship, you know, like, by the time I was done there, I think she understood OT a little bit more than she did when I got there, she would often become frustrated by me because I would kind of point to research or I would point to Ida sections. But that also helped her to better understand OT. And to a point, eventually, she would just look to me and say, Jason, I know you have the answer to this because you kind of do your homework. And she understood what I knew and what my profession was at that point. And yeah, there was that there was definitely that that respect for one another, too. We butt heads occasionally. Yeah, because we were both advocating for what we knew was right for kids. And that's okay to butt heads a little bit. But we had that respect for one another. And I think that kind of that kind of goes hand in hand with advocacy, I think. And so as Miranda put, it, what was the term that we were going with for the podcast term? intrusively, mildly intrusive?    Miranda Virone     Yes, mildly intrusive, you gotta be mild it. And the last, I just can't say this enough. Find your people, right? Find your people, the school mental health, community of practices, a great way to find the support that you need to do these things, you know, ideas and language and law. It's all there in that group. So if that's something that you are passionate about, you know, find your people to help you pursue it. It's a really great community of practice. There's a lot of support there a lot of networking, that happens as well. So I would strongly encourage you to get involved that way.     Jayson Davies     Absolutely. All right, well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up today. Eva, Miranda, I want to thank you so much for spending the last hour or so with me really appreciate it. And I know so many school based OT practitioners are going to listen to this and just feel a lot better about where they are in their schools and how to provide or get started with providing mental health services. So thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.    Abe Saffer     Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, thank you for all you do.    Jayson Davies     Thank you appreciate it. All right, thank you one more time, Miranda and a for joining us and sharing your invaluable insights into the integration of mental health and school based occupational therapy, your expertise, your dedication to advocating for and advancing this crucial aspect within occupational therapy is truly inspiring, and we cannot thank you enough. To you our listener, I hope this episode has enlightened and equipped you with a new perspective on maybe just how mental health is so important within the realm of occupational therapy, especially in the setting that so many of us work in the educational setting. Remember, as OT practitioners, you're not just addressing tasks, you're addressing the student's entire ability to access their education, mental health included. If you found this discussion helpful and you wish you could get even more support. As a school based OT practitioner, I invite you to check out the OT School Health Collaborative at OTSchoolHouse.com slash collab. Inside the collaborative you can earn a certificate of completion for listening to this very episode, and access further resources and support related to today's important topic. Our collaborative community is tailored to help you succeed and thrive and your practice providing you with the tools and community you need. Earn see us review the research and receive mentorship all year long at OTSchoolHouse.com slash collab. Thank you again for tuning in to the OT schoolhouse podcast. We're grateful for your continued support and eagerness to grow in your OT practice. I look forward to having you join us again on our next engaging and educational journey. We'll see you next time.    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 OT school house.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! 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Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 151 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Discover how the 3-to-1 service model can transform collaboration among OT, PT, and speech providers, streamline evaluations, and enhance communication with teachers and parents.  In this episode, we'll dig into the scheduling and IEP logistical concerns that come with this model and explore strategies for successfully implementing it, including writing services onto the IEP.  Stay tuned as we uncover the impact of the 3-to-1 model on IEPs and highlight the importance of flexibility and creativity in delivering effective school-based OT services. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will be able to identify the differences between the 3-to-1 model and the traditional one-time-a-week direct service model. Learners will identify the key benefits of the 3-to-1 service model in enhancing collaboration among OT, PT, and speech providers. Learners will identify strategies to manage their caseload effectively during flex weeks. Guests Bio Kristina Geraghty is an Occupational Therapist whom has been working in schools in New York and New Jersey for 14 years. She also does private work at a sensory gym after school. In 2018, Kristina started an online education business, Therapy Advance Courses, with her co-worker Lauren Catalier, who is a speech language pathologist. They founded this company after trying to find graduate courses that enabled them to move on their salary guides at their full time school job and realizing there was a need for affordable courses that were relevant to school based therapists. Quotes “Bringing the IEP to life, you're able to really go in and implement those things that you suggest.”  — Kristina Geraghty, MS OTR/L “I think going to the therapist first and getting them on board with this model is going to be key to keeping it going and giving it that ammunition that it needs to get implemented in more and more schools.” — Kristina Geraghty,MS OTR/L  “The whole point of us doing this therapy is to get these skills to translate over into the classroom." — Kristina Geraghty,MS OTR/L  “Just being a little less afraid to ask questions and say, how can we get creative? We get creative in our therapy sessions every day. So, why not get creative a little bit in how we are creating these IEPs." — Jayson Davies, MA, OTR/L “I do it 2 to 2. I really like this one, because it allows me to get into the classroom a little bit more, but still allows me to have that individual session." — Jayson Davies, MA, OTR/L Resources 👉   3 to 1 Model -Free resource  👉 Other Free Resources 👉 Inspired Treehouse 👉 Dr. Bev Moskowitz Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hello and welcome to another episode of the OT schoolhouse podcast. I'm your host Jayson Davies. And today we're discussing a common term in the world of school based OT. That often seems like a pie in the sky dream. You are likely familiar with the three to one model as a concept. But today we're talking to a therapist who works at a district actually implementing that three to one model. Kristina Geraghty is an experienced occupational therapist currently thriving in a collaborative district, where the entire OT and SLP team operate under the 321 model. That is exactly why I invited Kristina onto the podcast to share her insights on managing her caseload. While navigating the challenges and benefits of the three to one model. We'll explore how this unconventional service model can enhance collaboration among OT, PT, and speech providers, streamline evaluations, and even improved communication with teachers and parents. We'll also discuss the scheduling and IEP logistical concerns that sometimes arise with a three to one model, and how you might even write the services onto the IEP. So stay tuned as we uncover the strategies for successfully implementing the three to one model. Its impact on an IEP and the importance of flexibility and creativity in providing effective school based OT services. Let's jump right in. Here's Kristina.    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's your host, Jayson Davies. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Kristina, welcome to the OT, schoolhouse podcast. It's such a pleasure having you here today. How are you?     Kristina Geraghty     I'm good. Jayson, how are you?     Jayson Davies     Doing fantastic. You know, we're just talking about general location. You used to be here in Southern California like myself, but you are now in New York. How are things in in New York area?  are    Kristina Geraghty     Are pretty good. You know, we have a summer like day today, which is great. I grew up here. So I only lived out in Cali for a couple years. But my whole family's back here. So things aren't good in New York.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. And have you worked as a as in like, the pediatric school base realm in both states or more one versus the other?     Kristina Geraghty     Yeah, I was not an OT. When I lived in California, I was very young. I was in my early 20s. So I was still finding my way at that time. And I became Yeah, I became an OT. When I when I moved back here to New York.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, I just really love talking to people that have practice in like multiple areas, because you really get to see like the differences and especially within school based OT, you know, it's very different from state to state, even county to county, heck, the same schools, and or two different schools in the same district even be so different. So it's always interesting just to talk to people from different areas. I love it.     Kristina Geraghty     Yeah, that is true. Well, I've worked in New York, and I've worked in New Jersey, and even though we're right next to each other, very different.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, I hear you know, I'm definitely on the other side of the country. But the whole contracting versus district employed, I know is very interesting in that realm. And I think that's going to tie into a little bit about the three to one model, as we're going to talk about today. So we won't go too far into that. But yeah, I would love to just learn a little bit more about you and your school based occupational therapy and just your occupational therapy background in general as we dive into this, so please, where are you in your, in your OT world today?     Kristina Geraghty     So I'm in my 13th year of practice, and I have always been in school based practice. So I when I graduated school, I was pregnant. And so I had my first child, and started my new career all within a few months. So it was a little bit crazy. But I definitely wanted to go into school based practice. You know, being a new mom, the hours definitely appealed to me more. I come from a family of paediatric practitioners. My My sister was a pediatric physical therapist. And my other sister was is is a special educator here in New York. She does early intervention and what's called CPSE here, which is preschool. And then my stepson is a speech therapist. So, we have a big a big crowd of pediatric therapists and my family so we're always talking about therapy and talking about our kids and, and things like that. So I began working in New York as an independent contractor for a school district in Westchester. And then I got a job in New Jersey, also as an independent contractor and then I ended up moving to New Jersey. And I landed a job as a school employee. And so I've been there for about seven years.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. Congrats. And how's that thing going from being a contractor to being a district employee?     Kristina Geraghty     I, you know, I really like it, they both had their positives and negatives. You know, as an independent contractor, I had a little more flexibility with my hours, I didn't work five days a week, which was, you know, a big, big bonus, especially when my kids were little. So I had, you know, when my kids were really little, it was nice, I worked like three or four days a week. But I always knew that I wanted to get to become, you know, a school full time employee at some point. And, you know, enjoy all the benefits of that. And I definitely feel that as an employee, I have a lot more opportunity for collaboration with my team. As an independent contractor, I felt like I was just coming in and out of the schools, they had me at, you know, three or four different schools. You know, and I was I was able to communicate with some people. But, you know, I hardly even went to meetings with parents and things like that. But now, as a school employee, I feel very immersed with with my team and with my students and their families. So there's much more of a connection there. Absolutely. And I think that's definitely going to come back up here in a little bit, as we talked about the three to one model, because that communication aspect is just so important. When it comes to the three to one module, to be honest, any model within the schools, there's a lot of communication within school based OTs. So. Yes;    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, we'll get into that. So let's just kind of start by talking a little bit about what the three to one model is in relationship to school based occupational therapy. I think a lot of people have heard of this is something that has been around now for a few years, but for anyone who either just hasn't heard of it, or, you know, hasn't refreshed their brain with this one explained the three to one model.     Kristina Geraghty     So the three to one model is a workload model. And it basically takes into account the entire scope of the related service providers duties. So it goes beyond just, you know, the direct sessions that they provide to students individually and in groups, and takes into account all of the meetings and the evaluations, the consultations, all those extra things that we do you know, each day that that add up very fast. So it really goes, you know, above and beyond just the road service delivery that the standard model does.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and when we're talking about the three and the one, what are we kind of referring to in those.     Kristina Geraghty     So every month, we have three weeks where we follow our traditional Monday through Friday schedule. And then we have the fourth week, which we we call our flex week, or you know, our indirect service week. And that is where we have some more flexibility. So we schedule some meetings with parents and teachers, we can schedule some observations we can get into, you know, different classes, different types of classes, different environments that we normally can't, because we're so bound by our schedule each day. So if I have a student that I want to go observe in gym or recess, or, you know, during writers workshop, I can make arrangements to do that.    Jayson Davies     I was just going to add a little bit, you know, I think when it comes to an IEP, a lot of us are used to seeing four times a month on an IEP for a student service or maybe 30 times a year or once a week even and I think that doesn't quite fit into the three to one model necessarily correct me if I'm wrong, but is that kind of a little bit different from what you might see on an IEP within the three to one model?    Kristina Geraghty     Um, well, we we put on our IEP as we go weekly, so most of our students are seeing either once or twice a week, or they may have you know, a monthly consult or maybe five consults a year or 10. You know, whatever that child that child needs. What we do is we have something written in our IEP s and that can be found on our on our handout that people can download. But we have something specific written in our IEPs about this indirect service week, and the students are still seen so we make a point we make sure that every student is seen at least once during that week. It's just may look a little bit different. They may get seen in a larger group they may get they may get seen alone. They may normally be in a group. me wait We may want to pull them out and you know, focus on something that's a little bit more difficult with a lot of kids around. So they will still get seen, it just may be in a different context than you know what stated in the IEP, they may get seen in their classroom.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Yeah. And I think it's important to see kids in multiple settings, you know, there's some things that you can do better as an OT practitioner in one setting, as opposed to another setting. And sometimes you really do need to see them in the various settings to address those different things for you, when you are deciding, you know, what the service is going to look like? I guess, do you ever consider not using a three to one model, or specifically using a three to one model for this student? Based upon what your evaluation is telling you?    Kristina Geraghty     Yes, yes, there's definitely some that you know, just do much better with one to one service, you know, but that flexibility is there. So if I do just want to stick to my regular schedule, and see a student the way I normally do, I can do that. But usually, like, during that week, like my wheels start turning, and I'll start thinking like, oh, maybe I need to bring the Aiden with him for this session. And I can, you know, review his sensory strategies with her or oh, you know, we talked about doing this a few weeks ago, we can do that during the flex week. So usually, more often than not, there's there's always something to do. But yeah, I mean, I think I think almost every student can benefit from their therapists pushing into their classroom. I mean, more often than not, I always learn something new about them, I always find something that they may be struggling with that I didn't know before. And usually, you know, it's a lot of times, it's something I can help with. So.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. And you talked a little bit about that blurb that you put into an IEP. But I know for us out here, we have to get really specific with our services on the service grid, like we got to put where the service is taking place, is there going to take place in a classroom? Is it going to take place in? In the students classroom or a separate classroom? We got to talk about if it's going to be one on one, or if it's going to be group and whatnot. So is it a little bit different in New Jersey, are you allowed to be a little bit more flexible? Or is that just what that extra blurb allows kind of a caveat to this to the very fixed schedule on the IEP?    Kristina Geraghty     both, so we have the blurb there. And then we also we do have those same parameters in, but we have a choice called natural learning environment for where the therapy takes place. And that kind of covers everything that would cover coming to the OT room, that would cover the classroom that would cover pushing into lunch, if we wanted to push into lunch, it basically covers us for everything. And we pretty much put all of our kids under natural learning environment.    Jayson Davies     That's great. We used to have an option. It wasn't called natural learning environment, but it was called service provider location. And so as it sounds, wherever the service provider was, that's where it could take place. Right. But you know, 12 years ago, when I started, that was common practice. And then slowly, it kind of disappeared, they wanted us to get more specific. And so they asked us to get more specific. But that only forced us to get a little bit more creative. And I'm saying this because I wonder if you've had to get more creative as well, because we had to start delineating that three to one when I would do the three to one. So I'd have to have two different services on the IEP, I would have to have three times a month in a pullout setting. And then one time a month in the classroom setting. That's how I would dictate a three to one service on an IEP. But it sounds like you're able to get in and get away with that natural context.    Kristina Geraghty     Yeah, yeah, we just use that as like our umbrella term for pretty much every child. I mean, I don't think there's ever been a parent that had an issue with that, once we explain it to them. That, you know, yeah, most of his sessions are going to take place in the in the therapy room, but there are going to be some that take place in the classroom. You know, there are a few students where I, I will specifically, you know, delineate for me to be pushing in with them, you know, if I don't feel that they should be pulled out, you know, more than once or twice a week, or if they're getting pulled out for multiple services. And I specifically, you know, say I think it's best that I just push into the classroom during Writers Workshop, or whatever it is, and then I will put like, in class as my service location.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. It's very interesting. You know, there's a lot of, I want to say there's there's a lot of formalities that have been over time ingrained into IEPs. And some of them are just the way that services are inputted onto that service page and I think is OT practice. shinners mean, just as anyone working on an IEP, we kind of have to question why we're doing stuff, you know, why are we putting this specific option on that service page? And how what what changes if I decide to use the natural context setting instead of the separate classroom setting or whatnot, and right, you know, being being willing to go ask our manager and say, hey, if I do this, does that mean, I can do this? And, you know, the worst we're gonna get is usually a no. And so     Kristina Geraghty     Right,     Jayson Davies     just being a little less afraid to ask and question and say, How can we get creative, we get creative in our therapy sessions every day, so why not get creative a little bit and how we are creating these IEP. So that's awesome. They figured out a way to make it work.    Kristina Geraghty     Yeah, I'm very fortunate with the district I work in, it's a very small district, our supervisor gives us a lot of autonomy, you know, we can always go to her with things, but she, she does have a lot of faith in us that we're doing the right thing. And she's, she's really flexible with us. You know, it's always whatever whatever's best for the student.     Jayson Davies     Yeah.    Kristina Geraghty     You know, and as long as the parent is informed, I mean, we also have great parents at our district that, you know, are just super supportive and grateful for the services. And, you know, once we explain to them what we're doing in the in the classroom, I mean, we've had parents come in during the flex week, Lauren, our speech therapist, you know, had a parent come in and train her on AAC during the flex week. So you know, some of our parents really get to see the benefit of it.     Jayson Davies     That's awesome. So you just mentioned that the speech therapist is doing this, too. So it's not just the OT team.    Kristina Geraghty     No, it's the whole team, the whole team does it. So we were in a Regional District, with several schools, our physical therapist is employed by the region and not directly through our school districts. So she comes in maybe twice a week, some of our behaviorists are employed through the region. And the whole region follows the model set, or I think anybody that's in that is following the model in the region, there may be a few schools that aren't. But we all follow the same schedule. So we decided at the beginning of the year, what those flex weeks are going to be. And everybody follows the same schedule. So during that week, the PTE that's in twice a week, her and I are able to co treat we're able to, you know, have a console on a few students or, you know, if we have to do work on some seating together for a student, we're able to do that during that week, because we're all on the same schedule.     Jayson Davies     Wow. Yeah, that's really impressive. So have you been working with this district or the school since before they moved to the three to one? Or did you kind of come in and they were using this?    Kristina Geraghty     before, but only for maybe a year before? I think I was there for maybe a year or two, before we implemented it, our supervisor was actually the one that suggested it, she she had heard about it. And she, she came to us about it, and you know, we're all for it, obviously. And then, you know, we just had to sell it to the rest of the staff, you know, at first glance, it looks like, Oh, they're getting a week off, you don't get, we don't get a week off. But once we, you know, explain to them what it what it was going to look like, then, you know, we're able to get buy in. And then now like as we as we use it, and as we push into the classrooms, more of the teachers are able to see like, oh, wow, this is, this is super useful, you know, because you're able to the My favorite part about it is that you can take those, you know, all those accommodations and modifications that you check off, you know, when you're filling out an IEP, I call it like bringing the IEP to life, like you're able to really go in and implement those things that you suggest. And I think it's a lot less daunting for the teachers, if I you know, just rather than like giving them a list of suggestions, or you know, one of those like generic things by going in there and just showing them how it's done in real time. It's it's so much easier to implement that way. Yeah,    Jayson Davies     I think a lot of times people just assume that because something gets marked on an IEP that the teacher, the staff in the classroom, we're just gonna know how to implement that accommodation. And obviously, that is not true.     Kristina Geraghty     And it's a lot of work for them.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And they need support. So I have a question, though, because you said that you were there before they kind of started this program and you helped to transition them. What would you say the ultimate goal was during that transition year, like, what why did people why did the supervisor and the rest of the team decide, You know what, it's going to be a good idea for us to go from this. You know, just one child or every child is getting that same service every week, week after week to switching it up to a three to one model.    Kristina Geraghty     I think we just wanted to be more efficient in the way we delivered our services. And this, this really allowed us to, and also we have a lot of meetings. So because we are a small district, we do go above and beyond with a lot of our families. And, you know, we go beyond just having that once a year IEP meeting, and, you know, some families, we're gonna have multiple meetings a year with them.     Jayson Davies     Yeah.     Kristina Geraghty     If it's if it's a really high needs student, or if the if the parent requests it. So this kind of allowed us a little more flexibility for having the meetings during that week, also, so that we weren't having to cancel our regular sessions to attend meetings during the other weeks. You know, it's not possible to schedule all of our meetings during this week, but we do try to schedule a lot of them.    Jayson Davies     That's what I was going to ask next. All right, so so a good majority of your IEP meetings you're able to put during that flex week, but not all of them? Yes, darn. I have tried to get creative with that I have tried to, I've tried to get creative about how we can do this, because it is a problem for everyone, teachers, oh T OT A's to some degree, even SLPs PTS everyone, we are always complaining about the time that we spend in meetings and how that is limiting us from being able to actually serve the students and right there's only so much time in a day. And there's even less time in a day re or after school to fit those meetings. And so they end up leading into the rest of the day. So help us to share how do those meetings look for you during that flex week? Does everyone try to squeeze them into that week? Are they during the day? Are they after the day?    Kristina Geraghty     during the day, we don't have them, we don't have meetings after school or before school, they're all there all during the school day between, you know, eight and three o'clock. You know, as far as the service providers, we are given a lot of flexibility with the meetings like I'll go in, and I'll just say I have a student to see at one o'clock and the case manager lets me, you know, go first, and then I can be excused. So we do have that flexibility. Because I mean, to sit in every meeting for the full meeting time would be impossible.    Jayson Davies     Yeah,     Kristina Geraghty     Never.    Jayson Davies     I, I go back and forth with it all the time. Like I want to sit in every meeting, I see how valuable it can be to sit in every meeting for the entire time. But then, like you just said, you know, we'd we'd be in meetings all day, every day. Yes,    Kristina Geraghty     then same. Like there are definitely some meetings that, you know, I want to hear what the teacher has to say. And I want to hear you know what the parent has to say, and I want to get, like, the big picture for that student. And it would be great, you know, if we could do it for all of them. But you got to kind of pick and choose which ones are are the big ones that you you really need to stay on for. You know, some of them. I'm in touch with the parents a lot throughout the year. So you know, I can slip in and out with just a quick update for them.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, so so as you were kind of making this shift, what did that process look like? Was it just an overnight hate? This year, we're using the three to one model, these are flex weeks, let's go or kind of walk us through that. Yeah. And and as you were making that transition Did you feel like you had to convince people at all and if so, was there any research or any articles that had helped or was it pretty, pretty easy for you all to just kind of this is what we're gonna do.     Kristina Geraghty     So we brought it up at a staff meeting, we had our supervisor there. So you know, that was key was that we had, you know, our supervisor was really advocating for it. We had the buy in from our principal, we had already spoken to her ahead of time. So when we we have staff meetings twice monthly. So when we had our staff meeting, basically our supervisor stood up and she explained, you know, what we're going to do and what it was going to look like, you know, she explained the verbiage that we're going to use in the IEPs. And we created a calendar and everybody everybody got the weeks that we were going to be doing this indirect service. You know, like I said, I'm sure some people were skeptical. But like as you know, as time has gone on, they have seen it, you know, because they'll bring something up, you know, something will come up in a meeting about you know, something that students struggling with and it's like, oh, I can go in on the flex week and check that out. You know, so it's very the parents hear about it. You know, the staff definitely gets to see the benefit of just us having a little bit of flexibility to come in and out of the classroom at different times of the day.  We did nothing I remember I think everyone was was pretty supportive. You know? And like I said, as time went on, we, you know, they just started to see the benefit of it, like we would communicate with them at the beginning of the week, or, you know, at the end of the week prior, and just, you know, give them a heads up and say, Hey, next week is the flex week, if there's any specific times that you feel would be useful for me to push in, let me know, if not, you know, I'd like to come in, during Writer's Workshop, you know, like, during the holidays, I would have, you know, a lot of teachers that had like, crafts planned out, and they would say, Oh, my God, we're doing we're doing his craft, and I just, I know, he's gonna need help. You know, can you come in at this time? Yep, sure, no problem. So, you know, once they see that kind of flexibility there, they're very grateful that we're able to come in there and help out. Yeah, the other thing they see, too, is, you know, a lot of times, like, I'll have multiple students in one class. So I'll plan like a whole class lesson. And I'll just come in, you know, for 4045 minutes, and I'll teach an entire lesson, you know, either on handwriting, or, you know, in second grade, I teach all the classes how to tie their shoes. So the teachers love that. So you know, that they see that benefit, too, that the the gen ed, population benefits from this too, from us pushing in? Sometimes they'll have, you know, a student like, oh, you know, what, since you're here, I wanted you to take a look, is there anything we can do to help him or like, I'll notice, you know, a child like, oh, you know, he could really use a seat cushion, you know, a wedge cushion to help with his posture. He's all over the place. So there's, you know, there's a lot of benefits that go beyond just servicing our students as well.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and I know, there's been a lot of talking about the three to one model, we mentioned it up at the front, kind of, but when it comes to research, I, all the research that I've seen is more about like, this is a great idea. But it hasn't really been like compared to a direct pull out, you know, every week model, which would be great to see, I don't think that exists. If you know of anything, please let me know. But yeah, I, I love this idea of you calling it the flex week. And I'd love to kind of you've kind of teased a few things that you might do, you know, talking about accommodations, fitting in meetings, but what have you found to be the most beneficial part of that flex week, that's really allowed you to really just be more supportive for your students and your teachers.    Kristina Geraghty     I think it's just, it's it's creates, I think it creates that bridge for the student in that, you know, I pull him out, I pull him or her out of class, we work on these things in my room, and then they go back to class, and who knows, if they're actually using them or translating them. I mean, the whole point of us doing this therapy is to is to get these skills to translate over into the classroom. And I think sometimes with OT, they don't always see the connection. Right away. You know, when when you when you ask them, Why do you come to OT o because my handwriting sloppy, you know, but there's, there's so many other things that they're coming to OT for. And I think that when they see you in the classroom, and then you can say, oh, remember when we worked on this the other day, now's a good time to try this strategy. So like, a couple of weeks ago, you know, I was working with a student on on copying. And he you know, he was one of those kids that was looking at the spelling and like writing with it, looking at what he was writing and is writing was all over the place. And you know, I said oh, so let's let's do a little trick. You know, say it when you write it, say it when you read it. So I was teaching him to kind of chunk a few letters together, say it in his head, turn write it. And then literally, like two days later, I pushed into his classroom. And he he was working on a writing piece. And he had to copy and he was doing the same exact thing. And I was able to say, hey, remember when we were working on this in my room two days ago? And he was like, Oh, yeah. And you know, but then and then I was able to show it to the teacher and say, Hey, we were working on this and OTs a few days ago. Now I'm having him use it in the classroom. Now you know what to say to him? You know, say it when you write it, say it when you read it very simple. Now he's going to remember and I think like it just it creates that that bridge for the student, where, you know, they start to get like, why you're doing what you're doing in in OT.     Jayson Davies     Yeah,     Kristina Geraghty     I mean, that's like my most simple example. But um, and I think that when you're pushing in and they're able to see other kids that may struggle with the same things that They do, but aren't getting pulled out for services, I think that really helps with just, you know, the being neurodiverse friendly, you know, I'm promoting that inclusion, especially with my with my shoe tying, when I push in, to teach the second graders how to tie their shoes, I usually am working on it with my second grade students in OT, in preparation, because I want them to feel confident when I'm teaching it to the whole class, like, I've had some of my students be the one to teach the kids in their class, how to tie their shoes, because we've already worked on it. And they've already mastered it. And I think that, you know, for the students that we serve us, there's so many that that struggle with so many things throughout the day. And, you know, they're they're just they're, they feel less than and I think it's important for them to see that, you know, the football Jack also struggles with tying his shoes or something like that, you know, I think it's just, it's just good for them.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And I think the more we can get into to the classroom, the better. You know, we already talked about some kids really need it more, more than than just the one time a month. And you can do that. And, and some kids, like you mentioned, you know, they still need that pull up session for that fourth time, the the month during the flex week, and that's okay, this is designed to be flexible, and flex week. Right? What are some of the things that maybe you struggled with completing in your job as a school based OT that now you have that opportunity to do during the flex week? Does that make sense as a question?     Kristina Geraghty     Yeah, I would say probably evaluations, because some, some years are better than others. But sometimes, like my preps are only 30 minutes, I may have like a few, you know, two different 30 minute preps during the day. And I feel like you know, you get started on typing up an evaluation, and then you got to cut it off and go take a kid and come back to it later. I feel like it ends up taking you longer that way. So sometimes if I have something you know, really heavy that like I really want to be able to focus on first typing up in a vowel, I'll use that time to do it. So at least you can kind of like, set aside bigger chunks of time than you would during your normal schedule where you're just going by every 30 minutes. Same thing with pushing, you know, when I pushed into the classroom, now I can push in for a 45 minute lesson, and not just a 30 minute lesson. So I think just having those extra big chunks of time to to do things is is good.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. Yeah. Whether it be evaluations, I'm sure, sometimes it helps to have some time to catch up on documentation prep for an IEP. So there's so many different ways that you can use that. So awesome. Yes. You mentioned prep. Do you? Are you on the teacher contract, potentially and get a prep period? Is that what that is?    Kristina Geraghty     Yes, we got I think right now we have 270 minutes of prep a week.     Jayson Davies     I'm jealous. Like, you know, how many OTs are listening to this right now?     Kristina Geraghty     A lot of people are still in town. But yeah, we get we get the same amount of prep time as the teachers.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I'm sure that comes with its own set of difficulties as well, though, right? Like we all we all want prep time. But we also all want a lot of different things in the schools, higher salaries, people to understand our job, and it's hard to find a district that has it all. And so we're always, you know, weighing pros and cons everywhere. So, yes, that's nice that you at least have some time to kind of.     Kristina Geraghty     Yes, it is it, it makes a world of difference. When I was an independent contractor, I did not get prep time. So I just, I had like just, you know, squished all my kids into a three or four day work schedule. And I went in and just, you know, banged it out. And having that prep time now, it makes a huge difference in just, you know, not having to bring work home, and things like that.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, definitely. So when it came to kind of making that shift over here, to the three to one model, what were some of the challenges, we've talked a lot about the good, but what what were some of the challenges that, you know, you kind of had to overcome a little bit. I'm sure there was at least a few, especially with, like you, I think you alluded to earlier, right? Some people might have just thought you're getting a week off, but, you know, you kind of had to shift that around a little bit.    Kristina Geraghty     Yeah. I mean, I guess when we were initially explaining it to parents, you know, some parents had never heard of it. You know, some parents were, you know, just had a lot of questions. So, I mean, that was a challenge figuring out you know, what the wording was going to be in the IEP, to cover us to make sure that, you know, we dotted all your I's and cross our T's with that. That was a challenge too. But other than that, it went pretty smooth. I think, also the scheduling, getting used to, you know, you're so used to being just bound to that schedule that you create at the beginning of the year. And, you know, basically, I would start my week out with like, a blank schedule. And then I just fill it in with pencil, as I figure out what I'm doing. So, you know, the first couple of times having to do that, and making sure that, you know, every kid was getting seen at least once, you know, making sure I just had all my bases covered, was was a bit of a challenge. Especially if, you know, I had a really busy week before the flex week and like, didn't have a lot of time to plan. You know, all of a sudden, it would be Friday. And, you know, Lauren, the speech therapist would be like, Oh, it's flex week, next week? And I'd be like, oh, yeah, you know, and I'd have to kinda like scramble it all, to start to start planning things, because you do have to plan ahead, you know, you got to email your teachers, you can't email them last minute. And, you know, say, When can I push in, like, you know, they've got plans to So yeah, just kind of getting getting into that mindset of knowing that that week is coming, and you got to plan for it ahead of time. It's just, it's just a different, you know, a different way of thinking that you'd have to get used to. Yes.     Jayson Davies     Now, you gotta have that scheduling conundrum. Every month, you got to figure out what you're doing for that week. So.  Yeah, yeah, I mean, we all complain right about having a build that schedule at the beginning of the year. But once you have adult at the beginning of the year, it's kind of nice, but you throw in this flex weeks, where everything is just now up in the air, and we have to reschedule everything and every, you know, fourth week or whatever, it is a little different.     Kristina Geraghty     Yes, and sometimes, you know, sometimes it works out that like, we don't have as much prep time, sometimes our flex weeks are busier than our regular weeks, just because, you know, there's meetings and, you know, every kid has to get seen or, you know, I plan to push into every second grade class to teach handwriting. So that's, you know, that takes up a big chunk of time where I'm pushing into every kindergarten class to do something. So, you know, there are some months where, you know, maybe I don't get that it's either 230, or I think it's 230, I can't remember, comes out to about like, 15 minutes a day of prep time. So yeah.    Jayson Davies     Do you ever feel like you still either Miss sessions, even when, because of the prep time? Does it actually make it sometimes more difficult to actually see every student? Or do you feel like it? I don't know, more difficult, easier, or just kind of the same?    Kristina Geraghty     Well, I guess it depends on my caseload that year, but my caseload basically stays around 40 Kids, which is pretty manageable in a five day week, with those prep periods, every, every so often, I'll get, you know, it kind of goes up up up, like towards the spring, and then you know, the meetings come and you start, you know, reducing some kids and your schedule comes back down. So yeah, there are some times that, you know, maybe I don't get all my prep time, and that's okay. I think, you know, we can get compensated for it if we if we don't take our prep. But I feel like sometimes I have an absence and I can't find another kid to poll or sometimes there's an assembly and none of my kids are available. So I feel like it all evens out in the end. So I never really looked to get compensated if I missed that, that prep time.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, do you? Do you build time into your prep for Miss sessions with absences? Is that kind of when you might make up some miss sessions? Or do you have time set aside during the rest of the week? Or does it all just kind of work out?     Kristina Geraghty     No, I would use my prep or I would call, maybe pull out like a bigger group and maybe kind of combine groups to get that makeup in. We are not required to make up every session that we missed, that would be impossible. You know, just because I mean, you know, if we take a personal day or a sick day, you know, we don't we don't have a sub. So it's just this but yeah, usually if you know if I have a student that you know, has been out a lot or if I've been out a lot, you know, if I if I was out sick or earlier this year, my dad passed away. So I was I was out for a couple of weeks. And then when I came back, I was kind of loading up my groups and skipping a lot of prep periods just to get a couple more sessions in. But you know, it ebbs and flows. So ya know, Oh, thank you. It's I know Overall, it's a good schedule. So,     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, that's it's nice that it allows you to have some of that flexibility both within work. And then also a little personally, you have some flexibility as well to, to take on some of those things. Because I know that's why that in general, there's a lot of high burnout in education, not just OT, but just an education world. In general, there's a lot of burnout and a lot of people quitting within the first few years, just because of the time commitment and how much you have to do with such little resources. So that flexibility the flex week, and almost counteract that rigidness of every Monday at 9am. I know I'm gonna be seeing Johnny for the entire school year. Yeah, the 930 is gonna be this kid and this kid and,    Kristina Geraghty     Right, right, right. And we have like, right, now we have a substitute shortage by us. So we are always short on subs. So a lot of the teachers get called to sub in classes, during their prep periods. And you know, that that did create a bit of a challenge, because because we are IEP driven, we can't miss a session to sob. So we we were unable to really contribute to that. So, you know, they did ask us if, like, during the flex week, if if we would be available to sub so, you know, we said yes, but under the caveat that, you know, put us with our students, so, you know, as best we can. So if there if one of our students AIDS is out, you know, let us let us be with him.     Jayson Davies     Yeah.     Kristina Geraghty     And like, you know, we'll do a session with him, and then maybe go in the classroom and do a couple of things with him. So we make it into into a session. So that's how we we work our way around that is that, you know, usually if one of our special ed teachers are out or for the aides or someone like that, they'll just give it to our team. And we will rotate with that students. So the speech therapist will do a period with him, I'll do a period the behaviorist will do a period. So we work it out that way.    Jayson Davies     Oh, my goodness, that's like even going beyond the three to one model to be extra flexible. That's right.    Kristina Geraghty     Yeah. Yeah. It but it works for us. It works for us. And, and again, you know, sometimes it's it's going into a classroom at a time where I'm normally not in there. But I have students in there and you know, you just kind of get to look at them with a much wider lens. That way.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I want to get into the topic of whether or not you monitor this program, or the district somehow monitors this program. But before I do, I want to kind of go back to a topic that we that we alluded to way up front, and I knew we'd come back to just the communication aspect and how important it is that not only the OT team is on the three to one flex model, but you know, the the PT kind of supporting in a way the speech therapists are on the three to one flex model as well, like, how has that really benefited the IEP teams?    Kristina Geraghty     Well, it definitely gives us some more time to communicate with one another. You know, like I said, especially with me in the PTE she's, you know, she's in and out of the building, I think maybe like two afternoons a week. So even just giving us like a 15 minute block of time to kind of just catch up on some students and, you know, collaborate a little has been amazing. Sometimes, you know, we'll just arrange like a co treatment session where we'll both work with the same student for you know, half an hour and you know, she RPT is really great. She she comes up with all sorts of great like behavioral and like motivational strategies. So I love you know, stealing her for keeping some of our more challenging kids motivated to complete their, their their therapy with me. So yeah, it's gives us gives us a really nice opportunity to to work together.    Jayson Davies     And so does your district allow you then to if you meet with a PT or you meet with the SLP, and the child is not present, under that IEP in the way that it's all written? Does that still count as a quote unquote, session for that student?    Kristina Geraghty     I would say yes, we, you're probably going to hate me again. But like, we don't have official like documentation that we have to do. We basically, in New Jersey, they do not require you to do any, like, session logging. Like there's no blanket.     Jayson Davies     Okay.     Kristina Geraghty     Yeah. So we do log our sessions through real time, which is our, you know, our IEP system. And but you're not, you're not required. So I guess it's kind of like a gray area. But, you know, like I said, what I do is I just have that blank schedule. And I fill it out in pencil everything that I did. And then I type it into a Google Doc, and then send it out to my supervisor and my principals. So, yeah, so they know everything I'm doing. And you know who I'm seeing. But I don't think like, I think if we did like a code treatment session, yes. But I think if it's just like a 15 minute console on a student, I would still be seeing that student that we would still be giving them some kind of direct service.    Jayson Davies     Okay. Yeah, I think that's where, for me, you know, being in California where I think we're a little bit more litigious, and everything's got to be like ran on IEP, that's where for me, I would write onto the IEP to separate service lines. And that first service line would be whatever the three weeks is out of the month, right that one time a week in the classroom, I'd probably write it a three times a month or around 30 times a year. And then I would add an additional service line that said, like 15 minute consults with IEP team members or something like that. And that would be my quote, unquote, flex. Okay, yeah. So just trying to think of creative ideas for someone out there who might be in a state where they got to, you know, figure out a way to put it on their IEP to make the three to one system work. So yeah,    Kristina Geraghty     right, like, maybe just putting that in for every student, but then, you know, it's, it's so hard, because like, not every student needs that 15 minute console per month, sometimes, you know, the PT and I are talking about the same student every month. Sometimes, you know, it's the same two or three students. But yeah, you know, once once you put it into that IEP, then you know, you're obligated to provide that service every single month.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, most of the districts out here have kind of gone to a 30 times a year on the IEP model, or three times a month. And even though we say 30 times a year, when there's really about 36 weeks, I believe of school, maybe 38, depending on how many holidays or whatnot. Or, or obviously, there's at least four weeks and every month, right? We still use that three times a month, or 30 times a year, because that kind of gives us that flexibility. We still put the student on our calendar every single week. But we have that flexibility, because we said 30 times a month. So it's you know, give yourself a little bit of buffer.     Kristina Geraghty     Yes.     Jayson Davies     And you're doing it on the right way, right? Like you're not saying I'm going to see four times a week and then only putting them on or sorry, four times a month, and then only putting on three times a month, right? You're going to Officer way, right? But that does give you a little buffer as long as you as long as you get your three times a month, then that fourth week can be a flex per se or something like that.     Kristina Geraghty     Yes, yes.     Jayson Davies     Anyways, all right. It is that I want to talk to you a little bit about progress monitoring at this program. And I don't know if you do or not, but I did just kind of want to open this door up to you and asked, you know, are your supervisors in some way trying to figure out if this model is working better than the previous model did? Or even from your perspective, are you seeing differences?    Kristina Geraghty     My supervisor now I don't, it's not really being monitored, per se. You know, we do seek out feedback from from the teachers and the other staff. And I think now it's just become such a natural part of our yearly schedule, that people don't really question it anymore. I feel like, you know, the actual effectiveness would would be really difficult to monitor as compared to, you know, four weeks of direct service. I think there definitely needs to be more research. Our download does include links to a few articles that have been put out recently some preliminary research, but you know, like everything else, there's always challenges in the in the research realm. And you know, finding really solid research behind it, but there definitely is some I know that I can't think of her name right now. She she does the Size Matters handwriting. Beverly, yeah, I know that she really pushes for this workload model. And she also has like a wealth of information about, you know, the research behind it and things like that. But as far as monitoring it now, I mean, I would suppose that, you know, you could send out surveys to the teachers, you know, a few times a year or something like that just to get to get feedback to get, you know, satisfaction levels. How satisfied are they with with This mode of service, they feel like it's helped they feel like it's kept things the same. You know, are they seeing the the direct benefits of using this model? So I would think something like that for a start would just be getting just be getting feedback from everybody.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna throw this out there. There's anyone interested in a PhD, I would love to see like a program that potentially uses even you know, Christina's district and kind of compares it to a district that the OT team is using more of a, you know, traditional one time a week for every student, direct service. And I don't know you got, you'd have to get creative with the outcome measures and how you figure that out, maybe you're looking at the outcome measures of the teachers, the OTs or just the students, you have to get creative with it. But it would definitely be interesting to see just how things are different. I think that'd be great. So yeah,     Kristina Geraghty     Yeah, no, I think that would be a great idea.     Jayson Davies     Yeah,     Kristina Geraghty     To start looking into     Jayson Davies     One day, all right, we'll kind of get to the wrap up here. But I wanted to talk to you about one more other model that kind of falls in line with the 3 to 1 model, and something that I've used quite a bit in my past as a as an OT in the schools. And that's actually changing it from a three to one to a two to two model. And I do it two to two, I really liked this one, because it allows me to get into the classroom a little bit more, but still allows me to have that individual session. And so the way that I would often write this on an IEP would be either two times a month, or 15 times a year, pull out, and then same thing two times a month, or 15 times a year in the classroom. And that would allow me to either alternate every other week, right? In class, every class in class out of class, or I could make two pull outs, and then two portions, whatever. But yeah, have you ever used any model like that? And if so, your thoughts?    Kristina Geraghty     we haven't, but my first thought would just be how tricky that might be with scheduling. So being able to, you know, work your regular pullout schedule, and then schedule the right time to push into the classroom, I find that so challenging. And, you know, I've heard a lot of therapists say, like, you know, I tried to push into the classroom, but they're not doing anything relative to what we're working on. And I'm just standing there, and I feel like an aide. So, you know, I think that is really tricky, scheduling wise, just figuring out when you're going to be able to do that question and how it's going to work with all of your other sessions every month?     Jayson Davies     Yeah. And I'll take a little stab at that. Like, I think for me, it was just that not every student was on that two to two model versus I think what you're talking about with most kids are on the three to one models, not like half of your kids are on the three to one or 25%. Everyone is on that three to one. And so for me, those two to two, the kids that I had on a two to two model, were the ones that would go on my calendar first. And so I would, I would schedule their in class sessions. And then no matter what week it was, I always had them at the same time on my calendar. I just went in during that that in class session, I already figured out that that was a good time in the classroom. I hope that makes sense. Yeah. But again, that was because you know, maybe I had 10 kids on that, as opposed to every kid. And so I was able to find times where it made sense to go into the classroom for those 10 kids, but totally understand what you're saying. Right? If everyone on your on your caseload. Yeah, you got to figure out how to see everyone in a good time in their classroom, which is very hard to do.     Kristina Geraghty     Right right.     Jayson Davies     That makes me anxious just thinking about it. But yeah, so. So we talked a little bit about the or a lot about the three to one model. We talked about that two to two model idea, potentially. But looking ahead, do you see any potential developments or adaptations to the three to one model in response to the changing educational landscape and what has and has not been working for you?    Kristina Geraghty     I think that, you know, it's really still in its beginning stages. And I think that we are going to keep hearing more and more about it and the more schools that try it, hopefully the more research we will have to back it up. I think that, you know, as therapists and as you know, workshop presenters and educators, I think we can start by, you know, providing some more continuing ed, for therapists on you know, what they can do in the classroom or you know, how they can implement this model at school, what it looks like, what kind of activities can you do, and kind of giving them that toolkit to get started, I think is going to be really useful. I know that you know, the inspired Tree House has had a workshop for they've had it up for a couple of years. I took it a long time ago called pushing into the classroom, and they have some great ideas in there for, you know, lessons that you can do in like whole class lessons. And, you know, I just think that you know, the more workshops and courses we can offer, the more the word gets out, the more the therapist start to become open to this and start talking and seeing the benefit, and then start talking to their administrators. So, you know, I think, going going to the therapist first and getting getting them on board with this model is going to be key to keeping it going and, you know, giving it that ammunition that it needs to get implemented in more and more schools. I think also, you know, schools, a lot of schooling has become so academic heavy, and it's getting more and more difficult to pull students out of class, especially in middle school. I know, I don't see a lot of kids in my middle school, but I know, the speech therapist that we have at our middle school, she, she goes through it with her schedule, man. You know, just because they have such small windows through the day that they that they can afford to get pulled out of class. So I think you know, that, as far as like changing landscapes, you know, we're just we're becoming so much more academic heavy during the day. And you know, there's just less and less time to be pulling out for these services. And I think, you know, as the kids get older, they are more cognizant of getting pulled out of class, they don't want to get pulled out of class as much. So you know, we do have to start rethinking around, you know, pulling kids out of the class throughout the day.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. And in heck, now, there's also schools that are going four days a week, which is going to make it even more interesting, and who knows where that'll go. But, yeah,  Yeah, yeah. I mean, even at the elementary schools, there's been some schools that I had been at where they're like, this is your block to get in, it's either got to be after lunch, or like, a certain block in the morning. And I'm like, I have six schools. I will try my best, like, we'll see how we do here. But yeah, you're right, scheduling is getting harder and harder every year. So yes, well, Christina, I want to say thank you so much for being here. Before I let you go, where can anyone go to learn more about yourself and the three to one model.    Kristina Geraghty     So the speech therapist that I work with, we actually own a business together called therapy advanced courses. And we have a website where we have links to a number of free downloads. So we have a link to a three to one download. And it basically explains, you know, how we implemented the model, it has a copy of the letter that we sent to our administrators, when we wanted to implement the model. It has links to different research articles, few different activity ideas, you know, and just how we how we go about organizing and implementing it. You know, as far as our business, we provide postgraduate courses for related service providers, so that they can move on their salary guide. So as you know, a lot of districts have a salary guide, where if you get if you take extra graduate courses, you get a bump and pay you move into that, you know, plus 15 lane or plus 30. So we create courses, specifically for OTs, PTs, speech therapists, social workers, school psychologists, guidance counselors, we are starting to branch out. We do have some teachers that are taking our courses, we have some special ed teachers that are taking our courses. So we are starting to branch out and create more generalized courses that you know, anybody any school employee can take. So most of our courses are three graduate credits. And they are all self paced and self study. So you complete the courses in your own time through our online learning platform. So,    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that could be a very helpful and actual useful way to move over on the PCL, because I know a lot of us look at the PayScale and we're like, I need 15 units, but I'm not gonna go get my doctorate. So what the heck am I going to? Like? Yeah, 10 units, So.     Kristina Geraghty     Yeah, well, that's that's really where it came from, was when I came to this district, I wanted to move up on my salary guide, and I had the hardest time finding courses that were really relevant to what I did. You know, I was able to take some like general courses on some of the teacher education websites, but they really weren't specialized. And as Lauren and I started talking, we thought, You know what, I wonder if we could just create our own I mean, unfortunately, I can't take my own course. But it turned into a real educational experience. And, you know, I learned so much now from creating these courses. And I, you know, I'm inspired every day in school because, you know, what do I what do I want to learn more about, you know, and how is it going to help me be a better school based practitioner? And that's really what the core of our courses are about is just, what do we need to know? What do we need to learn more about for our specific skill base position?     Jayson Davies     Awesome. Well, Kristina, thank you, again, so much for being here. It's been a pleasure. And we'll definitely keep in touch and see you next time.     Kristina Geraghty     All right. Thank you, Jayson.    Jayson Davies     Once again, thank you so much. So Kristina, for coming on and sharing her experiences with the three to one model. I hope after this episode, you're feeling like it's maybe a little bit more attainable to reach out to your administrators and your OT, or maybe even the SLP team as well, and say, hey, you know what, we can potentially implement this three to one model and just kind of start to paint a picture of what that can look like. And maybe what the transition might start to look like, it's really hard to make a shift overnight. But if you put that plan in place to start saying, hey, on our IEPs, we're going to start shifting our language just a little bit in this way on our services. And we're going to explain it in this way. And you know, that can really make that shift just, again, not overnight. But week by week, month, by month, you'll start to see it happening. And the next thing you know, two years later, yeah, I know it can take two years later, or take two years to get there. But all of a sudden, you will now be on a three to one model, you'll have time to complete those evaluations, you'll have more time to collaborate, you'll have more time to do all the things that you know that you should be doing, but just don't have the time to do right now. And all that while your services are likely just as efficient as they were when you were seeing a student every single week, not having time for anything else. So thank you again to Christina for sharing so much on the three to one model. Thank you for tuning in today. We really appreciate it. And again, don't forget that you can earn a certificate of completion for listening to this podcast as a member of the OT schoolhouse collaborative. If you'd like more information on the OT schoolhouse collaborative and how to join, you can do that over at OTSchoolHouse.com slash collab. I hope to see you in that community very soon. Thanks again for tuning in. We'll see you next time. 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 OT school house.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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 152 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. School-based occupational therapists wear many hats. Sometimes we treat students individually and other times we have to train the teachers in ways they can support students in the classroom. In this greatest hits episode, Join Jayson & Jamie as they talk about supporting teachers in fostering safe and regulating environments in the classroom for students with sensory differences.   If you did not catch the original airing of this episode when it was released, or if you simply want to dive into a really good episode on how sensory processing impacts student participation, have a listen during your next walk, drive, or workout. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify what is our role in addressing sensory processing in school-based OT Learners will identify strategies that can be used to provide support to students with sensory differences in the classroom Learners will determine what impact the sensory system has on student performance and engagement Guests Bio Dr. Jamie Chaves, a native of Illinois, she attended undergraduate school at Bradley University with degrees in Health Science and Psychology. She earned her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy (OTD) at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. Much of her twelve year career as an occupational therapist has been rooted in sensory integration theory and practice. Learning is truly one of her passions, and she understands that collaborating with an integrated team is the key to holistic care — she offers one of many important pieces to the puzzle.  In 2020 and 2021 she co-authored The Why Behind Classroom Behaviors and Creating Sensory Smart Classrooms, respectively, in order to support and equip educators who have students with various learning needs. As a mom of three young kids, you can often find her at the beach, Legoland, or any playground around San Marcos, CA. Running is what she does to regulate and reflect. Quotes “The amygdala is really the center that determines what is safe and unsafe, should I be fearful of this or not fearful of this?”  - Jamie Chaves, OTD, OTR/L, SWC “ If you keep attending to a child's regulation needs… they are gonna feel safe and they are gonna feel like they have their needs met, and that you can problem solve together and find a different pathway forward.” - Jamie Chaves, OTD, OTR/L, SWC  “Empowering teachers to be able to ask different questions and see behaviors in a different light.” - Jamie Chaves, OTD, OTR/L, SWC “Instead of behavioral approach for an hour or 5 minutes for regulation, what if we spent that entire hour with the regulation approach and co-regulating with the student” -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L Resources Here is a sneak peek at the upcoming 3-part  Sensory Summer Series  in OT Schoolhouse Collaborative Community with Dr. Chaves: 👉 June 26:   The Impact of the Sensory Systems and Subtypes on School Participation 👉 July 24:   The Intersection of Developmental, Relational, & Regulation Aspects in Sensory Integrative Processing 👉 Aug 21:   Sensory Integrative Services & Accommodations in Schools 👉 Sign up for the OT Schoolhouse Collaborative today  to access the entire series (live and recorded) and join our vibrant community of OT professionals! 👉 Book on Amazon:   The Why Behind Behaviors 👉 Book on Amazon:   Creating Sensory Smart Classrooms 👉 Jamie’s Personal Website 👉 Instagram:   TheWhyBehindBehaviors *Affiliate links included help the OT School House to earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hello and welcome back to the OT schoolhouse podcast where we empower school based occupational therapy practitioners just like you with research, knowledge and skills. My name is Jason and in this episode, we're actually revisiting one of our all time most downloaded episodes ever, Episode 87, which originally aired in November of 2021. With well over 1000 downloads this episode is one of our most popular episodes ever. However, we also realized that there are many new listeners finding the OTs golf podcast every day. And you might have missed this one, especially if you are a new grad, coming right out of occupational therapy school looking to get your first school based OT job. While nearly three years have passed since this episode originally aired, the idea of creating safe and regulating spaces within our classrooms and beyond has only further taken off. We're now seeing sensory spaces extended beyond the classroom to stadiums, airports, conference centers, and many more. So it's only fitting to bring this episode back and just kind of dive back into this conversation about safe and regulating spaces. This episode also features Dr. Jamie Chavez, who will soon play a significant role in our OT schoolhouse collaborative community. This summer, we are excited to host Dr. Chavez inside our OT schools collaborative community where she will provide a series of professional development courses geared towards supporting students with sensory processing difficulties. We are calling it our sensory summer series. I'll share a little bit more about that sensory summer series after this episode is over. So stay tuned for that and I'll also share how you can access them. But for now, I just want to let Jamie share with you about fostering safe and regulated spaces within the classroom. We're thrilled to give you another opportunity to hear her invaluable insights, especially as you may be making plans for the 2024 2025 school year. So whether you're hearing this episode for the very first time, or revisiting it, enjoy this episode with Dr. Jaime Chavez, an occupational therapist at the Center for connection and author of creating sensory smart classrooms. Let's dive in and rediscover the gems about regulating spaces.    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's your host, Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hey, Jamie, welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. How are you doing this morning?     Dr. Jamie Chaves     I'm doing really well. Thank you. Thanks for having me.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely. I'm excited you have a book out. Actually, you have two books out. We're talking about one today creating sensory smart classrooms. And that was written by yourself as well as Ashley Taylor. And I do want to allow you to give a moment to give a shout out to Ashley and talk a little bit about her as well. But first, I want to ask you about your career as an occupational therapist and just share a little bit of background about yourself.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     Sure, I've been an occupational therapists for nine years now. And I kind of stumbled upon the profession when I was in undergrad and just fell more and more in love with it as I went through grad school, which is always a good thing. I wasn't backpedaling. And I've always been really passionate about children. And one of the areas of research I spent a lot of time on in grad school was children and orphanage like settings. And as I was doing that research, so much was coming up about sensory and motor development and how those things are impacted in orphanages and foster homes and when a child is adopted, and so that got me down the rabbit hole of sensory processing and sensory integration. And my first job was in a clinic with kids of varying developmental needs. And there were a lot of sensory motor needs. And so I just continued to learn more and more about it. And that's my area of specialty now is sensory integration.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. And so you actually do have your doctorate in OT, what was that experience? Like? Did you focus specifically on kids in the orphanage? Is that kind of where you went or sensory integration or what?     Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yes, my doctoral project was all on looking at occupation and the occupational performance factors in orphanage like settings and I actually did my four month apprenticeship at an orphanage in Romania.     Jayson Davies     Oh wow.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     And work with caregivers who were at that orphanage.     Jayson Davies     Wow, that must have been an amazing definitely outside of the box experience.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     It was it was one of the most challenging things I've done and also one of the richest learning experiences I've had as well.     Jayson Davies     And in Romania, then is occupational therapy, even really a thing out there. I know, as far as I don't know, I talk to people outside of the country and like occupational therapy isn't even a profession in some countries. So in Romania, is that a profession? Is that something? Is it similar but called something different? Or? Yeah.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     There is a profession called occupational therapy, and it shares the same name. But I would say they're about 50 years behind where the United States is. So they're still doing a lot of those like craft based, leather based, like leather working. Yeah, like a lot of those types of occupational therapy, tactics, and they aren't really a well recognized profession. And you don't really have to have a degree to get into the profession. It's more of like an associate's degree level. At least it was 10 years ago, I'm not exactly sure how it's progressed. Since then, I haven't really kept up to date on that. And pediatric occupational therapy was pretty much non existent. It was all working with adults with mental and developmental disabilities.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay, that was gonna be my next question. Because historically, you know, occupational therapy in America really seems like it developed based upon like a rehabilitative model. You know, after the World War One, it was really working with the armed services, right, or people that were coming back and were injured, and OT was helping them to rehabilitate and get back to, quote, unquote, normal life. So I was wondering how that would look like in Romania. So it's mostly mental health and a little bit of rehabilitation.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yes. And it's very much. It's not an integrative thing. It's not trying to integrate people back into society or back into their families. It's like these. They're basically outcasts. And they, they're these occupational therapists who are working with these people who are who would otherwise be unsupported and not really seen as contributors to society or participants in society.      Yeah, very different.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yes.     Jayson Davies     Well, thank you for sharing that. So you said that was about 10 years ago, you've been working really, primarily with pediatric population. And so where are you now then?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     I'm at the Center for connection. And Pasadena, California. I'm the executive director is Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, who's the author, co author of the whole brain, child and no drama discipline, and they have several more books out as well. And she really, she has her PhD in social work. And she really saw how what they were doing and mental health wasn't the whole picture. And there were missing pieces of the puzzle. So she started putting together a team that was more integrative and could put all the pieces together. And she saw occupational therapy as one of the biggest pieces of missing pieces of the puzzle. So she asked me to come on board, and I helped start the OT department there. And I'm at home full time with my two toddlers right now. So I'm not in the clinic full time and haven't been for the past two and a half years. But I'm hoping to get back there in the next couple of years.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. Yeah, I've heard great things about the about the center. And you know, we've had Olivia Martinez hausky on the show. And she also is a part of that center. And it's just amazing how someone who is not an occupational therapist who started this center really sees the value that occupational therapists can provide for all the people that that come into that center. So it's quite amazing that a social worker, by trade by training, is so invested in occupational therapy and sees our value. So that's just really cool. I really appreciate that. All right, so let's go ahead and dive into our real topic for today. It was great doing a little introduction. But I want to know and you have written a book about this along with your colleague, Ashley Taylor, but we want to know about how to support teachers with sensory regulation, self regulation, and fostering safe regulating environments for students with varying sensory needs. So I think a great place to start would be to start with the current problem. What are you Seen in classrooms that led you to focusing on supporting teachers within with regulating environments?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Well, one of the things is that I've seen how empowered teachers feel, even when they just have this information. So many teachers don't get information. I mean, it's not taught in their classes in school. And so they don't get information about what does it mean to be regulated? In order to learn? And what is sensory processing? And what does it mean to feel safe in your environment? So empowering teachers to be able to ask different questions and see behaviors in a different light, and also empowering teachers to examine themselves and how they might not feel safe or regulated? Or have their sensory needs met in the classroom, either? And how can they examine that to say, hey, I need to find support in this area, so I can support my students better. And also just seeing how empowered students feel when teachers are actually hearing them and responding to their needs for being regulated or their sensory needs, which are also needs for being regulated. But yeah, I've just seen the trickle down effect and how students participate more and feel more engaged in the learning process.      Gotcha. And so when you develop this book, before it was a book, were you providing trainings to teachers in some capacity.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     That's basically what this book came out of, I had started doing some trainings a handful of years ago for teachers, just during lunch hours. And then it evolved into a 10 hour course, that I put together on sensory processing. And I thought, hey, this could be a book can put this down on paper. And so that's what we did.      Wow, that's amazing. So it really just started with a little lunchtime, you know, conversations with the teachers. And it's amazing what that can turn into. I know right now, you know, it's a big focus for occupational therapy within the schools, to not just see students individually in a pullout model, you know, the more that we educate teachers on things that they can do within the classroom, the more that those teachers can then implement, just like what you're trying to do with his book. And I often like to say, you know, I could spend 30 minutes helping one student and a pullout session, or I could spend 30 minutes, I shouldn't say, or it's more of an ad. And I can spend 30 minutes working with a teacher and that teacher can then support. However many kids are in their classroom for the entire week, for the entire year. And then for the kids that they have next year, and the kids that they have the year after that, and the year after that. So knowledge is so powerful. And so I just love that you're spreading your knowledge and not keeping it all into yourself and only using it during your one on one sessions. Right. It's great that we're able to actually share that knowledge. That's so cool. So what have you found in regards to common misconceptions that teachers often have about sensory and regulating environments? I'm sure that when you're providing those trainings to them, you might get some pushback or just questions. What are some of those those questions or misconceptions you often hear?     Dr. Jamie Chaves     I think one of the things that frustrations that teachers face, and it's not just teachers, it's parents, it's us as therapists is that the sensory strategies are the regulation strategies, the CO regulation strategies, they should work all the time, every time. And that's just not true. We change from day to day, we change from hour to hour, and what works one time might not work the next time, but that doesn't mean that it's not going to work again, or that it's a failed strategy. And so having multiple tools in your tool belt is something that's really important. And going along with that setbacks are normal, like, we don't progress. None of us progress, but we certainly don't develop or learn in a linear fashion. It's kind of two or three steps forward, and then maybe one or two steps back and it's this push pull process and that's true of meeting kids regulatory needs in the classroom as well. I think also, what I've seen and we'll talk about some more of the the sensory NOAC suggestions, but I've seen a lot of classes where teachers have self or CO regulation strategies or sensory strategies in the classroom, and they allow the child five minutes or two 10 minutes or three minutes, or whatever the time limitation is. And I think there's a big misconception that regulation should happen within a confined period of time. And it could be that one day a child needs three minutes to step away, or the next day, they might need 10 or 25. And I think it's important to not put those time limitations, because ultimately, it is going to negatively impact how they're participating or how engaged they are. And if you just allow them that extra 10 or 15 minutes, even if it seems like a waste of time to you, or a waste of class, or waste of instruction, or they're missing out on a big piece. Ultimately, they're going to feel safer and more regulated in the classroom. So the next time they do come in, they are at a better place to be more focused and engaged rather than feeling like, oh, man, if I get dysregulated, I only get five minutes. And if I'm not regulated again, in five minutes, like what's going to happen, I have to pull it together. So yeah, I would say those are some of them.     Jayson Davies     That's exactly what I see too. And go on to the next step. Because I see this as well as you know, sensory processing and sensory integration. It's a difficult concept to understand. And so I wanted to ask you, like, what is kind of your go to blurb? You know, when you're explaining very quickly to a teacher, what sensory processing is, what sensory integration is, and how it will impact their students that they work with?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, my line is really sensory processing is how we make sense of our own bodies, how we make sense of what's happening in the environment, and how we relate to other people. And this all sets the foundation for our regulation, and regulation is the foundation for being engaged and being able to access your higher level cognitive skills, which are what you typically are doing in the classroom.     Jayson Davies     Great. And that actually leads right into my next question, because you and I, we haven't been in the traditional classroom and a few years, nine years, it sounds like we've both been practicing occupational therapists. And so we haven't taken an anatomy class or physio class in a while. But in your book, near the beginning chapters, I know you guys kind of dive into the anatomy a little bit, and more so about how the amygdala and how the gosh, the hypothalamus and how they all work a little bit to create a response, whether it be the parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous system. And so if you wouldn't mind just kind of explaining that route that a sensory stimuli kind of goes up through the brain a little bit and where that sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system kicks in of it.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     So when we talk about the system, particularly involved with the amygdala, we're talking about sensory modulation, which is one of the three branches of sensory integration. And sensory modulation is really important for our sense of regulation and determining what is safe and unsafe in our environment. So when we have some sort of sensory stimulus come in, all of the sensory systems pass through the thalamus, except one, I think it's the old factory, maybe it's either the olfactory or gustatory it doesn't pass through the thalamus, which is then passed to the amygdala, the amygdala is really the center that determines what is safe and unsafe, should I be fearful of this or not fearful of this. And if the amygdala is saying, Hey, you should be fearful of this. That's really what triggers your fight flight or freeze response. If the amygdala says, Hey, this is safe, you don't need to worry, you already paid attention to it, and it's not a big deal. Then the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and says, Hey, you can calm back down and you can carry on with your life. And the example that I like to give is if you're in a cafe and you hear a dog barking, for example, you are likely if you have a typically functioning auditory system, you're going to respond to that dog and you're going to turn and attend to it and your amygdala your brain is going to be like, hey, whoa, I need like that was a really loud sound, and I need to assess is this something I need to pay more attention to and act on? Or is it something where I can just remain calm and go back to reading my book? And so most of us This would turn and see like, oh, okay, the dogs on a leash and the owners got the dog under control, I don't have to be worried. The next time the dog barks, because our brain hope habituates to the responses, our brain isn't activated in the same way. Because our brain already knows I'm in a safe context, that dog isn't a threat to me. And we don't have to be constantly triggered. But kids who do have difficulty processing, auditory input input, if they are overstimulated, they would turn every single time and have that same sympathetic response of oh, oh, my gosh, that dogs barking and whoa, do and they couldn't focus on reading their book, they'd get a half a page read and a half an hour where we could finish a whole chapter because our, our system is regulated, and we can engage in something else.      Yeah, and the brain really is an amazing, I don't know, organism, I guess, you know, it's quite amazing what it can do, and how it uses past experiences to also help us regulate because, you know, the brain would not be very functional. If every time we got a new sensory stimuli, we weren't able to relate it to something that we had heard or seen or smelled in the past. And so it's amazing how it can work so quickly, and how it can recall those past experiences so quickly. But like you're mentioning, if the brain can't do that, then you're going to have that same experience over and over again, where it's trying to figure out, am I in a safe environment. And if it doesn't have any past experiences to reference to, you're going to kind of go through that flight, fight, flight or freeze every single time as opposed to already having a reference point. And knowing Yes, I'm in that safe in that safe spot. So pretty, it's pretty crazy how the brain works, I gotta give it that one of the words that you have really keyed on is safe. And you mentioned that students have to feel safe in their classrooms have to feel safe in the cafeteria. What do you mean by safe in relationship to a student's classroom setting?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, so really, when I'm talking about safety, and well, Ashley and I are talking about safety, particularly in our books, we're talking about nervous system regulation. And going back to the amygdala is the amygdala feeling safe and calm, is the nervous system in balance, where the sympathetic nervous system isn't taking over for the brain, and the student can feel like, they can just operate as usual through life, which is what most of us do, where we are in a calm, alert state. That's really what safety is for our nervous system. And it's really rooted in our positive, trusting relationships that we have through co regulation. It's based in a sense of control over your own body over the environment, you know, what to anticipate out of your body, you know, what to anticipate out of the environment, and you can trust in those things. And you can trust in the people who are also around you.      Yeah. And so then how do you teach teachers a way for them to facilitate that safety? Is there a specific strategy or set of strategies that you're able to help them with?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     I think the first thing is teachers understanding we call it the teacher student response cycle. And teachers understanding how their responses and how their own regulation can impact a student's regulation. And thus, a student's response is really a foundational point, because that's how we can get to a co regulation state, that if a student is feeling really frustrated about doing something and throws a book across the room, and the teacher comes up and says, Hey, you can't do that you need to go pick up that book right now, then that might trigger the student even more, and then their behavior is going to be reflective of that. But if the teacher can get into a better state of regulation, himself, approach the child and say, hey, it sounds like you're getting really frustrated. Let's try to figure out what we can do differently here. The teachers in a regulated state, the student is going to match that regulation and then they can move forward with the problem solving stage and it might not happen that fluidly. But but that's the general the general concept of it, because coal regulation is really the foundation of self regulation. And you have to have that established first. And there are so many self regulation strategies out there. But really, it's co regulation strategies, shared moments of joy, seeing songs together, making pictures together, talking about what happened over the weekend together. I think those can be really powerful co regulation experiences between teachers and students.      Yeah, that leads into another question that I have, then, based upon your response, you know, you mentioned co regulation. And I think that really is an occupational therapy term. I think that or maybe not an occupational therapy specific but more of a mental health, a medical term, per se. And I don't think it's a term that teachers would really associate with. And I don't know if they have a term for that. Maybe it's school culture, potentially. But how can an occupational therapist working in a school help teachers to understand that term co regulation? Do you think that trainings are the best way? Or do you think potentially getting into the classroom and maybe modeling it? What How can an OT who's working in a school help teachers to understand the concept of CO regulation?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     I think it's a both and I think understanding the underlying concepts around it, and how the nervous system works, and how self regulation does develop out of CO regulation. What are the zones of regulation, all of that terminology is a really important foundation. But then seeing it done and in action is also just such a powerful method of learning. I just wrote a blog post about multi sensory learning. And that's what that is, I mean, you're like experiencing, it's more of this kinesthetic experience. And then you can step in and or the teacher can step in and say, Okay, let me take over from here and see how I can do it, and model it for the student in the same way that you are modeling it for that teacher. But yeah, I think I mean, it's a process and I, as a parent to like, I use CO regulation so much as a parent. And it's a process, I know all of the things, and I've seen it modeled before, and I've done it myself before. And it still is, it just takes practice. And so just encouraging teachers to start somewhere and start with something and build off of that, knowing that it's never too late to change. And you don't have to be afraid to do things differently and think differently, because it is kind of countercultural to what a lot of the behavioral strategies are out there.     Jayson Davies     Exactly. Yeah. And that's where I was gonna go with the next question, a little off script. But talking about that behavioral change, you know, so much for the last 100 years, or more, I don't know, schools have been so focused on behavior. And we think how much progress public education has made, you know, you can't walk around and hit a kid sand with a ruler anymore, like he used to be able to do back in the 40s, or whatever it was, but there is still a very much a behavioral approach from teachers. And it can be difficult to change that mindset. And I think by bringing in that CO regulation idea, you are in a roundabout way, changing the shift from behavior to regulation. And so I think that's an important context. You know, we moved from potentially having clip charts to being more in tune with the child and meeting them where they are. And so I don't even know if this is leading to a question, honestly. But I know that's a big shift right now. But it is also a very difficult shift for teachers, because that is what they learn.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     And its not just just teachers.    Jayson Davies     True, very true     Dr. Jamie Chaves     Its Parents, it's, I mean, it's society culture as a whole. I mean, I don't it's kind of a trickle down effect. And I don't want to totally call them out. But pediatricians like that's how they're guiding parents is behavioral based strategies, because they're not getting this information in school, but they're the ones that parents pass through when their kids are toddlers, and they're first acting out. And a lot of teachers are parents and so they've gotten that information from the pediatrician and they've used that as parents and then they're enacting it in their classroom because, and it's like this huge cultural shift of like, we need to educate so many people on this to shit like it's the pediatrician. And as well as all of us therapists and teachers and parents, and but yeah, I mean, it is a really hard shift when it has been so embedded in our culture that, well, if a child keeps doing this, they're going to learn that that's okay. Well, if you keep attending to a child's regulation needs, then they're not going to keep doing it because they are going to feel safe, and they are going to feel like they have their needs met, and that you can problem solve together and find a different pathway forward.      Yeah. And earlier you talked about and this ties right into it, I wanted to talk about it when you mentioned it earlier, you talked about how sometimes a teacher or even a therapist or a parent, we say you have five minutes to go get regulated? And well, there's a problem in the whole sense with that, because you're saying, I'm going to use a behavioral approach for an hour, and then now go get regulated in five minutes? Versus what if we turn that into instead of behavioral approach for for an hour, five minutes for regulation? What if we spent that entire hour with the regulation approach and CO regulating with a student and saying, all right, yes, you're frustrated at minute, number one, but let's start there with CO regulation, not wait 60 minutes later, to let you have a break and potentially go get regulated. And so changing that mindset, we can't just change that mindset for five minutes a day or five minutes every hour, it really needs to be a whole paradigm, you know, full day, every minute of every day shift. And so I think that's very important. And that's awesome, that, that you're working on that shift with so many other people, too.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, that's a shift from what we typically do as like rewards punishment, even in terms of like, oh, well, I know, playing outside is really regulating for you, or I know this, the sensory NOAC is really regulating for you. So finish these finish writing these two sentences, and then you can go to the sensory notebook and calm down, like, no, go to the sensory, nope, and calm down, and then come back and finish writing these two sentences. And it'll go faster, the child will be in a better cognitive state, because they won't be so triggered in their lower levels of the brain that they can't access those higher levels of the brain. And that writing experience will be wired more positively in their brain rather than negatively. And, yeah, I mean, we want to, we want to hurry things along and say just write these two sentences, and then you can go off and do your thing. But really, it's the opposite that we need to be focused on. Like you're saying, it could be that the child spends 20 minutes in that sensory notebook, rather than 20 minutes at the desk struggling to write those two sentences.      Yeah, and I want to talk more about the environment in the note, but based upon what you're just saying, one of the things that OTs, I don't think have been the best at and our counterpart with behavioral lists are really good at is documenting, and documenting how things are working. And they sit there with a notepad, and they mark down every single thing that works and doesn't work. And then they're able to present these very detailed charts that show you know, progress, potentially, because the student is learning over time, hey, if I write those two sentences, I get to go to the neck a little bit faster. And so the time goes down 20 minutes, Monday, 19 minutes, Tuesday, whatever. But how do we document that doing the opposite using a co regulation approach works in a way that we can kind of show the parents as working because we see it working? But how do we document that it's working?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, I think that's a good question. And I I know that's a struggle for public health, too. When you're when you're doing these, like preventative things, how you how do you show that it's actually preventing something from happening when it doesn't actually happen. And when you're a behavior analyst, you're looking at behaviors. And that's what we're doing is OTs, to we're just looking at the behaviors in a different way. And so you can still track those behaviors and the frequency of the behavior and the duration of the behavior. But the approach to the decrease of that is so different. It's not that you are you're moving a clip or you're giving them an incentive every time like oh, he only needs five incentives now like no he only needs five minutes. of being in a sensory noc, or he only accessed a fidget toy three times today instead of eight times today. So I think we're, we're still looking at those same behaviors. And we can document those behaviors in the same way. But the way that we're getting to the decrease in behaviors is really different.      Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I want to throw this out there too, is that the way that behavioral is their structure of practice is laid out, they are given the time to actually track data. When we think about a BCBA model, they have the BCBA, who is kind of in a way, the occupational therapist per se, right, we're the person doing the evaluations. But then they have someone who is often sitting with the child for hours at a time. And they are marking down every single thing that happens. And as occupational therapists, we typically don't have that opportunity, even an occupational therapy assistant is not going to be one to sit with a child for three hours. And document every single time a student throws a book, or throws a pencil or refuses to do a task or on a different side positively says, Hey, I need to go to the sensory NOC or, Hey, I need a break. So it's kind of difficult for us to, to to take data. And I know often as school based occupational therapists, we are inclined, and we're, we're very polite about it. And we try our best to get help from a teacher or help from a classroom aide to take that data for us. But to be fair, they have their own jobs to be doing. And it is very difficult for them to also take data on that when they're trying to, I mean, they're trying to teach, that's what their job is they're trying to teach. And it's hard for them to take data. And so I do kind of wish, and I'm almost jealous of these behavioral technicians that get to spend two hours, three hours or even all day with the student. And I'm just like, man, what if I had one day that I could spend with one kid the entire day? Oh, and by the way, I'm in their natural context with the teacher there who I can also explain what I'm doing. And how you know, I get a little jealous of that, because they do have that time with the child that we just don't have, we typically have a half hour, maybe an hour, at best a week with a student. And I know there's studies going on right now to try and figure out dosages a little bit and compare that. But yeah, I just think it'd be awesome. If we could have just one opportunity to spend an entire day with a kid and how much progress we could potentially make. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     No, I think it's true. And I mean, I honestly hope the model is shifting not only for the sake of OTs, for the sake of kids, I hope that the model is shifting away from ABA. And maybe it's more time like dir floor time specialists who are spending the three hours a day in the classroom with them. And then they are getting these co regulation techniques rather than behavior techniques. And floor time specialists can also measure data really well, too. I mean, in a different way. But yeah, I just hope the model is shifting away from so much of the ABA in the classroom and more of these co regulation. Strategies. Yeah, strategy. Yeah. approaches.      Yeah. All right. I, it's so easy to get off topic when we start going down that route. But let's go back and get on topic a little bit. Talking about classroom environment, how do you support teachers and understanding that the environment can have an impact on a student's performance and the child feeling safe? We've talked a little bit about safety. And you've also discussed a little bit about the note. So maybe you can expand a little bit more than that?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Sure, well, I would say one of the most enlightening things for teachers are two of them actually, is one examining their own sensory preferences. I think a lot of people think of sensory and they think of sensory processing differences, but we all have sensory preferences. And once teachers realize like, wow, I do have these sensory preferences and there are inputs I lean into and there are inputs that I stay away from and when I can't avoid those inputs, I feel more dysregulated or if I can't lean into the inputs, I need to I feel more dysregulated like I'm a sensory being too I think that's really enlightening and helps them see all of their students in a different light and realize why someone might have different sensory needs on one day versus another day because teachers are realizing hey, I have different sensory needs on a on a daily basis as well. And also what I like to do with teachers is have them experience what different sensory processing differences might feel like. And that's something we put into our book as well. And each of the sensory chapters, we have an experience it box. And that's something that anyone reading the book could guide teachers through, just pick it up and say, Hey, teachers, we're gonna go through this experience, and it really makes teachers step back and say, Whoa, I can understand how a child would have a really hard time learning in this environment, when this is what they might be experiencing.      Absolutely. And so you've mentioned the Nook a little bit during this this hour so that we that we're talking and so what do you look for in a notebook or when teachers are trying to develop a note? What do you kind of recommend?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, so a sensory note is really a place where kids can go and access different sensory inputs that would have a calming impact on their bodies. And it's not something that every student might access. And it might not be something that students access, even on a regular basis. And they might need different like one day, they might need body breaks versus going to the sensory knock, but it is, again, a tool in a teacher's tool belt. And so I like a place that has pillows, something soft, I like heavier pillows, because they can give more proprioceptive input, calming visual input, they have some of those fish tanks, those light up fish tanks that kind of scroll around or like a lava lamp, but not one that plugs in, there's just like these things where the bubbles move in the water, something like that that's really calming, there might be some noise cancelling headphones, there might be access to music that's calming, they can put on headphones and access calming music, fidgets might be like a basket of fidgets back there. And then I usually recommend having some sort of zones of regulation chart with the green and red and blue zones, or different pictures of emotions, so that kids can communicate by pointing to different pictures, because language is a higher level cognitive skill that might drop out when kids are dysregulated. But so that they can communicate where they might be at in the process. And I think a lot of sensory notes have timers. And I really, really don't recommend having a timer in the sensory noc, I know you're asking what I do recommend, but I don't recommend putting a timer back there because it puts more pressure on the child and can make them feel anxious, which is a state of dysregulation about whether or not they're going to meet that time.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And you know, I think I already know the answer to this question. But what would you say to the teacher, the parent, the administrator, who says, well, then what's going to happen while that one student is in the nuk? And is missing out on the instruction that the teacher is providing? What's your response to that?     Dr. Jamie Chaves     Well, I would say, particularly in younger years, I feel like this answer is easier, because so much of the material is repeated. A lot of the instruction, like when you're learning to tell time, you don't just learn that in one, one instruction period, like you're doing it over multiple instruction periods. So I think it's easier to say, like, Well, hey, they, they miss some of that, and they'll pick up where they left off the other day. But I think it's really important for people to see that regulation is just as important as taking in some of that cognitive information. And when kids are in a regulated state, they're going to be able to take it in faster, more likely, they'll be able to take it in faster, and they'll be able to integrate it a lot more as well. So it might be that they just pick up where they left off. And then whatever the teacher needs to fill in, in a quick, quick lesson, it might just be that they kind of pick up there. But yeah, like I said, in the younger years, there's so much repetition that happens that I feel like it can naturally be folded into how the child's learning.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and I think it's also a little it's difficult to have the conversation but it leads into understanding of sensory processing. Then when we let the parent the teacher administrator understand and let them know that that child isn't missing anything that they might have been already missing anyways, because they were dysregulated. And so I could let them sit in that chair dysregulated for 20 minutes, not learning anything. Or I could let them go to the nug and become regulated in less than 20 minutes and get back to the task and potentially miss less instruction. And who knows, while they're in the notebook regulating, they're still listening in in a little bit. And as they become more regulated, the more they might take in. And so maybe instead of missing 20 minutes, they're missing five minutes. But they're in the note for an extra five to 10 minutes really getting to the point of regulation. And so they're still keying in on what's being said, maybe they're not seeing the board where the teachers writing down one plus one or whatever, but they're still potentially taking that in auditorily. So yeah, I think it's really key that we let teachers know that part of it.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     I would agree.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. So we talked about Inuk. But what about a sensory lab or motor lab? What are your thoughts on a motor lab within a classroom? That kind of looks more like a traditional sensory integration type of gym?     Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, I mean, I think it's great for school sites to have that it's great, particularly for kids who have sensory processing differences. Who do I need more of that because I see it written a lot, which is true to a degree, but I see it written that kids know their own sensory needs, and they will meet their needs. And then they will like, kind of move on, which is, like I said, true for a lot of kids. But for sensory kids with sensory processing differences. That's not true. Their typical environments are not meeting their sensory needs, and they're not able to meet their own sensory needs, which is why they have sensory processing differences. So yeah, having a space to be able to access inputs that are more intense or less intense or different than what their typical environment provides, I think is really helpful. The direction that Ashley and I really push for in our books is multi sensory learning, where it's just folded into the curriculum and fold it into the classroom engagement where kids are learning more through play and through experience and through Yeah, different ways of learning and doing and being and explicitly exploring with students how some students have strengths in some areas and vulnerabilities in some areas, and then other students it's, it might be reverse, and how can those things complement each other? And how can we create a learning environment where everybody can learn, regardless of their strengths and vulnerabilities, rather than always leaning into the strengths of auditory and visual learners, which I think is what traditionally classrooms have done?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, I think you're right. And again, this kind of leads right into an area that I think is not well understood within sensory integration. And that's praxis, you know, when we think of sensory we don't think of praxis is not a true sense. It's not a sense at all. It's a combination of how we act on our senses, along with the environment. And so I want to ask you a little bit about praxis and how you explain that to teachers, in the sense of learning how does praxis impact learning? And how do you explain that to teachers?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, so what I've learned through the years is that praxis is really the foundation for executive functioning skills. And I think teachers know a lot more about executive function and how executive function impacts learning. And basically, if we can't organize our bodies and organize our body movements, and how we're moving through space, then organizing materials and objects and thoughts of within the environment, is going to be even more difficult. So I think that's something that teachers can really relate to, in particular with praxis.     Jayson Davies     And then do you feel that praxis can have an impact on child safety and child regulation as well?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     It's one of the biggest factors I think I see with kids with sensory processing differences. I mean, the confidence that we gain through our movements and being able to depend on our movements and depend on our motor responses and when we can't rely on them. that it's so frustrating. And it just becomes us a space where you're like, I don't want to try anymore, or I just want to be goofy because it hides the fact that this is challenging or, and so kids with praxis, I would say are one of the biggest group with dyspraxia, I should say, are one of the biggest groups who need co regulation and who really need safe environments where they can trust what's going to happen and have things more in their sense of control and build their resilience more so that they can take steps to be more independent in some of the things that are really just so challenging and take up so much cognitive space, that they don't have anything left to actually learn the math problem, because they're taking up so much cognitive space just on figuring out how to hold a pencil.      Exactly. I agree. And, you know, that's one of the things that I find myself explaining within IEP meetings so often is just that, you know, handwriting we make it look simple. But there are so many factors that go into handwriting, and of course, praxis is one of them. And then you add on the demand of putting a sentence together, or you add on the demand of putting multiple sentences together. And you're just adding demand on demand on demand when something hasn't been perfected. And they're trying to relearn every single time how to make a letter R. And we're trying to get them to spell a word that has two R's in there, whatever it might be. And so we're just adding demands before, before the student has kind of moved beyond that motor learning or beyond that praxis ability to muscle memory. And so yeah, that's, that's very difficult. I'll never, I'll never forget this one time, I was working with a kid. And she just threw her book and her pencil on the floor, I think we were coloring and it was something very simple, like just coloring in and shapes. And she became so distraught that she just threw everything off the table onto the floor. And immediately, she felt so sad and started apologizing, and went to go pick everything up. And I was like, that's not frustration. That's not a behavior of I don't want to do this. That's a behavior of I can't do this, I need help. I don't want to do this because it's difficult for me. And I think that just shows the praxis. And I think that shows how dyspraxia like you're talking about can lead to dysregulation so yeah, I'm right there with you. I feel like praxis is 100% something that needs to be intact, in order for learning to occur in the classroom.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     And we actually wrote a whole chapter in our book, the why behind classroom behaviors, which is the first book we published, we wrote a whole chapter on handwriting because we thought, this is an area that causes so much dysregulation, not only for students, but also for teachers and helping teachers understand, like you said, what goes into handwriting and how many layers are present and that it's not a developmental skill, it's something that you truly have to learn through so many integration through the integration of so many areas of the brain. So     Jayson Davies     Yeah, so I think that's gonna kind of wrap up what we're talking about. But I do want to dive into your book a little bit. I was reading that the other day. And I really love how you guys organize the chapters, and actually want to give you a second to kind of talk about that organization a little bit, because you kind of talked about knowledge first, and then what a teacher may see and then kind of what they can do based upon that. And so I want to let you share how you and Ashley kind of developed the book and came to organize it.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, like I said, it was really developed out of the trainings that I was doing. And that just happened to be how I was organizing the trainings, and it was working for the educators who I was doing the trainings with. And they liked the flow of that. So I just kept it as the flow in the chapters and I wanted to I wanted to make it accessible, while at the same time, make it informative, and I want educators to have all of that information background but then also not have to connect all the dots as to okay, how am I see this in the classroom? How might it be impacting kids behaviors the most in the classroom? And then what might I see? And then how specifically, might I address this? And then like I said earlier, we wanted those experience, experiential learning things to be part of That picture as well so that teachers could take a step back and really feel like what sensory processing differences might be.    Jayson Davies     That's awesome. Yeah, I really love it. It's super affordable. I was telling you that earlier, I really expected this book to be more like the price of a textbook. And I love that you guys have made it right around that 29 $30 price range. So it's actually accessible for both occupational therapists, teachers, any educator, which I love about that, because the last thing anyone wants to do is go spend 120 bucks on a book. And I know that's difficult. But at the $30 price range, this is information that's so valuable, that teachers can pick up and read a chapter a week, and it's going to help them better understand their students that have sensory processing differences. So that is awesome.     Dr. Jamie Chaves     OTs, two and OTs and OTs, like OTs who are just starting off or even OTs been in the field for a while. I mean, I had OTs in mind when we were writing this as well, because we all get different levels of training.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and we all can't afford a $600 level one course from any of the sensory processing. Big. So yes, $30 You can't beat that for getting a very good start with sensory processing and understanding all of the senses from the five typical senses. And then also into vestibular proprioception. I think you even wrote a little bit about interoception in the right. Yes, yeah. So it's a great place to start. I told you, I was gonna give you an opportunity to shout out to Ashley and I completely missed that part. So if you can share with us a little bit about Ashley, how you guys came to work together?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah. So Ashley Taylor is a pH para Psy D. She has her specialty in early childhood development. She's a practicing clinical psychologist who does a lot of neuropsychological testing, I met her at the Center for connection. And we just really hit it off. And we shared a lot of clients together. And we've learned so much from each other throughout the years. And I would really highly recommend all OTs to buddy up with with somebody who does really good work on neuro psychological or psycho educational testing and really understand those assessments and how they overlap with OT, and then vice versa, being able to share as an OT how what we are seeing in the kids and students that we work with, how that might inform the neuro Psych and psycho Ed assessments as well.      Yeah, and you know, I know, if you're not within a big city, like myself, and you are in Pasadena, a sub sect of a large city, then you're often left to work on your own as occupational therapist, and you may not have another occupational therapist, within your city or sometimes within your county that you get to work with. And, you know, we have to remember that we can get knowledge from people who are not always occupational therapist, and our mentors can be people who are psychologists speech and language pathologist, physical therapists, you know, we don't always have to have an occupational therapist, I recommend you do find occupational therapist. And that's probably why you're listening to this podcast right now. But at the same time, learn from people who are outside of the field of OT, because they have so much to teach us as well. And we also have so much to teach them. And so working together using that interaction approach, we can support students from all sides, and not just from an OT lens, but from a PT speech, a teaching lens. So definitely agree with you with you there. So yeah, where can people learn a little bit more about you, if they want to buy the book? If they want to just get in touch with you? Where can they learn about you?    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, so we are on Instagram at the why behind behaviors. My personal website is Jamie Chavez OTD dot web starts.com . And then our books, the why behind classroom behaviors. And creating sensory smart classrooms are both available on Amazon.      Great, and we will be sure to link all of those in the show notes. So be sure to head on over to the show notes for this page. You can find that in your podcast player and all of the links to her website to the Instagram pages and the books will be there for you all to find super easily. So Jamie, thank you so much for coming on the show really appreciate having you on and I know this specific, this topic. The knowledge that you've shared today is going to help so many occupational therapists, I mean, occupational therapy assistants, and in turn hundreds 1000s Maybe of teachers and The students that they serve. So thank you so much for being here today.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Yeah, thanks for the conversation. That was great.    Jayson Davies     Definitely take care and have a great rest of your day.    Dr. Jamie Chaves     Thanks, you too.      Bye bye. And that's going to wrap us up. Thank you again so much for joining myself and Dr. Chavez today. As I mentioned before, creating spaces for both in the classroom and beyond is something that OT practitioners can have a big part in. And we're starting to see that as actually more OT practitioners take on roles that are a little outside of that traditional occupational therapy role to create some of these spaces within public areas. If you enjoyed learning from Dr. Tavis today and would like to further learn from her experiences as an occupational therapist, I highly recommend that you check out our upcoming sensory Summer Series inside the OT schoolhouse collaborative, we'll be diving into sensory integrative services and accommodations tailored specifically for the school setting. The first course is titled The impact of sensory systems and subtypes on school participation will air inside the community on June 26. And you can catch the replay the very next day if you are a member of the OTs schoolhouse collaborative. For more details about this course the other two courses and all that we have to offer inside though to schoolhouse collaborative, visit OTSchoolHouse.com slash collab and check out the Courses section. This is your opportunity to engage directly with myself with Dr. Chavez and other experts in the field to help elevate your practice. The sooner you register, the sooner you can get direct support from me and others. Your feedback drives our community forward and if you enjoyed this episode, or have topics you'd like us to explore in the future, please reach out via our website at OTSchoolHouse.com . And if you haven't already, please don't forget to subscribe to the OTs schoolhouse podcast, so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep making a difference in your schools for your students and your teachers. We will see you next time. 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 OT schoolhouse.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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 153 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Have you ever wondered how a podcast can evolve, grow, foster a community, and make a meaningful impact in the field of occupational therapy? Join us as we celebrate the Journey of the OT Schoolhouse. In this special episode, we'll discuss the growing reach of our Back to School Conference and our vision to reduce the knowledge translation timeline in occupational therapy. You'll meet the dedicated team behind our success and hear our aspirations for the future. Don't miss this episode packed with gratitude, insights, and exciting updates for the OT community. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify ways technology and AI can enhance their productivity. Learners will recognize the essential role of community and collaboration in their ongoing professional growth. Learners will describe the importance of accessible and simplified communication in the field of occupational therapy. Guests Bio In 2017, Jayson founded the OT Schoolhouse website and now supports school-based OT practitioners via courses, conferences, and the OTS Collaborative community. With experience as both a contracted therapist and an "in-house" employee for two distinctly different districts, Jayson has had the opportunity to appreciate the differences between both small-rural and large-suburban districts. For over five years, he has been helping therapists implement proactive tiered interventions, support IEP teams with goals and services, and feel more satisfied with the job they are doing as school-based OT practitioners. Quotes “ I can not say thank you enough, and I want you to know that I appreciate you for listening and taking this knowledge and implementing, with your students every single day”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “I very much recognize, especially within a health field like occupational therapy, I can't know everything. It's impossible for me to know everything. But we can bring together people like yourself, who both have questions, and also like yourself who have answers as well.” -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L Resources 👉 Ayres Sensory Integration   👉 OT Schoolhouse Newsletter 👉 Back to School Conference 👉 OT Schoolhouse Collaborative Community 👉 OT Schoolhouse Podcast 👉 OT Schoolhouse Website Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. 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's your host, Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the OTs schoolhouse podcast. This is episode number 153. And it has been released on July 1. So if you're listening to this on July 1, or during any time of the month in July, happy July, I hope you're enjoying the summer months. I know it's been really hot out there just about across the United States. So I hope you're enjoying some pool days and join some good AC if you're indoors and just having a general leak good time. If you got some es y going on extended school year, hope that's going well. But if not, I hope you are just taking some time to relax and enjoy summer. In this episode, we are doing things just a little bit more low key a little bit more relaxed today. Because it is July is a summer month many of you are not in the daily grind of school based out to you. So actually, my birthday is coming up in two days from now on July 3. And I kind of wanted to use my birthday as a little bit of an excuse just to share a little bit about some of the OT school houses incredible milestones up until today and just going to share with you where we are and talk about our community as a whole here at OT schoolhouse, about some of the things that we have done together that we have achieved with one another over the years. And in case you don't know the OT schoolhouse podcast started about seven years ago, actually in 2017, I believe it was. And it really started off as a passion project between myself and a occupational therapist, Abby, who I worked with, together at the same district here in California and her and I we had this idea to basically start a blog which quickly turned into a podcast and and it became the OTs schoolhouse. And if you've listened to some of the early episodes, you've met Abby on those early episodes. And you know she had a she had very bubbly, she she has a great attitude. And it was such a pleasure, like being able to work with her to really get the OT School House going. And if you listen, you know on more and more episodes, we've talked about how it just kind of over time, Abby eventually moved away from Southern California and we just kind of grew apart, but OT school has continued on. And it has just led to so many amazing things happening not only in my professional career with OG schoolhouse, but just in many other school based OTs professional careers and OTAs professional careers. It's just been amazing to see what has come as a result of the OT schoolhouse starting, you know, when we got started, yes, there were a few blogs on the internet dedicated to pediatric occupational therapy. There wasn't really any podcast dedicated to occupational therapy, maybe one or two but not pediatric really. And so when we started in 2017, like we just wanted to build this online community of therapists because we wanted other therapists really to kind of be able to bounce ideas off of and to have conversations with because we were the only occupational therapist along with one other OTA in our district. And we had the staff meetings, but we're just kind of meeting with one another, we wanted to kind of get outside of that bubble, and have more conversations with more OT practitioners. And well, I can proudly say that we have achieved that here at the OT school house. So I want to say first and foremost, as we get into this episode, thank you so much for being a part of the OT schoolhouse community as a whole, you're gonna hear some numbers, and you are part of those numbers that we talked about today. Because you are here you are listening to those schoolhouse podcasts, you are learning more and more information and you're taking that information and you are implementing it with your colleagues, with your students with the teachers and parents that you see every single day. And I can just not say thank you enough. And I want you to know that I appreciate you for listening and taking this knowledge and implementing it with your students every single day on your campus. And we'll talk more about that in just a moment. So, before I talk about getting to that part Knowledge Translation, I have a whole little segment that I want to talk about that. But I want to start off by just kind of saying again, thank you because the reach of the OT school house has just grown far and wide and and I'm proud of this because you know, this started off as something with just two people. As I mentioned, Abby and I, we got together started with us, and it grew from there and over time It has now grown to what I can best estimate at around 20,000. School Based OT practitioners via email newsletters via this podcast and other social media outlets now have access to the knowledge within the OT schoolhouse in one form or another 20,000 Gosh, saying that number just blows my mind. 20,000 school based practitioners are in some way, receiving knowledge from the OT schoolhouse, and many of you are also participating back and sharing knowledge with myself and other members of the OG schoolhouse, which is just amazing. And this OT schoolhouse, this platform has really allowed me and other therapists to just meet other therapists, both near and far we have seen, I should say, myself, I have met therapists from as far as China, Australia, even the Middle East as part of though to schoolhouse but I've also met therapists that literally live like 10 minutes from me, that I probably would have never let or never met if it wasn't for the OT school house. And I just think that that is absolutely amazing. I've also seen especially within the OT school, house collaborative therapists, not myself, but other therapists meet and collaborate together and mentor one another. And it's just been amazing to see that happen, because it wasn't when the OT schoolhouse started, it wasn't just about myself and Abby sharing knowledge, like we only had about five years of experience in the field at that time. We also wanted to gain knowledge. And I love that part of Og schoolhouse is that I think we all recognize that we have information to share. But we also all recognize individually that we have information to learn. And I think that is part of what makes the OG schoolhouse so amazing. So yeah, thank you so much really appreciate all of you for not only listening, but also sharing and partaking within the community. I love the emails that I get, I love the social media messages and comments that I get, like, half the time, it's people saying thank you, but the other half of the time. It's like full line engagements about you know, like, Oh, this is what I'm doing. In my practice. It's very similar to what you're doing, or this is how it's a little bit different. And I love those conversations, whether they're with me or anyone else within our community. And before I move on, just because we're on that topic of community right now, I wanted to share an experience that recently happened. I don't think I've talked about it on the podcast yet. But back in April at the EO ta conference, Miss Jamie OT you might be familiar with her. She's been on the podcast, she has her own blog and webinars that she does that are amazing. She reached out to me and we put together a little school based OT gathering in the hotel lounge at the AO ta inspire Conference this past April in Orlando. And again, that was just another example of the community building that we do here at OTs schoolhouse and I had the opportunity just in that, you know that that two hour span that we met with people on I think it was Friday night to meet like 50 therapists that came in from all over the country. And we shared stories, we took pictures, we had a drink and enjoy one another's company. And it was really great to be able to put faces to some of the people that have listened to this podcast, some of the people that I've had conversations with over email, and it was just a really cool experience. Meeting people like Alicia Tardif and meeting ape Saffer, a guest on the podcast like meeting these people in person was just a mind blowing experience. And I'm just so happy that that is what has kind of come out of the OT schoolhouse that started seven years ago. It's really been amazing. And again, I know it's not just me making these connections. I don't want this episode to come off as like, oh, Jason so happy that, that he got to make all these connections. But like I enjoyed just watching other people in that moment, make connections as well and to see people grow together, learn together, sharing phone number sharing social media handles that way that they can connect, you know, when everyone leaves the conference and things settle down. I still have business cards here that I'm reaching out to people from the conference. It was a crazy hectic time. But it was also just so amazing to see people come together. All right, and that leads to the next aspect. I guess you could call it the OT schoolhouse that I'm just really proud of and want to share about especially because you listening to this episode, you are a part of this very, this very aspect and the aspect is the podcast itself. This summer, we're celebrating over 150 episodes. This is episode 133 of the otisco House podcast. And then the next number I'm gonna say just blows my mind every time 780,000 Or more than 780,000 downloads of the OT schoolhouse podcast over the past six years. Yeah Six, six and a half years about, and that just blows my mind for two very distinct reasons. The first is that it means that you all appreciate, you know, you come back for more this podcast, you listen to one episode, you listen to two episodes, maybe you listen to 150 episodes, I don't know. But this the podcast is so important to me is something that I really appreciate. And as a business owner, I would love to increase the number of podcast episodes from every other week to every week, because there's just more, there's more value to that, right. Like, if it's every week, we're going to get more downloads, it's going to support you more, it's going to potentially be able to allow us to get more sponsors and whatnot like So from a business aspect, like I have this goal to make it one time a week. But when I sit back and think, Okay, well, what about the real reasons like what, how would turning to once a week actually hinder the podcast. And I think to myself, I never want to sacrifice the quality of the podcast for quantity. And you don't get to see everything that happens behind the scenes here. But a lot of work goes into every episode, because we don't just want to put out noise. And I just say we because it's me and a small team. I'll talk about them in just a little bit. But we don't want to just put out noise, we want to put out quality information interviews with researchers and real practitioners that have evidence behind what they have to share. We want to put out research reviews of articles that, you know, aren't just an article that says More research is needed. We want to put out articles and research reviews for you, that can actually be implemented in your practice. And so while I am just so proud of where we have become and I always have these aspirations, right to like, produce more, produce more produce more, at the same time, we want every episode to be impactful impactful for you. And I think that 780,000 downloads over 150 episodes really does say that there's an impact there. And it just blows my mind. So yes, that's the first reason that I really get blown away by that, that downloads. But the other thing that always comes to my mind is that, especially with the 780,000 downloads is I think about a quote, and I believe it was Susan basic that shared this quote with me on one of the episodes actually of the podcast. And she shared that it takes about 17 years for research to translate to practice. And I really believe here at the OT school house podcast, we're turning that 17 years into 17 months or less. Like we are flipping that completely on its head, we are getting research and evidence based practices to you and every other OT practitioner, the protection of this podcast more quickly, and you are then able to take that evidence and implement it right away. And I just I love that about the podcast, I don't think there is another medium that allows us to do that. Maybe YouTube, but I haven't gotten into YouTube as much yet. But I don't think even the email newsletters are able to do that just because, well, the podcast gives us more time together, it gives us more ability to have conversations to bring on a guest and have that one hour full conversation about the history, the theory behind it and and all the research behind it. And I just don't have that opportunity within the newsletters. And so I think the otisco Hustle podcast expecially allows us to break down that knowledge translation from 17 years and turn it into 12 months or 17 months or sometimes we've had research that goes from it's in the a shot and then we have the researcher on our podcast within just a few weeks or months. And I really think that it is breaking down those knowledge translation barriers. And yeah, I'm just again, super excited for that. So yeah, I just want to again, say thank you so much for listening to this otisco Health podcast, this episode and every other episode that you listen to, I appreciate you and I know your students, the teachers that you serve, and the parents of those students, they all appreciate the time that you spend, even though they don't see it. They appreciate the time that you put in to learning more so you can support their students. And just a fun story, I guess are a few quick notes about the podcast that that some of you don't see. I mean, I've had people that reach out to the podcast or reach out to me after listening to the podcast and like, Jason, how do you sit there and record that entire episode with like, without doing any editing? Like, just me there is editing. In fact, just before I started telling you this short, you know, last 30 seconds, I took a pause and I didn't talk at all during that break while I kind of planned on what I was going to say next. Trust me. This is not just like a live course here on the podcast. There is a lot of editing here, which is to say a lot, but there is a good amount of editing to make it nice and clean for you. But beyond that, I wanted to share that. As I mentioned, the podcast though cheesecloth has allowed me to meet people that I would never have ever dreamed a meeting before. And I know that now when I go to a conference or attend a course in live, some people will will use the term like, starstruck or I feel like I'm in the presence of a celebrity and I, I just like clam up when people say them, like, no, please don't. But I myself to get like starstruck, especially with some of the guests that I've had on the otisco Health podcast, I remember when I believe is Episode 103, I was interviewing two people, Laura, and Helen. And we're going to talk about the coop approach. And literally, it wasn't until I was jumping on the call to record that I realized that I would be interviewing Dr. Pol, a taco. And I had no idea until I literally like hopped in the meeting, that she was not only the creator or CO creator of the copm. But she had also helped to develop the Canadian model for occupational performance and engagement. And my goodness, you should have seen me like I could not speak when we got on the phone with her, or on Zoom. And, yeah, it's just it's just amazing. The things that come out of the OT squads podcast, and a lot of collaborations have come out of the podcast and the otisco has podcast was even cited in an eight shot article recently, within the last year. And again, it's just amazing. And when I was thinking about being starstruck, I got to thinking, well, who is one person that I wish I could have the opportunity to interview on the OT school house podcast, not just for myself, but also for those who are listening in, and the person that came to mind and this is just a fun fact for you for for listening. But I really wish I could have had the opportunity to meet and interview Dr. Aging errs, the creator of the sensory integration theory, right. I have had the pleasure to speak to and train under many therapists who learn directly from her some of them you have heard on this podcast like so we might you and Suzanne Smith rally and every time I speak to them, and anytime that they bring up Dr. Errors, like they get a smile on their face. And they just can't help but like almost chuckle when they're talking about the way that she was able to support children and the way that she went about doing things and, and every time they share about like her explaining things to them, they they almost make it seem like she could take the most complex ideas like something as complex as sensory integration, and talk about it in a way that a child could understand. Like, I have heard about this from her so many times. And even if you go back and look at some of her works, it's almost amazing at the level, like the grade level that that she's almost writing. And we often talk about trying to write in an eighth grade level whenever we're talking to or whenever we're writing reports or emails for parents just because you don't know where someone's going to be at. And when I read her works, and I hear about her, it seems like she was so great at always kind of bringing things down to make them so easily digestible. Don't get me wrong, like you can't always do that when you're talking about words like vestibular and proprioception. But it just seems like she would be such a pleasure have a person to interview to talk to you and, and just bounce ideas off of it. And so, yeah, just something I wanted to add to this little podcast a little fun fact about who I really wish I had the opportunity to meet. And interview it would have been a great episode. For you. I would have enjoyed it. And I hope Dr. Ayers would have enjoyed it as well. All right, moving on from the podcast. The next thing that I kind of want to address because I am very proud of this, especially within the last about a year, year and a half is the weekly OT school house newsletter. And this has been something that we started with a long time ago, we had a blog and a newsletter before the podcast even. But to be honest, I was really not a great writer, I still don't think I'm a great writer. And so I focus more on the podcast because it's easier for me to talk and I'm just I still have to look at the keyboard when I type I'm just not a fast typer but over the last 18 months, I feel like I've really started to find my groove with the newsletter and I will be completely honest and telling you that part of that is because I use AI as an accommodation for myself. I think that I have pretty good ideas or at least I like to think I do and people sometimes share that I do and I am halfway decent at getting those ideas out while speaking. But I'm terrible at getting those ideas out when I'm typing, it just takes too long, my brain is moving faster than I talk. And I know I talk pretty fast, and my fingers just cannot keep up. But AI has really allowed me to kind of put the just down on paper and then have it helped me to expand that. And to help turn my stories into a way that can actually translate into a blog and a newsletter. And that has been something that I've really appreciated over the last 12 to 18 months or so. And I know that many of the OT school house community members like like yourself listening to this podcast, I've appreciated as well, because you're letting me know you're hitting reply and saying thank you or hitting reply and saying, Jason, I was just thinking about that. Thank you so much for this email, or Jason, we just implemented this last week or this year after you had a podcast episode about it a year ago. And this has been just a really great way to get knowledge out to people that either a might not listen to the podcast, or maybe just aren't auditory people. I'm a very auditory person. I love listening to a podcast, I don't read nearly as much as I should. My I think reading and writing processing for me, it's just not a strength, auditory much better. But I know there's other people out there who are the opposite, right? They'd much rather get something in writing as opposed to a podcast. And that newsletter has really allowed us to do that or allowed me to do that. It's really been great. With the podcast, it is a little hard for you to listen to this. And then quickly reply to me, right, like, if you want to reply to this podcast episode right now, you could probably scroll down if you're on Apple podcasts and leave a review. But that's very public, you could go and find my email if you don't already have it. And you could send me a quick email. But again, that takes a little bit of work. But when you are right in front of your email, reading a newsletter, it is so easy to just hit reply and send me a quick reply. And that is what happens every single week I send out a newsletter, people hit reply, and they let me know their thoughts. And I want to give a big shout out to Liz here recently, because she did that she hit reply. And she sent me an email to let me know that the newsletter, and she put it in all caps is the most valuable email in her inbox these days. And, and that just really made my day I really appreciated her for taking that time to, you know, it only took probably 30 seconds for her to send that email. But still, she took 30 seconds out of her day, maybe a minute to put that email together and press send. And I just love receiving that feedback. It really drives me then to create even better newsletters to create better podcast and and I really appreciate that. So thank you, Liz, I appreciate it if you're listening to this episode. Yeah, just really appreciate it. All right, I don't want these next two sections that I'm very proud of and want to talk about to sound like an ad, but I'll kind of put them together. And I just want to say I'm really proud of what has become of the back to school conference, our annual conference that we hold in August. I know many of you have attended that. And also our OTs Grace collaborative community, which is a little bit newer, but continues to grow. And with the back to school conference, this is something we've done now for three years. We're doing it for our fourth year in August. And we are anticipating having more than 450 school based OT practitioners attend our virtual online conference here coming up in August, August 24. And 25th, actually, and it's just going to be great. This has grown every single year that we have hosted it, it really started off as a passion project. And now over 450 therapists are going to attend this online conference this year. And it really is. It's just quite amazing. One of my biggest or one of the things I'm most proud about the back to school conferences, yeah, we have 450 people that will likely attend. But we have in the range of 150 to 200 therapists that have attended all three of the back to school conferences, and most of them are registered for the fourth one. And that's just amazing. I mean, I see these names, I recognize these names, because every year I am seeing them attend the back to school conference. And, you know, it's one thing to say I got so much value out of this, whatever it is, but it's a whole nother thing to say, You know what? I value this and I'm going to come back year after year after year. I really think that the back to school conference is the largest single gathering online of school based OT practitioners learning together collaborating together. It's all within one week and everyone comes on. You have access to the replays for four months, but everyone really kind of comes together that one weekend and really learns together collaborate together. They're communicate with one another. And it's just, it's wonderful, I am so proud to say that this back to school conference has become a real staple of the OT school house. And I just want to see it continue to grow. I have aspirations for one day to be an in person live thing that we can all attend to. But I also want to make it accessible. And so the virtual aspect of it makes it accessible for everyone, right? We are very busy people at school based or to practitioners, we hate missing sessions, because then we have to make up those sessions. Or we just feel bad if we, even if we don't make up the sessions or don't have to make up the sessions, we feel bad about missing a session. And so by doing this virtually, it allows everyone to, to see their students on Friday, attend the sessions on Saturday, Sunday, and then see their students on Monday. And if this conference were in Vegas, or anywhere else, right, like you'd have to fly out on Friday and fly back late on Sunday, or something like that. And you would likely miss therapy time, not to mention, you're also missing time with your family, friends, family, all that good stuff. And so just really proud of the bachelor school conference and what it has become. And likewise, similar with the OT school house collaborative community, which has kind of grown out of the conference, because people were saying, I love the conference. But I want more I want this like to be a year long thing. And so we developed the OTs Grace collaborative community, where we now have over 150 members who, on a weekly basis are kind of logging into our community to find resources to find research to connect to one another to, to learn from our monthly professional development courses from our recorded professional development courses. As members of the collaborative, they're even able to actually earn professional development from listening to podcasts of the otisco Health podcasts are episodes of The otisco House podcast, not this one, because it's not really you know, professional development, where the about many of the episodes that we produce are professional development, where the and we do offer the ability to earn a certificate of completion for listening to those episodes. So yeah, just very proud over about a year and a half. Now, the OT schoolhouse Collaborative has been live. And we have 150 members learning together growing together, sharing their experiences of what they implement together within the community. And it's just been a great way for us to kind of go even deeper than the back to school conference where we're all together for one weekend. This allows us to be together for for months at a time and years at a time and really support one another whether brand new therapist or more experienced therapist, in fact, I was just talking to Christina member, though to squash collaborative the other day. And she shared that she just really values the reliable information she gets from the OT School Health Collaborative, and she knows that it's been vetted. She knows that it's research based. And she also appreciates that it's just so unique to school based OT, she has been a school based OT for less than a year now. But it's just really helped her. And then on the flip side of that another member within OG schoolhouse collaborative Deb, shout out to Deb, if you're listening today. And also Christina, I know you listen to a lot of the episodes so high. But Deb, she is actually now a semi retired occupational therapist up in the northern California area. And she doesn't always have a lot of questions because she has a lot of experience. But she still attends our live professional development meetings, our live mentorship calls that we do our q&a times that we do together because she has so much to offer. She enjoys listening, listening to what members like Christina and other members have to share and have to ask, and she always comes back with insightful ideas. And that's what I love about the community is that again, I mentioned it earlier that though tea schoolhouse is not like a place where Jason knows all and is sharing that information. That's not what it's about. I very much recognize, especially within within a health field, like occupational therapy, I can't know everything. It's impossible for me to know everything. But we can bring together people like yourself who both have questions, and also like yourself who both have or who have answers as well. You have a lot of knowledge. You also have a lot of questions, but pair yourself with another person within the OTs Grace Community. And you can learn a lot from one another. And that's what I really love about the collaborative. So yeah, just super proud of both the back to school conference as well as the OT school house collaborative community. Both of these concepts both of these ones a conference once a community online membership community, but both of them are helping so many therapists combined. I mean if we took all the people that have attended the bachelor school conference, all the people that have been a part of the OT schoolhouse collaborative community, we're talking somewhere close to 2000 OT practitioners total that are learning from one another growing to Gather and becoming better therapists together. Alright, so we've talked a lot about the outputs of OT school house, we talked about the newsletter, we talked about the podcast, the annual conference, the the OT school house collaborative. But there's one piece that we haven't talked about today that the OT school house would not be around for if it wasn't for that. And that is the OT School House team and beyond what you might I don't know what what you might think exists within the OT school house, like how many people we have supporting the OT school house, I do use the term we very often because it is a we it is not just a me here at OT squads, but I must share my appreciation for the team, the small team that we have here at the OT schoolhouse. Yes, I kind of am the team leader per se and kind of produced the podcast. But there is a team with me that helps to put all this together. And there's no way that I could do it on my own. And each person that I'm going to share with you right now has a very important role here at OTs schoolhouse and I want to start with Alice, who's actually the newest member of the OT schoolhouse team. She's an occupational therapist in Utah. And she's actually helping us to develop resources and handouts and other types of very helpful resources for members of the OT schoolhouse collaborative. We're talking like simple handouts that we can provide to teachers or handouts that we can provide to parents at an IEP meeting. Right now we're working on a medical model versus school based OT model, handout like what the difference and similarities are. She's also created a handwriting or several handwriting resources that are available to our members of OTs gloss collaborative, and she's been with us now for a few months. And we're going to continue to grow in our resource libraries for our members. And it's just really awesome that they were able to work together and do this. And I love being able to work with other OT practitioners. Most of the people, about half of them that we're going to talk about today are OT practitioners, some have expertise in other areas, but I could not have team members at OT school house that we're not OTs, like we or OTAs even, but we need people within our field to build up our field, right. So I'm super appreciative of Alice for helping to create many of the resources that we're putting out into the OTs Grace collaborative, and some also just as free support on OTSchoolHouse.com . The next person I want to really appreciate and say thank you to is Jenny, and Jenni Rivera is helping this year too. She's helped me a lot over the years actually some social media, some other things, but this year, she's helping with the back to school conference. And she's really helping to organize it bring it all together into one cohesive event. For all of you that are attending on August 24, and 25th. She's doing a lot making sure that all of our presenters are ready to go and have everything that they need, making sure that all the systems are set up to make a nice, easy flow for everyone. And again, I just want to say thank you to Jenny for helping with the back to school conference this year. I also want to say thank you to Claudia, who helps with some back end support on the website kind of putting up the show notes for the OT squads podcast like this very podcast right. She also helps with some behind the scenes stuff posting within the OT Schools Collaborative, some putting together our events on the OTs go house to collaborative, and she also supports myself with some email management because that gets out of hand as well as customer support. So Claudia, thank you, I really appreciate all the work that you do for the OT school house. I also have to give a big shout out to James my brother in law, who actually edits this episode and every other episode of OT school has podcast. He's in the film industry and and he's kind of taken on the role to edit every episode of the podcast. So if you appreciate how it all flows together and how he makes us sound like we are one coherent one coherent podcast I guess that is James doing the behind the scenes work to edit this episode. And again, I have the ability to edit episodes, but trust me you much your ears should appreciate what James is able to do with editing the show. And then finally, I have to give a huge shout out to Chandler Chandler is a recent occupational therapy graduate who has been working with me now for a year and a half at least and she is basically the assistant producer for the OT schoolhouse podcast. She is really the contact person for all the guests that you hear on this episode. She helps me with scheduling and getting together questions even and really basically make those podcasts a possibility. She is also the OT schoolhouse collaborative community manager where she kind of makes sure that everything is flowing right making sure that everyone is getting their questions answered and making sure that people are able to see the posts that might matter, most of them. As a community manager, Chandler's role isn't to know everything. Her role is to be able to connect the people that have the best answers to people's questions. As I mentioned, I don't have the answers to everything. She doesn't have the answers to everything. But as a community we learn who is really good about knowing stuff about vision, right, if someone's asking a question related to vision, Chandler and I know that Kelsey is like a go to person Kelsey Coronel says a go to person for answering a question about vision, or if someone mentioned something about executive functioning, will chime in with our best to sense right, our best ideas, but then we know to say, Hey, Justin, you might have a great answer for this. Would you mind taking a look at this? That is part of our roles as community managers, her and I we kind of tagged him at the Community Manager role? And yeah, it's just been wonderful. I cannot say thank you enough to Chandler, she is just, I'll say she's just a great find. And I'm really appreciative that her and I have been able to work so cohesively over the last year and a half, almost two years, I think. And yeah, Chandler Thank you, I really appreciate all your help. And the last thing before I sign off today, I again want to say thank you to listening to one to 150 whatever number of episodes you have listened to of the OT schoolhouse podcast, I hope you appreciate every single episode. And if you're listening to this episode all the way through, thank you because this episode had no OT value per se as far as like taking it and going and implementing something with your students later. Tomorrow, today, whatever, whatever it might be next week. But thank you so much for listening to this. I hope you are enjoying your summer, right summers a, hopefully a nice relaxing time, I hope you're taking some time away and with yourself and reading a good book watching bridgerton or whatever it might be. But thank you so much for taking some time out of your day, whether it's on your walk at the gym, during your drive to listen to this episode and every other episode of the OT schoolhouse podcast. I could not do this without you. You are one if not many of those 780,000 downloads like you have taken the OT schoolhouse podcast and made it yours. And I could not be more appreciative of that. Thank you for all your emails, thank you for your reviews of the podcast. Thank you for all your ways of connecting with myself and other members of the OT schoolhouse community, whether that's on Instagram, Facebook, wherever it might be, I appreciate it. So with that, as I conclude, I just want to one more time say thank you so much for checking out the OG schools podcast and listening to this episode. If you want to learn more about anything that I mentioned today, the newsletter The Back to School conference, that collaborative, obviously you know where to find the podcast. But if you want to learn any more about what I've talked today about today, head on over to OTSchoolHouse.com slash episode 153. And we will have links to all the different things that I talked about. So you can find all that there. Or if you're listening to this in Apple podcasts, you might see it right below the playback. And so it should be there as well. Also, I want to put this out there if you feel that the OTs wealth podcast or the OG schoolhouse in general has impacted you in some way. And you'd be so kind to just kind of share that with me, I would love to hear about it. I might share about it on the podcast, if you'll allow me to but I would love to learn about your story and how the OT school has impacted you. Whether it has helped you to get a job whether it has helped you to lower your caseload or move to a workload model or to better support your students, whatever it might be, I would love to hear about it. If you'd like to do that, you can head on over to OTSchoolHouse.com slash impact. Or you can use the link in the show notes. I would love to hear from you. It would be a great little birthday gift I guess you could call it and yeah, it would just be amazing to hear from you. So again, that is at OTSchoolHouse.com slash impact. You can share a little bit about how the OT schoolhouse, podcast, blog newsletter, whatever it is, has impacted you. Thanks again for tuning in. I really appreciate you listening and we'll see you next time on the OT school health podcast. Take care. Bye.    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 OT school house.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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 154 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Join us as Jayson dives into a discussion with pediatric occupational therapist and author Kathryn Mahoney. With five books under her belt and a sixth in the works, Kathryn shares her journey of creating social stories for children that not only captivate them but also offer practical knowledge for adults. In this episode,  learn methods for customizing social stories, understanding their impact on teachers, parents, and practitioners, and discover how these stories can make OT concepts more accessible, empowering parents to implement therapy techniques at home.  Listen now to gain valuable insights and enhance your therapeutic toolkit! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify methods and tools for creating social stories and how to easily customize them. Learners will understand the impact of OT strategies in social stories for teachers, parents, and other practitioners. Learners will understand how these social stories can make OT concepts more accessible and empower parents to advocate for and implement therapy techniques at home. Guests Bio Kathryn Mahoney is an occupational therapist, an author, and an illustrator. She loves to use stories to teach her clients and their families strategies that will assist them in their daily lives. She currently lives in South Carolina and loves to spend her free time on the beach with her husband Joshua and her friends from church. She loves to hike, read, write, paint, and play board games. Her passion for working as a pediatric occupational therapist comes from her own experience with therapy when she was a child. It changed her life and she wants to have that same impact with the children she works with. Quotes “Times where maybe there's a disinterest in what we're doing…or maybe the concept is just not working…so then I'll downgrade the story. I'll make it a little bit different, or maybe we're not drawing that story, we're acting it out. You can adapt it to the needs of the kiddo”  - Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L   “My first goal and dream as someone who has walked through being different is to normalize what we're seeing, to normalize and have that book in every library on ADHD, on auditory overstimulation, on having difficulty with transition." — Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L “You're not only teaching, the social skills and the social aspect of social stories, but you're also teaching them technology skills”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “Not only does it support the parents, the teacher, whoever might be that's supporting the kid and reading the book, but it's also a little bit of advocacy for occupational therapy.” -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L Resources 👉 OT Stories- Kathryn's Website 👉 OT Stories - Kathryn's Books 👉 SOS feeding 👉 Ella.kids AI 👉 Teachers Pay Teachers 👉   Canva Pro 👉 Everyday Speech Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hello and welcome back. I'm your host Jayson Davies, a school based occupational therapist located in Southern California. And today you are tuning in to a special summer edition of the OT schoolhouse podcast. Thank you so much for being here. At school based OT practitioners, it is very common for us to use and recommend social stories to support students in navigating the educational environment. Whether it's finding a social story on Teachers Pay Teachers to help a student understand the bathroom routine, using a social story creator app to create a story on how to play a game, or simply drawing stick figures on whatever piece of paper we have available to us at the time to help a student know what to expect next in class. social stories have become an important tool in our toolbox to help kids access the school curriculum. Today, we are talking with an OT who has taken social stories to a new level though. Catherine Mahoney is an OT who is using her creative skills to not only use social stories in her practice, but to also write illustrate and produce her own social stories for families across the globe. In addition to writing and sharing her stories, she is also sharing OT strategies within each story that parents can use at the same time. Tune in to learn why Catherine Mahoney is all in on social stories and how she is putting her own spin on these OT stories to support children and families everywhere.    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's your host, Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Kathryn, welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. How are you doing today?    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, Jason. I'm really excited. Absolutely.    Jayson Davies     I'm excited. You have kind of taken this step in your OTs career path to kind of do your own thing and create books based upon many of the things that you kind of experienced as an OT practitioner. And I'm really excited to dive into that. But before we do, I just want to give you an opportunity to kind of share a little bit about your background in OT and where you are today.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. So I've been an OT for a little over three years. I love what I do. I work with pediatrics. I've been in outpatient, and now I'm currently in home based clinic base, outpatient, all the things I kind of hop around. And so I really love what I do. And it's been a fun journey, for sure.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. And so kind of going off of that. What in your clinical practice kind of inspired you to start writing books?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that drew me to OT was I love being creative. And I get to do that every day with kids. So No day is the same. And so I used social stories that I would draw and create with like crayons, markers, glitter, you name it, like in my sessions every day, because that got the attention of my kiddos. It was fun, it was engaging. And so that's kind of how I got into the storytelling side of OTs. I'm making these social stories. And that's kind of what started this idea of actual books that I'm writing now. So, so fun.    Jayson Davies     Awesome. And actually, we've talked about this, but I want to introduce this theme here is that you actually have had experiences with therapy in your own life in the past, how did that also influence your your decision to get into OT and even write books?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. So I was born with mild CP that affects my left side. So at one year old when that was given as a diagnosis, I got into sooner start, which is the home based therapy in Oklahoma. And that's what got my whole therapy journey started. I had OT I had speech, I had PT, and then multiple surgeries down the road to kind of help me be who I am today, honestly, and, and so I knew from a young age, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to help people be who they wanted to be. And not just what the doctor told the family, the limitations were going to be I wanted them to help reach their outcomes and their goals and do the things they want to do every day. So yeah, kind of that definitely inspired me to do what I do. And I love it so far.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And growing up, were you a writer or an artist yourself or is this kind of a newer passion?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, so my first story was made out of like, paper and stickers. It was about animals on a farm and how they're all friends and whatever. I don't know that I think there was like, a mud like Park involved. So anyway, but yeah, oh, was my first book and I presented it to my library. And at the time I was in, I think, like, second grade, and I was like, I would like this to be in your library. And she was like, of course. So it got put on the shelf. It was like a quote unquote, legit book. But yeah, so that's where my journey of writing started.    Jayson Davies     Wow. So what I mean, what came next after having your own library or your own book in the library? I mean, was that kind of something you really grew into? Like, over the years?    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, um, I wrote a story about a girl who was an archer in middle school who like found a mentor, and it was kind of off of Katniss, you know, because that was five. So that book was written, it had like, 18 chapters before I was just over it. And then I got into poetry. So that's kind of what I had been writing up until now. And I have a few pieces that publish. And so anyway, that's kind of what got my storytelling journey.     Jayson Davies     Yeah.     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     When I started in, yeah.    Jayson Davies     Very cool. So I'm sure then once you started practicing, as a therapist in the pediatric world, that kind of lended itself to work work together. I mean, you talked a little bit about social stories. So what did those early social stories begin to look like? And how are you creating those?    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, so the books that I would use in sessions, a lot of times were actually written by like, child psychologists, and they were not tailored to what I was trying to focus on at all in my session, so I had to modify them so much as I would share them, and we would talk through the strategies used. So I just started saying, You know what, I'm going to try to do some on my own. So we would get a sheet of paper, we'd have glitter, we'd have glue, we do drawing together for working on fine motor skills. And we would make a social story to address their specific needs for at home, whether that was like a bedtime routine, or like a feeding strategy, or a strategy they can use when they get overcome with a moment of anxiety and panic, like putting them in a story that they can then take home. So that's kind of how the storytelling evolved in my OT journey. Yeah.    Jayson Davies     Wow. So you even from like, kind of day one, it wasn't about you creating the stories. It was really about your clients supporting you and creating these stories. Are you supporting your client and supporting the stories? Is that right?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, exactly. I found like, that was very engaging for a child to be able to make their own story, maybe their favorite character was Spider Man. So Spider Man was gonna go and he was gonna do XYZ to get ready for school that day. And that's how I could take the OT strategies I wanted them to learn, make it personal, make it fun. And then that is I felt like helped with recall as well. Because then they could have that at home. And they knew all the things they need to practice. But yeah, so really was for each child. Very individualized for sure.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. I want to take a step back. I know social stories are big now. But going back to like, when you were first getting started, like how did you even come to learn about social stories? Did you already have a history from maybe, you know, just, I don't know, just like, how did you come to the idea like, oh, social stories exist? I should try this with my clients.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. So I experienced when I was younger depression. And it was mostly because of the ADHD medication I had been put on. But that's a whole nother story. That's a whole nother podcast. But that was the first time I was exposed to social story where a therapist, a counselor at the time took me through the story of another girl who had ADHD and how she processed, like her feelings of like overstimulation and all these things. So that kind of is what that was so personal to me and impacted me so greatly. And that kind of stirred my awareness of social stories. And then obviously, as I got into the OT world, as a new therapist, and I was like, help me, what do I do? I had a lot of other OTs who were using that in their sessions, and I got to observe how helpful it was and how beneficial because kids love a good story. Like, they love like, it's got to have fun pictures. It's got to have a fun story. And they relate to that and helps with memory recall, like so much. So that's when I started seeing like, Hey, this is something I want to use all the time.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I know social stories originally created by Carol gray. She was a teacher, if I recall correctly, and it has obviously social stories have evolved so much to where we are today. I know she technically has like the term social stories, I believe is copyrighted trademark one of those or whatnot. But there are so many different ways that you can cure create social stories outside of the copyrighted version of social story like you can, you can obviously create your own social stories like you're doing. But I want to kind of get your take when you started to say, hey, you know, this is working for my kids. I think there's maybe something I could do here to support other therapists and writing social stories. I mean, what were your initial thoughts? Like, were you like, this is a crazy idea, I shouldn't be doing this. This is a great idea. I should be doing that, like, kind of walk me through that that initial idea of like, Hey, maybe I should use my skills to do something here.     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, no, absolutely. So that idea got birth, really, when I moved from Oklahoma to South Carolina, and I was waiting for the whole process of being licensed in another state, which always takes longer than they say. And so after about a month of like, laying by the pool, I was like, You know what, I need something to do, I can't just lay here anymore. And so I started looking into publishing originally, actually, for my poems. And I found Amazon KDP publishing. And I was like, wow, like, this is awesome. It's a great resource. And I had found myself writing little stories kind of by the pool, like, I'm like a kid who had a prince who had ADHD. So I was writing all these small stories, that then on a walk with my husband, one day, he was like, Babe, like, you could make these useful, like, you could make these actual books that people can use. So then that kind of started my journey, I started with those stories for just different diagnosis that I saw, like every day in the clinic. And I wanted to make sure that every book, like when I was creating this idea that it was a story for the kids, and the therapists or family, like whoever they're reading it with. And then there was a section specifically with OT strategies of like, Hey, here's a great story that has some of those strategies. But I want to give you like, five or six strategies to use, like in the clinic at home, like wherever you're at school, that is actually useful. So I wanted to make a story. That was helpful, if that makes sense.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I mean, to what degree were you like, can I actually pull this off? Or like, how did you kind of test this a little bit?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, that my first book. So Emma, symphony of silence is my first book on auditory over stimulation. That was a whole journey. I did like, research on like, how do you even publish, like, I watch tiktoks and instagram videos of people who had taken like, their little stories and found a way to publish it. And on on Amazon says, like, okay, like, maybe I can do this. And so I started using like, Canva as like my base. And then I would kind of write up my story, and then try to make an image to go along with each section of the story. And then I took it to Amazon, and they're like, hey, it has to be this kind of sizing. And I was like, Oh, no. And so then I had to resize everything. So it was like journey, for sure. But it was, yeah, but it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of learning. It was a lot of research. And but it was good.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And I know, there's really the three big pieces to your books, right? There's the artwork that you just were talking a little bit about Canva. There's the words on the page. And then, as you kind of alluded to, at the very, very end, you've got some OT strategies, which I when I got to the last page of the book, I was just blown away like that. That is fantastic. I think that's great. Not only does it support the parents, the teacher, whoever might be the supporting the kid and reading the book, but there's also a little bit of advocacy for occupational therapy. I mean, little, little extra tidbit, right. Yeah. So how did you decide or come up with the idea to include those OT tips? We'll start with that question. I have a follow up. But we'll start with that.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, yeah. So I, when I wanted to create a social story, like throughout the story, it has strategies use there out. And so first, I was like, okay, like, that would be my story. But then I was like, There's no way I could fit every OT strategy that I would use with this kiddo in this story. Like, it wouldn't even be a story, it would just be like all over the place. So I was like, I can make a list. So I started just kind of making bullet points of like, very usable, very easy, very practical strategies that I recommend, like every day to families when I'm at the end of the session, you know, and you're like, Okay, we worked on this with James will say today, and these are some strategies that I want you to use at home. So I wanted the books to kind of have that same aspect. So like if this book was found and a child has never in the family has never heard of OT they're like, hey, like these are actually really helpful. Like I've never heard of OT these are su For practical, I can use these or vice versa, you're in the clinic, your child's been just diagnosed with ADHD don't know what to do. And an OT can say, hey, like, here's some things in this story that you can use at home that are practical, that are usable, that are so helpful. So that kind of was what made me really passionate and excited about not just making a story, but making it useful.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and, you know, we all want to think that a kid or even a parent or a teacher, or someone, you know, more mature will read a book and kind of be able to say, oh, you know, Jesse did this in the story, how can I bring this into my real life, but a lot of people need the more explicit instruction. And I think the end of the book allows that, right? Like, you know, Jesse, during the book, he took deep breaths, but then at the end of the book, you kind of have a little bit more about what it means to take deep breaths or whatnot. So yeah, I just think that's a great idea. It's something that makes it a little extra special, right? Like, you can buy a social story from somewhere else, you might even be able to use AI to create a social story. But with the books that you're putting out there, there's that extra component that can be really helpful. So I really liked that.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. And I, when I create this list of strategies, whether that's like you were saying, like a deep breathing, calming technique, or like a environmental adaptation, like all these different things, it's not only a compilation of what I use, but I also went to some of my other colleagues. And I was like, hey, like, I'm writing this book, like, what are some strategies you you use? Because as OTs we're also creative, and like, I love walking into a session, I'm like, Hey, that's a great idea. I'm gonna use that with my next kid, like, you know, we can collaborate and work together. And so that's kind of how I created that whole list. Yeah, it was awesome.    Jayson Davies     I want to ask you one last question. Before we kind of dive into a little bit about maybe how, you know, school based OT practitioners, pediatric OT practitioners can maybe you know, not do this not to something on the same scale as you potentially I mean, unless maybe they want to, but, you know, kind of talk about version number one of some books with kids. But before I do when you're writing your books, do you write it in the perspective that this is going to be a book that the student reads? Or that the parent will read to the student? What is kind of like in your mind? Who do you envision as reading the book? Are they reading it for themselves? Are they reading it for someone else? Does that make sense?    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, no, absolutely. So I try to use words and in my stories that can be understood by a young reader. So for a child who is learning to read, I would hope that they can pick up this book and kind of maybe struggle their way through some of the words, obviously, you know, but a book that a child could read on their own, if they're a little bit older, but for our younger friends, just that they would have a therapist or parent walk through that book with them. And I have so many visuals in my stories, like exhibit, for example, Santos workshop, a tale on Christmas emotions, that's one of the books I've written, I have the elf who has is dealing with severe anxiety, practice a grounding technique, and in the images you see, like 54321, and the five reindeer and like the four gingerbread houses and taking in all those senses, and a parent or therapist could be like, let's like, count these read these reindeer lets, you know do all these components. So it is engaging for either a child who wants to kind of work through it on their own or have a parent kind of guide them through. So it's very, I would hope so very used user friendly. Sorry.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Awesome. And I know you How many books do you have in total now?    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     So I have five and I'm working on my six. So yeah, they address everything from my first one was on auditory overstimulation. I have one on ADHD, one on picky eating. And I got to work with Dr. Kay Toomey on that book to kind of hone in on the strategy of SOS feeding, and then emotional regulation, and then one on transitions. So I kind of wanted to my first sets of books were issues that I saw every day. And the one I'm working on right now is on toileting. And that's one that's like a whole journey. So yeah, so I'm trying to really, my dream is to have like a book to kind of help with every thing that we see every day, but it might take a while to do that, but yeah, so I'm growing slowly.    Jayson Davies     Awesome. Yeah, I might need to I might need to get an early edition copier that toilet Dean one. We're going through it right now. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, let's take a step back because not everyone, not every school base, not every pediatric OT practitioner is going to, you know, hop on Amazon KBB KBB. I think that's what's called and start developing their own books. But a lot of OTs do use social stories, a lot of OTs, OT practitioners source social stories from other places, Teachers Pay Teachers, Ella dot kids is an AI, one that we've been sharing a little bit about over here at OT school house. But for someone who's just like, hey, I have this student. And I think a social story would be a great idea to help with this, kiddo. Where do you suggest that they even get started with developing that idea?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. It kind of depends on like, how much like, time and like, honestly, yeah, how much time and energy. So time and energy Exactly. So an easy one that I use a before I went serious was like, PowerPoint, I would just find clipart. And I would do it during the session with a kiddo. Like, let's find a picture of this kiddo getting putting their PJs on, because we need to work on getting ready for bed. And so we would work together and find clipart pictures and we make it into a PowerPoint, we'd print that out, they have a rough, like a social story. Or we use stickers we use Kranz, we use paper, it's in a one session, we're doing a social story on starting a conversation with a friend. And we've drawn the stick figure people. And this is something that we can use to practice at home. But if you're really wanting to like go to that next level Canva does have like a free platform that you can use, if you don't want to go pro, they have great just like ready to go images that you can put on there. And you can adjust it like that. Or you can go the whole route and go Canva Pro, make it from scratch, spend hours of putting it together, drawing some of the components yourself putting that in there. So there's so many easy, but also complex outlets out there. So yeah, there's so many ways.    Jayson Davies     And a quick note on Canva, actually, because this podcast is primarily for school based so to practitioners, if you have a education email from your school. So if your website you know, if your email is dot k twelve.ca.us , or whatever it is, you can actually get a free Canva pro teacher subscription, you just have to go through a little bit of process, I will try to find the link and put it in the show notes for this podcast. But I know my wife has an educator and actually I used to use it to using a school website or school email, you can get the free version of Canva. So or the pro version for free. So definitely something to look into if you're going to try creating some social stories. I love Canva I use it all the time.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     I would recommend this just came to my mind. Another one that I use that the clinic paid for, for me, but you can definitely ask your school pay for is everyday speech. Because it has videos of social stories. And it's kind of how you want to like work through those things. Because sometimes like that's what our patient needs is that video interactive resource, and it's awesome. They have one on every possible social skill you couldn't imagine, like how we make friends how we take turns waiting in line for water, like they literally have it all. So that's also another good resource. Huge shout out to them. They're awesome.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, I mean, I would often I've never used that one. But I would just go on YouTube. And I would search for like, kid playing ball or something like that, if I needed just a little video resource for a student that worked really well as well. You know, you're not gonna, you might have to scroll a little bit, YouTube to find something that's the problem with YouTube. Like, there's too much there. But that's what's nice about a paid program like that, where it's just, you know, you type it in and something comes up right away. When you started to use social stories, you know, just the impromptu social storage with Canva by the way, I love the idea that you're getting the student on Canva or the the client on Canva with you, because you're not only teaching those the social skills and the social aspect of social stories, but you're also teaching them technology skills, which they know, you know, beginning otherwise. But anyways, when you started to use social stories with the kids, did you ever find yourself saying like, Hmm, I tried it, but it didn't quite work the way that I wanted it to. Did that ever come up? And if so, kind of what was your process for moving forward from there?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, every day in therapy, you're like, Well, that was a session that was interesting, and it did not go the way that I thought it was going to and so I definitely We'll have times where maybe there's a disinterest in what we're doing that can be a reason why social story isn't working. Or maybe the concept is just not working for us that we're sharing the story. And so then I'll downgrade the story, I'll make it a little bit different. Or maybe we're not drawing that story, we're acting it out. Like, you can adapt it to the needs of the kiddo. Whether that social story is like through play, like, it doesn't have to always be like, pen and paper can be totally different. Like, well, let's act this out, you know. So it kind of is I'm engaging in assessing like, what's our attention span? What's our interest in this? You know, like, what's our mood today? Honestly, sometimes you're like, alright, like this, is it sitting at our table and creating a sock find a central story? Is not it for us today? Yeah, that's totally okay. And that's something I love about our profession is we are very creative people as OTs. And when you can adjust and go with the flow, you know, and still have incredible outcomes and still meet goals.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And I like that you write, like, we think of social story, we think of this book that we print out or order online, or find a PDF that we scroll through. And that's the social story. But the social story really leans on on storytelling. And I think that's kind of something that you just really brought out, right? It's not about the words on the paper, necessarily, it's about getting through this idea to the student in whatever way works, whether that's through video modeling, whether that's through the book, the book, or whether that's through acting something out, they can all be the same exact thing just presented in a different way.     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Exactly. And one thing that I just got done doing, which I'm super excited about is on my website, WWW.OTstories.com I have a resource packet that goes with each book that's free to download, because I'm all about free. Because what therapist wants to be like, Oh, this is $4. Alright. So each I have a packet that goes with each book. So sometimes with some of my clients, I'm like, You know what, sitting through a whole book, working through even two or three pages of this book, and the strategies is not it for us today, we're gonna do this interactive, like, draw your own secret garden. And where's the place that we can go to in our own world that gives us like, a place to escape from auditory overstimulation? You know, like, they're interactive, and that way, I can still use the strategies that I'm trying to use in a story through inactivity. So that's what I love about kind of what I've created as I'm trying to make it as usable as possible, you know?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, that's very cool. Like the, the extra little appendix on the website, that really helps. And it'll, I'm sure that will increase the buy in for the student as well, right. Like, you know, the characters will become more familiar with the kid, they'll become more invested in the book. And yeah, that's, that's really awesome. When someone whether it's a parent, a teacher, a therapist, you know, when they ask you, I mean, maybe you don't get asked this very often. But if someone were to ask you like, Alright, I just got your book, what is the best way for me to use this with my student? Might your answer be because you know, I think about books that I'm buying from my toddler, and we have our potty book that you know, is in the bathroom, and we read it, like almost every time we're on the potty, but then we other. We also have other books, right? That's like, you know, it gets read once a week during bedtime, I guess kind of what are the quote unquote, best strategies that you've learned when it comes to implementing a social story? Whether it's, you know, the one that we built in 10 minutes or one that we purchased online?    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, no, absolutely. So I kind of number one, I'll gauge what is like, the attention level that I'm working with right now. So that's kind of the first thing I assess. And then I use the book as a source of engagement. So I'm not gonna just read through the story and we're like, Alright, then that was great story. I'll be like, Wow, in this book, like bite size, bravery suit, Susie's picky eater journey. That's my book. On picky eating. I'll be like, looks like Suzy, just touch the broccoli. Hmm, what do we have on our plate that we're not interested in? What do you think your carrot feels like? So kind of pausing through the story to kind of make it engaging and make it interactive in this, these books allow for that. So that can be done by a therapist, but also by parent. Like, if you ever as you know, as a dad, like when you read a book you're like, and on this page, there's yellow duck, does the book say that and in the words, it's like no, but that's what how we can engage ain't worth it, you know? And so you can adapt and look at just images or look at the components of what the page is saying. And just use that, you know?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then kind of moving on to the next phase, right? As OT practitioners were taught to basically do an evaluation, implement an intervention, and then evaluate whether or not it's working in your therapy history. Right? How have you determined whether or not that that social story might be working or not? Do you take data on it? Are you doing more narrative from the parent from the teacher, whoever it might be? Or what does that look like for you?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, it's kind of dependent on the setting. So I would say like with my home based, I'll be like, Hey, mom, like this. Last week, we did this story on transitions. And we, Peter, and I created this BEDTIME STORY chart, we cut it out, we put it together, like, how's that been going? Have you been using that? Have you been talking about it? So it can be from that, or it's coming back the next session with a kid in the clinic? Of Hey, last week, we talked about how we can use like a safe space to kind of process like our emotions. And we can use this quiet space that we have in our classroom to like, calm down from being overstimulated. Did you try that this week? How did that go? Just like, you know, in our book that we read last week, so I kind of check in that way. And I can use on my notes and say like, you know, parent reports that they're using bedtime chart that we created because of story. And it's going really well, or Jamie is in school, and she's using this ADHD chart of like, okay, I need to do this, and this are breaking down and problem solving through a task in the classroom. And it's going really well. So I can kind of use my book as a starting point. And as a checking point of like, are they using those strategies that we talked about? Are they helpful? So on and so forth?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely. Very cool. And I think that data tracking is so tricky. And like you said, it's kind of dependent on your setting as well. And what you do, yeah, but just kind of really relating it to school based OT practitioners. I mean, right, we have our goal. And if the social story relates to our goal, then we can measure goal, we can measure the goal directly, either on our own, or we can create some sort of easy tracking sheet for the teacher to let us know how often the student is now moving around the classroom or whatever might be thinking about the ADHD book. But yeah, there's various ways that we can do it, I definitely think that we need to do something with some consistency prior to giving it up. But we also need to kind of keep track whether that is informally through talking to the parent, the teacher, whoever it might be, or through some, some data sheets. So absolutely. Now that you have sold many books you have you say six now, total.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     So I have five, but yes, the six. Yeah.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. So you have five books, six is coming on the way I'm sure you've had people come back for more, what feedback are you receiving from parents, teachers, everyone about what is a most helpful about the books and also maybe something that they almost potentially want more of?    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Right, absolutely. So I think the biggest component that parents, practitioners, like even kids are sharing with me that they love about the books is the practicality like that section at the end of the book of like, Hey, these are the strategies to try at home. And I think that is what I've been getting feedback from even my coworkers are like, hey, this was awesome. Like, I didn't know what to do with this picky eater. And I've tried this, and you listed this strategy too. And that was really helpful. So that is the positive feedback I'm getting or I have gotten from some parents like, you know what, we may not fully understand the book but she's loving the images, we're engaging with the counting like we're doing those aspects. So I love to hear that one of the biggest things when I asked practitioners like what more could you see like what more do you what would be helpful and that's when they said like a practical like worksheet or some way to interact with it. Other than just like okay, read that book we read the strategies are done. And so that's why I went back and made worksheet packets to go with each Book of Practical like activities like Visual motor like processing activity that you can do with a book or here's a movement sheets for ADHD to practice in the classroom. Like let's practice these and cut out the titles of each one at the bottom with your scissors and glue them on top. So like making it interactive, making it fine motor making it practical. So I'm trying to reach the need and that way, but obviously, there's always room for growth, and they can tell they're more usable and helpful.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, my business brain can't help me from like thinking about the big brands out there, right? Like, we don't all love Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and goofy because we've watched them on TV, we love them, because we grew up having their stickers everywhere in our house, we had workbooks, we had coloring sheets. And I think that that is something right, if you have those free worksheets that everyone can download, you're gonna get more of the buy in from the book, because they're not just seeing it in the book. They're seeing it on the worksheet. They're seeing it wherever their parents printing it out, and all that good stuff. And so it's only going to enhance I'm sure if you did a research study and you said, here's our research, here's the social story, right? Let's read it five times, versus here's the social story at least three to five times, and let's do the coloring sheets, you're probably going to see more impact from the group that not only read the book, but also interacted in other ways. And so yeah, I think that's awesome that you decided to go ahead and do that. That's really cool. And now again, business brain, sorry, I can't turn it off. I would love for you to be able to partner with a large brand and create social stories based off, quote unquote well known characters, right, like Spongebob, SquarePants, social story or something like that. Sorry, just throwing it out there. I don't know if it'll ever happen.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Honestly, the dream like, for shure.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. You mentioned dream, like what is your long term dream related to social stories and, and getting this out there to support kids?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my first goal and dream as someone who has walked through being different, right, is to normalize what we're seeing, to normalize and have like that book in every library on ADHD, on auditory over stimulation on having difficulty with transition. So normalizing it and making it a resource. And also for practitioners, like the doctors out there who aren't quite sure maybe what we do, and OT and don't make may not have the exact same strategies that we would recommend that they could say like, Hey, like, you know, OT might be a great resource for you. Here's a couple of strategies. So like, that's the dream, and I hope to have like, just books for everything like my next series after toileting is one on just like social stories galore. So like, every social skill, so like, every possible social skills of like, meaning a friend, and like, how do we share that we don't like what is someone is doing, like all those things, and connecting with other OT practitioners to say, hey, what do you need? You know, I want them to be usable. Like, you know, what are you saying that and you could use a social story for anyway, that's the dream. It started out real small. And it's, it's growing. So yeah,    Jayson Davies     I love it. I mean, like, again, just thinking about where it can go. And I think we might have talked about this when we met at a OTA or maybe, since we've talked since then. But the idea of like having your books instead of a magazine at a doctor's office, having some of your social story books out at a doctor's office, so that way parents are seeing it and seeing the OT strategies at the end of the book. Because, you know, we're always trying to keep kids busy somehow that isn't our cell phone. So why not be one of Katherine's books? So? Absolutely. Very cool. Well, Katherine, as we wrap up, I want to say thank you, but I also want to give you just one more opportunity. I know you mentioned it before, but where can people go to learn more about yourself, the books that you have to offer and everything that you're doing?     Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Yeah, so all of my books are available on Amazon, which shout out to Amazon I use Amazon Prime probably way too frequently. They're all there. But they're also all on my website, which is www dot OTs. stories.com . There's an About Me page, there's a storefront page with my books. There's a free resources on there now. You just click on them, they download and you can use them. And so yeah, and then I have also link to just like upcoming things, affiliate programs, all those kinds of things. So Yeah.    Jayson Davies     Fantastic. Well, Katherine, thank you. I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to meet one another over at a OTA down in Florida and thank you I have your prince Oliver's quest for focus book here that you so graciously gave and signed. For me. I really appreciate that. All the links that you shared as well as a picture of Katherine and I'm going to put up over at the show notes for this this episode. So be sure to click on the link to the show notes in the show description. So you can find all the links to her books to her website, those freebies that she has right there available for you to get some, maybe not crafts, but some fun activities for the kids and get going. So thank you again, Katherine. Really appreciate you being here. And we'll definitely stay in touch.    Kathryn Mahoney, OTR/L     Absolutely. Thank you, Jason. Really appreciate it.    Jayson Davies     All right. And one more time A big thank you to Catherine for coming on the OT schoolhouse podcast and sharing how she has taken the idea of social stories put in an OT spin on them, and is now producing her OT stories for all to enjoy and learn from Be sure to check out the show notes over at OTSchoolHouse.com slash episode 154 to get all the links and all the things that Catherine shared within this episode. Don't forget that she has a ton of free resources over on her website. And you can find that within the show notes. Thank you again for tuning in to this episode of the OT schoolhouse podcast and we will catch you next time. Take care. Bye.    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 OT school house.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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 155 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, Jayson is diving into five mindset hacks that will change the way you approach your practice. Jayson will reflect on his own experiences and mindset shifts as a school-based OT, and provide practical advice for managing overwhelming caseloads and fostering open communication with administrators. This episode has many valuable insights, especially for the new graduates out there or those who are transitioning into school based OT. Tune in to learn more! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify how to communicate concerns about caseload management to administrators effectively. Learners will gain the understanding to personalize various elements of the occupational therapy process to better suit their individual needs and those of their students. Learners will explore different ways to become more confident in their practice. Learners will understand how to leverage informal mentorship. Guests Bio In 2017, Jayson founded the OT Schoolhouse website and now supports school-based OT practitioners via courses, conferences, and the OTS Collaborative community. With experience as both a contracted therapist and an "in-house" employee for two distinctly different districts, Jayson has had the opportunity to appreciate the differences between both small-rural and large-suburban districts. For over five years, he has been helping therapists implement proactive tiered interventions, support IEP teams with goals and services, and feel more satisfied with the job they are doing as school-based OT practitioners. Quotes “There is no one correct way to write an IEP…I say that fully understanding that there are a lot of required components to an IEP. There are pieces that must be there.”   -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “An IEP is a collaborative effort. It is not just you. It is not just the teacher writing the IEP. It is the entire IEP team that is coming together, and you are providing your piece as the specialist in occupational therapy.”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “Just because the way things are that you see when you come into a job, doesn't mean that you have to do things that way. Your present levels can look very different than the occupational therapy practitioners present levels that were there before you.”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “Not every IEP should be the same, and you should be switching it up based upon what each child needs. So long as you're making the decisions that you make on the IEP based upon the best outcomes for the student and the evidence that you have available to you at the time, then you're doing the IEP right.”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “The longer that we put off telling our administrators that we are struggling, the harder it gets for us to actually tell our administrators that we are struggling.”   -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “It is totally fine to have mentors that are outside the world of occupational therapy. In fact, you could even argue that it is beneficial to have mentors from outside the world of occupational therapy, as well as from within occupational therapy.”   -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L Resources 👉 Back to School Conference at OT Schoolhouse 👉 OT Schools Collaborative 👉 Occupationaltherapy.com 👉   MedBridge  (Promo code OTSCHOOLHOUSE to save $150) 👉 IDEA 👉 AOTA 👉 SIPT Certification 👉 Handwriting Without Tears Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. 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's your host, Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Hey there, and welcome to episode 155 of the OT schoolhouse podcast. My name is Jayson Davies, and I am here to support you for not only the 2020 for 2025 school year, but all the school years beyond there, we have 154 episodes before this one. If you haven't already, check those out, be sure to check those out, they will definitely help you. But with this episode, I really want to kind of kick off the 2024 2025 school year. If you are not ready to do that yet, maybe you still have a few more weeks before you got to go back. That's okay, feel free to hit pause and come back to this episode and a few weeks when you're ready to dive back into it totally fine. But some people aren't going back this week or maybe next week. And I just wanted to kind of share a little bit about my experiences as a school based OT, especially early on in my career. And talk a little bit about the mindset shifts that I have made now and now have the mindset of that I wish I had when I was you know my first year, second third year into school based Oh T, I could use this episode to kind of dive into the how to set up an IEP or how to develop a treatment plan. But first, I want to talk about the mindset because I think a lot of times it's the mindset that actually prevents us from doing things we know how to do, because we're scared that someone's going to say, Wait, that's cool, but you can't do that. And so I want to talk to you today a little bit about mindset. I have five different topics that I want to address today that are hopefully, how do I say this that will prevent you from preventing yourself from making amazing games this school year. I also have one bonus kind of life hack that's associated with work that I want to get into. But first we're going to talk about five school based occupational therapy mindsets to help you with the school year. Now before we dive into this first mindset tip that I have for you, I want to give you a little bit of background about how I got into school based occupational therapy. For starters, I did not think I was going to be a school based occupational therapist, here I am 13 years later hosting Episode 155, a school based OT podcast, who would have known but at the time, I figured that I would end up actually working more at a sensory integration gym, I had done a lot of volunteer hours down here in Southern California at an SI clinic. And I really just kind of assumed that that's where I would land even had a 10 year goal at the time to open up my own si clinic. But that's just plans didn't work out. And I ended up having an interview with a third party contract company for a school based OT position. And yeah, it went well. You know, it was a really interesting, unique experience, because I kind of had an interview with someone at the contract agency. But it wasn't really an interview. It's more of like them telling me the answers for when I would have an interview with the actual district which Yeah, just kind of weird. That probably still happens to some extent today if you're going with a contract company as your job. But yeah, anyways, that was kind of my jumping into school based OT and I did not have a field work and school based OT at all. So when I first started working, I think I missed the first part of the school year. I think it came in just a few weeks into the school year, based upon when I passed the NBC OT and whatnot, and got my license. So I was coming in, I missed you know, that week of planning time that everyone had come in in two to three weeks in the beginning of the school year. I knew nothing about school based OT, I knew nothing really about treatment. This was my first job out of school. I didn't understand evaluations. I didn't know what the bot was. I didn't know what the M fund was. I knew there was something called a CYPs. Like I said, I was kind of interested in SI at the time, but I didn't know all of this stuff. And I'm sure if that's not you today, right now, as you're listening to this episode, I'm sure it has been you in the past whether that was last year, five years, 10 years. 20 years ago, you probably remember that time walking into your first school based OT job and just being overwhelmed because you didn't understand the systems and that's exactly where I was 13 years ago, I was afraid of making a mistake on paperwork. I was afraid that my note would get kicked back from someone I was afraid that a parent would think I was not a good enough therapist. I was afraid that I wouldn't actually know how to provide therapy or that someone would call me out for providing bad therapy, whatever that would actually mean, right? I was afraid that there was no way I'd be able to live up to the expectation of me as a occupational therapist working in this school. So I'm sure you've been there. And you felt that right. Even if you're not brand new to the field, every time you get a new job, you kind of have that feeling, right? It's like, I know what I know. But is that enough? So that's where this episode is stemming from looking back on my experience from 13 years ago, and also seen where I am today and trying to bridge that gap and trying to think of, if I had the mindset that I had today, how would that make my first year first month so much better? So with that, let's go ahead and dive into some mindset hacks to help you out as you're kicking off the 2024 2025 school year, whether it's your first year or fifth year or any year beyond that, alright? Alright, so mindset hack, number one, one sentence kind of wraps this all up. And that is that there is no one right way to write an IEP, there is no one correct way to write an IEP. And I say that fully understanding that there are a lot of required components to an IEP, right, there are pieces that must be there, you must have your present levels of performance, you must have your services, you must have your accommodations in there, your goals in there, if the student is older, you must have a transition plan. Things have timelines that they must be met and I fully understand that. But when it comes down to what is actually in the IEP, what you write in the IEP, there is no one right way to put that together. An IEP is a collaborative effort, it is not just you it is not just the teacher writing that IEP. It is the entire IEP team that is coming together, and you are providing your piece as the specialists in occupational therapy. In fact, I remember the first time I received my caseload, and I was just kind of going through trying to organize, get this spreadsheet that has, you know, Johnny's name, Sarah's name, so forth and so on, all the kids are in on my caseload. And then next to that is the grade that they're in. And then a few columns over is their services. And you know, just scrolling down the services, you just see, one time a week, 30 minutes, one time a week, 30 minutes, one time a week, 45 minutes, one time a week, 30 minutes, one time a month, 15 minutes, you kind of see this pattern. And then so it's natural for us as a new therapist coming into this program to just say, Okay, well, I guess when I'm going to recommend services, I got to do one time a week, 30 minutes, one time a week, 45 minutes, or one time a month, 15 minutes, those are three options. But that is exactly the mindset that I'm trying to support you here and saying, just because that's the way it has always been done, doesn't mean that that is the way that it has to continue to be. There is no requirement that every student who receives OT services on an IEP has to have one time a week, 30 minutes, just like there is no requirement that every student who has an IEP with occupational therapy must have a handwriting goal, or an executive functioning goal or a sensory goal. There's no requirement even that Hootie must have a goal. But those are hard to get hold of if you are brand new to the system. And that's what you're seeing on every IEP. Again, I'm not going to dive into the how to do all these things that I'm sharing with you today, we have 154 episodes to help you out with that plus the back to school conference coming up plus an entire course on the school based system over at the OTSchoolHouse.com . But I just want to share with you that just because the way things are that you see when you come into a job doesn't mean that you have to do things that way. Your present levels can look very different than the occupational therapy practitioners present levels that were there before you may be the OT practitioner there before you had 123 OT specific goals and every AP. Well, if you decide that you want to start to collaborate more with a teacher and tag yourself on relevant teacher goals, that's okay. There's nothing preventing you from doing just that. An IEP needs to be collaborative. But aside from that, there's very few and only, I guess, regulations for what OT must look like on an IEP. All right. So that first one is that there is no one correct way to write an IEP. You as the child's occupational therapist, have the right to change inching up and do things as you see best fit for that student. And it's okay if student one gets one time a week for 30 minutes and student two gets two times a week for 30 minutes and student forgets one time a month for 25 minutes. That's okay. The IEP, the first word, the eye is individualized, not every IEP should be the same, and you should be switching it up based upon what each child needs. So long as you're making the decisions that you make on the IEP based upon the best outcomes for the student. And the evidence that you have available to you at the time, then you're doing the IEP, right? Okay, so I had to take a deep breath right there, because that's just how important that is. I've heard from so many school based OT practitioners getting into the field for the first time that are just overwhelmed. And they're afraid of doing an IEP wrong saying something wrong in an IEP, picking a quote unquote, wrong goal for an IEP. And I just want you to know, it's okay. As long as you're keeping the child's best interest in mind, you are on the right track. Now, this second side of mindsets for your school year coming up here, it's similar to the first one except rather than pertaining to the IEP is pertaining to therapy services themselves. And my advice is really the same as what I just mentioned, just in relationship to therapy services, just like you don't have to prescribe to one time a month for 30 minutes, you also don't have to prescribe to being the quote unquote, sensory therapist or the quote unquote, handwriting therapist, it's okay to work on sensory 130 minute session with the student and then handwriting the next 30 minute session with a student or working on executive functioning or working on ADLs. Like there is so much to do. And you don't have to service every student in this same exact way. I remember as a new grad therapist first year into the school based OT realm, I had that sensory background a little bit, I understood that fine motor and handwriting was a big concern in the schools. And so I kind of went all in on that, I started taking a lot of professional development in sensory and I took the learning without tears, handwriting cores. And eventually I ended up getting sips certified because I was so interested in sensory, but I kind of cornered myself into this hand writing focus sensory based program. And I just felt like I was doing that with every single student. And it wasn't until much later that I started to kind of take a step back and realize my evaluations weren't necessarily driving me toward what the student actually needed. My evaluations were driving me to say handwriting is a concern. And sensory is the likely culprit. Therefore I need to work on sensory to work on handwriting. And I found myself always kind of getting stuck in that same exact route. And I understand why it's so easy to do that, especially as a new grad therapists, we don't have training and executive functioning, we don't have training and cognitive abilities and different models to address cognitive strategies, we don't have a lot of information in sensory, a lot of times we do get some fine motor stuff within OT school, I think we had to develop a fine motor toolkit while we're in OT school. So that's kind of where the focus was. But we didn't get into social skills, sensory executive functioning, all that stuff that OT can really support with. So again, kind of similar to the first one, where IPS don't need to look like a particular, they don't need to look the same. The same goes for your therapy or therapy does not need to look the same for every student. It doesn't even need to look the same for the same student between two different sessions, you might focus on the sensory one week and the next week with the same student you might focus on, I don't know, maybe the student needs to work on some strengthening or maybe they need to work on organization, or maybe they need to work on I don't know, fine motor skills, whatever it might be, I want you to know that that is okay. And you are not a fraud for using sensory one day and not using sensory the next day. In fact, some would even argue that you are a fraud if you're using the same thing over and over and over again because then you're not learning and you're not growing and you're not updating your techniques and using what is now available to you today. So, again, you don't need to use the same therapy strategy with every single student every single week. Oh, and one more thing before we move on from therapy sessions. Your therapy session does not need to be perfect. It does not need to be Instagrammable or Pinterest bubble or tick tock bubble It simply needs to be a service that supports that student and making games toward their goals. That's it. If someone's watching, and they don't understand what you're doing, but you're supporting that student, that is perfectly fine. If it looks great on Instagram, awesome. If it doesn't, that's cool, too. It doesn't need to look good on Instagram. So remember that when you're thinking about, Oh, I need to have this awesome service for my student. No, it just needs to be the service that your student needs when they need it. Okay, moving on to our third mindset hack, and it wouldn't be an OT podcast, especially not a school based occupational therapy podcast, without talking a little bit about case loads. Now, I don't remember exactly how many kids run that first case that that I received my first school year as a school based occupational therapist. But I can definitely tell you how overwhelmed I was when I realized that I am responsible for providing OT services to this so many kids, it was probably in the range of about 45. And not to mention there at three different school sites. Like, wait, what how, how am I supposed to do this? You know, I just came out of school, I was literally in an occupational therapy master's program like eight weeks ago. And now I am supposed to be doing what? So caseload and workload that is something that overwhelms school based OT practitioners of all experiences, whether it's your first year or your 25th year, anywhere in between or beyond case loads are difficult. And if you haven't been in a situation where your caseload has been a struggle for you, I can almost guarantee that you will be in that situation. A lot of people are doing a lot of things behind the scenes at a OTA at state organizations to make it so that that is not the case. But we're still working on that. And when it comes to understanding your case, though, and the mindset behind your case, though, there's one thing that I want to get across to you right now. And that is that it is not your responsibility alone. To provide services to every student on your caseload. It's simply not Ida does not say Jason will provide services to his 35 kids on his caseload, I DEA says that the LEA, the local education agency will provide services to those kids. So it is not a huge problem. If you're struggling with your caseload, it is a district problem or a school problem or a county problem, whoever your employer is, if you are struggling with your caseload, we are a team, we are not just an individual, even if you are the only occupational therapist, or the OTA in your district, your school, you are still not the only person required to provide the services to your students. It is a district responsibility, or a school responsibility, or as I mentioned, an LEA responsibility. Now, I know I said that pretty commonly. And you might be frustrated by how commonly I said that. But it's absolutely true. And it took me way too many years to figure this out. And the reason I'm telling you now is because I want you to be okay, and become comfortable with talking about your caseload to your administrators. Because while it is a district problem, if the OT OT team, or even beyond that the SLP team, all the related services are having struggles with their caseload management. Well, it starts with us as the individual practitioner, because we're the one who knows how long our makeup list of services is getting. We're the one who knows how many services we're able to actually fit into a week or not fit into a week. And if we don't communicate that with the team, with our administrators, well then it kind of does get put on us. The longer that we put off telling our administrators that we're struggling, the harder it gets for us to actually tell our administrators that we are struggling. So that's why it's really important for us to kind of almost create this template in our brain and it kind of goes like this. It's Hey, Administrator, how's it going? hope everything's good with you. I just wanted to let you know things are getting a little tight with my caseload. I'm starting to have Miss sessions that are adding up that I'm not able to actually make up because I've got IEP meetings. I've got more kids on my caseload. Now. I've got More evaluations on my plate, whatever the reason is, we've got to start to build up this language that we can speak comfortably to our administrators about, if we tell our administrators that we're struggling and they don't do anything about it, it really becomes a they problem, their problem. But if we don't speak up, it continues to be an us problem, a you problem or a me problem if it's me, not speaking up. And so I really do want to encourage you to let your administrators know how things are going, even if they're going great, let them know. Because if you talk to them, when things are going great, then they might listen a little more when things are really a struggle for you. So get used to telling your administrators what's going well, and what's not going well, especially as it relates to your caseload. All right, and that brings us to the tail end of our mindset hacks, that is number four, and five. And these two are kind of related, but I want to separate them out here for you because they are different. And while they may impact one another a little bit, the way that you probably go about taking action on these mindsets might be very different. So number four is about mentorship. And within the OT world, especially there is a huge demand for mentorship. And so much so that companies are willing to sometimes lie to us about their being mentorship availability at a job when you actually get into the job and find out no, there really isn't any mentorship, at least not formal in any case. And so what I want to say here about mentorship is that you will find mentorship in sometimes the last place you're looking for, we often want to find mentorship that kind of reflects us, or maybe an advanced version of us, right? An occupational therapist who maybe has five years of experience beyond us, you know, 10 years might be a little too intimidating. 15 years, you know, might be like, well, this person is just going to know so much they're going to think I don't know anything, and might be a little intimidating. But mentorship doesn't have to be perfect, just like the IEP and your therapy sessions don't have to be perfect. Neither does mentorship. I've had many OT practitioners as mentors over the years. But I have also had non OT mentors over the years, some of the mentors that have had the biggest impact on me have been school psychologist, teachers speech and language pathologist who knew so much about assistive technology that I learned from them, adaptive physical education teachers that have taught me kind of what they actually do and how PE works, and then figure out that we can collaborate a lot together. Just basically anyone on the IEP team, don't be surprised that they end up being a mentor to you in some way. Even a lawyer that has shown up to an IEP team, on behalf of the child has taught me something, but I necessarily call them a mentor. No, but I've learned a lot from so many people. And I guess that's kind of what I want to say here is just that. Don't close yourself off to learning from others who are outside of our profession, it is totally fine to have mentors that are outside the world of occupational therapy. In fact, you could even argue that it is beneficial to have mentors from outside the world of occupational therapy as well as from within occupational therapy. So the next time you're sitting there, like just thinking to yourself, I really wish I had a mentor or man, I wish I worked for a company that provided mentorship, kind of take a step back and think, Okay, well who is already right here that I talk to on a regular basis that I can view as a mentor, someone who can maybe teach me a little bit about an IEP, maybe someone who can teach me a little bit about therapy services, maybe someone who can teach me a little bit about assistive technology, or maybe someone who can teach me a little bit about just child development. It took me way too long to realize that non OT professionals could be mentors for an OT professional. And I don't want you to make that same mistake because you can learn a lot from them. But if you close your brain off to them, because they're not an OT, right, you're going to lose out on so much knowledge that will help you down the road. So with that, keep your mind open mentorship can come from anywhere even in the most least expected times. And trust me with everything you learn it will make you a better practitioner. And with that, we come to our final school based OT mindset hack. And this one's related to professional development. And I guess I'll kind of give a disclaimer here. or that at the OTs cloud, we provide professional development. So everything I say like, I guess you can take it with a grain of salt, because we are providing professional development, I profit and I earn a living from offering professional development in many different formats. But that does not sway what I'm about to say here. And that is that the continuing education that you take today will impact the therapist that you become tomorrow. And I'm going to kind of relate back to what I said earlier, with my therapy aspect, right? Like I kind of leaned into sensory. And I started to take a lot of courses related to sensory, which then only revamped my willingness and my desire to work on sensory. And in hindsight, I really do wish that I would have been a little bit more open to different worlds and taking other courses outside of sensory, I did start to do that, you know, later on. But for a long time, I was only taking courses on handwriting and sensory part of that was because it's like your school based OT you need to know everything about handwriting and sensory, but I really wish that I would have opened up earlier and seek out other opportunities, whether that be about developmental delays, whether that be about ADHD and executive functioning earlier and earlier than I actually did. I wish I would have done that. And I completely encourage you to do the same. don't fit yourself into one box. Unless you you know, maybe you have the desire to go get your PhD and really specialize in one area so that you can kind of advance that area. Awesome. Go for that. That is probably like, don't listen to anything I'm saying right now go get your PhD if that's what you want to do right now. But as a school based occupational therapy practitioner, we have to be well rounded, right? Like we work with students who have all types of disabilities, ADHD, autism, cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, everything right? vision impairments, so we have to be well rounded, we can't just focus on one thing. And so I really want to encourage you to seek out those opportunities to learn wherever they might come from. Especially if you have the opportunity to see someone in person that you really respect, you should definitely take that opportunity to do so. both state and our national conferences are a great way to be a part of that. At the OT school house, we have several courses, we have our annual back to school conference, again, plug coming up here shortly at here in August. We also have the OT squats collaborative where we hosted a new professional development every single month. That's four different opportunities right there that you could be a part of, of course, there's occupational therapy.com . out there. There's also med bridge out there for professional development resources, there are many others, some are 100%, free, they might not offer a certificate, but education is education, whether or not it comes with a certificate of completion. In fact, I'll tell you something that most providers or professional development won't tell you. And that is that some states you don't even need to have a formal Certificate of Completion, or in a OTA approved course, as part of your 12 hours or whatever it might be a professional development that you need. Every year, the states just don't require it because they understand that not all professional development comes from well produced perfect courses, right, they understand that sometimes a YouTube video is the professional development you need. At the time, a podcast might be the professional development that you need. Reading a journal article might be the professional development that you need right now. And that is okay. When I say professional development, I mean the term very loosely as in basically any form of education that makes you a better practitioner, you should seek that out any way that you can, especially as a new occupational therapist or occupational therapy assistant, life only gets tougher. As you get older and things become just life gets busy, we'll just put it that way life gets busy. And as a new grad, you might have a little bit more time right now to focus on some of the professional development that you won't have time for as you get older. So the continuing education that you take today, the continuing education that you listen to today, read today, whatever format you take in that professional development will make you the therapists that you will be tomorrow next year and the many years after that. Alright, so that was the five mindset hacks that I have for every school based OT practitioner but really for the newer school based OT practitioners that maybe you haven't kind of locked into some of those hacks before. Just a quick recap. Those are that nine Not every IEP needs to look the same, there is no one correct way to write an IEP, you are at liberty to kind of adjust it to your fitting. The same goes for therapy sessions, they don't need to be Instagrammable, they don't need to be perfect, you are free to kind of choose the therapy session that you feel is best for your student at that time, your caseload if it's not manageable, it's not on you it is on the district, you just need to make that known for your district so that they can help you. Number four, mentorship does not always have to be formal, it doesn't even necessarily have to be another OT, or OTA, and continuing education that you take today will turn you into the therapist of tomorrow, that is number five. Now I just want to quickly cover this bonus life mindset, if I want to call it that. And that is that within the OT world, especially as a brand new occupational therapy practitioner, you likely have student loans, you may also have recently bought a car because you were like, I deserve this as a new school based OT practitioner after getting my first job, you likely are now paying rent that maybe you weren't paying before, if you lived at home, and you've gotten a lot of expenses, and so you might be crunched for money right now. And I totally understand that that's exactly where I was, as a brand new practitioner, I remember my student loan at the time, I think was 1200. But I really wanted to pay it off quickly. So I think it was paying like an extra $200 a month for a total of $1,400. Every month, I had rent that I'd never really had to pay for before because they're kind of rolled into my student loans. And then of course, every summer because we have off summers at school, basically practitioners, I wanted to travel. So that was something that was kind of in the mix, right. So all of a sudden, life got more expensive. I was making money now. But life got more expensive. And so what I want to say here is just that, while you might be feeling that financial struggle right now, especially if you have some of those high student loans, I want you to know that it will get easier because your wages will increase over time. And eventually you will pay off your student loans. And that is effectively a raise because you no longer have to pay that that payment anymore. And each time you pay off one of your student loans, it's like getting a raise, because you can decrease the amount that you're putting into your loan. Or you can kind of do what I did. And just take whatever you're paying on the loan that you paid off and pay it toward the other loans, you can pay it off even faster. But eventually your loans will be paid off, you're going to make more income, whether that's with the same job that you have right now, or your might switch jobs. Or maybe you might even go into an administrative role or a teaching role and make more there. But either way, I just want you to kind of understand that. I've been there before, I was completely stressed with my finances at the time, because I was like, Hey, I've got this degree, but it came with a huge loan that I got to pay back now. And it's hard. But things do get easier. And almost to the point that I didn't actually plan for making more in the future. And that kind of I think that led to me actually making some decisions that I wish I would have changed at the time. But I just want you to know that you will get paid more student loans will come to an end sooner or later whether you have forgiveness or if you pay the entire 10 years or whatever it ends up being they will come to an eventual end. And you will be financially secure as a school based OT practitioner, as long as you kind of stay with it right like those first few years are difficult, but it will get to the point where you feel more secure. Alright, so those are my five plus one bonus mindset hack here as we kick off the 2024 2025 school year. If you haven't heard about it already yet, we are hosting the back to school conference over at the OT school house. You can learn more about that over at OTSchoolHouse.com slash conference. We have six live sessions over the course of two days, covering topics ranging from handwriting to working with students who have ADHD to sensory to advocating for yourself Actually, I didn't even plan it that way. But several of the things that we talked about today, you can learn more about that over at OTSchoolHouse.com slash conference. It's a great way to kick off the school year. You can watch live or you can catch the replays. The replays are available all the way until December 31 2024. So you have about four, almost five months, four months, I guess, to watch them. And yeah, it's just a great time. We've been doing this for four years now. We love it. It's going to be a large gathering of about 450 school based OT professionals and it's just a lot of fun. If you've never heard of it before, you've never been there before. It's completely virtual, but we would love to have you OTSchoolHouse.com slash conference. I hope these five mindset hacks plus that bonus life hack at the end help you this school year to feel a little bit more competent to, you know, realize that if you make a mistake, it won't be the end of the world. If you have one bad treatment this week, that's okay, next week's treatment will be good again. And I just want you to feel confident, I don't want you to feel bogged down and prevent yourself from having great therapy sessions because you're worried about the paperwork because you're worried about what the next IEP goals gonna look like. Because you're worried about your soap note, we didn't even talk about SOAP Notes or notes in general today. But yeah, just want you to have a great 2024 2025 school year. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode and all the other episodes that you've ever listened to, I hope to see you in episode 156. We're going to be talking about AI within the world of OT, so stay tuned for that. And yeah, that's gonna conclude today's episode. Thanks for tuning in. And I'll see you next time. 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 OT school house.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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 156 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Join us as we dive into a topic that’s transforming the world of occupational therapy! We all know how AI chatbots can help streamline paperwork and goal writing, but what if AI could do more?  Enter the Korro AI platform, a groundbreaking tool that goes beyond text to actually see and measure children’s body movements through camera motion capture. Imagine being able to track a student’s progress in real-time, right in your own classroom or therapy room! Join us as we explore the incredible potential of AI in OT with two experts in the field, Dr. Karen Jacobs and Alyson Stover. So, whether you’re eager to stay at the cutting edge of your profession or just curious about the future of AI in OT, tune in to learn more! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will understand the basic principles of how AI, specifically the Korro AI platform, can be applied with your own students. Learners will be able to identify specific ways they could integrate this AI into their own occupational therapy practice to improve interventions, and documentation. Learners will identify strategies for integrating this AI technology into their own occupational therapy practices to enhance observation accuracy and improve student outcomes. Guests Bios Karen Jacobs, OT, EdD, OTR, CPE, FAOTA is a past president and vice president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). She has been an occupational therapist since 1979 and received over 40 awards and honors, including being a 2005 recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in Iceland and the 2011 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lectureship Award. She is the Associate Dean of Digital Learning and Innovation, the Program Director of the post-professional doctorate in occupational therapy (OTD) program and a Clinical Professor of occupational therapy at Boston University. In addition, she is a certified professional ergonomist (CPE), the founding editor-in-chief in 1990 of the journal WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation and a fellow of both the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) and the International Ergonomics Association (IEA). Alyson Stover, MOT, JD, OTR/L, BCP is the president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), was introduced to the power of occupational therapy through a childhood family trauma. She and her husband own a private outpatient pediatric practice in rural Pennsylvania and co-founded a non-profit that uses occupation to address community and population needs. Alyson is an AOTA Board Certified pediatric occupational therapist and serves as the Director of Clinical Services at Capable Kids. She also holds a juris doctorate in law and is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Her expertise lies in pediatrics, holistic approaches to substance misuse and trauma, and grassroots advocacy for advancing occupational therapy on national and global scales. Quotes "It's allowing us to see what the child is doing, but reinforcing what we're doing outside of that classroom, outside of the clinic, and at home."  - Karen Jacobs, OT, EdD, OTR, CPE, FAOTA "It's not going to replace any of us. It is enriching what we're doing."  - Karen Jacobs, OT, EdD, OTR, CPE, FAOTA “It has a way to bridge all those things that we know we can do to make the entire classroom experience better for students, for teachers, for Aids, and for paraprofessionals."  - Alyson Stover, MOT, JD, OTR/L, BCP “This is making it so that we are collecting now the most objective and consistent data."  - Alyson Stover, MOT, JD, OTR/L, BCP “We think it really can transform child development through the mechanism of occupational therapy practitioners”  - Alyson Stover, MOT, JD, OTR/L, BCP Resources 👉 OT.korro.ai 👉 Capable Kids 👉 Karen Jacobs Blog 👉 Gallant Therapy Services   Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Jason, hey there, and welcome to Episode 156, of the OT school house podcast. I'm your host, Jayson Davies, and today we are once again diving into artificial intelligence. However, we're doing it from a very different perspective than we have before on the podcast. Before I dive into all those details, I want to take a moment because it is an honor to host two exceptional ot practitioners on this episode today. Joining me are Dr Karen Jacobs, Associate Dean of digital learning and innovation, and Clinical Professor at Boston University's Sargent College, as well as Allison Stover, an associate professor in the Department of occupational therapy and current president of the American Occupational Therapy Association. Wow. Just such an honor to have those two joining us today. In case you're not familiar with Dr Jacobs, Karen has been a pioneer in our field, advancing initiatives like the backpack Safety Awareness Day as well as the OT for ot website and Facebook groups. There are too many ot for ot Facebook groups out there to name, but there's a brand new one called AI for ot that I definitely recommend you check out. Karen's work spans ergonomics, AI, entrepreneurship and other areas, making her a true innovator in occupational therapy. Meanwhile, Alison Stover brings a rich background in pediatrics, trauma, informed care and holistic approaches to substance abuse disorders as a OTAs president and a champion for access to care for underserved populations, Allison is passionate about using ot as a driving force for healthcare change. As you may know, I am pretty entranced with AI right now, so when I learned that Karen and Allison had teamed up to support a tech program combining AI and OTs unique scope, I just knew that I had to have them on the podcast to share this program with you. Today, we'll be exploring AI's potential beyond chat bots, and discuss how core AI, the platform that they're working on together, can transform pediatric ot practices in and beyond the schools, while we've touched on using chat GPT and other chat bots within this podcast before to help yourself, like write goals and complete paperwork. Coro, as we'll discuss today, takes AI and OT to the next level by engaging children directly via camera motion capture. If you don't know what that means, it basically means that the camera is able to see and measure body movements as the student or as the child makes them. Yeah, I know it's crazy and it's hard to explain, but don't worry, Karen and Allison do a great job at that in just a moment. So whether you're a school based ot practitioner or simply maybe you're just here to learn more about the future of AI and OT, stay tuned as we explore these innovative ideas with Dr Karen Jacobs and Alison Stover, let's Cue the intro.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the otschoolhouse com 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     Karen and Allison, welcome to the otschoolhouse podcast. It is such a pleasure having two of the most brightest and forward thinking minds in the occupational therapy profession with us today. Thank you for being here. And how are you doing? We'll start with Karen, how are you doing today?     Karen Jacobs     I am so happy to be here. Jason, thank you for having us, and we're excited to have the opportunity to talk about our favorite topic, occupational therapy plus artificial intelligence, and to get everybody motivated to be part of this ot plus AI revolution. So thank you.     Jayson Davies     Absolutely. I love it. AI and OT are two of my favorite things right now, and so I I love them both. I talk a little bit more about AI from the chat bot perspective, and as we discuss more today, we're going to move beyond that. But before we do, I want to jump over to Alyson and just check in, how you doing today, Allison, and how's your ot career going in the moment?     Alyson Stover     Yeah, I am, I agree with Karen, or I repeat, Karen, excited to be here. This is awesome. And thank you so much, Jason for having us. But you know, the the OT career is one in which I say is best for the person that gets bored, right? Because we can work even when we don't feel like we're working. We can do it like our entire lives, and it looks different every single day. So I'm still living in that dream section of looks different every day, learning something new and and doing all the fun things.    Jayson Davies     Yes, yeah, absolutely. And as my my friend over on the otpreneur podcast, and at the another one, Sarah putt, she likes to say ot for life. And I'm thank you all are both familiar with that, and that really describes ot we are all in its forward life. So thank you so much for being here before we get into really diving in there, into this. I have seen many papers from Karen, Alyson you as well, articles and whatnot. But you two are both amazing individually. How did you come together to work on this? AI and OT project together?    Karen Jacobs     So Alison, I think I'll get started. So about over a year ago, a colleague of mine approached me and said, I'm active in this company called quoro. Ai, could I introduce you to the owner? And I said, you know, can I'm an early adopter, sure. And the owner flew over to Boston, and we talked, and by the end of that conversation, and Jason, you should know this about my 45 years of being an occupational therapist, I've never endorsed a product. By the time we finished lunch, I said, I'm in I want to be an advisor. I want to do research. Any company that loves children, loves child development, is visionary, and loves occupational therapy and wants to invest their own money into advancing our profession I'm in. So I'm in and then I want to conduct research. And the first person I thought of who had a pediatric clinic, because again, coro AI is now for children in clinics and in school. I contacted Alison and said, you know, can I bring you a board with this? And Alison, I had known each other for years, but we hadn't had an opportunity to really work on a project together. And Alyson, I'll let you answer your response to me,  Yeah, yes, so I'll pick up there. Karen says, Hey, I have been introduced to this incredible product that I really do believe is going to transform what occupational therapy practitioners are doing every day with children. And do you want to see it. And you know, besides having known Karen for a number of years, when the individual who created the backpack awareness initiative calls and says, I have a great idea that you want to get involved, you say, Absolutely, you have so many brilliant ideas. So I was so eager to look into this product that Karen was so excited about, so she and a member of the company flew to my clinic. We shut down for an afternoon, a lunchtime period, and our clinicians took a look. We had like this in person, demonstration of what this platform could do. And just as Karen said, you know, by the end of her meeting, I mean, we were not even done, and my clinicians were like, Oh my gosh, here are, you know, 80% of the my caseload is needs this. And it was just one of those things that the moment you saw it, you heard it, you you could see all the potential it had to make your your day to day easier. It was like, I don't know how I could possibly, I don't know how I could possibly move forward without using, wow. Next product     Jayson Davies     That's powerful. That's very powerful when you when you feel like you have to have it right a lot of times. And school based ot practitioners who listen to this podcast, they're very familiar, I think, by now, with me talking about AI, but I have primarily talked about AI from the chatgpt, large language models. Type of way right where we can use chatgpt to help us, kind of put our notes into an evaluation, maybe help us to create a soap note, come up with some treatment ideas and whatnot, but that's really like my extent of AI. Coro AI is completely different from my understanding. And for those who are out there that have maybe played around with chatgpt a little bit and understand that, how do you describe coro AI and how that is just completely different?    Karen Jacobs     Well, we're talking about first of all, a product that was created by Occupational Therapy practitioners at the ground level. So these occupational therapy practitioners. were all involved in in pediatrics and school based. And they thought about, what skills do we need to look at in practice? And so they identified those skills, and they worked with over 30 data scientists, like they'd say, I want to be able to measure finger isolation. And the data scientists would go back, and they think about the idea, and the occupational therapy practitioner would share ideas, and they would come up with gaming experiences that they created that would address a variety of skills that the occupational therapy practitioner was looking at with their own eyes, but now we have a partner, because coral AI uses computer vision, so the Computer, which is actually your phone, or a mobile device is looking at the child and analyzing the child, there's no sensors, and coming up with lots of objective data, and then giving us feedback about that, and a report You were talking about, chatgpt, if anyone could see the report that is generated from this objective data and how much time is being saved and how this objective data is allowing you to make objective decisions of what skills we should be working on, that's a big wow that I have have this to work with in occupational therapy. It's not going to replace any of us. It is enriching what we're doing.    Alyson Stover     Yeah, I Karen, you said this word that I just have to hold on to, and that was partner. I mean, when I think about how I explain this to others, it's, you know, when you had that incredible level two field work student, and it's week 11 out of 12 weeks, and you think, how am I going to go back to doing this with just my what I'm seeing with just, you know, like with the things that I'm coming up with, this is like having that incredible, outstanding level two fieldwork student that's in like week 11 with you all the time, because you're still looking at, what am I seeing? Where am I seeing deficits? What are some things I need to change or or redesign, but the core AI platform is also seeing things, but it's seeing things that I can't see with just my eye at the same time. So it's, you know, my partner next to me seeing additional things and feeding into me that information. So I have a much more overall picture that's my own clinical judgment and subjective determinations combined with the highest level of objective data all collected together at the same time.    Karen Jacobs     Yeah, and I just want to add to this. So what we're getting is a continuation of data, and the other thing that I love about coro is the ability to use this platform that's always evolving. It's not like an app and it's static and maybe updated occasionally. It is updated all the time and creatively, and they want to hear from us as occupational therapy practitioners on what we want, but what they have that I thought was remarkable, and in the research that we've been conducting, we have seen way beyond my expectations, is that in occupational therapy, we typically say to a child, here's some homework, and we're hoping that they're going to do the homework, because it's going to reinforce what we were doing in the time we were the child. do they do their homework? Not very often, but we can have Oro paired with a device at home where the child has their what we call missions, these experiences that they can do at home, they can do it at home, and the occupational therapy practitioner is seeing what they're doing. So it's reinforcing everything that we're doing in the clinic or in the school. And to me, it's a dream come true for occupational therapy practitioners, it's allowing us to see what the child is doing, but reinforcing what we're doing outside of that classroom, outside of the clinic and at home.    Jayson Davies     I love it. I love it. I have so many questions based upon just the little bit that you talked about. But first I want to say, Allison, I love your your concept of a fieldwork student. I often call chatgpt My research assistant, but I think I might start using fieldwork student now. That that's even better, I think. But Karen, going back to you, you, you talked about a it's not going to replace us. You talked about it being another therapist to support us. If coro AI isn't designed to replace us, then what is that ultimate goal for the for the platform. What that owner, if I were to ask him, What would he say the ultimate goal for coro AI is, and obviously you're not the owner, but what would you say?     Karen Jacobs     He would say that it's going to foster child development. It's going to help occupational therapy practitioners do better at our job. We're not going to see AI replace us, but someone using AI will, and so it's going to help us, I think, get more objective data, have more confidence in the work we're doing. It will help, I think with burnout too, because we're seeing so many of our Occupational Therapy practitioners with gigantic caseloads. So let me tell you how we added quoro to the study that we did, and it was a randomized control trial that was at capable kids and also at gallant therapy services in Augusta Maine and a shout out to Ryan and his team as well. We had a controlled group that did not receive any Quora and a group that was in the it was an experimental group where we asked the occupational therapy practitioner, so an OTA and an OTR to introduce coro for about 10 to 15 minutes in their approximately 45 minute session. So it gave the therapy practitioners a little bit of breathing room between the clients they were seeing. And, you know, they're seeing one after the other, which was great. The motivation by the child using it was great, and it got them started and energized for the rest of the session. So, data, objective data, helping with burnout, another thing, and also documentation. And you know, I have to say documentation is not probably on the top list of the favorite things that occupational therapy practitioners do, and if we have a way of getting objective data that we can share with parents, also and caregivers and care partners and guardians who Are with the child, then what another bonus for us?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned it is one of those things that we have to do a lot, and it's also one of the things that we hate doing all that documentation. And I know in the school systems, sessions tend to be a little bit shorter than what they might be at a clinic, but I could definitely see coro AI, you know, as a home program. And I know you've already talked a little bit about that, and we can dive into that more. But I first want to kind of you mentioned the word scene, what it can see, what it can provide you with, and I want to dive into that a little bit more. What does it actually see, and what does it provide you with? Are you getting like a written report that looks like a chart of bot scores, or what does it actually look like for you?     Karen Jacobs     So what it's seeing, if you can picture, and I know we're just audio here, and I do want to encourage people to go to the website to actually experience it, and they can set up a free demo as well. But let me give you the the website right away, so people might log on as we're listening to the podcast. It's ot dot, korro, K O, R, R O, dot, a, i, so we've got the phone in front of us, and it's actually looking at the child. The child is lined up on the screen. It doesn't record anybody. It's just looking at you. It's HIPAA compliant as well. And the child is brought through a series of experiences, and there's visual and auditory cues to have the child. For example, one of my favorites is climbing a wall, because the narrative in these games is an astronaut and a flower, and all of the children are in love and myself included with Alfie, and they're going on these experiences with the astronaut to get to Mars. So no one has ever gone to Mars. So it's not like we're competing with other people about you know, can I really be the best astronaut in the world to go to Mars? None of us have had that experience. And so it's walking the child through doing things like climbing or bilateral coordination in a fun way?    Jayson Davies     Yeah.     Alyson Stover     Well, and Jason, if I can just give like a like an example of of what it's seen like in like a specific example, right? So I think about often, you know, as much as sometimes we either hate it or love it. We, we it's if we're in the schools, we've got kids on our caseload that have handwriting goals right now, think about the idea that, like, how often are we really recognizing how far their body moves instead of crossing midline, right? So we want them to reach, you know, their right hand across to the left side as they begin to write across the paper and just move that. But so often we see that we have kids that can't cross that midline. They just move their whole body right so and then they're writing that. So now imagine I now with this game that that this gaming experience that Karen just talked about, I actually will get information that shares with me. It might not be that the end of it, that the child is unable to isolate and cross midline. Maybe that's fully maybe they actually really can do that, and they're doing that in this game, but what's problematic is that they can't it's like the trunk rotation that they can't do, right? So when they're climbing this game, there's no trunk rotation involved. And they might reach here, and they might reach there, and they might reach up and down, but there's no trunk rotation involved. Now move to another game, and it's going to have trunk rotation, and it's going to tell me, Hey, look, you don't need to spend so much time focusing on that midline crossing. It's not the midline crossing that the child can't do. It's isolating and rotating at the trunk that the child can't do to reach over across that midline where the paper is while still sitting forward to look at the teacher, right? Wow. Okay, and so it's it's actually taking what I already know is a problem. I already know that that kiddo is moving way too much of his body while he's writing, but I don't know. Is it trunk weakness? Is it that he can't cross midline? Is it that he has difficulty with visual attention, and every time he looks down to look at his paper and looks up, he's his whole body is moving right. There are over 180 points on a child's body that the camera in your phone is able to look at and measure, and it will tell me things like man inhibition is down. This child's got a 10% success rated inhibition, but actually their motor scores are at 90% well, so now I know it's not that that kiddo isn't crossing midline because of any motor ability. He's not crossing midline because attention and inhibition of other movements is so far off. Okay? Now that's what I need to focus on. And so where we see the deficit, and we are constantly modifying participation to, you know, either change the person, the occupation or the environment, often all three. This is actually giving me even more detailed, objective information to say, All right, here's where you really need to narrow in. And I love this story that Danielle, who is a fabulous OTA that works in the schools for capable kids, shout out to, I swear, the best ot bunch ever at capable kids. I agree. But she said, you know you don't in the schools, right? Like, you know your kids, you know there's times when you sit down to do your progress reports and you think, Oh, I don't know that. I've really looked at that one part. I forgot that was in his IEP or her IEP, right? Well, because coro is giving you constant feedback of specific participation. She said, I don't ever have to remember, Oh, he has a crossing midline goal in here, because we played coro for five minutes at the beginning of session, and coro was like, I saw he wasn't crossing midline. Coro said, Yep, it's he's not reaching across his body. I don't even have to go back and constantly look, am I hitting all the deficit areas listed in those IEP goals, because coral and I are walking alongside, telling each other and reminding each other what they are every single time the child uses it. And on the flip side of that, we set a little bit about home program, but, but what we found has been really helpful in the school is, you know, how often do we think about we give a sensory break, right? That's always in every child's IEP, but then you walk into a sensory room where you see that child on a different day doing the sensory break, and it's, you know, like they're upside down and spinning on a trampoline and a swing, and you're like, Wait, that's never what I said should be the sensory break, right? Like sensory is hard, it's hard, but one of the things we do know is that sensory is movement. It's bilateral coordination, it's crossing midline, it's trunk rotation, it's balance, right? These are all skills that the gaming experience require of the child. So it's been incredible to say to teachers, paraprofessionals, student aids, can you do a five minute choro break? Now I know that child is doing a movement break that's going to incorporate some of the very skills that are necessary for sensory integration, and it's going to be done in an efficient and adequate way. No one has to overexert themselves. The paraprofessional isn't like, Oh, I gotta do a sensory break, and I'm not even sure what to do this time or if I'm doing it right, right? They say, Oh, I've got to do a choro break. But then when they did that choro break, I now know, even though I only see that child Mondays at 10am I now know what he looks like Thursday at 2:30pm because Cora watched him and told me all about it.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, wow. So when you say it told you all about all about that 230 session. What does that look like from your end, when you log into the back end of coro AI, or when you receive an email from korro AI that says, Johnny hopped on and logged in. What does that look like for you? You're telling me, you get information. But what's is that a report. Is that a chart? Karen, go for it.     Karen Jacobs     It's actually a screen that pops up after each of the times that they use a game, and it will give us a percentage in each of the different skill areas within that game, so it can tell it tells us right away how the child is doing, and then that data keeps being gathered and goes into a detailed report that's not just written, but it has it's color coded, it's got graphs, it's easy to follow, and so the occupational therapy practitioner can use any of it, all of it, edit it, because it's a Word doc to go into, you know, an IEP.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, wow, because I'm just thinking, like, going back to the handwriting example, we have a a distal goal. We'll say to to complete three sentences just for an idea. And now the proximal goal might be some of those ideas that the strengthening the rotating of the trunk, whatever that might be. So it sounds like to me, the coro AI is going to give you some some data related to more of the proximal goals to help us establish or to understand how the trunk rotation is impacting the handwriting or whatnot. Is what I said sound correct? Or am I totally off?     Alyson Stover     Yeah, no, no, that's correct. And and so, and then what it's also doing right is it's giving you that score in comparison to that child's score and abilities to do that task at other times, right? So when I'm seeing those graphs and those charts I'm seeing, maybe, you know again. So then, how am I looking at it through my ot lens? Well, I'm seeing that every time coros used at a 10am time slot, that kid is rocking it right, like we're seeing that inhibition. And remember, it's not just physical skills, it's mood. They're able to sense mood, determine that memory and memory, yes, you you can do memory sequencing. So it's, it's telling you. So if I'm seeing like, hey, sequencing is, you know, scoring at 80% or above all the time at the 10am time slot, if it's used, but when they use it at 230 sequencing is down to like 25% well, now I know that that child's fatiguing out in some of those cognitive abilities, or something's happening that that they're really strong at the start of their school day, but getting much weaker at the end of the school day. So now, what do I want to do? Well, maybe I want to make math switch so it's in the morning. Or maybe there's something that I need to do to talk about more breaks throughout the day, you know, like it's telling me those types of things, and I'm comparing that child to his own performance, so it's not like the bot where, you know, and something that I struggle with a lot with, with some of our standardized tests, is I've got kiddos that I know are progressing and doing outstanding, but like they're they never show an improvement on the bot, right? It's like chasing a star that you never catch. It's trying to put salt on a bird's tail. That's my mother used to do to keep my brother and I busy. She'd send us outside with salt tell us to catch a bird. I don't even know what it does, but you know, like, it's that thing you can't catch this. You can't right? This is looking at the idea of, okay, is the child performing this in the way that the that that specific piece of movement is to be performed, and remember it's fully informed by Occupational Therapy professionals. So that means that how we look at and determine success is really what optimal success is integrated into these very complex algorithms. They're looking at ot literature. They're talking to the OT clinicians that are doing this, and they're not saying, Oh, well, a nine year, four month old child needs to be able to do 10 jumping jacks in a row. They're looking at it and saying with continuous participation. A child in a five minute handwriting task should demonstrate these following skills, trunk rotation, midline crossing, visual tracking inhibition, finger isolation, right? So it's defining what that looks like, the way we define it, and then it's comparatively success against each other. And did did that child achieve midline crossing for the percentage that the algorithm knows, like the child should midline cross 50% of the time for this task? Okay, well, did the child achieve that? Well, he achieved it 80% of the time. Well, that's pretty good. 80% of the time he was crossing midline as he should, right? So it's, it's that kind of scoring and information that you're getting back and it's always comparing it to that child's functional performance.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha.    Karen Jacobs     Yeah, that's, that's, I think, the most important. And, you know, we're describing it, but going through a demo makes it come alive. And I hope people who are listening will take the opportunity to, you know, register for a demo.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, and yeah, I'm getting ideas already about that. I need to do it. But Alyson, I want to come back to you really quickly on me, as a school based ot practitioner, I'm very familiar with the Osmo, which is not AI based, but it is a game that uses the iPad or iPhone camera. It kind of tracks movements, albeit, I don't think it tracks hand movements, but it tracks the little the blocks and whatnot. So this kind of sounds familiar to that, except kind of on steroids, with all the AI and the and the behind it, does that sound familiar?    Alyson Stover     I mean, not really, just just in the sense that, like, as as you think about it, right? It's it's AI. So there's two things that quoro is always doing that that other kind of, like games like that, can't do. One is that korro is adjusting to a just right challenge level to that child. So as the child is representing some failed attempts, or some struggle with certain tasks, activities, skills. It's an it's recognizing and learning that and creating the next game to incorporate those details that it learned about where that child's struggling so that it can still work on building skill, but also not frustrate the child. We actually had a parent reporting in from the study that we did in which she had never observed her daughter not have frustration with anything, because even when things are easy, when they start, the more you progress with the skill, the harder it gets. And her daughter just continuously would reach a point with everything that resulted in meltdown frustration with coro, she didn't but she was building skill because the AI was learning where she was, where she was successful, and then starting each next game at that place that was still building skill, but not frustrating her and and really the the other component piece of it is that I really love is so you have a coach inside your korro AI games. So there's so many times that children will practice things or do things, and particularly like when I'm not around, and you know, it's they're writing in class versus writing with me, or they're doing some of their exercises in class and not with me. And the individuals that are doing the exercises with them are great, and they're doing their best, but they don't have my ot lens, and so they're sort of allowing alternative movement patterns, because they don't even see that alternative movement patterns are happening versus the ones that I want to happen, right? So, you know, they can do things like stabilize their fingers in weird ways, you know, and make it look like they're doing this great pincer grasp, but really they're stabilizing some of that pointer finger that we're not even you know, necessarily seeing, if that's not something we're queued up to see. See, coro is correcting all of those alternative movement patterns. So when the child does those things or tries to participate in a way even like one of the biggest things is recognizing that when crossing midline, they're rotating their trunk so it's not really a crossing midline piece. They're saying, oh, let's try it again. We've beered off path. And it's saying, Now, hold your tummy tight. Don't roll out your tummy, just your arms. So it's also always correcting the movement pattern so that the skill that the child is developing is the actual skill and not some less efficient motor plan.    Jayson Davies     Wow. That again. It just sounds like all my favorite apps, except upgraded to the 10th degree, because it that frustration piece is huge, right? We've all played with a handwriting app, a fine motor app, all the different drawing apps where kids either a they just can't do it and they get frustrated, or even when they can do it, they get bored. And this kind of sounds like it's eliminating that by meeting them where they are at relatively quickly. I'm sure it takes a moment to learn where they're at and start doing that, but as soon as you start providing the just right challenge, you're providing ot to agree to a degree.    Karen Jacobs     I was going to say that's, that's what it does, the just right challenge. And we're not we're talking almost instantaneously getting this data the algorithm is working so quickly to really understand the child that it can provide this information within seconds.     Alyson Stover     And it has this incredible feature in which I can input, I can input a diagnosis like ADHD, or I can input the very skills that I want that child to work on. So the app is the the AI technology is already saying, if I put in crossing midline, finger isolation, sequencing, attention, right? The AI app already, then is saying, oh, wait a minute. These are the ones that are challenging. These are places that I've got to already start at a different level for. So it's, it's coming in with, again, like ot knowledge of saying, oh, when a child is struggling with sequencing, start with two, right? So it's, it's already coming into that place, and then it's, it's growing from there. So as Karen said, it's an instantaneous learn, because it's already starting at step two. It's not, it's not starting at Ground Zero.     Jayson Davies     I love that. That's really awesome. So how do you either currently see or even envision school based ot practitioners using this on a regular basis?    Karen Jacobs     Yeah, I actually hope that we'll see all school based occupational therapy practitioners seeing this as their partner and using it in the classroom or pull out wherever they're working with a child. We're hopeful that we'll see school districts wanting this to be something available for their occupational therapy practitioners. For the individual occupational therapy practitioners, we encourage them to think about even, you know, using their own professional development money to get certified, and to think about how they can share with their school districts all the results, the great results that they're seeing that's really enhancing what they're doing.    Alyson Stover     Yeah, I there's so many ways that I see this being so necessary in school based practice. You know, one of the things that I see is that we're going to be able to create better goals from that are more connected to education standards and outcomes. So when I look at things like pa education standards, and I'm seeing that this child's got many standards that are connected to math. I can now connect my goals to math related to what I see, like sequencing difficulty, like memory difficulty, like some of even the crossing midline piece, right? So I don't have to write a goal that is necessarily has this like it's an OT goal. I can actually show how OT is integrated in to education, and how the very skills that we work on are the skills that support academic performance. And so I see us being able to really integrate into the education model in a way that shows that we are right there next to you. We're not We're not a related service. We are a primary service. We are doing and contributing to the academic success in almost equal part as the other individuals that are members of of that academic team. On the other side of it too, though I see that it provides the power for us to really grow or realize the full potential of having occupational therapy in schools in a consistent way. So even little things that we can do, think, how many times you speak to a kindergartner first grade teacher and they're saying like, you know, yes, the student that you're working with struggles with that transition to circle time. But like so do 80% of my kids, and I could really use some help with that. What are some strategies? And, you know, you you teach her the animal walks, have them do different animal walks from their desks to circle time or, you know, but in in reality, right? Like that, teacher's also thinking, and I have to start this lesson, and I've got 22 kids that I'm paying attention to and and although it's a great idea and works, building that into my routine is going to take at least 60 to 90 trials regularly before I, as the teacher, can build that in in a simplified way, So it you don't see the realization of what consistent occupational therapy can do because, because nobody in school districts has the time, the ability, the movement to build in what it looks like to truly have like ot presence. So the core AI has this incredible experience in which a child does deep breathing so they they suck in, and one of those dandelions with all the little seeds gets bigger based on how much they suck in, and then they blow out. And depending on how hard you blow all the seeds go everywhere, right? That teacher, all she has to do is work with her student that has it connect and cast her students iPad onto her screen. And even though just the student is doing into his iPad, she can have all her students doing a breathing break with coro on the screen, and it is literally telling them when to breathe in, when to breathe out, and it is walking that entire kindergarten classroom through a beautiful, deep breathing exercise to bring them to a calm state for circle time. And I'm also getting data from my kiddo, because he's the one that's using it on his iPad, and I'm seeing, wow, this is improving his performance in circle time. So it's it's incredible, because I think it has a way to bridge all those things that we know we can do to make the entire classroom experience better for student, for teacher, for AIDS, for paraprofessionals, but we always say, but we can't be there all the time to do it, and the people that need to to implement it, they already have enough to implement. Well, coro, that's my field work to student, right? And I'm saying to my field work, two student, I want you to sit in that kindergarten classroom all day and do all the transitions for them. That's what coro is doing. And so we're getting this ability to really represent the true, distinct value of occupational therapy and improve the educational experience for entire districts, not to mention all of the clinicians that work at capable kids and the clinicians that I've had the great opportunity to hear from at gallant therapy services too, have all said the improvement with which a child proceeds with the coro app is leaps and bounds faster than how they are able to improve and perform when we were sort of walking through it alone, because we're seeing very directly, what are those very specific skills to hone in on and work on when we only have that 30 minutes with them, and that's, you know, has to be inclusive of walking to get them and then going over to the coat closet to do our services, right? But now we know that this can consistently be applied throughout their day in a meaningful way. We also know that the entire classroom might be doing some of that. We also know that what we're working on is the deficit that needs that extra push. So I might not have a session where I'm doing any of the you know, we usually end up a session with let's write those two to three sentences. Well, I might not be writing the sentences with them again until it's time for me to take a look at at that quarter reporting period, because I know that this is so related to finger isolation and finger strength and endurance that that's what I'm working on the entire 30 minutes that I'm with them and and really, then I'm able to progress that child in A in a much, much faster rate. And you know, I think that having that opportunity then to to hit that progress reporting period of time and say, All right, I'm pulling up this Word document, and I've got a thorough report of what that child has done these past six weeks, nine weeks, and I'm it's in Word and I might add some sentences that I want to add. I might take out some charts that aren't necessary, but I'm also showing you really objective and consistent data, which is exactly what IEPs need from us, consistent data collection. But in OT we all know how hard that is. Well, this is making it so that we are collecting now the most objective and consistent data?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're gonna, I think we're gonna start to wrap up here. I can only in my head. I'm just thinking, I wish this was a video based podcast and that we could really dive into it. I think we've covered most of what we can cover without, like, really diving into it. And as Karen and Allison, you both alluded to, right? You have the free demo that we can go on. And I'll be sure to link to all that in the show notes. And if I can make some sort of otschoolhouse com and set that up, I totally will, so everyone can attend that. If Quora would be open to it, I will definitely reach out in the coming days. But if someone out there listening, a school based OT, a clinic based OT and OTA, anyone is out there listening and they're interested, like, hey, this sounds awesome. I want to get the process started at my school site, if not for my entire team, at least for me. What does that? What does the steps look like to getting to the point where you can start to use coro on a regular basis?     Karen Jacobs     Yeah. So what I would suggest doing is for anybody to reach out to us, and we can pass that along to our contacts at korro again to get the ability to use the korro experiences, which is a platform they need to be certified, and that's really important. So I think reaching out how do you get certified, is really the the next step, and that could be through a demo, and again, going to the website, OT, dot, K, O, R, R, O, dot, a, i, they can sign up there for a demo, and it's about 40 minutes, and it will answer everything about the next steps.     Alyson Stover     And Jayson, I think you make a really great point. Coro is incredibly useful and and can transform your practice. Besides the fact of transforming your practice, the excitement that you hear and Karen and I is because we think it really can transform child development through the mechanism of occupational therapy practitioners, which is so exciting, but you don't have to necessarily say, How do I get my whole school on board? There are many times, just like many of us use our continuing education funds to maybe go and learn about Handwriting Without Tears, or some of the other programs and tools that we put into our own individual toolbox. Coral can be offered as your own individual tool. You can sign up and get certified as an individual clinician, utilizing it as as as your tool in your toolbox. You can also get your school district excited and have have your school district say, how do we get all of our Occupational Therapy professionals certified in this it's it's made in a way that says we know that this product is going to enhance your ability to do what you need to do with less fatigue and stress and burnout and some more objectivity. So if that means you use it as your own, you where you earn. You get to carry your certification with you wherever you go. Once you're certified, it's you that is certified. So do it as an individual, do it as a group, do it as a school district, do it as a clinic. But do it.    Karen Jacobs     Yeah, and I just want to add to that Alyson that we've built a community of practice with korro, and we meet with all the people who are korro certified on a regular basis, because we want people to have this exchange, to help grow the korro app, the platform, and to have input. So I think for me, one of the most exciting aspects is that this was designed by Occupational Therapy practitioners for us, and that the company wants to hear from us as they grow this product. So be part of this. Be part of our OT plus AI revolution, with coro as the catalyst in child development    Jayson Davies     absolutely well. Karen Alyson, thank you so much for joining me and the many other school based ot practitioners here on the otschoolhouse com podcast. We really appreciate it, and we will definitely stay in touch to see where korro goes, maybe in a few years or so, catch back up.     Karen Jacobs     Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Jayson.    Alyson Stover     Yes. Thank you.    Jayson Davies     Thank you once again for tuning in to Episode 156, of the otschoolhouse com podcast. Hope you found our conversation with Dr Jacobs and Alyson Stover, as enlightening and inspiring as I did, I cannot wait to get my hands and play around with korro AI, I actually already set up my demonstration. When this podcast comes out, I will have, literally, like, just had that demonstration. So I'm excited for that, and it's going to be really interesting to learn more about it and see how this progresses moving forward, as we've explored today, AI is not just a tool, but a valuable partner that can help us gather objective data, streamline our processes and ultimately enrich the support that we provide to our students. By embracing these advancements in the field, we can continue to drive innovation with n ot and ensure that we meet the evolving needs that our community serves, whether that's in schools, in the clinics or anywhere else we might work. Don't forget to check out the show notes at otschoolhouse com slash Episode 156, for more information and resources mentioned in today's episode, and if you're interested in trying out coro AI for yourself, or at least getting a demonstration for that, you can learn more at ot dot. korro dot, a i, that's ot dot, K, O, R, R, o.ai , and of course, there's a link in the show notes. Thank you once more to Dr Jacobs and Alice and stova for sharing their insights here on the podcast. We really thank them for that, and I really do hope that we get an update on this in the near future with them. It'd be really cool to see how coro grows from here, and how AI and OT grows from here, from their perspective, with that, I bid you a farewell until episode 157 where I have a very special surprise in store for you, hint you may get to know me a little bit better than you ever have before. With that, thanks for tuning in, and I will see you next time.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the otschoolhouse 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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 157 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, the roles are switched as host Jayson Davies takes the guest seat, being interviewed by Abe Saffer, a federal lobbyist for the American Occupational Therapy Association.  Together, they discuss the power of advocacy in the OT profession. Learn about Jayson’s journey and the important role that AOTA plays  in shaping education policy. Tune in to be inspired and find ways to take action! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify the key roles that advocacy plays at different levels within the occupational therapy profession. Learners will understand  the importance of engaging with AOTA and state organizations in ensuring that OT practitioners have a voice in legislative decisions. Guests Bios In 2017, Jayson founded the OT Schoolhouse website and now supports school-based OT practitioners via courses, conferences, and the OTS Collaborative community. With experience as both a contracted therapist and an "in-house" employee for two distinctly different districts, Jayson has had the opportunity to appreciate the differences between both small-rural and large-suburban districts. For over five years, he has been helping therapists implement proactive tiered interventions, support IEP teams with goals and services, and feel more satisfied with the job they are doing as school-based OT practitioners. Quotes “The first word in IEP is individualized. Right? And we, as the OT practitioner, whether we have 1 year experience or 20 years of experience, we have the ability to customize our services to the way that we best see fit.”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “You learn from those informal conversations, and you learn by asking questions and receiving answers.” -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “Your OT degree, your OT certification, your OT license is what helps you to get a job, but it is the continuing education that you take that truly makes you the occupational therapist or the occupational therapy assistant that you will become.” -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr says that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. And I think we sort of understand that.”  -Abe Saffer “AOTA is there to protect and expand the profession. And then beyond that, it's to just find opportunities where we can have the biggest impact.” -Abe Saffer Resources 👉 AOTA - Advocacy 👉 AOTA Back to School Page 👉 OTAC 👉 Hill Day 👉 Follow Abe on X (Twitter)   👉  Abe’s Email Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Abe Saffer     Hello and welcome back to OT school house, where we explore all things school based occupational therapy. This is episode 157 and I hope you had a great Labor Day. I'm your host. Abe Safdar, one of the federal lobbyists for the American Occupational Therapy Association. I'm thrilled to have a very special guest with me today. Jason Davies was nice enough to let me take over this episode so I could have the opportunity to ask him all the important questions I've been dying to ask, though this is his podcast, I don't want to give him special treatment by failing to provide him a proper introduction. Jayson is a school based occupational therapist located in Southern California with over 10 years of experience in the field, you likely know him far better for his role as your normal host for this podcast. He's the founder and driving force behind otschoolhouse, and it's back to school conference, all of which have become invaluable resources for OTs and OTs working in the education setting. In our conversation today, Jason and I will discuss his journey into occupational therapy, the unique challenges and rewards of working in the schools, and the importance of advocacy for the OT profession. We'll also explore the role of professional associations like aota, and how OTs and OTs can get involved in shaping education policy. Let's Cue the intro music and dive into the conversation Jason and I had about his experiences and insights as a school based OT and entrepreneur in the field.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the otschoolhouse com podcast. Your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development.    Abe Saffer     Welcome Jayson to your own podcast. Your first time as a guest. I'm very excited. I will say as a two time guest of otschoolhouse podcast, that you're in for a treat. So welcome. How are you doing?     Jayson Davies     Thank you. Abe. I am doing very well. And you know what this is, I am now a two time guest on my own podcast. You are not the first person to interview me. I know, I know you were looking forward to that. I'm sorry.    Abe Saffer     I really was.    Jayson Davies     But it will be fun. Nonetheless, I think it was episode 100 I think it was a special 100th episode. I had someone interview me, but it was not the wonderful Abe Saffer to interview me. So I'm excited for this. Let's go.    Abe Saffer     I'm going to hold on to that you only do this on special occasions, so that's just what's going to keep me going. But no, I'm so thrilled and honored to be able to do this. I'm really excited we're going to talk. I want to hopefully be able to talk a little bit more about this, but we're we've been working on a big back to school campaign, and so I'm really thrilled that otschoolhouse is part of it. So it made me really want to hear your story and ask you some questions and figure out, like, what we can be doing. But I want to start with my personal favorite question, because it's it's usually so different with everyone else. But what made you a young Jayson Davies want to become an occupational therapist.    Jayson Davies     All right, let's dive into so occupational therapy. It was not on my radar until probably around high school. And the first part the way I was introduced to occupational therapy, kind of twofold. One, my uncle had had a stroke, and, you know, still a pretty decent stroke. I mean, difficult language processing, like even today, right? He is so smart and he likes to follow stocks and whatnot. So he loves to to follow CNBC and whatnot, but he has such difficulty expressing himself, the expressive language is not there. And I remember going to Casa Kalima, the local rehab facility, and seeing him actually interact with occupational therapy. And so that's kind of one side of it, and the other side was that my sister was actually going into occupational therapy. And so I was introduced to OT by kind of observing OT, but I kind of became more familiar with ot because my sister was an OT, and she was here in the local area. Actually, when she went to school, she, like, kind of went up to northern California. I'm in Southern California, so I had, like, no idea what she was doing up in Northern California, but she moved back, and she actually started working at a clinic known for sensory integration down here in Southern California. And that's when I started to shadow her, I probably volunteered 150 to 200 hours at this si clinic. And so I got to follow her around. I got to follow a physical therapist around. I got to follow other OTS around and really learn about si and what that meant. Of course, this was re my education. A lot of these hours were while I was in junior college, trying to figure out which direction I wanted to go. So yeah, that's kind of where it really stemmed from. And I think as I was volunteering, as I was following my sister around, like the thing that really hit me hard was see. Seeing these, these kids, these students, and knowing, thinking back on my high school career, and seeing, you know, the special education classrooms, and the students in those special education classrooms walking around campus kind of segregated. I mean, you know, segregation, quote, unquote, doesn't exist anymore, but segregation definitely still exists. And you see that on your campus, you know, you see the students in the special education classroom, and you don't necessarily know how to interact with them. You you're not given the opportunity to interact with them. And that was definitely something that stemmed my interest, again, in occupational therapy, so kind of a combination of all those three different things. And then if you want to throw even one more thing on top of it, the other area of interest that I had was film production. And film production was not necessarily the most stable option to go with. I would say, you know, it's higher upside, maybe, but also a little more difficult to get in. I wanted to come out of college knowing that I'd be able to pay off my student loans, knowing that I'd be able to get a job and all that. And so there was a little bit of that piece as well. So yeah, all of that led me to occupational therapy.    Abe Saffer     That's amazing. That's it's fantastic that you were able to get all of those, those perspectives of it. So I think you might have already answered this, but just to be clear, like, what when you know you, your experience seemed to be in adult rehab with your uncle, and then more of the SI with your with your sister. But what made you decide finally, like schools were the place that you wanted to work, and you already said you wanted to pay off student loans, so assuming it wasn't related to that, but I'd love to hear what excited you to go into schools.    Jayson Davies     I will say the second job I took was highly related to the student loans, because I got a big pay increase to get my second job. But no, I had no idea I was going to go into the schools until I was in the schools. Honestly, even in college, we had to put together like a five year 10 year plan. And I remember my 10 year plan in college was to open up an SI clinic. Totally blew that one out of the water like now I own an online business, primarily, right with ot school house, but, yeah, I really didn't know I was going to be in the schools until I was in the schools. Honestly, I was just wrapping up my board exams, and a friend who worked in the schools was like, Hey, I know you want to work in pediatrics. I work at this school district through a contract company. And, you know, I enjoy it. I like doing it. And so I got in contact with that third party contracting company, and that's how I landed in the schools. Never looked back. I I did a little bit of home hospital, you know, on the weekends and nights on the way home from my school, school gig, I worked in a cute, sorry, not a cute, a rehab facility for adults on on weekends sometimes. But obviously, I've never left the schools. And now I'm, I get to talk with school based OT practitioners every single day through the OT schoolhouse.    Abe Saffer     Someone who does that as well for a different reason, like it's, it is a perk. I can't even express the school based folks are the absolute best. I know. Schools are such a different setting than anywhere else, like it's I was actually joking the other night that in normal, traditional medical settings, you sort of get the services that your payer will cover, you know, your insurance or whatever. But in schools, it's more, you know, Medicaid is the is considered like a perk, because you just have to provide these services. So it's such a different setting in general. And when you started out, I guess, what do you wish that you had known or that someone had told you when you first started out? And going back, what would you tell the younger you like something that you you know absolutely wish that you would have known back then?    Jayson Davies     Great question. I was actually just writing a newsletter today, and it will have already come out before or by the time this episode airs, but I think one of the big things that I wish I would known was that an IEP doesn't always have to look exactly the same, and your ot services don't have to look exactly the same. In fact, they shouldn't look the same. The first word in IEP is individualized, right? And we, as the OT practitioner, whether we have one year experience or 20 years of experience, we have the ability to customize our services to the way that we best see fit, not the way that the OT before us did services, not the way that the OT at another school or another district services, but the way that we know how to provide services. And we all make the best decisions that we can in the moment that we have right and and the decision that I make today is going to be different from the decision I make a year from now, because I'm going to be a new person. I'm going to have attended New continuing education, I'm going to have learned about new theories, I'm going to have read new research articles, and that's perfectly okay, you know? Uh, you know, when you're a kid, flip flopping is a bad thing here, but, but as you become an adult, you flip flop because you learn new information. You have more information at your disposal. And I think that is really the main thing that I wish I had known at the time. Because I think when I first came into the schools, I was like, Oh, this. IEP has one time a week for 30 minutes as a pullout setting. That must be what the previous ot put on there. I'm just going to keep it the same. But as I became more confident, as I better understood my role as a therapist, I really started to branch out and say, You know what, maybe two times a month, maybe one time a month for 15 minutes at pull out, and one time a month, 15 in the classroom, and started to kind of realize that I had, at least, you know, it's an IEP team decision, but I had the ability to make a recommendation that was different from what someone else might say. And I think that that took a while for me to kind of understand.    Abe Saffer     I'm a regular listener of the podcast, and I don't know if this is like a saying that you normally have, but the line, the first word of the, you know, the first word of the IEP stands for individualized. I don't know if that's if it's a go to that. I've never heard it. It's fantastic, and people might see me use it in the future. I think that that is exactly right. Like it's, you know, there's it's all schools are and education should all be very specifically individualized, but like, as universal as possible. And so I just, I want to highlight that and put in a big sign in my background of meetings  We're gonna have to get Abe assigned that he can put it right behind his office. IEP is individualized. No, no, but it is something that I say, and I probably don't say it enough, but I will challenge people. And I think I do this in my A to Z course, I challenge people to look at their caseload and ask themselves, is my caseload actually individualized? Because if you look at your caseload, and every single student is one time a week for 30 minutes, is that IEP really individualized? I mean obviously, or I hope they have different goals. Goals is one way that you can individualize an IEP. Accommodations is a way you can individualize an IEP, right? But, yeah, look at your services, and are they all the same, or are they more individualized? I love it. I was, I was speaking at a conference a couple months ago, and while I was drafting for remarks, I actually threw this parallel between advocacy and OT and I talked about that there's a ton of evidence and best practices and case studies that you can you can do, but when it comes down to actually one specific effort, it is going to be completely different. Like, you could do everything wrong and still succeed and do everything right and still fail. And, like, I, for me personally, that's one of the reasons I love my job, is because it's, it is that individualized, sort of unique effort that you make? And so it's, yeah, like, I love it. So I do want to sort of switch gears just because I'm I want to ask the following question with also the appreciation that I love otschoolhouse, like, what made you decide after school that you wanted to do podcasting and sharing this sort of knowledge with with OTS around the country?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, so 2015 about closer to 2016 2017 is when I started to have this idea, and along with my colleague at the time, so I started practicing in 2012 around August, September, you know, after I did my field work in the summer, passed the boards and whatnot, and then I had moved. I worked one year at a school district through a contractor, relatively local. But then I moved into a new role, and that new role was kind of, I like to I like to joke and say that it's halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It's kind of out there. And so I was working there with one occupational therapy assistant, and eventually I grew the program to be able to hire another occupational therapist, and we would have our team meetings together, and it would just be the three of us, and we would do this on a monthly basis. And there'd be some times when we were just like, hey guys, I see you every day, like, I don't know what we should have our team meeting about. Like we talk every day, you know, we want to expand and and to be honest, two of us were relatively new into the profession. Profession. Still, at that time, the occupational therapy assistant that we worked with had more experience, but we wanted to kind of get out of our zone of comfort. We wanted to learn more, and we didn't really have that opportunity to we eventually did, actually, we reached out to other districts in the area, and sometimes we would meet with them, and we really appreciated that we loved meeting with other therapists that wasn't us three, like we just found that even if we weren't going to learn from one another, we did learn from one another. Sure, and that ultimately led to the idea of the otschoolhouse com. Part of it was because we wanted to support other OTS. Part of it was completely selfish, because we wanted to learn from other ot practitioners ourselves. And so we decided to start the otschoolhouse com blog. At the time, myself and Abby Parana, who if you've listened to the first few episodes of the podcast, she's actually on the podcast. And over time, we just kind of grew and split directions. She moved away, and so I kind of took over the OT schoolhouse. But yeah, it all started out as a blog. I quickly learned that I don't like typing, and so we moved into a podcast. And yeah, the rest is kind of history. It became courses. It became the otschoolhouse com collaborative, and the back to school conference. And I love being able to support ot practitioners. I also, again, selfishly, love to have this podcast, because I get to talk to therapists and learn from therapists that I would never have had the opportunity to. I mean, we're talking Alice Stover, we're talking Karen Jacobs, Suzanne Smith Rowley, so many ot practitioners that it's just been a dream of mine to, like, have conversations with and I've been able to do that, and I've been able to share them with everyone who listens. So yeah,    Abe Saffer     I love it. That's I can absolutely see that as someone who's, you know, I'm not A, not an OT. I don't have any training. But like working with some of these, these folks that every article that I read is either written by or cited, just the giants in the field, and I'm, I'm talking with them, you know, and working with them like, it's, it's amazing still. And I can't even imagine if I, you know, invested as much time as you did into the profession. So it's that's wonderful. Um, so I love the idea of you just wanting to provide support to your fellow practitioners, as well as get that support. You know, the first thing when I think of supporting practitioners, the first thing I think about is for, I think hopefully obvious reasons, is aota, but the state association is also a huge deal. You living in California, the California ot association is fantastic, you know the and I know a lot of those folks there, but how did being a member of both AOTA and OTAC how that impacted you while you were in the schools, and even while you were starting to, you know, build up and create this, this podcast and this platform,  Absolutely both aota and OTAC, the OT Association of California, and now even a few other state associations that I have had the opportunity to speak at, such as Colorado, hoping to get to Texas soon, but yeah, they have had a huge part every step of the way, even well before I was an OT as a student, I as a student, I actually volunteered for the otschoolhouse com. Kind of see what that looked like. Got to be a room monitor and learn from people and and just kind of see how these conferences operate a little bit. So even as a student, I was already kind of getting into it. And I remember going to aota in 2012 and it was down in San Diego. I believe it was 2012 maybe 2011 but I remember seeing that and just being absolutely amazed by the congregation of occupational therapy practitioners. And I like to post on social media occasionally, and I love saying this right, like your ot degree, your otschoolhouse com, ot license is what helps you to get a job, but it is the continuing education that you take that truly makes you the occupational therapist or the occupational therapy assistant that you will become, that you will be tomorrow and the day after that, and and the years after that. And that's a big piece of what OTAC and aota and all the other state organizations support with right a lot of them have online, very low cost, affordable, if not free, continuing education courses that you can learn from from fantastic therapist. And then you got aota, same thing, the big conference, which, you know, Ava had the pleasure of, finally, I think you finally, convinced me to get to an aota conference after 10 years, the pandemic didn't help. But, yeah, you know, getting to the conference and again, being able to make connections, meet new people, and just learn from amazing therapists is just remarkable. And even beyond that, when it comes to the actual business side of things, I still remember like without being a part of otschoolhouse com may never have gotten off the ground because I relied so much on other members when I met with them, kind of asking them, like, Hey, would you be interested in this website that you know, supported school based ot practitioners, and this is kind of what we're thinking about, a podcast where you can earn CEUs and courses and resources and whatnot. And I got a lot of feedback. Like, everyone was just so supportive. So, yeah, every facet, every facet of my ot career, has been supported by aota OTEC. And now, like, now where I am in my career, right? We were, or I've been on the aota podcast. I was a part of the AI and OT webinar that aota put on back in January, I believe it was. And now I've been able to connect with you, which is just amazing, because now I'm getting into the advocacy side of things, which, yeah, I mean, it's getting fun. Yeah, no, that's, that's fantastic. And you passionate professional keyed me up right to my next question, and one that's obviously near and dear to my heart is advocacy. And so I'm, I'm curious that, in both of your roles as that school based practitioner and as well as the entrepreneur, like, what does advocacy mean to you? Like, how do you how does you view that as part of your life?    Jayson Davies     I think for me, it's twofold. And I say this all the time, is that we need to advocate actually, maybe even threefold. You've got to advocate as an OT for your clients. Like, that's, I think, the first place we start, especially as a newer therapist. Like, we don't necessarily know how to advocate for ourselves as a profession or ourselves as an employee, but I think first we learn how to advocate for our students in that IEP or while talking to a teacher or talking to a paraprofessional or lunch aid being able to advocate for them. I think that's the first part. The second part is then advocating for yourself as an employee and being able to share with your administrators, your supervisors, a what you do as an occupational therapist, because many of them still have no idea, or a very, a very small idea, of what we do, and also being able to advocate for things that, gosh, that we shouldn't have to advocate for but we do. But things like having our own space to work with students, things like having actual supplies and therapy materials and evaluation tools that are effective and impactful and can support us and ultimately support the students, being able to advocate for our caseload, for our workload, for the time and the the support that we need, being able to potentially advocate for Even software that might give us more time, especially today in the in the world of AI. So that's the second part. And then you get to the larger part, which is profession, right? Advocating for our profession, which a, you know, and do better than anyone on this planet, I believe, for school based ot practitioners. And that's the piece that I'm just really starting to get a part of recently, I think it was last year I attended the OT Association of California Hill day. It was virtual. I think I've done that maybe two times now. Is just a unique experience, right? Like earlier, we talked about almost being starstruck by talking to like ot practitioners that we never would have been able to talk to. Kind of the same thing goes when you're when you're advocating for your profession, right? Like, the next thing you know, you're on a call with a state senator. And it's funny, I know you've experienced this Abe, right? Like you hop on three or four calls a day, and calls one, two or three, it's all meeting with an aide, right? An aide of the senator, an aide of the state senator, and then call number four happens, and it's like, the actual state senator hops on. You're just like, oh, wait, whoa, you actually care enough to be here and to talk to us as the OT practitioners and really hear from us and and that's really cool. So yeah, I think it's kind of those three different levels that we really have to advocate for ourselves. And in California, I'll add one more thing. In California, we are advocating for ot practitioners to be credentialed employees, and what that means is that we would have the ability to potentially seek out administrative roles if we want to. We won't be required to seek out administrative roles, right? Like no one can make us do that, but it would open up the door for us to be an administrator, and kind of going back to that employee side of advocating. Mean, wouldn't it be cool if your boss was an OT? I mean, I know your boss is an OTA, but to all the school based ot practitioners out there, wouldn't it be cool if your boss actually, you know, had been in your shoes, had actually knew what ot was and and all that good stuff. So imagine the difference that you can make for your students.  So, yeah, no, I think you're exactly right on that. And it's, it's something that I've been I've been really trying to push for. I've actually been able to meet seven or eight now, OTs that work at different state departments of education, and they're the ones in different roles. Sometimes they're, you know, the OTPT lead, sometimes they're related service lead, and sometimes they do, like the Medicaid but like, they're all a couple of them, but on this podcast, Elizabeth Duncan, down in Louisiana, I think is one, and then I'm sure others that have just escaping me. But. They're just, it's fantastic. And I think, you know, you hit on that, it's important to sort of express what OT is to as a profession, and having someone in that leadership role to be able to say, well, I already know, and I'm in the room where it happens, you know, to quote Hamilton, and they're having that there is one of the most effective ways that I've seen of folks getting OTs and OTs being able to practice a larger scope of their profession. So that's it's a fantastic, fantastic point. First of all, really quickly, if I can, I love the Hamilton reference, like that soundtrack helped me to get through the pandemic. Also, I got to give a huge shout out right here to Jamie Spencer, because I know Jamie is doing a lot to to try and organize the advocacy among school based ot practitioners. She's doing so much in New York, and I know now she's really trying to basically help other states as well, because they are making progress in New York, and I know in California, we're making progress, and we're trying to get that word out to others. And I know it's hard. I unfortunately, like you mentioned OTAC, OT Assotiation California, like we are strong. We do have a lot of support. We have, I want to say it's one and a half advocates for us in Sacramento, but I know a lot of states don't, a lot of states don't have that support. Maybe the membership isn't great, maybe the Leadership isn't great. Maybe it's a combination of all of the above. Maybe it's just, it's just hard for them to be productive, like it's just art. It takes a lot of volunteer power. It takes a lot of money. And I think in New York, California. I know Texas is doing work too. I believe their association is built up to an extent. And I think that we need to do a lot of work in these states and then really pass it on and say, Hey, we've done this. This is how we did it. This is how we reached out to our state congress people and and support them, because I know from conversations with you, a lot of us want to say, hey, we need to do something in Washington DC, but that's not where everything happens. A lot of things happen at the district, maybe even the county and state levels. So we've got to advocate at all levels, not just in Washington DC.    Abe Saffer     No, absolutely, and especially when it comes to education policy. I mean, I've talked about this ad nauseum, but it's so it's so specific to the state, and even, I mean, not even just like districts, but also sometimes it's different school to school. And so that advocacy piece about advocating for yourself as an employee and for your you know, with being able to express what the profession is to your your colleagues is so important. So, you know, I understand that advocacy and you know, directly asking an elected official or their staff for something can be overwhelming for people, at least in theory, I will put a plug in that I've never once in my career, which I've done this 1000s of times, brought someone who's never advocated before into a meeting and then given them the tools, and then afterwards, them come out and say that was amazing, like they've always done that. But I fully understand it can seem, you know, overwhelming, but in terms of advocating both at the state and federal level, like, what do you feel is the most real, simple way for ot practitioners to advocate for the profession?    Jayson Davies     Well, I can say that you and aota have made it a lot easier with the website that you now have, that you showed me recently where we can easily just send an email to our congress people, and I've actually have, slowly over time, received a few emails back from them. Obviously, to some degree they're auto generated or just, you know, brief, but at least they've gotten them. So I think that's one way. I think another relatively easy way is, is to reach out to your state association and ask them if they're having a hill day or get involved in that hill day. A lot of them are now virtual, which obviously makes it a lot easier on you to attend. But I think the most rewarding one was actually this one, and I had to go outside of my comfort zone, but I felt so much better after I did I was actually attending a car show in my hometown of Gino hills, local car show for whatever reason was going on. And I was just listening, I was like, kind of the presentation was going on. And as the presentation goes on, I hear that a person from so and so's office is here, and she's presenting the car show with the certificate or something like that. And as soon as I heard that, I was like, wait, I know that name. I know that Congress, state Congressman's name. OT Association of California recently sent out an email saying, hey, this person is part of the education committee. Like, we need to get in their ear and understand. And so, oh, gosh, my poor wife. I think I kind of, like, immediately started walking away from my poor wife. I was like, Babe, I need to go talk to this person. And so, yeah, like, I just went up, and I wasn't the actual Congress person that was there. It was, you know, an aide, but because of those emails that OTAC had sent out. And because of the idea that, hey, we need to advocate, I looked up on my phone, I looked up that email that Otac had sent out so I could get the key points in my head. And then I walked up and I said, Hi, Mrs. So and so, like, Hey, I just want to express that I'm an occupational therapist, and in California, we're trying to get OTS credentialed here so that we can, you know, support all of our students, all the staff on public education campuses. And I'd really appreciate if you and your congressperson would support a, b, whatever number it was. And and she was like, Hey, thank you. You know, as you know, my congressman is on the Department of Education, and we really value your input. And would you mind just following up with me with an email? And so now I developed a conversation with this person. I got her business card. I was able to follow up with an email that just kind of restated what I had already talked to her about. And I developed that personal relationship with her, and now I have her email saved in my my Google, whatever inbox, and if I wanted to, I could open that conversation again anytime I wanted. And, yeah, it was scary, but at the end of the day, right? Like it didn't hurt me one bit. Took five minutes of my time and I advocated for the profession.    Abe Saffer     No, that's, that's fantastic. I mean, I love, I love that story, and I will tell you that you should absolutely avail yourself of emailing that person whenever anything pops up, and whether it is a just checking on this or a hey, thank you for doing this, like all of those things, anytime you connect with them, like it just helps build those relationships. And after a while, like you just start, they'll start to reach out to you and say, like, Hey, we're we're working on this. Like, what do you think? And I had that happen recently with some folks at the Department of Ed, and that is the best feeling in the world when you're, like, being asked by the people that are pushing this stuff out. But I love that, so I want to talk, switch it to you. Talked about being selfish. I don't think there's any profession that's more self serving than mine, and so I don't think it's any any secret that I love the profession, and I am a big believer that we need aota itself needs to be doing just as much as we can, although, you know, we are staffed and we have limited resources. But what do you feel like? I think you sort of touched on this a little bit, but we'll start off with the positive, like, what do you feel like you're get being a member of aota from the National Association, and we won't include me joining your podcast, because I'm doing that because I'm a super fan.    Jayson Davies     You know, after attending AOTA like, the thing that jumps to the top is community is just, you know, being able to get into a room of 150 other school based ot practitioners, let alone 1000s of OT practitioners in general, right? And being able to have conversations that we just aren't able to have when we're sitting in our district that has anywhere from one to 25 to 50 ot practitioners, if you're at a really big district, obviously, but that community side is huge, and then you have the To be honest, something that I don't participate in enough, and I think about it all the time, but the OT community That aota has, right? Like there is an entire online community that you have access to as aota, and honestly, I need to use that more, because that is part of that community aspect, and you don't have to necessarily partake and organize professional development in order to learn right. Like you learn from just you learn from those informal conversations, and you learn by asking questions and receiving answers. You learn by answering questions that other ot practitioners have. So that community is huge, and then the other piece is definitely the the advocacy. Like, we don't see it all, and we get email updates sometimes about A, B, number, number, number, number, but we don't see that, but we know that it's happening. Honestly, if I because I think your next question is kind of like, what could AOTA potentially, you know, do more for school based OT's? For me personally, it would just be the communication side of things, like sharing with us more updates that are specific to what we're worried about. Her to the her to our concerns. And I know that's hard, because aota has a large, broad basis, right? Like within ot there are, I don't know how many different areas of OTR are there, like, when you're filling out those questionnaires, like, what area are you in? And there's like, eight or 10. If not more different areas that we can select. And that's hard, because what applies to me as a school based ot practitioner maybe doesn't always apply to acute rehab practitioner. And we have those, sis, right, specialized individual.    Abe Saffer     Special interest section, interest section.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yes, that. And so we have those, but I feel like we just don't get as much information that I think we'd really like to have. And so I think that's the that's one of the areas for me as a newer school based OT, the professional development was huge now, as I've gone through a lot of professional development courses, and now, at 10 years into being an OT I feel like I have so many different ways that I can access professional development, but definitely upfront. Being part of the state and being part of aota was was my primary way to earn professional development. So that was huge. But I think now it's moved more toward the community side and the advocacy side, because I've said it before, like, without a OTA, ot doesn't exist, so we need a OTA there to support us. We need to support ot aota as well as our states.    Abe Saffer     I agree, but it's always good to hear hear that sort of feedback, just because, I mean, obviously I'm partial to advocacy, but also on the community side of it, I always liken AOTA conference as like a wedding. It's everyone you love is in one spot, and you just don't feel like you have enough time to interact with and connect with all of them. I mean, it's I'm a pretty extroverted person, and after that, I'm always exhausted because I've just spent, you know, 18 hours a day just talking to everyone that I've been working with for years. So it's, oh my goodness, it's fantastic. And you and you organized like, a happy hour for a bunch of school based practitioners, and that, like, was one of my favorite memories from from Orlando, being able to be be part of that, and I'm hoping to, you know, I'll share with you, but when, when it's ready. But I'm hoping to be able to have some surprises for the school based community and and Philly, so we will see, But.    Jayson Davies     I cannot wait.     Abe Saffer     Yeah, I can't either. If I get it together, we'll we'll see. But it's exciting. So I think you sort of answered it a little bit like the communication piece is definitely something that I think the advocacy team has a love hate relationship with, because sometimes you can provide updates and a win will come completely random, and it can be difficult at times, but we want to be able to frankly, brag about what we do, because we're very proud. But I guess you know, short of the more of the communication and updates on what's going on. Like, what else would you love to see from aota? Like, what else would you love to see in terms of either resources or support or, you know, really, anything that you feel like would help you in any phase of the of the job?     Jayson Davies     I think two things come to mind. One is community, maybe on a smaller scale. You know, getting some people to organize small events in local communities, almost. I mean, some of the bigger cities, maybe. But, you know, bringing people together. I know they do, like the the pediatric conference. I think it's being held in Seattle this December. But even if there's just, I don't know who would be the people in charge of it. I don't know how it would get done, but just organizing, maybe some smaller meetups for not just school based ot practitioners, but, you know, other areas as well. And and get creative, you know, bowling or miniature golf, or, you know, meet at an arcade, like just small things to kind of establish that community, keep that community growing. That would, I think that's the main thing that comes to my mind. But you also mentioned, like resources. And I OTA, actually, I'm always surprised by the resources. Whenever I log on, like I I forget what is actually there, and there is quite a bit. And I don't know when did the rebrand take process, or when did the rebrand of the website start? Maybe, like, five, six years ago.    Abe Saffer     It was and then, you know, like it was around covid. So it could have either been three years. I don't know at this point, no, but yeah, it was four or five years ago now.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and since then, I've noticed that, I will say there are still a few, and we've talked about this, there's still a few resources that kind of haven't been updated, but there are a lot of resources that I didn't know were there, and I think that kind of leads back to that communication piece like you have, there's so much to communicate, and you're trying to communicate it to so many people. AOTA, I mean, and we just forget what's actually on the website. And so I would encourage all the school based ot practitioners to go over to the website, to the specific area for school based OT. Right? But also, Abe hasn't even talked about this much yet. Maybe in the intro he talked about it. We haven't recorded that yet, but he's developing an entire website, part, or at least an entire page on a OTS website that is dedicated to like back to school, and it has resources for advocacy. It has resources to share ot with their administrators. It has resources to share ot with anyone, not to mention resources actually help you as a practitioner. So definitely check out what is going on over on the website.    Abe Saffer     Well, I appreciate that I started off as a I just wanted to be able to, you know, celebrate and, you know, draw attention to some of the stuff that we've done. But it really turned into a, I think, a really good exercise of, how do you just remind folks what we have? Because we'll tell you that there, I reached out to the whole team, the whole organization, and they said, This is what I'm doing. What resources should I and I learned a bunch of things that we had that I didn't even know we'd had, and it's just because, like, everyone's busy and, you know, you see emails or like, Hey, we're rolling this out, and you're like, great, but unless you use them regularly, it's hard to remember. So like, we're, you know, I know all my advocacy resources, but there's some great stuff on there, including, I will put a pitch in for free contact hours, webinars and different events that provide completely free contact hours, and I think even one that might be MC I can't remember if it's on it or not, but there's a lot of contact hours, so yeah, hopefully people will be able to participate and take big part in that. This was absolutely amazing. I just really loved hearing your story, and hearing hearing, you know, your journey, and sort of like your your perspective on on both the association as well as advocacy. By the time that people hear this, I will have already participated in the back to school conference with as the advocacy panel, something that is near and dear to my heart. So I was, I was thrilled to be be part of that. And I know my colleague, barley shall last is going to be participating in another panel. So like we're aunt a loves. Love is otschoolhouse com. We're all over it, and people can still stream it for after the fact, right? I want to make sure we give a plug for people to check that out. I was, you know, by the time people hear this, your back to school conference is going to be in the rear view mirror. I'm really excited that I get to be part of a panel on advocacy. And, you know, I'm really looking forward to being able to participate in future conferences and future opportunities to provide your folks, you know, people in your community to be able to learn about advocacy, while also, you know, feeling empowered for it is that's, that's what I love to do. So it's funny whenever you email me and thank me for things, and I'm just like, you're doing the work that I wish that I had time and the resources to do. So really appreciate everything you do for, you know, for the community is, I mean, the OTS are special. And I will say that I feel like on the dart board of special that school based folks, for me, are right in that middle Bullseye area where they're just a little bit more special. So then I say that, not just as someone who works for ATA, but someone who is the son of two public school educators, and basically one of my family has gotten ot at some point in the last in the last eight years of my time at Aotea. So just really thank you for everything you've done, and I really appreciate you letting me take over your podcast. This was a lot of fun, and I will might have to strong arm you into letting me do this again with some point.    Jayson Davies     I think you just need to start your own podcast, like the OT advocacy podcast and and go.     Abe Saffer     We, we've done a couple of them. We used to do it. We actually have a it was like called policy matters, which had the double meaning. But we just because after covid and with some of our our staffing stuff, we just it has not come back up, but it might be something that is is worthwhile, or even just doing, you know, Facebook Lives, or whatever, where we're just trying to, as, you know, talk to people what we're doing. You know, I do office hours where I don't talk about how to practice, but how, like, what's going on in policy, and answer questions and hear from people. So I just did one again. When people hear this, it'll be last week, but keep looking at the AOT website for when, then the next one is scheduled. We sort of do those ad hoc but this was, this was fantastic. And I'm just, I'm so glad that you were able to make that switch and sort of use the filmmaking and the sort of, you know, entertainment value, as well as the occupational therapy training to create this for practitioners, because it is, it is something we really need. And by we, I mean not a practitioner, but like, pretend like I'm cool.    Jayson Davies     You are cool, but no before, before you let me go or I let you go. I don't know how which way it would be, but. I two things. One, I definitely think an occasional Facebook, YouTube, live, whatever that might be, would be awesome. I think when we were talking about communication earlier, I think that would go so far. And the office hours that you're doing, I know, I know you understand the communication piece because you're doing the office hours like that is huge. But the other thing I was going to say, and I don't, unless someone has been to aota and met you the conference like they don't know what your role at aota is, and I had no idea what it was, until I, you know, landed and woke up early. Actually, I woke up late for the first day of aota and was walking by and you were literally sitting by yourself at a little table just waiting for someone to sit with you like I knew I was going to meet with you. We had had plans. You owed me a drink, and I think you still owe me a drink, but I had no idea that you would just be sitting at a table waiting for people to come talk to you like that's how open you up.    Abe Saffer     Yeah, no, I, I love talking with folks. I mean, the I look at I look at conference, so I'm always by a OTS pack booth every at every conference. And actually, we started budgeting to have a table and chairs there. After a number of years with some of the best conversations that I've had with folks, I actually met an OT this year, who does accessibility, an organ, a company with it's her and an architect or an interior designer, and they actually like work with schools on, like, inclusive, accessible classrooms. And I was, I think she told me I was one of the first meetings she had that she met someone at conference when she showed up and I was able to bring her up for a big meeting on that exact thing. I love it like i i at conference, I am either in a session going for my run, or I'm sitting at that little table, generally trying to work, but most of the time just like, like, asking people to interrupt me so that I can talk and hear what's going on. So you know, if you see me ever, I hope people just feel free to reach out and and flag me down, because it's I just, I love it like it's, it's, I always learn something, and you just, you get smarter and better at your life by talking to by talking to practitioners. That's just the way it is.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And also, if people can't make it to a OTA in Philly or wherever city, it's going to be in the coming years, how can people get a hold of you? Because I know you are super open to emails and responding.    Abe Saffer     Oh yeah. So I'm on so I'm on Twitter. Will not call it anything else, sorry, but it's Abe, a, b, e, A ,O, T, A. But you can also, I think you can find me on the website, on the OTS website, and I'll Google it right now, just to make sure that I'm right. But my email address is just abe saffer, s, a, f, f, e, r, @ aot.org , and you can feel free to reach out to me there. And my my usual go to response is, sure, let's set up a time to talk. And I even have a link in my signature that I just say, like, find a time that works. We'll read it. And my only request is that you give me a little, a little understanding when I get jump on and I'm like, I don't know what we're talking about, but I'm here, so I'm always looking for people to be able to reach out, just because I think the most important thing for folks to know is I have no idea what issues are around, unless someone tells me. So if people aren't, you know, if someone's reaching out and saying, I'm struggling to do this, sometimes I can say, that's, you know, here's some tips and things that I think might help. But sometimes I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Like, can you take 10 minutes and explain it to me, and then the Add part of me will go down that rabbit hole and learn way too much. But it is such a prerequisite for the job to be able to, like, have those conversations. So I, you know, please, over over, reach out and then under, because it's only going to be a benefit.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, well, Abe, I know you're hosting this, but I want to ask you one more question as we wrap up. Yeah, I gave my idea for advocating a little bit like the things that that I've done, but from your perspective, what is the, you know, first drop in the bucket, like, way that someone can advocate for the profession, and just like, you know, dip their toe in the water.    Abe Saffer     So I this is, again, gonna sound probably self serving, but I think I've established that that's my comfort zone. I firmly believe the work that aota does is some of the best stuff that we do. Like our events, I think are the best, even though other folks are doing great events and our resources are amazing. Our practice team and event team are just fantastic. Everyone I work with are some of the best, most dedicated people. But if aota went away tomorrow, people, you know, there's other places and organizations that would fill in some of those voids, except for ad. Advocacy. And so I agree, we are advocating constantly, like I'm, you know, like I said, I'm reaching out to, like, the Department of Ed to make sure that there's ways to educate the public on what OTs and, you know, making sure that it's, it's clear that we're eligible for certain things. And in terms of my job and burnout, which, you know, is a really important issue, just everywhere, the only time that I ever really feel stressed, really feel like, you know, starting to feel burnt out, is when there's an opportunity I can't capitalize on, whether that's, you know, like, there's a new grant out there, or there's a new bill that I want to be able to, like, get ot included, but I just don't have the time. And so what I tell folks is that if you want to get that advocacy starts at the most basic level with aota. And right now, if we doubled our membership, there wouldn't be, we wouldn't, still not, would not represent half of the profession, but there'd be two of me, or two of our practice folks, or two you know, of my boss or my colleagues on advocacy again, self serving. I love there being more than me, more of me. So I sell people advocacy to state association and aota at the bare minimum, because the quote that I use a lot when I'm speaking to otschoolhouse com higher ed levels is that there's a quote from Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, that says the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. And I think we sort of understand that, that you know what that means. But I think there's also a connotation that like it's going to by itself, but when reality is that the phrase, the way that he used it in the speech, was that it's not going to bend unless we bend it like we need to do that. And so to see, you know, if we want to have the profession that we all know and love, one where OTS are the ones handling, you know, falls and not ETS, or that eating and feeding are handled by OTs and that SLPs, or that kids with autism are being seen by OTs and not only ABA therapists. That's all advocacy. Because if you're not constantly advocating to of your of your role, and sort of to expand it, then you're going to be on defense. And if you don't have the people to be on defense, you're it's not going to be a defense. It's going to just be a slaughter. So advocacy at the very core a OTS there is to protect and expand the profession, and then beyond that, it's to just find opportunities where we can have the biggest impact. And you know, that's we have a dedicated team that's just amazing. And sometimes I can't believe the stuff that we do, just in terms of how much it is. And so that's what I tell everyone. Like, if, if you want to be an advocate, do that, and then if you want to do more, reach out to me. Give me a call and tell me you want to, you want to be an advocate. And I will tell you some ways to start and help you through those like, or hand you off to a grassroots person who will help you do that. Or, you know, put you in touch with the state association, like, whatever I need to do to make sure that you feel comfortable.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. Yeah. I mean, here at the OT school house, right? Like, I've got a little posted note in my hand, and these are kind of, like the four key areas that we focus on at the otschoolhouse, com, school based OTS. Those are providing research, providing, you know, all things treatment and evaluations, like just kind of ideas, templates, all that fun stuff, helping therapists be organized in any way that they need to be. And the last one that I have on that list of four things is advocacy, and that's a huge one. You know, personally, for me, it's something that I I will not stop being a member of aota or my state organization. In fact, I may even add other state organizations that I support for the same exact reason you just mentioned, but advocacy is the fourth one on my list, not necessarily because it's at the bottom, but it is definitely something that I just don't have the capacity to do as much as organizations Like state and aota, state organizations and aota, because they have people like you and your boss and everyone that's like focused on that. And I think if we were to look back in time, right, aota was put together for the purpose of advocacy. If I'm not correct, please correct me, but it's not a OTA was not designed for professional development. I don't believe aota was not designed necessarily for handouts. It was designed to forward our profession through advocacy and other means. And when we say, you know, what is a OTA doing for us? It's not just the professional development. It is not just the resources online. It's not just. I guess putting ot out there in front of consumers, it is advocating for us at different levels of the government to make sure that we continue to have a job like without AOTA, we wouldn't probably be mentioned in IDEA, I'm assuming, is, is that fair to say,    Abe Saffer     Yeah, think so.     Jayson Davies     So, I mean.    Abe Saffer     Yeah.    Jayson Davies     Like, we wouldn't be an IDA, which means we'd be an afterthought. Like, there are many professions that would love to be mentioned in IDA, I'm sure that are not. And we are mentioned in IDA because we had someone at the table.    Abe Saffer     Yeah, no, I, I completely, I completely agree. And, you know, I really appreciate all your work and that. And I never looked at it as it was the fourth, because it was the least. But it was because I think, like, I think, like, what, you know, I feel honored to be part of this. But like, like, everyone in the OT community, your list of priorities isn't ranked by importance. It's I have a lot to do, and I need to figure out how to have the time to do it all. Yeah, so, and you're using that task analysis to figure out, like, what's the what's the best return on investment? So no, I appreciate that. Yeah. Well, I will end it there. I will take back the reins of control, but really, Jason just cannot. Thank you enough for everything you do and letting me do this. This was fun, and I hope everyone finds gets as much out of it as I did, but please feel free to reach out to me if there's anything I can do, and I'm talking to everyone, and you know you can go to aoc.org , and back to school stuff will be, will be there through the end of September. And there's a lot of, like I said, resources and events and different different things that people will be able to really, I hope benefit from both members and non members, like we're trying to, we hope that people want to go to become members, but we wanted to make sure that that everyone had opportunity to see what what AOT can do. So again, thank you so much for this. This was this was fantastic.     Jayson Davies     Thank you, Abe. It's been fun. Take care.    Abe Saffer     Yeah. Have it going.    Jayson Davies     All right, everyone give a round of applause for Abe Saffer taking over today with the hosting responsibilities. Thank you so much. A for coming on here, taking over the microphone and interviewing me that was fun. Haven't been interviewed in a while, and really appreciated sharing a little bit about my story and sharing all the fun stuff that we have going on, or that you have going on, I should say over at AOTA and I have going on at the otschoolhouse com, I am so glad that we've had some opportunities to collaborate. In fact, I am recording this outro about two days after you just came and presented or sat on a panel with us at the back to school conference, and I cannot thank you enough for that. If you enjoyed this episode and getting to know Abe a little bit. Be sure to give him a follow on the platform formerly known as Twitter for ot advocacy updates, some fun Abe comedy that I always appreciate and so much more. His handle over on x is at Abe, a o t a, Abe, A O T, A, be sure to give him a follow over there. It's just a lot of great stuff, especially during the aota conference, or whenever he is doing something special, some great stuff to be aware of over there. And finally, also be sure to check out aota.org/backtoschool  for some great school based ot resources. He's got updates on advocacy over there. He's got updates on just everything going on with OT. They have a lot of resources for school based OTs, like a flyer or a handout to give to your administrators to help them better understand OT. A lot of good stuff. They've kind of brought the best resources available for school based ot practitioners and put them on that site. I really hope that they don't take that site down anytime soon, because there's so much more there than is just for back to school. There's stuff there that will help you out all year long. So one more time. Thank you so much for listening along and learning a little bit about my story and why I advocate for every ot practitioner to be an AOTA member. And yeah, it's been fun. It's been real. I will catch you on the next episode of the otschoolhouse com. Have a great start to the school year.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the otschoolhouse 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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 158 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. What if there was a tool that could not only help you organize your thoughts and observations into a comprehensive report but also save you hours of work each week? Join us as Angela and Mani, the creators of Everbility, share how this game-changing tool for OTPs can streamline your documentation with customizable templates. Learn how the "brain dump" method can help you organize observations and save time, so you can focus more on supporting your students. Tune in to learn more! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify the benefits of using AI tools like Everbility compared to traditional methods or other AI tools, such as ChatGPT, by focusing on template standardization, ease of use, and time savings. Learners will understand how the Everbility tool assists occupational therapists in organizing, editing, and formatting their notes and assessments into cohesive, structured documents. Guests Bios Angela and Mani are co-founders of Everbility. Angela has a background in Occupational Therapy, Computer Science and Design and has worked and volunteered in health and disability services for the last 15 years. Mani has a background in Computer Science. Before Everbility, he led the platform and infrastructure teams serving millions of users for some of the biggest brands in the world. Together, they've built Everbility to support allied health professionals and reduce their administrative and documentation burden. Quotes “AI, even though we call it artificial intelligence, it's not actually intelligent. And so it doesn't have clinical reasoning.” ​​ -Angela Mariani  “If the input is bad, the output will not be as good. But if the quality of notes, the quality of services you're providing is good, then you'll have an output that is much closer to where you want it to be.”  - Mani Batra “One of my favorite questions to prompt chat gpt is, what else do you need from me?... What other information do you need me to provide in order to give me a good response?” -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “Basically, you get a report that's 80, 90% finished. You can use Everbility to edit that and finish all the content for it. And then you just you're almost done and you can download it in word doc and finalize.”  -Angela Mariani “People are saving significant time. And not just time, people are procrastinating less because they all of a sudden don't have this burden to start.”  -Angela Mariani Resources 👉 Everbility (Affiliate link) 👉 ChatGPT Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hey there, and welcome back to Episode 158 of the otschoolhouse, Comcast. I just realized I always say Welcome back, but sometimes it is not welcome back. Maybe this is the very first episode that you're listening to. You just maybe saw ever ability in the title, or something related to artificial intelligence in the title, and you're just like, hey, I want to learn more about AI and school based ot Well, if that's you, or if, again, you're returning for your 100th and 58th, episode. Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. This is going to be an episode that's all about helping you get done with documentation quicker than ever before, using the power of AI and here on the otschoolhouse com. I think we have touched on AI more than any other occupational therapy podcast or any real occupational therapy outlet out there, and it is something that I truly do believe in. I use it a lot in my business here at the OT school house, and I do think that it is something that is just going to change the game for occupational therapy practitioners, we're often asking ourselves, how we can be more efficient so that we can really so that we can spend more time with our kids, right the students that we work with and support. We want to get the notes done faster so that we can spend more time with them, and AI is allowing us to do that without taking away too much of what is necessary within our documentation, and so that's why today I am just really excited to introduce you to or maybe you've heard a little bit about it, but I'm excited to introduce you to everability, and the founders of everbility, Angela and Mani Mariani. So Angela is an occupational therapist, and her husband, Mani is a software engineer, and together, they have figured out how to put together a tool that is designed for us as occupational therapy practitioners, as you will hear in their voices in just a moment. They are Australian, so they're joining me pretty early in the morning when we did this interview, but they were troopers. They got up in the morning and they sat down for this interview, for you, for me, so that we could figure out how we can better use AI to support our ability to to complete notes and get things done faster and more efficiently. So without any further ado, I'm going to bring on Angela and money, and you are going to learn all about ever ability and how they have used AI to support us All right, so stay tuned.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the otschoolhouse com, 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     Angela and Mani, welcome to the otsuhaus podcast. How are you doing today?    Angela Mariani     We're really good. Thank you. Thanks for having us.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely so we are here to talk about some AI. We're here to talk about evaluations and all the really cool things that you two are doing kind of with the combination of those, and then even beyond that, to an extent. But before we do that, I want to give both of you just a quick, you know, minute or so to just kind of explain your background, because this is probably the most unique background we've ever had on the podcast. So Angela, we'll start with you. What's your background in OT?    Angela Mariani     In Australia for a number of years. I've also worked in a lot of different roles in healthcare and disability services for about 15 years. I have a background in computer science and graphic design on top of my occupational therapy background. And yeah, that's that's me    Jayson Davies     and Mani, what's your what's your ot background? Trick question here.    Mani Batra     So like, Angela and I are married, so any problems faced by Occupational Therapists like very close to home. So I am an ordinary OT. I've talked to over 200 OTS now in this journey. Yeah, probably more than that. In short, like how I got into this? Because I love playing with computers, to put it simply, and sort of myself, ascribe meaning of life as building things. And kind of just yeah, we started building things, and that's how you hear Yeah, computers and everything related to computers. That's me.    Jayson Davies     Awesome. And you two are both the creators, the co founders of everability, Ai. And just really quickly, I guess, how did you two pair up to create this? And then we'll dive into everything that it is. But like, what made you all even think to create this?    Angela Mariani     I think I'll start with that. So I'm definitely facing a problem, and I know that it's not just in Australia, and that's been through building this we've seen that, which is around clinical documentation was just really burning me out. I was often working in the evenings, on the weekends, finishing notes, finishing reports, communication with my customers, clients, patients. We've used all three words in different settings. And money had this, you know, already. Such an interest in AI that he was saying, well, there's ways that we could probably solve some of these issues you're having.    Mani Batra     Yeah, and like, over the last few years, like AI has been used in healthcare for a very long time to solve this particular problem that Angela was facing over the last few years, massively happened in generative AI. And it's like, oh, we can actually start doing something about it. So we just, yeah, uh, build something together on a weekend, put it out there, and started getting word of mouth happening. And kind of realized, as we talk to more and more people that it's actually a very massive problem, and we can actually do something to make world a little a better place.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. Um, sorry, I have to dive into this. You said that AI has been actually used in healthcare for a decent amount of time. I can tell you that no occupational therapy practitioner understands that. I don't understand it, and I'm kind of on the upper level of understanding AI for ot practitioners, at least, I think so. I want to ask you, when you're saying that AI's been in healthcare. I mean, how long? What does that look like? I mean, have we been using this and not even realized it generative?    Mani Batra     AI, no, when I say generative, AI, I mean text generation, sort of like chatgpt, that has been very recent, because the level of accuracy has gone up massively in the recent years, but sort of visual image recognition, say, scanning some X rays and detecting a disease that has been around for, I would say, 10 years or more, and the quality, the accuracy, has been increasing over a while. I remember, like, one of the first projects I ever studied in AI was like skin cancer detection. And this was like around 10 years ago, and even at that time, the accuracy that AI could provide was better than doctors. So, yeah,    Jayson Davies     Wow, that's impressive. So reading X rays, anything else that like OTS might be using, maybe not school based ot practitioners, but in general, I mean, documentation, has it been around, or is that more in the new horror phase.    Angela Mariani     Yeah, that's definitely since the generative AI leap sort of happens, you know, with like Jack TPT is the best example. There's other really cool things that have been being worked on and developed. So, you know, still kind of around that image recognition stuff. But people are working on, you know, even robotics that can support in therapy. People are working on robots to help with physical therapy. This is actually so many really cool things happening, even outside the documentation space.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and it's only going to exponentially increase from here. I mean, we're seeing startups every single week, not just in healthcare, but just in AI in general, right? There's every week there's a new AI product out there, but yeah, well, I'm super excited for you, because both of you put together a really cool product, and I want to come back to your money one more time, because you said it in a weekend, like, I wouldn't know where to start. I would not know where to start here. What do you mean in a weekend?    Mani Batra     So, oh, we wanted to build out a proof of concept. And I think the biggest sort of hypothesis that we wanted to prove out was like, will someone actually use it? And the best way to do that, we believe, is putting something out there, even if it is half baked. So we just put out like a simple chat bot, which was fine tuned. When I say fine tuned, I mean, had extra knowledge about one of the funding models in Australia, and which is a very cumbersome funding model to navigate, called the NDIS. So we kind of, yeah, gave the Chatbot extra information about that and put it out there. You could ask questions about the NDIS, navigate different policies. And yeah, it was done in a weekend. And then we because that also gave us an opportunity to put it in someone's hand and talk to them about it. And through that process, we've gone through like hundreds of iterations and availability has taken shape.     Angela Mariani     The product looks completely different. It's been worked on for hundreds of hours.    Jayson Davies     I bet. I bet. I mean, I have played around chat GPT a little bit to make my own gpts to kind of help me out a little bit like, hey, I want to create a goal centered around this, and then it knows that I want a SMART goal that comes with, you know, everything, accommodations, potentially treatment strategies. So I'm assuming that's what your initial kind of look like, right? Is, I'm assuming something like a GPT or some maybe a little bit more complex than that,.    Mani Batra     you're very close. Yeah, yeah, for sort of custom gbds,     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. Very cool. So Angela, now you kind of brought the OT side, obviously to this. So when money started putting stuff into the computer, saying, hey, I want the computer to learn this, what were some of the things that you knew to tell him, like, hey, we need to make sure it has this, this and this, what were some of the things you really wanted it to have?    Angela Mariani     I mean, initially, we definitely put a lot of that NDIS sort of knowledge into it, because it was actually facing the problem as a therapist, but also as a family member. I was trying to my sister is actually a participant. In the NDIS, and I was trying to navigate some changes we were trying to do for her, and we were was basically an urgent change of circumstances, and we weren't getting the support we were needing. And I was like, why can't I find the answer to this anywhere online? And so, you know, building that out, I was like, Oh, we definitely, you know, can use this in that way as well. I think one of my biggest concerns that we talked about a lot initially was around like responsible use of AI and wanting to make sure that we could make it as accurate as possible. Obviously, AI has its limitations, so we wanted to make sure that we weren't going to be causing any harm by putting this out in the world when it was at the time so so new, and people were extremely afraid of it. Thankfully, that's shifted in the last year and a half, like people are now very much open, ready to try, even though they understand the limitations a little bit more, which is, I think, better. So, you know, we talked a lot about that, and did some things to make it as accurate as possible, and then gave, you know, the caveat to any customers that you're going to still need to check every single thing it says. And we still, we still do that, because anything in this space, you know, you need to make sure that you're the one putting your name against it as a clinician.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And so then, how did you all be it sounds like you started with this NDIS program, so I'm going to share a lot of what you were feeding it was based upon this NDIS, but as you started to go down the rabbit hole, and I think, kind of expand the market, right? You're obviously no longer just in Australia. You've now expanded, I'm assuming, basically worldwide. What have you started or, I guess, how were you training it? What are you? What are you giving it? What are you? How are you making sure the quality of what you give it this quality. Like, how's that going?     Mani Batra     Yeah. So, like, we started with the NDIS Chatbot. We got on a call with a therapy team here in Australia, and we had a conversation with them for over three hours late into the night, and kind of discovered that, oh, this is just a start with just touching the tip of the iceberg, and then massive problems to be solved there. So with that, we started building out the first version of what we call the editor, which is an AI powered editor that can help you write anywhere from like a short case note to a very long documentation or a report. For example, like in Australia, people are writing reports up to 80 pages, 100 pages. It's crazy. So we started that, and that snowballed into us getting interest from people in the UK, in the US primary and like Malaysia, New Zealand, from all over the world. And we started talking to these customers and hydrating on the product. One thing we made sure was most of the documentation and anything that AI generates is driven by the quality of notes that the practitioner provides. So that is the primary source of information. Yes, it has all the knowledge about therapy world, but that is general knowledge. Most of the sort of generation happens based on the notes provided by the therapist. So still driven by a therapist or a practitioner's skills. And then, as a second step, we started building out tools that helps them kind of verify any information that is generated. Like Angela said, responsible AI is one of our sort of biggest hypothesis concerns that we need to make sure that we do the best we can by our customers, and we do understand that AI is not 100% accurate, at least not right now. In the future where it's going, it probably will be but not right now. So we have built this tool called verifiable AI users can find links from all over the web, peer reviewed research in a matter of seconds to kind of back anything and everything generated in our ability.    Jayson Davies     Sorry, I am thinking to myself, how far into the weeds I want to go into this while trying to remember my audience? No, my audience. I don't want to. I don't want to go so far into it that they're like, Yeah.    Angela Mariani     I think actually one thing that might be good to add on and money was just saying, is around, like, amount of context being put into a report. Because that's one of the things that we really got as feedback from our customers. Was around, you know, not having the ability to easily marry up the context with the generated part. So what we've built out is that they can have, you know, like, any number of notes about their client, any number of, you know, reports, assessments, anything they want to pull from, and then they have an entire template set up, and it just pulls the right information into the right sections, which is such a huge help when you're thinking about the old way of using chat GPT, I call it the old way. It's not going to run that, you know, and you know, people would have to give the right context with the right question, and it's a little bit cumbersome and slow, and then iterating upon whatever's generated, as well as something else we've been on. Optimizing. So.    Jayson Davies     I think, yeah, and tagging on to that, I think another thing is that this product, everability, Ai, keeps saying everability Ai, it's just ever ability, but your ever ability, it's, it's designed for all ot practitioners, not like one specific segment of OT practitioner, right? It's not just for school based, not for pediatric clinic, not for adults, hands, whatever it might be, it's for everyone. So how did you kind of, I guess, put this in a way that it could be used for everyone? Like my evaluations are very different from an acute rehab OTS evaluations, right? So how did you kind of marriage this so that it could be worked for everyone?    Angela Mariani     Yeah, so I think as we started talking to more and more people, we ended up building a very customizable product. And actually not just OTs, we've opened up to a lot of other allied health professions as well. So people can set up custom templates that have, you know, as custom as you want, really, so your evaluations can be completely exactly the way you want them to be. We are building out more and more things to continue supporting those different sort of needs. Some of the exciting things that are coming really support organizations as well, and standardizing reports, and doing quality assurance on reports, and some of those other things that are coming that aren't necessarily needed by everyone, but I think.    Mani Batra     And when we onboard like a new customer, we ask them, like, what their profession is, what funding model they work with, what language do they use? Like right now we support US and UK English, so that allows us to customize the responses in anything that is generated to a particular profession, to a particular funding model, to a particular language, yeah,    Jayson Davies     gotcha. Okay, so today we're talking the first day of August, 2 day of August. For you all in Australia, here we're talking about AI and evaluations right now. What are some of the limitations for AI within maybe evaluations, but maybe just kind of in documentation in general. What are some of the limitations still today?    Angela Mariani     Yeah, definitely AI, even though we call it artificial intelligence, it's not actually intelligent, and so it doesn't have clinical reasoning. It can make some inferences, it can make recommendations, and it can do things, but with a massive caveat that it it's not necessarily going to be right. It can sound really but you need to have the same critical reasoning that you have when you search the internet anytime you're using any AI product. We've done a lot of work to make it as good as it can be. And it should really be 80 or 90% of the way there, but that's still eight or 90% so the therapist has to put in the time to review and make sure that it says what they want to say. Another limitation that a lot of AI tools do have, that evidability doesn't, because we've worked around generating any length documentation, is they are generated by output length. Sorry, are limited by output length, and that can be difficult when you're trying to write something that is, you know, significantly long, and you want to get a really detailed answer, but it's trying to summarize everything very briefly, because it's trying to answer your entire question in one, one chunk.    Mani Batra     And still driven by the quality of the notes. So like, the session that you're having with the client, and notes you're capturing during that, whether that's a transcription of just you you're talking with the client, like, if the input is bad, the output will not be as good, but the quality of notes, the quality of services you're providing, is good, then you'll have an output that is much closer to where you want it to be.    Angela Mariani     And also not just good, it's whole. So you need to have all the facts. They don't have to be written well, in the sense that you don't have to formalize the sentences, because that's what the AI is doing for you. But if the facts don't live somewhere, it doesn't know information.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite questions to prompt chat GPT is like, what else do you need from me? What else? What other information do you need me to provide in order to give me a good response? I ask AI that all the time, so completely understand that one. All right, so most of the context that we talked already so far about has been really about AI and evaluations. We have talked about everability, but I haven't given you actually the opportunity to really like explain in full what everability is. So I want to give you that opportunity really quickly here just to kind of your overall understanding or overall view of everability and how it supports OTs.    Angela Mariani     Yeah, wonderful. So currently, eviability is your best documentation admin assistant. I'll say admin because it's doing some admin tasks and it will do more in the future. So whether you're doing you know, case notes, letters, correspondence reports, brainstorming. Testing, session, planning, home programs, policies, supervision, sessions, like honestly, so many different things can be supported with eviability. We've got two sort of parts of the software, which is the editor, writer, we call it, which we've been talking more about so far, and then also assistant, which is a chat based back and forth conversation interface, but it's private and secure, and you can have your client information being used as context to those conversations. In the future, we're building more and more automations so that you can give it tasks, and it can go and do those things for you, and you'll still have an option to say, you know, I want to make sure I check this before you reply to these things. But we're building out more and more automated processes so that we can just take such a huge burden off of practitioners and really let people go back to being face to face with customers and clients. I keep calling clients and patients customers today, but they are really our customers in some way, aren't they? So you know, we can be more face to face and not be so stuck behind a computer, which most people, hate.    Mani Batra     Yeah, one thing I'll just add to it. So like before, we going to start at the spot, because we were talking about the ease of starting a business. So we envision ability to be an entire team that helps you with your business, the entire occupational therapy business, whether that's making appointments, scheduling, billing, invoicing, generating documentation. So yeah, we want it to be something that allows you to have an entire team at your hands, and allows you to start that business that you want to do.     Jayson Davies     Wow. So basically like a EMR on steroids with AI basically like it can do everything, maybe even more.    Angela Mariani     Yeah, we're, we're looking to actually integrate with EMRs and practice management systems and be an automation layer, because a lot of these softwares already have so much that stuff built out, but they're not really good at the AI automation part of things. So really integrating and linking up all of the different software that's being used across, you know, anything you need to use. There's so many different things people are using. And just being able to say, I want you to, you know, go and communicate with this one and do this task for me. And things in that, in that way.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, in a moment, I kind of want to walk through the process from the moment a school based OT or OT practitioner receives a referral, and kind of walk through that and however ability might assist them. But before I do that, I definitely want to address the privacy side of things. Whenever AI comes up, that's a huge one right in the US, especially in the schools, we have both HIPAA and fairpa that we have to, we have to comply with. And so how does everability address that? Is it fully addressed? Do ot practitioners here need to do something or to make sure everything's HIPAA compliant. What's the story behind that?     Mani Batra     Yeah, so right now, our ability is HIPAA compliant and compliant with the Australian Privacy Principles, FERPA is on our radar, but right now, we are pursuing GDPR as the next compliance, and then in the future, SOC two in terms of the responsibility of the practitioners. If you obviously need HIPAA compliance, we are happy to sign a BAA with you. If you need FERPA, we don't currently have that. So if you're using availability in your school based order, you it's your responsibility to de identify the information. But if you just need HIPAA, then you can use availability with real patient names and and then those as is. So we have some clients in the UK, for example, and and in some other sort of in Canada. Also, like Canada, has its own compliance requirements, so they use their ability with the identified information, and it still saves them so much time that it is worth it.    Jayson Davies     How do they do that? How do they de identify the information, but still keep it worthwhile,    Angela Mariani     I guess, to use it. Yeah, so basically using a pseudonym, just not putting in the date of birth and the address and some key identifiers, and then the information is de identified enough that it's not going to be a problem.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. And then I guess you just copy it, copy and paste to your, you know, Word doc, and just Command F, Control F, and change all the names. Basically, yeah, sounds simple enough. All right, fair enough. All right. Moving on. Now, like I said, I do want to kind of go through this process, because I think school based ot practitioners will really appreciate this. In school based ot REL, we get a RE, we get an assessment plan, which basically gives us 60 days depending on what state you're in or where you're located, to complete the evaluation process. From there, we've got to we've got to start to collect our occupational profile. We've got to start doing observations, maybe a standardized or unstandardized assessment tool then and then eventually write it all up. Right? So in which of those steps all. Of steps, none of those steps would ever ability be helpful and how?     Angela Mariani     Yeah, definitely. So from the very initial point, and I'll ask you some questions here, because my understanding us based processes is a little bit less detailed than yours, what kind of information are they giving you in that first step?    Jayson Davies     So we get very little like a maybe a reason for the referral. So let's assume that we are being told that the student is being referred to OT because he's having, he or she's having difficulty with attention in the class, poor organizational skills, not writing down the homework for getting to turn homework in. Let's just go with some organization here.    Angela Mariani     So even from that initial point, if you, for example, are more a junior clinician, or you maybe haven't worked with someone that kind of goal or area, and you want to just use evidability as a brainstorming place to go, almost like you go and google it, but you can actually have a more interactive conversation with the assistant in eviability, and you can ask questions about, you know, what could be my plan be here? I have 60 days to address this, and actually just use that to sort of flesh out your, your approach that you're going to take, and then after that, so you, I'm assuming you might contact some of the other stakeholders in that person's life. You can actually use that ability to record those conversations anytime you're recording another person that you do need to ask consent every single time you're doing that, but you can get the transcription out and, you know, create case notes from that. Yep.    Jayson Davies     So, yeah, no. So if we're not, if we're having a conversation, you said, we need to get permission to record that conversation. But what if I send out a Google form to collect data from the parent and paper pencil from the teacher? Can I maybe upload that or copy and paste it into everability?    Angela Mariani     Yeah. So if you have text based, you know, documents where you've asked someone a question via form, you can definitely get that information into ability and use that whilst asking questions and generating content written, handwritten, things we currently don't interpret. But there are other tools you can use to copy that most people you know have iPads and things like that, that actually already can turn that into tech. So that's a better way to, you know, pull that information in. We potentially might have that feature in the future as well.    Jayson Davies     Okay, so then now you've got some of this data just on that data alone. I mean, everability is already starting to put together a picture of this child that we're working with, right? Yeah, definitely. So if I were then to go into everability and say, Hey, can you help me develop an occupation or profile like an intro to my report based upon the information we currently have, it would start to develop that. Yeah,    Angela Mariani     yes, definitely. You know, I think the thing is, you'll need to know if the information that you want in that is already in your notes, or if you need to also add to that, yeah, a lot of people, as they're seeing people and getting clinical impressions and getting your own kind of clinical reasoning happening, they also just brain dump that information into evidibility. They say, Oh, I had this conversation with the teacher, and this seems to be what's going on, and this is kind of my hypothesis. And, you know, they kind of put in that path as well. Yeah, would you    Jayson Davies     say that's a good way to do it, the rain dump? Or do you need to be more articulate in how much information is too much information, I guess a bad thing?    Angela Mariani     I wouldn't say too much information is a bad thing. I think if you're mindful what you've got, where you can still be very precise with what you're choosing for what you're generating. So if you know that you've done a brain dump that you can label, you know brain dump hypothesis, maybe you don't select that when you're writing the final report, because by then you already know you know what you've done and all of that. But if you want to use that in your own process to even generate sort of a plan, and you're sort of thinking around the next things, then you can do that. I don't know if that's made sense, without actually seeing how it works. Me saying talking about selecting and unselecting things, well,    Jayson Davies     I mean, but if you give it your brain dump, right, like, kind of in the back end, not on the actual report, but kind of as a note, right? You give it your brain dump, when you then go into your report, it will pull information from your brain dump, but it might do it in a more organized way than you put into the brain dump correct, definitely.    Angela Mariani     And that's what I was saying. Like when you're actually writing a report, you can choose to have that brain dump being used or not. So if you know that the brain dump was kind of half baked in sense that you're not actually fully wanting that information, or you don't have to use it, but you can if it is, you know, accurate and you want to use it. So    Jayson Davies     you can pick and choose what the AI has access to, basically, in terms of the notes that you've given it. Yeah, exactly. Gotcha Perfect. All right, so we kind of went through the occupational profile the next steps is, at least for me. An observation. So I'm going to go into the classroom. I'm going to do an observation. I'm going to pull the student out into the OT room, ot closet, wherever. We might have do some structured fine motor activities, visual motor activities. Maybe look at sensory a little bit. And I'm going to take some notes. Where do I go from there with every ability?    Angela Mariani     Yeah. So everyone takes notes slightly differently. Some people actually type during those observations. I was never able to when I worked in pediatric OT, I always found that incredibly disruptive. But everyone's different. I usually just scribbled on a notepad really, really bad scribble that meant only what it meant to me. If I looked a few days later, I had no idea what it meant anymore. So a lot of people actually, straight after their sessions will open up ability and do a brain dump that says, Okay, this is what we did. This is what I observed. This is, you know, and that's a lot more, I suppose. That's not really hypothesis anymore. That's actually my observations, what I've interpreted, what I'm going to work on next. And then you you have that you can pull and you can generate a case note. You can even generate correspondence to different stakeholders from that. You can say, you know, write a an email to this student's teacher. You could write an email to the students parents based on this, and you know what I want to do next, and, etc, etc, so    Jayson Davies     Okay, or I could just basically tell to write a nice three paragraph piece that I could add into my evaluation that describes the student during the class time that I observed him, and it'll pull that all in together, right? Yeah, definitely awesome. All right, one more step, and then we're going to get to the fun part. But the last step is the actual assessment. So I'm going to go use just some random, popular school based ot assessments, the bot to the SPM sensory profile and fun. This is where I know sometimes things get tricky, because I have tried to play around with chatgpt and give it bot scores, and it tries to make up answers to my bot scores, it'll tell me the kid was average, when, if I look in the book, it's really below average or whatnot. So when it comes to assessment pieces and everability, what does the therapist need to do in order to actually get some good output from everb? BS, AI, a lot of people    Angela Mariani     are using online services like the Pearson ones to actually do a lot of assessments. And so then they'll download the report from Pearson and copy and paste that into a note, so all the information interpretation is already in a note. And then they get that. They get ever ability to pull it into the tables and write it in nice paragraphs that are actually more like they normally do in their reports. And so people are already doing that. If you find you're using a different tool and you finding some issue like that, please let us know, because we've done it quite a few times where we've gotten it to work in those different situations, and it's around knowing how to instruct it to say, Okay, it's always making this mistake. We'll tell it, but that's not really what it needs to be doing. All    Jayson Davies     right. Cool. So basically, as long as you can get the test scored, then you can use those scored results, give that to everability say, Hey, this is Jason scores on the bot two. This is what the bot two gave me, table and all. And then everability can then use that as data to help with the report that correct? Yep. Okay, perfect. So recap, we've got our occupational profile, we've got our observations, we've got some information from standardized or non standardized assessment tools. Now it's time to get to the piece where I think really makes or breaks an occupational therapy evaluation, and that's the synthesis tying all of that stuff together. So if I get down to my synthesis, and now I've got those three pieces already done, how's everability going to help me with tying it all together to ultimately help me write a coherent piece that describes why or why not, this student necessarily needs ot services?    Angela Mariani     Yeah. So people typically set up their template, and we also support with that, if you, you know, don't know how to get started with that of whatever their that looks like for them, because everyone has their own format. Every every setting has a very different style of final output. So you have your template set up, you have all that context, and you get evident to synthesize it into that for you so that you have something that is almost finished. I would say you typically need to add in your recommendations. Like I said earlier. Eviability will generate recommendations for you if you don't, but make sure you read them with a fine tooth comb if you to them. Yeah, so. And basically, you get a report that's 80 90% finished. You can use ability to edit that and finish all the content for it, and then you just you're almost done, and you can download it in Word doc and finalize it on your head, and yeah, you're good to go.    Mani Batra     And it's something this is where everability actually shines compared to other two. Tools like chatgpt, where you can actually set up an entire template. Yes, you have to do that initial work, and we are happy to help you with that. But once you have your template ready, you can really start generating reports very, very fast and get 80 to 90% there. And also great for organizations where you want standardization amongst all your practitioners, you can have a template that you can share amongst all practitioners to start achieving, like, better quality reports.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, yeah. And when it comes to that template that we're talking about, I know every school based OT, every OT, right? Like you're saying, we have our template. A lot of times our template are like a paragraph that we need to fill in the client, student, child's name, their date of birth, it's got the student did really well in blank. The student had concerns with blank. Is that what the template would kind of look like, inevitability, or does it look different because AI needs like a prompt or something?     Angela Mariani     Well, they are prompts in a way. So typically, there's a couple of ways people set up their templates, they have something like that, which is telling you have ability to fill in sections of a paragraph, okay, which it can do. We also have the ability to actually just set up tables. So you don't have to tell it write a table that covers this, this and this and this, you can actually just insert a table have headers, have, you know, some heads within the cells, inevitability can populate that some people write very generic prompts as well, where they say background information is the header and then underneath it says write a paragraph covering the background information for the selected client. So it really is up to you to figure out what kind of prompting, like I said, we do support that. It's through testing and figuring out, hey, does this work for me? And is this making it what I want the result? But yeah, you can    Mani Batra     But yeah, you can totally use it to fill in just simple words, like you said, date of birth and profession and anything you want. So it doesn't have to be an entire paragraph like you would in chat, GPT, it can be those simple words.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Very cool. All right. Now I think this is where it start to get even more fun, because now we have a we have an evaluation, right? We got the occupational profile, we got the observations, the assessment, we got a synthesis, we got a recommendation at the end. But obviously now we actually have to start to treat the student, we've got to come up with a treatment plan. We've got to come up with goals. We've got to actually plan each session out how we're going to work with that student. So once we're done with our evaluation, with everability, does it continue to work with us? Or is that basically the end point? No,    Angela Mariani     definitely. So people then go back to using assistant typically, and say, you know, these are kind of the goals I'm thinking about working on. Can we help, you know, formalize this. People set up gas scales as well. Gas scales as repetitive as in, redone because, answer, scale, goal attainment scales. You know, whatever form you want to do you're setting in, people will definitely use an ability to support that process, session planning. Actually, one of the things during demos people absolutely love is the brainstorming feature. So, you know, you can tell it I'm working on, or it can even know that from the notes, but I'm working on buying motor skills with this client. And you know, you can have a lot of that assessment information selected in the notes. You know, currently they are, you know, holding their pencil in a fist grasp, and they're, you know, whatever the information is, I can't not having a good go thinking of a client on the spot right now. But brainstorm five Engaging Ideas to work on this that integrate, you know, Lego and dinosaurs and, like, you know, kind of making the therapy plan very specific to their interests as well, and kind of thinking of new activities. People love that because it's faster than going to Pinterest and saying, fine, motorhome, this client's not going to like this. None of these are appropriate. So,    Jayson Davies     absolutely, absolutely, yeah, I mean, I use chat GPT in a similar way, and I played around with it. But as you both have talked about, right, like, what's nice about every ability is it's been trained with ot data, to an extent, a lot more, at least, than chat GPT, and so it's really going to help, help you to progress with the therapy, with your students. Now within school based OT, I know, again, this is school based OT, those are the people listening. So we're going down that route. We have to typically provide a progress report every three months or so, quarterly or trimester, Lee, depending on the school district. And then one year, we have to do an annual IEP. So how does ever ability if we or how should we use it, I guess, to make those progress reports a little bit easier on ourselves? Yeah,    Angela Mariani     same as what we were talking about before, on setting up a template, I've already helped people set up their IEP and progress report templates, so I know that it's possible you basically. Can get them in as a template, populate those, make sure the information that you're selecting, and if ability is you know, all the facts are living there. But you can easily populate and the same, generate something that's 80, 90% of the way there. And    Mani Batra     just to talk about that a little bit. So once you have that template ready, you literally just click one button and it'll take all the information from your notes, fill that entire thing up that is ready, but you can also iterate on it really fast, compared to chatgpt, where it'll have to generate the entire thing again, you can actually select parts of the report that you want to change, improve, edit, and do it with the help of AI and AI knowing all the information about your client.    Jayson Davies     Wow. So the key here, as far as treatment goes, is making sure that you're inputting treatment notes, because as long as you're putting inputting your treatment notes, then everability is going to be able to support you with every progress monitoring, right?    Angela Mariani     And people, as they're seeing clients, they actually just do that brain dump every single time generate the formalized case notes, because, you know, it's much faster. It takes a couple of minutes to generate adaptability, rather than typing it out yourself, and that information's been there over time that it can pull from.    Jayson Davies     What are you finding? How are you finding that OTs, OTAs as well? Best do that brain dump? Are they copying and pasting whatever note they might put into a billing, or are they doing a complete different note because they're just talking to everability? What or, I mean, I'm sure you're seeing all the above, but what have you seen people have the most or the best use cases for? So    Angela Mariani     definitely, we've seen a shift in people's behavior. So before, like before AI existed, people would have to manually type out a case note that would be attached to a billing but now people, while they're cleaning up the clinic, or they're driving to their next appointment, or they're sitting in the car after their appointment, they're actually just recording a couple of minutes about this is what happened. This is what we did. This is my plan for the next appointment. They're saving that recording. They're either generating straight away, depending where they are, well, they're coming back at the end of the day and then generating their case note that's attached to the billing. Wow.    Jayson Davies     Okay, so I'm just thinking out loud here. I just completed a session with the student. I said, All right, Johnny, we're done. Head back to class, I grabbed my phone, hit record, record myself saying how Johnny did, how he was feeling that day. He made progress on this goal. Didn't make progress on that goal. Next week, we're going to continue with the plan of care, but maybe we're going to address something related to copying from the board, yep. I just then submit that up to everability. It now has that data. And then from there, can I tell it to write a note for a billing?    Angela Mariani     Yep, exactly.     Jayson Davies     Wow. And then also it's there for when my progress report comes around three months from now, it's going to refer to that note as well as my other 18 notes. Yep,    Angela Mariani     exactly. So that's what we were talking about earlier. Around you can choose which notes are your context. So in that case, where you've done that verbal kind of summary of what's happened, you'd only select that verbal summary. Actually, sometimes people also have a very general one that covers, these are the goals for therapy. This is the client's kind of background, just so that has that context you can pull from as well, because it's going to be relevant to every case note. So then you just select what's relevant to what you're writing, whenever you're writing it, wow,    Jayson Davies     I got to hand it to you both. I'm kind of amazed by the possibilities that can occur with this, and it's going to save so many people time. In fact, I'm sure you have both probably already looked at this. Are you getting any data on how much time ever ability is saving therapists at this point?    Angela Mariani     Yeah, we are. We're getting, obviously, we work with people all across the world, you know, different settings, different practices, different kinds of practitioners. So it's in creative, incredibly varied. But you know something like case notes people are getting done in less than five minutes, obviously, including the recording and the generation part, where, you know, before that was taking minimum 15 minutes, sometimes much longer. You know, also from one verbal you can also then generate correspondence. So if you know, some people always email different stakeholders in child's life, maybe they're emailing the parents, the teacher, the other practitioners working with them. So they can actually generate emails based off of those as well. Very, very quickly in the future, we'll integrate with email so you can one click, but you copy and paste that right now. Yeah, so that's just on case notes. When it comes to writing much longer things, people are giving us feedback. Obviously, when you're writing something very long, the savings are going to be significantly more, because if you think about 80, 9080, to 90% Decision is huge. But if you're writing a report that typically takes you an hour, probably is taking you half an hour now instead, because you still need to go through and edit and read it. But if it was taking four hours, maybe it only takes 45 minutes now. So it's like very varied, but people are saving significant time, and not just time, people are procrastinating less because they all of a sudden, don't have this burden to start. So we've been getting feedback from some of our organizations that use us that therapists are finishing their case notes within 12 hours of appointments, which is huge, because before it was taking them a week sometimes to submit their their case notes. They're finishing reports within a more reasonable time frame as well, you know? So it's, it's not this huge kind of mountain to start writing something anymore. They can go and they can generate and then it feels like you're editing someone else's report, which is a lot less stressful and cumbersome.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, definitely. So here's another question for you, because you are obviously building, you are obviously dealing not just with individual practitioners, but also the larger companies that I'm sure you have partnerships with. What have you found to be some of the ways that the individual practitioners are able to get their companies on board, because I'm I'm assuming that most therapists are finding out about you not from the company. They're finding out about you from podcast, from YouTube, from me, from other people, right? But how are they effectively advocating for their district to kind of say, Hey, let's go see if we can get our ability to support our therapist. What's been effective?    Angela Mariani     These questions stumping me so like, I'm thinking about, yeah, okay,    Mani Batra     I think you're absolutely right that our strategy has been very bottoms up, where people are finding us through word of mouth podcast, we have not done any advertisement. Like we don't do ads right now, because we're just focused on building a really good product, and we want to be really connected to our users. So someone finds us it is affordable enough to be used by an individual, so they try it out, then they reach out to us to give a demo to their entire organization. So most of our organization sales have been through us, going into the organization, talking to the various stakeholders, giving them a demo, whatever ability can do for them. And that's how individuals have made a case for availability. Yeah,    Jayson Davies     yeah. I mean, I'm just assuming that conversation between the OT practitioner and their administrator, like I'm just picturing them saying, Hey, I am overburdened. I have this huge case though, that I can't manage. But instead of getting an additional ot to support me, here's a creative way we can use everability to save me 50% of my documentation time, which then would allow me to see more students or do more of this or that or whatnot. And so I could just see therapists getting a little creative in how they kind of pitch this to their administrators before they might even email you, I don't know, but yeah, I just think it's I'm always hearing from OTS who say, hey, the paperwork is burdensome because of the paperwork, I can't do my responsibilities, I have missed sessions, and I think we have to be creative in the way that we pitch that to administrators, because if we just say, hey, I need another ot to come help me. That's $100,000 right there, like, you know, and so versus ever ability, a lot cheaper than $100,000 can help them potentially get more time in their day and apparently procrastinate left less, according to Angela, so yeah, I think that's a great tool that a lot of people are obviously very excited about. So kudos to both of you. Appreciate having you on thank you with that before I let you both go and get on with your morning in Australia, time where can everyone go to learn more about everability, learn more about the AI tools that everability has been so great in implementing and using to help them with their therapy.    Angela Mariani     So, you know, we'd love to share a special deal with you guys. You'll have a link that you can get about a 20% discount off of your subscription for the first few months, three months, I think it is. And you know, come to our website and even sign up for a mailing list if you're not ready to try it, we send updates about what's happening, and you can always jump on a meeting with us as well if you'd like to actually ask any questions directly. And    Mani Batra     yeah, we pride ourselves on our customer service. You can book as many training sessions, demos with our team as you want, and that's totally free of cost. Really see ourselves as your IT team. Anything and everything that has been built by our team is because the feedback that has been provided by our wonderful customers. So yeah, give us lots of feedback. Our feelings will not be heard, even if it's negative, absolutely    Jayson Davies     and as. You've heard for the last hour or so on this podcast. They are both very friendly, very easy to talk to people. So yeah, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for creating this, this amazing product ever ability. I'm sure it's it's already helping a lot of people. I'm sure it's going to help a lot more therapists in the very near future and long term. And I'm excited to see how it works out for you, too. So thank you so much for being here.    Angela Mariani     Thank you so much for having us.    Mani Batra     It was my first podcast. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah.    Jayson Davies     All right, and that is going to wrap us up for Episode 158 of the otschoolhouse. Comcast. A big thank you to Angela and Mani for coming on this episode, sharing a little bit about how they built everbility and the reasons why they built it and how it can support you and me and all the other ot practitioners out there, whether you're school based or not, in getting our work done more efficiently so that we can spend more time with our clients, with the students who we actually got into ot to actually support. If you'd like to learn more about everability, be sure to click over to the show notes at otschoolhouse com, slash Episode 158, or use the link that is in the description wherever you're listening, because that'll take you over to our show notes, where you will find a link to everability that will not only get you the best possible deal if you want to try it out, but it'll also support the otschoolhouse com podcast, and everything that we do here at the otschoolhouse podcast. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you listening in today. I hope you learned a little bit more about AI, about writing goals, about getting some documentation done, and everything that we do as school based ot practitioners, especially when it comes to documentation. So thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the otschoolhouse podcast.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the otschoolhouse 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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 159 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Have you ever wondered how the knowledge you gain from a podcast can be effectively applied in real-world practice? In this episode, Taylor Poirier, shares her insightful journey of how she has implemented what she’s learned from about 150 OT Schoolhouse podcast episodes into her everyday practice.  Tune in to discover the actionable steps she took, the resources she utilized, and the challenges she navigated to become a dynamic force in school-based occupational therapy. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify strategies for applying knowledge gained from podcast episodes. Learners will identify tips to guide new school-based occupational therapy practitioners. Learners will recognize ways to stay organized to be able to best implement podcast insights. Guests Bios Taylor graduated from University of St. Augustine, Miami Campus in December 2022. She began working as a pediatric OT within the schools and home health setting with Alyssa Campbell Therapies in the Tampa, FL area.  She loves learning and creating new ways of therapy for the most client-centered approach. She has now created resources based on the information provided in this podcast and can truly see a difference in the progress her kids make. She loves making other therapists feel confident and excited about the world of OT!  Quotes “Teachers are truly our biggest fans when it comes to what we're able to do for their students. Because their whole goal is to get that student to learn and participate and be functional within their space.”  -Taylor Poirier OTD, OTR/L  “We gotta give our teachers a little bit more grace. We gotta give a little bit more grace maybe during that IEP meeting too, just to make sure we're all on the same page and we're all understanding everyone's perspective.” - Taylor Poirier OTD, OTR/L  “Because we all know co regulation, if the teachers are dysregulated, so is the child.” - Taylor Poirier OTD, OTR/L  “You can always advocate for yourself, and making the connections is a really a big part of that as well.”  -Taylor Poirier OTD, OTR/L  “When it comes to collaboration, you have to meet the other person on their level. If they are another provider, what do they know about OT? Have they ever collaborated with occupational therapists before? Do you guys have the same goals based off what your child in your case looks like...” Taylor Poirier OTD, OTR/L  “We're going to make mistakes. You can't not make mistakes. You are human.”  -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L “Don't continue doing something that has always been done at the school for the sole purpose that that's the way they did it.“ -Jayson Davies, M.A, OTR/L Resources 👉 Tools to Grow   👉 Ot toolbox 👉 Ot enlightenment - IG 👉 Taylor spotify OT Schoolhouse Episode Playlist  👉 Podcast Episode 32-Primitive reflexes 👉 Podcast Episode 106- Goal writing in School-based Therapy 👉 Podcast Episode 145- Crafting Your Goal Bank 👉 Podcast Episode 111 - Back to our Mental Health Roots 👉 Podcast Episode 139- Fostering Autonomy through Child-Led Therapy 👉 Podcast Episode126- Applying the Kawa Model to School-based OT 👉 Podcast Episode 23- Discovering the Zones 👉 Zones of regulation Website 👉 Podcast Episode 141- Innovative Strategies for Improving Handwriting 👉 Podcast Episode 114- Dysgraphia: How you can Support Teachers and Students 👉 Taylor IG 👉 TPT Resources 👉 PESI Primitive reflexes course   Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hey there, have you ever listened to an episode of the otschoolhouse com podcast, gotten some great documentation treatment, maybe even some evaluation ideas, but then never actually took action on those ideas? Well, today, we are addressing that very unfortunate series of events head on with Dr Taylor Poirier, when Taylor became an occupational therapist. A little over 18 months ago, she had some big ideas. You know, she was ready to take on the school based ot world by storm, but with so much knowledge from various outlets the podcast included, she had to put a system in place to actually take action on everything she was learning. That is why, when Taylor reached out about recording an episode related to implementing what you actually learn on the podcast, I was extremely quick to say, Yes, please. So that's what you're going to hear today. In this episode, you're going to hear how Taylor selects episodes, takes notes, creates action plans and moves forward with those plans to support both herself and the students she supports, from incorporating primitive reflex strategies to finding innovative ways to engage with colleagues and students. She has mastered the art of learning on the go and applying the knowledge practically. If you enjoy the otschoolhouse podcast, but find yourself struggling to actually implement what you learn from every episode, this is the episode for you stick around as we explore how to transform knowledge into action and enhance your impact as a school based occupational therapy practitioner. Without further ado, let's dive into this enriching conversation with Dr Taylor Poirier.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the otschoolhouse com, 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     Taylor, welcome to the otschoolhouse podcast. How you doing today?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Doing great. How are you doing?    Jayson Davies     Fantastic. You know, this is fun. We are having a little bit of tech issues, but we are making it work. I love it. I'm like, looking at your face, but hearing you from your other Zoom account. And, yeah, this is fun. Thanks for being here, and thank you for also attending the back to school conference. I hope that was a lot of fun for you.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah, back to school conference was amazing. And thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. I'm really excited to get into our conversation.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, so you actually reached out to me, which happens sometimes with podcast guests, and you're like, I'm a school based ot practitioner, and I have listened to a lot of episodes, but it's sometimes hard to actually implement some of what you know you learn there's 150 some odd episodes. Like, how do I know which one's the right one to listen to? And even if I do listen to all of them, like, how do I know where to begin with starting to implement them and and I think a lot of people kind of probably are in a similar boat, right? Like, you take in all this information, but how do you actually put it to good use? So you're going to help us with that a little bit today, I think, right, yep, absolutely awesome. Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and get started, and I just want to give you an opportunity to kind of share a little bit about yourself and where you are in your ot career right now.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     So I am about a year and a half into my ot career. I'm based in the Tampa Bay area. I currently work with a company called Alyssa Campbell therapies. So we service the the Tampa Bay area. And what's unique about our company is that it is school based as well as home health based. So we really get the unique opportunity to be in all of the most natural environments of our students and our children that we service. So I can be in the school one day, it could be at their house the next, and then we could be at the park. At the park, the grocery store, the library the next day. So I, I've always loved pediatrics. I've always felt most comfortable in pediatrics, and so I've just, I've entered the school based setting, and now I really don't see myself ever leaving. Awesome, awesome. I love that,    Jayson Davies     because you get the kind of the both sides of it. And this isn't a question that I was planning to ask you today, but since you kind of are experienced in both the school realm as well as the more the community outside of the school realm, what do you see as some of the differences, if any, or do you see it as being more similar?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     So I definitely think, speaking, you know, for myself, I see it's very similar. I think sometimes, as school based therapists, we kind of put ourselves in a box that we don't have to be in, and the things that you may work on at someone's house or at a clinic setting, you can do that in the schools with spaces that you're given. We're very creative and we're very flexible people in this field. So it's a lot of the same needs, I think, just in a different place, all right? And    Jayson Davies     if your boss, Alyssa, listening, I'm going to ask her to cover her ears right now and ask you, Taylor, if you had to choose one, would you choose clinic, slash outpatient, slash community or school based?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Oh yeah, that is such a tough question. My I started off in OT like, pre grad school in an outpatient clinic, and I loved it, but I think my heart is with with school based so I would have to choose the schools, all right.    Jayson Davies     Awesome. Love it. You're on the right podcast. Then cool. We can continue this. We don't need to end the conversation right now. No, just kidding, Alyssa, you can uncover your ears right now. So, yeah. So you know, you've been in this field for about an A year and a half, you said, and it sounds like you found out about the otschoolhouse pretty quickly, but what were some of the challenges that you started to face as you were transitioning from being a student to helping students?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah, so I really didn't know anything, to be honest about school based. OT, it wasn't something that my university covered, you know, in depth. So I was really just looking for a setting I could be kind of an out of the box type of therapist. And so when I found this company, and I found these schools that I'm working with, I immediately was like, Oh my gosh, there is 101 things that I need to look at. The screenings are different. The documentation is different, the language and verbiage is different. And so I was like, I have got to find some sort of mentorship. So that was one area that I, you know, was really difficult at first. You know, navigating, we work primarily in the private schools, so navigating what their policies, procedures and protocols all look like, because they don't always, you know what we get taught in school. It's not always they abide by the same type so more so like five oh, fours, and then, as well as I'm a therapist who works out of her car, so trying to stay organized, how to travel with 101 treatment ideas for seven different kids at one school was definitely a very big challenge at first.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And I know, you know, we've already mentioned you, you did find the otschoolhouse, and I know that's been helpful. But beyond the otschoolhouse com, what were some of the, some of the ways that you sought out, some of this mentorship, some of this help, what just kind of you can list them all off, what, where did you go for help?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     So I, you know, from school, we learned about, like, tools to grow, or OT toolkit, things of that nature, which are all websites with, you know, a plethora of information that are fabulous. So I really looked to those before I found out about the podcast, as well as just different content creators on Instagram, whether those were OTRS or codas, there are so many wonderful accounts I'll some of my favorites are, like, ot enlightenment, and there's sensory, which is not our field, but sensory, SLP, like, oh yeah, full information about that we can apply just to our field too. So those were kind of the big two that I would pull from.    Jayson Davies     Did you use any of like the Facebook groups or anything?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     I personally don't really use Facebook, but I have, I have colleagues that do, and they love it, and they love being part of those groups, and they get a lot out of it.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, there is just an uncountable number of people in them. Okay, there you can count them. It's like 40,000 but, yeah, those are just really, really big groups, and there's a lot of knowledge in there. There's also a lot of them have a lot of shared resources in there, which can also be helpful. They're just kind of hard to find sometimes, but definitely helpful. So very cool. So then, when did you stumble upon the otschoolhouse about?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     So I, as I kind of alluded to earlier, I travel out of my car. So I'll go to one school half the day, maybe another school, another and then I'm going to children's houses in the community. So all of my resources I had to have in my car. All the time spent commutes in the car. So I'm like, I gotta fill time. I can't just listen to music or sit in silence the whole time. So my first thought was like, let's see what kind of podcasts are out there. Let's see what ot resources for podcasts are available. And when I saw that there was a school based specific I was like, this is this is going to be fabulous. I can listen to this on my ride whether anything comes out of it a nugget or two, perfect. So then the more that I started listening. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is so much more than just a quick 30 minute throw on with my commutes or in between kids. This is continuing education. This is collaboration, and this is this is mentorship that's indirect. So once I found it, I have not stopped listening. I think I've listened to almost about every episode, about 150 or so, if you say it's definitely here to stay.    Jayson Davies     Wow. And now you're on the podcast. So full circle, right, right? Awesome, awesome. So, I mean, did you start at the beginning? Did you just start with, like, episode one? Or did was there a particular episode that kind of drew you in? And maybe, or maybe you don't remember that specific episode.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah. So I I started, I scrolled through all of them, and was looking more so like, what's something I haven't thought of lately? Or what is something that you know? Oh my gosh, I'm seeing a lot of this in my case. So let me list tune in. And at that time, I was probably like, my gosh, maybe a month. Or less into my, you know, my time as a practicing OT. And there was an episode titled Introduction to primitive reflexes, and something in my brain unlocked, and was like, Oh my gosh, I completely forgot that this is something that we handle and what we do, because I'm not sure if any of your listeners also went to grad school in the prime of covid. So everything was online. I remember my primitive reflex course was on a stuffed sloth that I had bought in trying to elicit the Palmer reflex and the Babinski and the Morro, everything on, you know, a stuffed animal. So I was listening to this podcast, and as I was listening, I was like, this is the this is the component missing in my caseload. There was this part that I couldn't identify with, you know, our common tools and assessments, and that's what really drew me in, because now that's completely changed my practice in the sense that I now forever include a primitive reflex screening, and now I'm actually going above and beyond and doing the certified primitive reflex specialist course, because I found it was to be just so crucial in my school based practice.    Jayson Davies     Wow, wow. So, because we want to get into you know how, how other ot practitioners can can learn from different episodes, but that first time that you listened, I mean, were you able to walk away from that episode and start making changes to your practice right away.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yes, absolutely. So it may seem you know at first glance like, oh my gosh, that's that's a little bit much. Maybe. How did you do that? But there were so many key reminders about just our education that we get as OTS that was enough to at least attempt a screening on a child or two the next day. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have you can trial an error. And that's definitely what I did, trying to put the kids in certain positions and try to identify the illicit reflexes and things. But it was enough to just get started and to kickstart that area of knowledge.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and like you said, now you're working on the getting certified in it, and I think that's an important concept to remember with every single episode that we have here at the otschoolhouse com. Like we have a one hour interview with someone or a 45 minute interview with someone, and there's no way that it can be everything. And I think a lot of people want me to do more solo episodes, and I want to do more solo episodes. I really do, but especially in a healthcare field, especially in OT like none of us are an are an expert in everything, and so that's why we bring on these people. But even in that one hour interview, it's impossible to get through all of their knowledge to make everyone an expert that listened to this episode, and I think that that's really cool, that you were able to get enough to kind of get you started, and now you took that and you're like, Okay, I want more, and so you were able to find a way to go get more. So very cool.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah. Thank you. And I think too, it's the podcast does such a great job of kind of opening your horizon of what the subjects are that you're listening into, and I think they're all that we have touched on in our education at some point, whether you know initial graduate level or degree and continuing education, but it just, it kind of helps remind us of what we're capable of. So I think it's, it's definitely a great place to start for people.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, so you mentioned listening in your car, and I'm sure you still listen to some episodes in your car and whatnot. But do you also, I guess my question is, like listening in your car, is that enough? Or do you feel like or maybe sometimes you do? Do you sit down at a table and listen with a notepad? Or how do you actually remember what you're listening to while driving between school and a and b?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah. So I think it really depends. There's some podcasts that I kind of throw on as a refresher, almost, or kind of a revamp of some some knowledge before going seeing a kid, if it, you know, pertains particularly to them. But if I park I will quickly pull out my notes and do a little voice, text of tidbits, or an intervention idea that it gave me, or things that I can go back later and kind of work up whether that's creating a resource, adding it to a note, adding it to a report, things like that. And then there have been some other episodes that are very in depth, and they have so much information that you truly have to sit down and listen. And some of those kind of are like, there's an episode on autism strategies, an episode on handwriting research, there's an episode on trauma informed care, and so many others where it's really beneficial to sit down and just jot your notes. That way you have something very concrete. But I think there's a way to do it both, if you have a more photographic memory. I am not that person, but you can totally do it in your card by voice texting or doing it with pen and paper.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and kind of add on to that, we're actually trying to help now, especially with the use of AI, we've had people ask us for transcripts of the episodes, and for a long time, that was just going to be like, honestly. Okay, it was too hard for us. It was costly. It required, like, you know, someone to sit down listen to the episode. And I had to kind of be someone who knew how to spell proprioception and vestibular and all those hard words that we used absolutely but now, but now we've got AI and so we are going back, and we're actually adding transcripts all the episodes. I know not everyone listens on Apple podcast, but Apple podcast is actually now transcribing every single podcast on Apple podcast, so we're trying to make it easier for everyone to kind of have that information in different ways. Because, like you said, not everyone learns the same way, and it's hard to sometimes listen to an hour long episode and remember what you actually listened to? So, yeah, good strategies. Okay, you mentioned a few episodes already, the primary one being the primitive reflexes of the episode. That kind of got you into it. But what have been some of the otschoolhouse com podcast episodes, or the topics even, because we've had some episodes, or some multiple episodes on a single topic that have had the biggest impact on your work in the schools?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yes, so there have been, I believe, two to three, maybe even more, on goal, writing and documentation. I'm not sure if you know it's just me or there's other people out there listening, where documentation is just a beast in itself. You know, we spend all day working so hard with our clients, and our cognitive load is already so full. So the moment we go to sit down and get those onto paper, it's, for me, it's really, really tough to articulate exactly what I'm thinking. And so I've actually, after listening to those, I created a goal Bank, which, there's an episode, I believe, solely on creating a goal bank and what that looks like. So now I have this ongoing document of just goals that are measurable, that I've seen progress in tracking, that are developmentally appropriate, age appropriate, and can be individualized for each child. And so that's been really helpful. There's been episodes on talking about our roots and mental health. I completed my doctoral Capstone within the mental health realm. So everything that I do naturally within my sessions is very mental health based. So to hear, and like you have other people talking about how they incorporate mental health, and are we mental health? You know, practitioners and providers, it's very reassuring that knowing you know what I'm doing is is appropriate with our children, and it's a need. So that's been really, really helpful, too. And you know one more for you to fostering autonomy and child led therapy, that is a specific name of one of the episodes, and when I tell you that opened Pandora's box of neurodivergent affirming care, it's really changed the way that I go into sessions and the way that I view my kids. You know, I think sometimes we we kind of have a checklist in play when we go into our sessions, or when we go into a whether it's an IEP meeting or we go in to have a parent meeting or a teacher meeting. And you know, we have these things that we want the child to do because maybe it's more rooted in a neurotypical world. And so this has really led me to follow the child's lead and think with the child's perspective of what they're doing, being led by the child, whether that's play or toys, and even a coloring activity is it's has enriched my my sessions, and I think the progress and also the buy in of the child. So I would say those, those three main topics, have been absolutely incredible for my practice.     Jayson Davies     Wow, it's into, I don't know, from from the host perspective, from my perspective, it's like so weird to actually hear these things from you, because these are episodes that I put together and, you know, I put them out into the world, and then I never actually hear from a lot of people like how it's impacting them. And so just to hear, you know, three different ways that you've taken a handful of our episodes and put them into practice. It's just quite amazing. So thank you. Let's talk about others. Let's talk about the OT practitioners who are listening today. And like I mentioned earlier, you're you're probably not the only one who has listened to episodes and maybe been a little bit overwhelmed or or didn't quite catch everything. And so do you have some strategies for those listening today that maybe they can put into practice as they listen to help them as they move forward.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. So when you because you can listen to a podcast and be like, Oh, I listened. It was fabulous, but you don't gain anything from it, and you feel like you can apply it, it's, it's difficult to, you know, kind of carry on. So I think, first off, find an episode that you are really passionate about, and you already have some baseline knowledge, because maybe it'll, it'll show you a different perspective. So while you're listening, you can voice, text the notes, just one or two little tidbits, and start small. And then go into your next child and and try to apply that. I think something key is the fear of trial and error, something that I had to learn, and I think all of us learn, you know, throughout our days, is we can't be afraid of the afraid of the trial and error, because just because something doesn't work for one child doesn't mean that it doesn't work across the board. So I think having that in your mind when you're listening is a great kind of tidbit to move forward. I think look for available resources already based off of the episode that you're listening to. A lot of the times, the show notes have wonderful information. Use those show notes. I know I have, and I've reached out to other you know, practitioners that have been on the podcast and attempted to connect with them, and that's even something else that you can do to apply your practice. If you have a question about something that you heard or you'd say you really would like to collaborate with them in some sort of way or pick their brain. OT, is such a small field. I feel like we hear that a lot. There's somebody that knows somebody who also knows the same person. We're very connected, and so don't be afraid to connect with the people that you're listening to as well, because I think that'll also help your understanding of what you're listening to, and also help grow your practice too. Because then that's kind of that's a building a community that's maybe virtual, but still very impactful.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. I, I constantly am, like telling people, like they'll reach out to me and ask me about something on the podcast. I'm like to be honest, the person on the podcast said you could reach out to them. I highly recommend that you reach out to them, because, like you said, the OT world is small. Like, none of us got into ot to be Mr. Mrs. Bigwig, like, I'm too good for everyone, every single person that that we have on as a guest is always open and always sometimes I'll like, I'll send an introductory email, like, between the two people, the listener and the person on the podcast. And they're always so appreciative that, oh, thank you for connecting me with this person. And then the next thing I know, they're doing Doctor work together, something like that. It's just, it's really cool to see where things are going between people who listen and the people that are actually on the podcast. So, yeah, any other strategies for people that are listening and kind of just trying to implement,    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     yeah, I think staying organized while you're listening to the podcast. I know our brains run a million miles a minute, and there's always so many thoughts, and, you know, to do lists popping up in our head, but being able to, you know, if this is your time, to really invest in your work and invest in your career and your kids, take the time to find an organization system with it, whether that's, you know, podcast episodes, so and so on your notes, or you have a little journal that you keep in your car. If you're listening at home and you have that little space, organization will be key, and then you can keep track of it, and then you have that information forever. And it's not like it went in your one ear and then out the other, it's with you forever.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, do you ever find yourself listening to, like, the same episode over and over and over?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     there's one or two that is just so good. And I'm like, I'm gonna write that down, and then I go see my next kid, and I'm like, Oh, what am I gonna listen to? Oh, my gosh, this would be a good one. I have to admit, not perfect. Every time I listen, I have those same days too. But sometimes info is just so good, you gotta hear it twice.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some. So I can't stand hearing my own voice. I will be the first to tell you that, and so I don't go back and re listen to episode of the OT school house, but I have my own personal podcast that I'm very interested in. And with otschoolhouse com, a lot of the way that I learned how to start the otschoolhouse with business was through episodes. And there were definitely some episodes that I would like favorite, and I would go back and listen to them, not just not because I forgot what was in it or anything, but for the sole purpose of maybe either A, when I listened to it, I wasn't ready at the time, and so I knew when I would be ready for it, and when I was ready for it, I'd go back and listen to it, or b Maybe it just, I felt good when I listened to it, and so I kind of just put that into my mind, hey, this one episode, it's just like, it's got some positive vibes. And so I'm going to keep that one on my list so that I can go back and listen to it later. So yeah, just kind of why I brought that one up. But yeah.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     yeah, absolutely. And I feel like, so now that you say that, I think the episode that kind of is the same for me, has to relate to the Kawa model and teachers. I think, you know, there's us and teachers, we it could be a love hate relationship, just trying to get supports in and trying to understand their schedules, or just scheduling in general. And that episode really just kind of brings me back to the teachers are truly our biggest fans when it comes to what we're able to do for their student, because their whole goal is to get that student to learn and participate and be functional within their space as well. So the Kawa model, and how it relates to OT, I think, is definitely one I listened to, and I'm like, Yeah, we got to give our teachers a little bit more. Grace. We got to give a little bit more grace, maybe during that IEP meeting to just to make sure we're all on the same page and we're all understanding everyone's perspective. So I absolutely agree with you.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And kind of tagging along that's a perfect segue for this advocacy on the podcast, we've often discussed advocating for yourself and you're in a, I wouldn't say unique. You know, there's other OTs, other ot practitioners in a similar situation to you, where you're contracted, you've got some time in the schools, time outside the schools, but we've often talked about advocating, and, you know, understanding your role, helping others to understand the OT role, or even expand our scope in the school setting. And have you been able to take that and kind of apply it to your practice at all?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yes. So funny enough. You know, the biggest question is, what is ot what is it? I don't understand what you do. You do it. I thought that was for, you know, people who had strokes, and how are you going to help my child? Is it just handwriting? I think that's a train of thought a lot of us get a lot of the time. And I think the podcast has made me more confident and knowledgeable about just what we do, as well as if we are not currently in a space, there's ways that we can advocate for ourselves to be in that space. And so specifically with my schools, there's there's been times where it hasn't been understood why ot should be involved in maybe specials or extracurricular activities at the schools. And so I've been able to hold meetings and advocate why behaviorally sensory and provide these, these tools and strategies to teachers who have teachers and, you know, volunteers at the schools who have no concept of what that means, but they see the children struggle. So I that's a really unique opportunity that I've, I've had within my schools, as well as, you know, creating a different, what's the right word, maybe a different perspective on the children that receive support services, being able to collaborate with teachers and bring them into what the child needs and how their space is impacting not only the teacher but the child. Because we all know co regulation, if the teachers are dysregulated, so is the child. So I've, I've made some really great connections at my schools, and I think because of that connection and my willingness to educate and advocate for OT. But also, my child has kind of created a different realm of OT on these campuses. So I, you know, you can always advocate for yourself. And, you know, making the connections is a really a big part of that as well.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, you've mentioned some of the resources that like, because we do with the show notes if, if a speaker makes something available to us, whether it be a handout, whether it be a list of resources that they have, whatever it might be, we'll often put it on the show notes at otschoolhouse com, slash episode, and then the number, who knows there might be something there with this episode with Taylor, I'm trying to get her to convince a Spotify playlist for us. We'll see if it happens. But you mentioned those earlier, and have you ever actually used those to help you to describe what OT is, or use those as a resource to help you to help a teacher understand how you can better support a student?     Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yes, absolutely. So I know there's some specific episodes that have their own understanding of OT that, you know, provide little handouts, or there's like tidbits in the podcast episodes that give kind of their elevator speech. So I've definitely come to refine my own and having that kind of like in my back pocket anytime someone's ready to ask me. But when it comes to resources to, you know, we there was episode on zones of regulation, and so they have, you know, 1,000,001 free resources on their website. And so I was able to take that and apply it with my kids. But what led me from that was I had some kids that were having a really hard time understanding the concept of being a color that abstract thought was just it was really missing with them. So having that basis knowledge of these resources, I'd be able to create my own. So I kind of have a blended behavior, silly scale, that still uses colors as an option, but with words and bringing the child into that to identify their behaviors and appropriate spaces as well as, you know, all of their handwriting episodes. There's so many different ones about using, you know, writing on black paper with chalk, and how that provides a completely different contrast for the brain, and how to apply it. And so I've done that with creating my own handwriting checklist with grocer movements to, you know, evolve the type of learning, a multi sensory learning approach. So there's so many opportunities to identify the resources, but as well as taking them and individualizing them for either your caseload or specific children who would benefit from it, but they need some tweaks for themselves.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, wow, that's really cool. Again. Just kind of, for me, it's like an out of body experience, hearing people talk about the podcast in this way. But yeah, so collaboration, this is always a topic that that's difficult. I think all of us want to collaborate more, but it is very difficult because collaboration is a two way street, right? Like we can't just make a decision to collaborate, we have to have other people who also want to collaborate with us, whether it be teachers, administrators, parents. I know you also work with parents, because you're not just in the schools, but yeah, what are, what are a few tips that you've heard over the episodes to help you kind of with this collaboration process.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     So one thing when it comes to collaboration is that you have to meet the other person on their level, if they are another provider, what do they know about ot have they ever collaborated with occupational therapists before? Do you guys have the same goals based off what your you know what your child and your case looks like with parents? Are parents 100% on board with the diagnosis that their child was given, or with the supports that they need? Do they understand what their child is experiencing, getting on their level first, and establishing a baseline and building that rapport with them, just like we do we're kids, I would say, is step one. If you don't have that any type of information or adjustment or need that you throw on them is not going to be reciprocated in the way that we may think it is. Yeah, so once, once you've kind of established that, you know, sort of baseline, I think, trying to have a meeting with them of some sorts, or just through email, I know that's so hard with everyone's schedules, and you know, everyone's caseload is different, but, you know, really identifying what that looks like for each other and then testing it out. Maybe you do, you know, a co treating type session together and it doesn't go right. Awesome. Regroup. Trial error is the same way as it comes with collaboration. I know I'm really lucky, and my the owner of my company, Alyssa, she's a speech language pathologist. So her and I actually get to co treat fairly often on our sessions with our kids, who we share. And I think the first one, in my perspective, it was crash and burn, because that was the first time as a true practicing ot what I needed to do, trying to help her goals, trying to maintain mine. And I think the more that we've done it, and the more that we felt comfortable identifying our common ground, the better our sessions have been, and the better the progress has been for our kids.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love it. I kind of want to back away from the podcast just a little bit, because you do. You're a new school based OT, but you're not a new school based OT. You've got a year and a half, you've done a lot of research, you've learned a lot in the last 18 months or so. And so I do just want to give you an opportunity, especially right now. This episode is coming out in September. I believe there's a lot of people starting their first month, their first two months, in the school based system. And so what are just a few tips you have in general for brand new school based ot practitioners?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Absolutely so first off, welcome, welcome to the craziness that is otschool based, you know, but my top three, first one, seek out mentorship, whether that is past employees. That is past co workers, current co workers. You know, external ways like this, podcast, Facebook, groups, Instagram, anything. Find something that you can bounce ideas off of or absorb, because imposter syndrome runs rampant in our field. And you know, we'd say, maybe all of healthcare, I know for myself, that was one thing I needed. Because there's days where I'm like, Oh my gosh, did I ever learn this? Am I even? Do I even, am I even certified? Knowing that's not the case, obviously I am, and I'm practicing. It's you need to feel grounded in that, because your education is valuable, your experience is valuable, and the way that you're being a therapist is valuable. So seek out mentorship any way that you can. You know another tip is trial and error. I know I've mentioned it several times throughout this episode, but I can't emphasize it enough, especially being so new, we see all these opportunities. We see all these resources and tools. And if we apply it once and it didn't go great, don't count it out. Try it again with a different student. Approach it in a different way. We are so brilliant when it comes to activity analysis, use that and trial and error through all of those processes, whether it's games, ideas, assessments, screenings, you name it, trial and error, will be your best friend, because that's the only way that you you can truly learn my last one. Get back into play. Don't get caught up in all of the the task to do, lists, whether that's the documentation, the writing, the meetings when you're with your child, you. Play in the school setting, children can still learn through play in any way that may look like to them. You can always incorporate academic components, or maybe that's handwriting, or whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish with them. Children learn best through multi sensory and play, and so don't forget that at the root, that's what you're able to do?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, Yeah. I love those. All great ones and, and that second one that you mentioned where, you know, don't be afraid to make mistakes, like we're going to make mistakes. You can't not make mistakes. You are human. But as you were talking about that one, something popped into my head, kind of taking this back to the podcast again. But have there been any episodes where you almost have, like, shiny object syndrome from for it where, like, maybe the maybe the episode was just awesome. It was, like, some great stuff, but right now wasn't the right time for you to go down that path, or right now maybe it didn't apply to your situation, even though you loved every second of it, and the guest was amazing. Have you experienced that? And if so, kind of, how did you deal with it? Potentially?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah, absolutely. So there, there's been a few, there's, you know, there's episodes talking about dysgraphia and supports, and that one specifically, I currently don't have any children with dysgraphia or diagnosed dysgraphia on my caseload, but to me, I'm like, Oh, this is so amazing. What if all of my kids have it and they're just not diagnosed, and that's not my that's not within my scope. But I'm like, This is so amazing. And I think that's just kind of a nugget that I have in my back pocket for a time where I'm going to be working on a handwriting activity, or we're reading something, and I'm going to be like, Huh? Let me pull out some of these supports that I once learned and let me apply it then. So that's definitely a back pocket episode.    Jayson Davies     Awesome, awesome. All right, I've got a last few questions here, and we're gonna have a little bit of fun, especially with this next one. You've listened to a lot of episodes you mentioned. What is one episode we haven't had that you wish we did have?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Interesting I would love if there was an episode about, you know, someone from the ABA realm and an OT who are actively collaborating together within The schools. I think that would be such a beneficial episode for both parties to understand how we can work together and how we can transition our minds and our strategies and our language to be very neurodivergent affirming. I think that's something that would be a very, very impactful episode.    Jayson Davies     I love that you chose, like, the hardest potential episode to choose. Like, I can't make that happen overnight, no. But we did have an ABA therapist on a long time ago. Gosh, I'm blanking on his name even. But you threw in the extra component of how an ABA therapist and an OT or an OT practitioner are collaborating, that is a good one. And I know there are some that are doing it. I have a few people that are even coming to mind, but yeah, I think that'd be a great episode. And not just for the How to practical part of it, but as you kind of alluded to. I think it would be great for both professions in general, like, there is a lot of, I'll just be very frank here. There's a lot of animosity between the two. Everyone knows it. No one's saying there isn't, unless you're in front of the other professional. But, yeah, I think that would be a great topic. Thanks for sharing that. We'll have to. We'll have to work on that. And then I want to go back. I wrote down, as you were talking earlier, you mentioned the primitive reflex episode and then how it's leading to taking additional coursework on that. And as you were talking, I kind of jotted this down. I wanted to know kind of how you went from listening to the episode to then researching and choosing a program, because there, I mean, we can talk about anything on the podcast, but there's 18 different programs out there for just about every single thing under the sun, right? So, I mean, sensory is a great example of that. There's like, three or four different primary sensory courses that that people know of. But how did you go about deciding which one you wanted to take and go about taking that one.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah. So I when I was researching, you know, different courses or continuing education opportunities, specifically for prone to reflexes, I mean, there was 1,000,001 options, yeah, to kind of see a theme with them, that they were either all like only OTs, only, you know physical therapy, or, you know, a hard sensory behavior lens on it, which is a, obviously a component. But when it came to choosing my specific course, it incorporates OTS. Neurology, sensory behavior and trauma, informed care. And to me, you know, once researching it, that's really what it encompasses. It, it's a really holistic view of primitive reflexes. So I wanted a very broad view, and not just from one specific lens, because I think we there's a lot to learn from, you know, neurology and psychology and physical therapy, and we have the ability to kind of encompass all of that. So that's what I thought would be the best actually, Dr I believe she goes by Lyons now, but verlicia Gibbs lions, yep, yes, she was at our back to school conference, and she's actually the OT that that does that, course, along with Karen Pryor, the physical therapist. So it's a wonderful course, if anyone's interested.    Jayson Davies     Is that the is that the pessi one, or is it a different pessi? Okay, well, we'll be sure to link to it in the show notes, so that we can get anyone interested access to that. Very cool. All right, as we start to wrap this up here, I'm curious, and maybe others are curious as well. But you have been a school based ot practitioner for 18 months now. You've done a lot already. I mean, you're using the podcast to do things. You're taking a primitive reflex. Course, it seems like you're kind of moving forward. What are some goals that you have in your ot career? Just kind of things that you're interested Do you want to one day own a business? Do you want to stay in the schools forever? What? What are you thinking?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah. So I, even before grad school, I worked as a sensory motor aid for an outpatient pediatric clinic, and the woman that owned her practice, I was enamored with. I loved everything about the way she ran the business. When she was kind of teaching me the back end, and I was like, I am going to own my own business one day, and it's going to be amazing. And now that I'm I'm in the school system, and I have this beautiful mix of, you know, school, home and community, I feel like I just want to progress the company that I'm with and find something specific in the schools that I can almost create a alternative look to treatment from what I mean by that is kind of, it doesn't have to be in a room. Let's get us out on the campus. What can we do for the campus? How can we help admin? How can we kind of elaborate that so kind of expanding more. So what school based ot looks like is really my long term goal.    Jayson Davies     I love it. I love that. And, and I'm sure you've already listened to the episode, but get in contact with Sue basic. Sue basic is she's got programs, but I think that a lot of people who are implementing her programs are putting their own spin on it. And I think that's really cool, you know, it's things are designed to evolve, right? Well, what was great yesterday may not be great tomorrow, or it may still be great, but in a slightly different way. And I think that that is something that I've said a lot, is just, you know, don't, don't do something, especially when you get a brand new job at a school, don't continue doing something that has always been done at the school for the sole purpose that that's the way they did it, right? Like if you walk in and the caseload is 30 kids one time a week, 30 minutes pull out. That doesn't mean that you have to have 30 kids one time a week, 30 minutes pull out. Next year, you could have 15 kids, push in, 15 kids, pull out. You can do whatever you want so far or so, be it, as long as you are doing best by the children. So I love your idea of kind of doing things a little bit differently, right, to support others. So very cool. All right. To wrap this up, is there anything else you know you shared a lot of very helpful tips today, but is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners, just in general about school based occupational therapy.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yeah, school based OT is, is fabulous. I feel like we get, I mean, we're in the nitty gritty with our kids when their main occupation at this stage of life is their education and playing, and we have the beautiful opportunity to blend both of them as well as engage with the people that spend 99% of the time with them, their teachers, their extracurricular activity, teachers and their parents. And you've entered a beautiful space, and you have this beautiful resource at the podcast. If you're listening even only to this one, go check out all the other ones and all the beautiful resources and feel confident in what you're doing. You have earned it. You've earned your degree, you've earned the job that you're in, and you've earned the space to advocate for yourself and for your kids. So don't let the tough days dictate you know the career ahead of you.    Jayson Davies     I love it. I love it. And we like to say, a lot of us as ot practitioners, the like play is my favorite occupation, and we work on a lot of play in school based OT, but a lot of times when we do that, I feel like it's very one on one play based. And I think in a lot of ways that you're talking about it today is, you know, getting away from just the one on one play and just really facilitating play. At a larger level, and making sure that all kids have access to play, and that teachers understand the importance of play on their academic achievement over time. And I think that's just fantastic. So Taylor, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. And before I let you go, what is the best way for anyone to learn more about yourself?    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yes, so I have a Instagram account that's ot related. My username is Dr Taylor, underscore, OT. I It's newer, but I will be loading it up with information. Day in the Life, says an OT, all of that fun stuff. And I'd love to connect with you guys on there as well as a I have a teacher pay teacher account. So the username for that, and I believe all this stuff will be in the show notes as well, if you're not near, something to write down, but it's a CT therapies. I have my resources that I've created by listening from the podcast, as well as a intervention activity for you guys on there as well.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. Well, you can find her on Instagram. You can find her on TPT, and we will definitely link to that. Taylor, thank you so much for two things. One, reaching out and kind of just bringing this eye opening idea to the podcast, you know, just coming on here to talk about how to use the podcast to learn. I think that is just a great idea. I'm glad we did this, and I I'm glad that you were the one to to bring it up and to be on this episode. So we really appreciate you being here today.    Dr. Taylor Poirier OTR/L     Yes. Thank you so much for creating the space, having this podcast and these platforms, and for for having me on. I had a great time, and I hope everyone else gains at least something from it. I know talking and Chitty chat with you, it definitely has the ball rolling in my in my head for ideas. So thank you so much.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. Thank you, one more time, a big thank you to Taylor for sharing her knowledge with all of us. It is exciting to hear how she is using the podcast episodes to her advantage and implementing so many great practices within her role as a school based occupational therapist. If you're interested in checking out Taylor's playlist that I teased about a little bit during that episode. You can check it out within the show notes, we actually put together an entire Taylor's playlist of otschoolhouse com podcast episodes, and you can find that over at the show notes, at otschoolhouse com slash Episode 159, also on the show notes, you can learn more about Taylor and how she is supporting school based ot practitioners through resources on teachers, pay teachers. One other thing, if you're looking for a group of school based occupational therapy practitioners to learn, collaborate and share resources with, be sure to check out the otschoolhouse com collaborative. The otschoolhouse com collaborative is the go to online community where school based ot practitioners learn together with aota approved CEU courses, support one another through live and Asynchronous means, and share goals, research and other helpful resources. Not to forget, members of the collaborative can also earn professional development hours for listening to the otschoolhouse Comcast, plus it's the only place where I consistently go online and regularly answer ot practitioners questions. So if you'd like my support and the support of 200 other school based ot practitioners, be sure to check out the otschoolhouse com collaborative at otschoolhouse com slash collab. I hope to see you there. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the otschoolhouse com podcast.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the otschoolhouse 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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 160 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Are you feeling uncertain about how to prepare your students with disabilities for the transition to college? As OTPs we want to equip students for life beyond the classroom, including their next steps after high school. In this episode, we’ll tackle the challenges that arise when students navigate the vastly different expectations and supports of college life. Annie will share important insights and practical strategies to help us support our students during this huge transition.  Listen to this episode to help empower your students for success beyond high school! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify how school-based OTPs can support our students in the transition to college process Learners will identify a variety of services for their students, including assistive technology, employment support, and potential funding options for college, to help students prepare for their future Learners will understand the importance of fostering self-advocacy in students during their k-12 education Guests Bios Annie Tulkin is the Founder and Director of Accessible College, as well as an author and public speaker. She is an expert in the area of college preparation and transition for students with physical disabilities and health conditions. She supports students and families across the country. Annie was the Associate Director of the Academic Resource Center at Georgetown University for nearly 6 years. In that position she supported undergraduate, graduate, and medical students with physical disabilities and health conditions and oversaw academic support services for the entire student body.  She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Secondary Education from DePaul University, a Masters in Special Education from The University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Certificate in Health Coaching from Georgetown University. Annie was a Peace Corps Volunteer (Mongolia, ‘03-’05) and a Fulbright Fellow (Mongolia, ‘07-’08).  She resides in Silver Spring, MD with her husband and daughter. Quotes “So the data tells us that 21% of college students report having a disability.”  -Annie Tulkin, MS “At any institution, somewhere between 10-20% are actually receiving accommodations.”  - Annie Tulkin, MS “I think that we can encourage students to be a part of those IEP meetings or a part of those 504 meetings.” - Annie Tulkin, MS   “Sometimes goals don't need to focus around multiplication, addition. They need to focus on real world skills.”  -Jayson Davies, M.A., OTR/L Resources 👉 Accessible College   👉 Annie’s Email 👉 Accessible College Facebook 👉 Accessible College IG 👉 Accessible College Linkedin 👉 Reeve Foundation   👉  Navigating the Transition to College Guide 👉   United Spinal Wheelchair Guide 👉 Preparing Students with Physical Disabilities and Health Conditions for College 👉  Perkins School For the Blind College Readiness 👉  JAN-Job Accommodation Network 👉 State Vocational Rehabilitation Program- Pre ETS 👉 A Wheelchair User’s Guide to Preparing for College   👉 How to Secure Housing and Manage PCA Services at College 👉 Department of Rehabilitation Services  ( IL)  👉 Move United   👉 When Students with Health Conditions Transition to College 👉 How Can Students with Health Conditions Successfully Navigate the College Transition? Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript. Jayson Davies     Hey there and welcome back. It's great to have you as we discuss and often forgotten side of education, and that is what happens when our students move on from primary education as school based occupational therapy practitioners, we often are so caught up with the here and now of supporting our students, like making sure that we have, you know, functioning IEP goals in place, that we get all our services in that we monitor the all their the progress on their goals and whatnot, and we often forget that our students will have a life beyond high school and their adult transition program. After all, the whole purpose of education is to prepare students for life beyond said education, that is why, in this episode, we are tackling a common challenge that many of us face effectively preparing our students with disabilities for the transition to college and other programs, the expectations and supports available in the college setting and in other settings outside of high school are vastly different from that primary education that they're used to, and this often leaves families, as well as the students themselves, unsure of how to navigate this crucial life change. Unfortunately, most of us don't have the knowledge to support our families with this change when we sit in IEPs or meet with the students and their families otherwise. So to help us unpack this issue and learn how we can best support our students, I'm joined today by Annie Tolkin, the founder and director of accessible College. Annie has extensive expertise in supporting students with physical disabilities and chronic health conditions as they transition to higher education. Over the course of this conversation, Annie shares invaluable insights and practical strategies that we as school based ot practitioners can use to better support our students. In this process, you'll learn about the key differences and accommodations from high school to college, the living skills that best support students transitioning to college, and the importance of fostering self advocacy skills and students before they move on from high school. Annie also generously provides a wealth of resources and guides that you can share with the students and families you work with. So wouldn't that be nice to go to an IEP with actually some resources at our transition plan meetings? Absolutely. Plus, if you're a member of the otschoolhouse com collaborative, you can earn a certificate of completion for listening to this episode. So let's dive in and discover how we can better prepare our students with disabilities for the transition to college. This is sure to be a game changer for how you think about transition planning and the services that you provide for your students.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the otschoolhouse com 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     Annie, welcome to the otschoolhouse podcast. How are you doing today?    Annie Tulkin     I'm great. Thanks for having me.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And this is going to be a very different episode, nothing like we've done before, because we've talked a lot about transition services from the school based ot side, like, you know, being in the K 12 setting, but you are in a different setting. You're also not occupational therapist. I'm going to give you a second to talk about that. But yeah, you are kind of on the side where we are aiming for kids to get to at some point right, to be on their K 12 or age 22 IEP services and to college and so yeah, thanks for being here. Excited to talk to you about this.    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, I'm excited to talk too, and just to just a little aside, like I see OTs and PTs and other healthcare providers really as partners in this process and reaching out to families and students to make sure that they have all the resources and tools that they need to successfully transition. So hopefully this will be an informative conversation for your listening folks,    Jayson Davies     yeah, yeah, absolutely. I have no doubt that it will be so let's go ahead and get started. I just want to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about your background and how you got involved with supporting students with disabilities during and in that college transition process.    Annie Tulkin      Sure. So my background is in university disability support right now. I am the founder and director of accessible College, which is an LLC where I provide college transition support and preparation for students with physical disabilities, so wheelchair users mobility device users, ambulatory wheelchair mobility device users, students with sensory impairments, so vision and hearing impairments as well, and then also students with chronic health conditions, which is another sort of big tent term, which might include things like tots, Ehlers, Danlos Syndrome, Crohn's, diabetes, epilepsy, basically anything that might impact a student in the college setting. And I got into this work because I used to be the associate. Director of the Disability Support Office at Georgetown University, which is called the Academic Resource Center. But more broadly, my whole professional career has been in the field of disability, and so I bring that experience as a former university administrator to the work that I do now with students, which is more along the high school transition phase of helping students think through what their needs are going to be, what accommodations they may or may not need in the college setting, and beyond just the academic stuff, thinking about residential, dining, transportation, recreation, sort of the whole scope of living on a college campus and making sure that students are really prepared for that transition. I think some of what we're probably going to talk about today is like, what does that transition actually look like for people? Because it's different. College is different, and I'm sure we'll dive into that. But the other thing I wanted to mention too is that my background is in education. You mentioned I'm not an OT I'm not I am a friend to OTs, and my background is specifically in special education. That's what my master's is in, and secondary education in my undergrad experience. So I come to this as a support provider, as a teacher, as an educator, and the work that I do is sort of akin to coaching. So yeah, so that's me.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. I love it, and I love because we're going to get to talk to you kind of in two separate phases, right? There's that transition period actually getting from high school to college, but then you also have some of that background of once the student is actually on campus in your previous position as Associate Director. So I actually want to start there with the work that you did while on campus, and just kind of give us an overview of what that actually looked like. And I know you were, I believe, like more of a director role there, but I'm sure you had some hands on, or you worked with a lot of people that did have hands on. So what did that look like in that role?    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, I'm chuckling. And I think maybe to sort of like give this a little bit of preface this part of the conversation. So first, there's about 4500 colleges and universities across the United States. Every college has to be technically ADA compliant. Americans with Disabilities Act compliant at most colleges. That means that there's a Disability Support Office or an office or a person that is tasked with providing accommodations for students with qualified disabilities. So in my previous position at Georgetown, the office was called the Academic Resource Center. The offices have different names across the spectrum of universities. So it might be accessibility services, Student Disability Services, Disability Support Services, Student Access Center. They all have different names. So I usually tell people go to the main College website and just put in Disability Services, and it should come up, or you should be able to find it. But I say that to say like, because people don't even know often that those offices sort of exist. And so that is sort of a compliance based piece of what colleges have to provide for students with disabilities, and that's the office that a student would have to connect with and have conversations with when they are seeking accommodations at that university. And as I mentioned before, the accommodations can be might be broader than maybe what they had received in a high school or a K through 12 setting. So in my role there, I did work directly with students, and I chuckled. The reason I was chuckling is because every disability support office is a little bit different. So I often joke that you've seen one Disability Support Office, you've seen one disability support office, so some of them have large staffs and lots of supports that they can offer, and some of them don't. They might be a one, a staff of one, or a staff of two. And just like data point wise, I think it's important to understand that we do, we do know how many students there are. We have a we have a good guesstimate. So the data tells us that 21% of college students report having a disability. Wow, so, yeah, that's a lot of people. Yeah, so, and that includes learning disabilities, it includes mental health conditions, it includes physical disabilities, sensory impairments, chronic health conditions, the whole spectrum, and those are people who have like gone to the office to request accommodations at any institution, somewhere between 10 and 20% are actually receiving accommodations.     Jayson Davies     Okay.    Annie Tulkin     You had a question, though.     Jayson Davies     No, I was just going to kind of compare that, because I know I don't have the most recent, up to date numbers, but when it comes to students with an IEP, I have seen numbers that are much lower than that, on average, somewhere in the 13 to 14% even though, in my own experience, I always the schools that I work at, you know, looking at our numbers, it seemed to be higher than that. It seemed to be closer to that 20% range that you're talking about. So yeah, just kind of comparing that and. It's interesting comparison.     Annie Tulkin     Well. And here's another fascinating piece, right? So there's this whole other portion of students in the K through 12 setting who don't have IEPs aren't maybe receiving services from an OT through the school, who might have a 504 plan, right? And so they are also students that would potentially apply for accommodations in college. But the data that we do have tells us that there's a big drop off as well from students who received accommodations in the K through 12 setting, who go on to college and then for whatever reason, either they don't think they'll need accommodations, they don't know how to request accommodations, whatever the circumstance is they choose not to request accommodations, or they don't know they can request accommodations in the college setting. And so in my role at Georgetown, I was working directly with undergraduate, graduate and medical school students with physical disabilities and chronic health conditions. I was also in charge, because that office was sort of had many roles on campus, but I was also in charge of academic support for students too. So I would meet one on one with students to talk about time management, executive function skills, study skills, things like that. I also oversaw workshops, and I did all of the housing accommodations. So I worked with Residence Life to start to figure out when a student requested a specific accommodation in the housing setting, how we could make a reasonable accommodation to meet their needs. So all of that information feeds into the role I have now, which is working with students prior to going to college. So during, ideally, during the college search process, is what I'm working with them, so that they can start to think through all of these pieces and ask the right questions and do the right investigation to make sure that they're choosing a college that is holistically supportive of their needs.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and I'm sure you have, like, I mean, you just randomly, you know, throughout 4500 colleges or so, so you obviously know a lot about the different colleges. Before I get into that transition piece, I want to ask you to share a little bit more about one piece. And I remember in my day at USC, there would often be like, I think it was a flyer back then, like email was available, but people are still putting out flyers like, where we could get paid to share our notes and it was going to the accessibility department or something like that, to be shared with a student who might have a disability, you can kind of assume why that might be the case, why a student might need that. But I just want to hear from you, what are some of the challenges that you saw students experiencing, and what were some of the solutions that you were able to come up with?     Annie Tulkin     Yeah, so we'll start with that, but I do want to go back to that note taking piece, because there's a lot to talk about there that relates directly to OTS. So some of the things that students really struggle with is not knowing what the process is for requesting a common accommodations in college, not knowing what types of accommodations they could request, really lacking the self advocacy skills, because it's essential, because it is more hands off in college, parents, guardians do not have a role in the college Accommodations Process. Once a student is 18 or they sign that dotted line and they matriculate, which is, you know, the fancy word for starting college, mom and dad, Guardians don't have a say or a role in that advocacy process. And I think for a lot of students, that's a big shift, and also for a lot of parents, I'm a parent myself. I understand like you, you play a role in your students life. And so that is a huge shift that I think catches a lot of people off guard. The other stuff is the independent living stuff, right? So, like a lot of students, don't really realize or recognize the sort of shadow work that parents and guardians might be doing to support them, like filling their medication, like making their lunch and putting it in their bag, like, you know, folding their laundry and putting it away for them. And once they start to have to figure those processes out, or once they realize, like, Oh my God, there's so much more work to do in a in an adult, quote, unquote, adult life, then they start to unravel a little bit, right? Like they're ill prepared for those independent living pieces. So a lot of the work that I do with students and families is sort of, you know, peeling back the onion and figuring out what, what are the things that we need to start working on while you're still in a supportive environment at home, and how can we make sure that you have the right structure set up for college, even if that structure is like getting someone to help you do some of those things, we need systems right? Because it's better to have a system in place than to just like, go in there and throw your hands up in the air. Oh, yeah. So those are the things that I think like are really challenging for students. The the piece about note taking was a really interesting thing that you brought up, and so were you ever a note taker?    Jayson Davies     No, I never did it. No, I have terrible notes. So no, I Yeah, no, you wouldn't want me taking your notes.     Annie Tulkin     Yeah. So. So this looks a little bit different in college. Now, some colleges still use that process where they have a human another student work as a note taker. Some students get paid. At some universities, they give them a stipend. It looks different every single place, but now a lot of universities are leaning more towards using note taking services, right? Like glean otter AI are the are sort of the big ones, and they might offer that to a student as an accommodation. And I bring that up because a lot of times students maybe don't have the tech skills or haven't used a note taking software before, and so that might be something that could be really good for OTS to sort of be aware of and thinking about. So they're raising that with students that they're working with, you know, well ahead of time, so that that student can start to, like, get used to using that software.    Jayson Davies     Yep. Yeah. I mean, we're using otter AI right now as we speak. So.    Annie Tulkin     Is this an ad for utter AI?    Jayson Davies     We should be right, affiliate marketing. Um, okay, so, so you mentioned some of the challenges, right? Anything from being on campus to also the daily living skills. What are some things, other than note taking, that are kind of maybe just some easy go to fixes or or even not go to easy fixes that that you've helped students to put in place over your years?    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, so because I focus on working with students with physical disabilities and chronic health conditions, there's a lot of unique situations, right? And there's a lot of things that students need that maybe are unpredictable, right? So if they have a condition that has unpredictable flares, there's some planning that can be a little bit tricky, because colleges provide and if people could see me, they'd know I'm going to use air quotes here, reasonable accommodations, what is reasonable, and that's an ADA and Americans with Disabilities Act, sort of definition of accommodations. Reasonable accommodations. What is reasonable sort of varies based on the physical space of the campus, the program that the student is in, the course of study that they're in. So there are a lot of variables the college is supposed to engage with the student in what is known as the interactive process to determine reasonable accommodation. So having conversations to figure out what does the student need in this course, or in this circumstance, which really relies heavily, especially for students with physical disabilities and health conditions, on the student knowing what they need? Because students with physical disabilities, health conditions, sensory impairments, are the smallest part of the population of students who are requesting accommodations in college. So the largest populations are students with learning disabilities and students with mental health conditions. That's where we've seen like the largest growth in terms of students requesting accommodations. And I'm guessing that people listening are thinking like, Ah, I have students with CO occurring conditions, and I do too. I don't know. People don't fit neatly into one box, right? Rarely. So that's just, it's something to consider, if a student is looking at a school and they have a physical disability, chances are, because of the numbers of students who have physical disabilities, that they might be one of a very few amount of students on that campus who has a physical disability. So you know, in terms of working through things, there are some accommodations that might be specific to students with physical disabilities. The bait, the sort of typical academic accommodations are going to be found everywhere, right? So if it's extra time on a test because a student is using a speech to text software, or because they need to take breaks during the exam because of their medical needs or whatever the circumstance might be, the extra time is sort of a typical accommodation on a college setting. Everybody has a every college will have a process for that. Note takers, there will always be a process for that. The things that I think catch some people off guard are things like flexibility and attendance or extensions on assignments, because that's a little bit more determined by each individual professor and sort of what could be done in that classroom. You are guaranteed your K through 12 education. Students are guaranteed that education in college. You're not guaranteed a college education no one. No one is. It's not something that that the government has to provide for you. And so if a professor feels that an accommodation might compromise the goals of the course, the curricular goals, they don't have to provide the accommodation. So generally, if a student has unpredictable flares and they don't know if they're going to be out of class or whatnot, they need to connect with that professor and have an in depth conversation about what it would look like if they needed to miss class, how they could make up the work. So this is where that self advocacy skills, those self advocacy skills, are going to come in really handy, because the student needs to be able to, like, have those types of conversations, and it also does put a burden on the student. To to be able to like, communicate these things, communicate them over and over again. So I want to acknowledge that piece as well, because it's a lot of work to have to consistently be advocating for yourself, and students really need to be prepared for that. The other thing that I think emerges a lot and towards the end of high school, and then parents call me panicked, is that colleges don't provide one on one aids or para educators. That's not a thing in college if a student needs a personal care attendant or someone to assist them with getting things out of their bag, or using the restroom during the day or whatever the situation might be, eating any sort of ADLs activities of daily living. That's ot speak. I just threw that in, you got it. Then they have to hire manage their own personal care, attendance. And that is a huge revelation for a lot of families that have relied on supports from the school system, and it can also be a big financial burden. This is where that navigation and the support of connecting students with state and federal benefits becomes really, really important. And I see a lot of students who are have physical disabilities, are college bound, are ready for college, academically ready for college, but they don't have enough information or connection with some of the state and federal benefits to be able to afford some of these, some of these services that they might need. And that's a real gap that I've seen in this transition process, specifically for students with physical disabilities who also need personal care supports.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. I can imagine. I mean, I again, thinking back to my college days, I think I almost I knew someone with a physical disability, and he did have someone with him, and we never discussed it. But I think in my head, to some degree I think that the I thought that the college was somehow, you know, helping out with that. And my guess is, I'm totally off on that, it was probably completely all on him and his family and so, yeah, that's definitely very different from being K 12k, through 22 so Yeah, is there any difference between private and public universities and that, or is it all the same? Because they're all covered by Ada, which has the same guidelines, whether you're private or public?    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, the latter. So the last one you said, so if a college receives federal funding, which is almost every college, I think there's like two or three that don't receive federal funding, they also probably aren't accredited institutions, but then they have to provide reasonable accommodations under the ADA. But there are huge differences in the feel of college campuses and the campus cultures and their approach to providing accommodations or being inclusive. So that's a really important factor, I think, for students to consider when they're like, doing that college search process, of like, investigating and looking and seeing, you know, seeing what that college is actually doing for students with disabilities, and how students with disabilities feel about the services that they're receiving on campus.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Well, thank you for all that knowledge. That's a new knowledge to me. And I'm sure everyone out there, out there listening, is a lot of new knowledge before we start kind of shifting over to more of that transition, working directly with the student, the parents, as they transition. Is there anything else you want to mention just about what it actually looks like once a student is on campus?    Annie Tulkin     I think, like, practically, and I think, like a lot of people, like school counselors folks, other folks who work in support services in high schools don't often know what happens once you pitch off that kid to the to the college. You're like, that's done. We did it right? And like, we all feel like, great, they're on to the next thing. That's awesome. So when a student with a disability, and this is any disability, if they want to receive accommodations in college, once they commit to that school, they have to provide documentation for that university. Every college has their own documentation guidelines, and I'm going to dispel a myth right now that's going to blow some people's minds. IEPs and 504 plans do not follow a student to college and end of just period, exclamation point and End of conversation. They don't travel with the student. The student can provide those documents as supplementary documentation when they apply for college accommodations, but the college has their own documentation and accommodation process, so for students with learning disabilities, it might be a neuropsych evaluation. So if they had a neuropsych done through their school district, they'd want to get that full copy, the full report, not the abbreviated report they want. The whole shebang and have that ready to go. Most colleges are also asking that that report be with adult scales and done within the last three years. So if you have a student who has a learning disability and they're requesting accommodations on the basis of having a learning disability, you want to look at that documentation with them. Make sure they're up to date. Look at the schools that they're interested in. Look at their documentation guidelines. Those documentation guidelines do vary. It could be three to five years. So every college can create their own documentation guidelines for students with physical disabilities. It's going to be a letter from their health care provider, typically, that outlines what their functional limitations are, what accommodations the provider suggests. You know, what their what the students needs are, and has like a diagnosis. And that might be for many of my clients, it's like multiple letters, you know, from a neurologist, from their you know, from their doctor who treats them for this thing and that thing. So it might be multiple letters. And then for students with mental health conditions, it could be a letter from their counselor, their therapist, their social worker, that has the diagnosis and the functional limitations and the recommendations for accommodations. But again, when a student is in that college search process, they should look at what those things are, housing accommodations are usually separate from academic accommodations. They might go through the same office, but it's usually a different process with different deadlines and things. So the student gets commits, they sign, they say, I'm going to XYZ University. They need to start that process of requesting accommodations at that point, right? So may 1 is like the traditional like college decision deadline. So there might be housing accommodations. If the student uses a wheelchair or has a fatigue related condition, they might need some housing accommodations. Or if they have Crohn's disease, and they're looking at like the bathroom setups and things, or another type of gastrointestinal issue, or if they catheterize, or if they have a bowel routine, or whatever the situation is, we need to be thinking about what those housing needs are. Housing accommodations are usually the first thing that comes up May, June. There are deadlines you don't get in there. You might not get what you need. And so that's yes So, and it catches a lot of people off guard, so the student submits the documentation, starts the process to request accommodations, and then the Disability Support Office staff sets up a meeting with the student. So right off the bat, the student has to be ready to have this conversation. You know, do I know what I need? Do I know what accommodations I'm requesting? What if they ask me questions about why I need this thing? The student needs to be prepared for that. And then once the student gets approved for the accommodation. So let's say they the Disability Support Office says yes to all of the accommodations that the student has requested, the student then either gets a physical letter or they have an online system where they go with their they coordinate their classes, so math, 101 English, 204 and then they can email the professors or bring a letter to the professors that outlines their accommodations. This is different from high school too. No diagnosis gets conveyed to the person who has who gets the accommodation letter. So the student gets to choose, do I want to disclose my accommodation if they have an air disability, if they have an invisible disability, right? Like they can, they can craft the story that they want to tell, and they can, you know, they have more efficacy in that, in that position. But if a student has a visible physical disability, right, they still might want to, like, talk to the professor about what that looks like in that classroom and how that works, but they have to connect with each individual professor to talk about accommodations for that class, and they have to do that every single semester, because you get new professors every semester, right? Yeah, so very different from high school, especially if you're coming from a high school where, like, you know, everybody knows you, and you know you can't go to that system.     Jayson Davies     It really puts the onus on the student and, you know, and in K 12, and I'm sure you'll tell me if this exists at all at the college level, I'm assuming it probably not. In public education, there's a program called Child Find Right? Like districts are required to basically find students who might need supports. Does that exist at the college level at all? Are universities given the directive like, Hey, you actually need to go out and find the students that need support in any way? Or is it just 100% it's up to the student.     Annie Tulkin     100% up to the student.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's what I figured.    Annie Tulkin     They're adults, right? So once they turn 18, or they sign that dotted line, they're technically an adult, so it's up to them whether or not they want to choose to request accommodations. And you know, there are barriers for students to requesting accommodations, like if they needed updated documentation, and they can't get to their healthcare provider, or they can't get a new neuro psych or what I mean, there's a lot of situations. Recommendations that occur where students you know either don't know that they could request accommodations, they don't they can't get the documentation. There are things that emerge. Hopefully they're at a university where people are caring and supportive and would support them in figuring it out. But that's not always the case, right? And the student has to know to ask for what they need. And that's often the hardest part, right? Like, you don't know what you don't know. And sometimes students are like, wait, I could just ask for that. Or, like, Wait, there is a person who does that sort of work, or could support me with that they just don't know. And part of that is like, cultural capital, right? Like we're all coming from different backgrounds and experiences, and, you know, some of us have more cultural capital. We know what levers we can pull in order to get something that we want, and some of us don't. And so, you know, it's really important that we're talking to students about like, like Student Services at their university, like, why don't you check out and see what sorts of tutoring programs or supports that they have? Do they have assistive technology? There? Is it in the library, or is it in the disability office? Like, you know, and that's the sort of nitty gritty and and making connections with people on that campus so that they know who they can go to, like, who is your point person? Like, you don't know, if you don't even know what question to ask, Who can you go to? And just like, Yeah, talk through the issue so that they can point you in the right direction, and that's tricky.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I can imagine. And like, you know, having my background in school based occupational therapy, I'm already starting to think of all the different ways that school based OTPs can can start to kind of, with this knowledge, start to help their, especially their high schoolers, right? Like we've got to start earlier. We've got to start freshman year, or even earlier if we know that a student's interested in college, we've got to start sharing this information with them, especially now that we have it. So I want to get more into that in just a moment. But before I do, I think a good segue is to kind of talk a little bit about what you're doing at accessible college then and when you get involved. When do you begin to get involved? Ideally, of course, I'm sure sometimes it happens a lot later than you wish it would. But when do you start to get involved? And you've already talked a little bit about what that looks like, but ideally, what does that look like?    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, ideally, students and families are connecting with me during junior year of high school.    Jayson Davies     That makes sense. That's the same time they should be looking at colleges, if not earlier. So usually, right?    Annie Tulkin     It's usually about the time where students start to tune in to like, oh yeah, this is the thing. And, and we, you know, and parents are like, let's go on tours or whatever. Or the school starts to, like, talk about it a little bit more. So I provide one on one support direct to students and families. I predominantly work just with the students. I always, you know, can put parents and guardians in on the conversations that they'd like to be but the reason I do it that way is because it's so important that the student starts to wrap their brain around like what the expectations are going to be for them, and so that they're prepared to ask the questions. Because even if they're asking questions of disability support offices, the expectation on the college side is that the students doing the talking, not the parent or guardian, right? And so I work with students to create a list of accommodations, academic, housing, resident, the residential piece, the recreational piece, the dining piece, whatever their needs are, to start to figure out what are the things we're going to be asking for in college, what are the accommodation needs that we might have, and then creating, working with them to create questions for the disability support offices, so that as they're going on tours, they're reaching out to maybe their top couple schools that they're really interested in, and having conversations and doing a vibe check, is what I call it on the disability support offices, because disability support offices will never tell you 100% that they are going to provide a specific accommodation until the student has committed and until they've seen their documentation. So there are some ways that I've uncovered to sort of get more details without getting, you know, get as close to you can as a 200% right? And part of this too, is just the student connecting with those people to see, like, are these people going to be helpers or hinderers, right? So you can see, like, what's that like? Then it's like working on creating documentation. A lot of times, doctors notice, if there's any doctors listening to this, don't know what college accommodations are. They might be well versed in like workplace accommodations, or maybe they've done K 12 accommodations. But College is a different beast. So the housing pieces and thinking through like, what does the dining hall experience look like? And if we need a meal plan exemption because the student is tube fed, how do we ask that? So I help families sort of create language around that, and then once the student commits to the university, I support the students in figuring out, okay, how do we go through the process of actually requesting the accommodations and navigating the. Conversations with the disability support offices. Because a lot of times, like I mentioned before, if the Disability Support Office hasn't had a lot of experience with students with that health condition, or with students who use wheelchairs, they might not sort of understand what's what the student needs or what the student is asking for. And there's some really, you know, interesting examples of this too. So like, I had a student who had muscular dystrophy, and he had gone through most of this process himself and requested housing accommodations, and he called me up. We had our meeting. He was so excited. He was like, I got a single room. It's right next to the community bathroom. It's going to be great, because that that college only had in their first year residence halls, they only had community bathrooms. And I said, Okay, so let's think through this a little bit. So you're going to have a personal care attendant, because you need help with chat, with bathing and toileting. So that person's going to go with you into the community bathroom, with other with other young men, and that woman, that's probably going to be a middle aged woman who's from an agency, right? Like, so I was like, how are you going to feel about that? And then the toileting piece, and how, you know, and how is this? And it dawned the student just had not thought about, like, the logistics, right? Like, what does this actually look like, functionally? So we worked on an appeal where they went back and they said, here are the reasons why this isn't going to work for me, and what else can we do? Ultimately, the university gave the student an apartment and used it as an opportunity to like, retrofit some another space they had on Canvas to make it more accessible for him. Oh, wow, so that he had more space for his PCA and had a private space to do all those other you know, to do all the bathing and toileting and all the things without having to, like, you know, out himself or make himself uncomfortable, you know, with his peers, yeah, but it was, it was interesting to me, because he just hadn't thought about what that would be like, right? So I do a lot of work with families in that regard, and thinking through all those pieces. I also help people hire and come up with job descriptions for personal care attendants. And think about funding streams for that, connecting them with their state's vocational rehabilitation program if they haven't already done that. Thinking about SSI, Supplemental Security Income for funds for, you know, for their their needs, for their housing, eating, PCAs, medical expenses, whatever the things are, yeah. And there are a lot of things.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and, as you mentioned really quickly, I mean, you don't know what you don't know, right? And, like you just mentioned that that adult with muscular dystrophy, right? Like, you might have spent that entire year in a situation that he would have survived. He would have got through it, but he probably had a much better freshman year in his other placement or the other housing unit that he was able to.     Annie Tulkin     Yeah, yeah, I think. And this is so I actually, I have a partnership with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and I'm working with they just have a new scholarship that they put out. And I'm working with some of those scholarship recipients, some of whom are current college students, some of whom are just starting college. And one of the things that's sort of emerging in that work, in my work with those students, is that, like a lot of students who have been in college for many years, are having conversations with me and realizing that they could have asked for things, or they could ask for things that they didn't even know they asked for, right? And I was like, this is a really fascinating process, right? Like, so, you know, even people who are in it now who are, like, doing the college thing, like, may not have you don't know all the answers. You know, like, so like having a resource or or someone you can work with who might be able to guide you can be a really helpful tool. I do have a program with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, and that's open for any student with any type of limb paralysis. And it's a that's a big tent term limb paralysis. So through that project, I've supported students with spina bifida, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries, neurological conditions that cause some form of paralysis and more, and those students can work with me for free through the Reeve Foundation for up to three hours. And we could include that, the a link to that in the show notes too, Jason, because that's the space where a lot of folks in schools actually send me students to who then work with you through that, through that program?    Jayson Davies     Great, because really quickly I'll let you continue. But just for any ot out there listening right, like, how often do we sit in an IEP and just think, like, Man, I wish I knew where to refer this parent and student to as they really begin to transition to college. And, you know, Annie could be that person. And it's, it's not that we can't support them beforehand, and we're going to talk about that in just a moment, because I'm sure Annie has a handful of ideas for how we can begin to support them in middle school, high school, even maybe earlier. But for that actual transition piece, Annie can really be helpful. So, yeah.    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, and like, to that end, you know, I again, like I said in the beginning, and I do think, like, we all are partners in this process, right? So it is. It's a team effort, for sure. So the reef Foundation program is really great, and it's free for for students and families. So that's, you know, school districts sometimes worry about, you know, referring people to paid services, but this one's free, so yay. So the other thing, and we'll put this in the show notes too, is that I wrote a guide on navigating the transition to college with paralysis, which was for the REA foundation as well. But it's really good for anybody with any type of mobility impairment, right? So, like, even if you have a student who uses a walker or crutches, or has fatigue related issues. It just has some good like thoughts and things they should be thinking about and considering as they're starting that college search process. So that's a really good resource and tool to and United Spinal put out a wheelchair friendly campuses guide to that's that's a good starting point for folks. So that might be another resource we want to share as well. Absolutely and just like because there might be somebody on here who has a student who is blind or visually impaired who's listening to this, I have a project with the Perkins School for the Blind, and we created a college readiness resource website for students educators and for other professionals and parents that looks at sort of college transition for blind and visually impaired students and students with CO occurring conditions, it's a really great sort of starting point for people who are starting to think about the process of going to college as a student who is blind or visually impaired. So we'll put, we have lots of links that we're going to put in there. Yeah. So, yes, yep.    Jayson Davies     Great. Well, thank you. I do kind of want to get into now, and maybe we don't. We'll do this with the school based occupational therapy practitioner in mind, but I'm sure a lot of these will be relevant to the entire education team as a whole. But what are some of the things that you know a student and their parent and their family come to you? What are some of the things that you kind of hope that maybe you know just in the back of your mind you're like, Man, I hope the student learned something or had access to something while they were in high school, what are you hoping that they had access to or learned?    Annie Tulkin     Self advocacy skills is the big one. And I think like that manifests itself in a couple different ways. I think that we can encourage students to be a part of those IEP meetings, or a part of those 504 meetings. Part of that preparation might be actually having the student think about, well, a read their evaluations, right? So like using some of that time when they're with a school professional to, like, read I it always boggles my mind when a student's like, oh, I never read any. I've never read this IEP. I've never read this neuro psych evaluation, right? Or I don't know, like, what these people have said about me or written about me. And so I think it's like, important for students to be aware of, you know, what's what's being said about them and what's written down, but also, just like having that preparation, so we're there. Maybe the students creating questions, maybe the student is, you know, thinking about things that they think would work better for them, and offering those suggestions, and maybe somebody's guiding them through that process, because that's like the soft skills of learning you know how to talk about what you need. And the same thing sort of manifests itself at home too. Like, is the student able to call the doctor and make a doctor's appointment? Do they have the executive function skills. Do they have a calendar that they keep, whether it's like an assignment notebook or because that that becomes hugely important too, when they move on to college, because they got to keep track of all their stuff by themselves. And for a lot of our students, that's a challenge, right? So, so working with students on on those skills, and then on the other side of things, I would say the independent living skills are huge. And this is where I think, like, occupational therapists are, you know, can be really helpful in some of these systems. But, like, you know, can the student make a basic meal from can they make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Right? Like, can they do they have, like, the the functional skills to be able to support themselves as a, as an adult human right ATM use is a is one that, like, comes up all the time. I'm always It blows my mind. How many students have never used an ATM, and because everybody's used to using, like, cash app now and stuff.    Jayson Davies     That's what I was saying. Are people really Using ATM still that much like, I feel like now a lot of campuses have gone completely cashless, but.    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, it just depends, right? But there's some things you need. There's still some things you need to cash for, right? Like, some people have never even been inside a bank, yeah. But so there's a lot of just, like, basic skills, grocery shopping, orientation and mobility skills, right? Like, did they know how to. And on a bus independently, right? Like, public using public transportation is one that comes up a lot, because oftentimes, like, students have been supported in getting from their house onto a school bus to the school getting off the school bus. But like, functionally, how does that look when someone is an adult and the expectation is that they're getting on themselves right, or even even with support, but, you know, relatively independently, and how are we setting them up for success to, like, guide them through that process, right?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, no, yeah. I just want to say just so you know, I know this is asynchronous. People are listening to the six weeks later, but every ot right now. OT practitioner, OTA, everyone's nodding their head along with you right now. These are things that that we stress. And honestly, to some degree, we get shot down when we say, hey, we need to work on ADLs. Here's why. And I hope every ot practitioner right now is like listening and saying, hey, I want to send this, like this segment of the show, to my, you know, principal or assistant principal, or director of special education or something, because, like, the whole purpose, and we said this before on the podcast, the whole purpose of K 12 education is to, you know, produce adults that can function in the world, whether that be college, a job, whatever it might Be. And sometimes goals don't need to focus around multiplication, addition. They need to focus on real world skills, like, as you mentioned, using an ATM, being able to be independent in a housing unit and whatnot. Those are all very important that, that we need to address. So yeah.     Annie Tulkin     Yeah, I rarely do multiplication, but I get on lots of public busses. I can tell everybody that. So the other thing too is like, I created a course called preparing students with physical disabilities and chronic health conditions for college. I created it with healthcare providers, parents, educators, anybody who supports students with physical disabilities or health conditions in mind. And it has, it's a multi module course, so people who take it can go through it and start to think about specific students that they're working with, and use those tools to support those students. Right? So it has a module on Independent Living, but it also has modules on like connecting with the Disability Support Office, engaging in the college search hiring a personal care attendant. So there's, there are a lot of skills there that would be really valuable for for families and for educators and OTs and PTs and other support providers to have if you're working with students. So people can go to my website and check that out too. Absolutely. That might be, that might be helpful. But there's something else that you said, Jason, which I think is really important, because I don't think a lot of people realize this. The ADA also applies to the employment setting. So, so you mentioned, like, the purpose of K through 12 education, and like, you know, and CR in creating functioning adults, and whether post secondary. Their post secondary route looks like college, community college, a certificate program, a supported employment programs, employment period, vocational training, whatever it looks like. Students with disabilities can request accommodations in the in the workplace setting. There's a great resource for this. It's called Jan, The Job Accommodation Network, and you guys can Google that up, and they have a whole sort of spot on their website where you can look at specific disabilities and then types of accommodations that a person might need. There's guides for people with disabilities who are requesting accommodations. So that's just another good resource for people to know about.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for sharing that I asked you in my previous or a few questions ago, right? Like, what do you hope that students come to you with, and you said, executive functioning, some ADL skills. But I want to think now as a school based ot practitioner or teacher, whatever it might be, you're sitting in an IEP, and the students there, the parents there, and say, Hey, I really want to go to college. My goal is to go to college. We're talking about a freshman, sophomore, maybe a junior. What should we speak up and say, as I know, it's obviously independent for or it's going to be very different, depending on the student. But should we start to at that point cue them in on, hey, things are different at the college, or, Hey, make sure you take your IEP to the college. Or, I guess, kind of, what should we be telling parents, if anything.    Annie Tulkin     I think part of it is preparing students and families for the fact that they may not get the same accommodations in college, right? So services and supports are not a part of college accommodations. So, like, there is no so an OT would be considered an auxiliary certain a service in the college setting, just like a personal care attendant or a para educator. So there, there is that does. Exist. You won't get OT, you won't get PT, you won't get speech and language support that doesn't, that doesn't exist in the college setting. So you lose all of the services that you may have in the K through 12 setting in an IEP process. So that is important for people to understand. And I would also say, like, if an OT is there, and we're thinking about, like, what are we advocating for? Assistive technology is one of the biggest things, things that can help a student increase their independence, right? So like these note taking softwares, other sort of daily living supports that the student might need, or assistive tech that they might need. And I think a lot of times, people don't realize that state vocational rehabilitation program has has a program called pre ETS. Students who are age 14 are eligible for pre ETS services, pre ETS, pre ETS, that's what it is in every state. So, okay, just backing up, because people might not even realize this, every state has a vocational rehabilitation program. Every state has a different name for it. It might be Department of Rehabilitation Services. It might be access VR. It might be VR services. So you go to your state, you know, type in your state name, put in vocational rehabilitation. It's a federal program, and then the states get money from there, and then they are supposed to do outreach specifically to people with disabilities. A lot of people associate VR services with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorders or more, quote, unquote, significant disabilities. However, state VR programs can also be a great support for students with physical disabilities or for more significant medical conditions where they're having a lot of challenges in the school setting. And VR has access to assistive technology services, employment services, career support services, so it unlocks sort of more resources. Most public schools have a VR person who might oversee, like a number of schools in that district as their connection to that school or to that school district. So if this is new, if you're listening to this and being like, who? Who is that? What? Yeah, look up vocational rehabilitation. Look at pre ETS, which is their youth employment, youth employment services, because vocational rehabilitation, the sole purpose is getting people with disabilities into the employment setting. Post secondary education, college, community college certificates might be a piece of that puzzle, and in many cases, they'll actually provide funding for college or and books and assistive tech and things like that. And I think, like people don't know about so the more people that know about this, the better awful we're all going to be.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, you are giving our work cut out for all the resources we're going to have to go find. But we will get all these resources. We'll get them up on on the web with this episode, because, yeah, nothing else. All the resources you have shared have just been fantastic. So thank you. We appreciate that. I'm glad. All right, well, we'll wrap this up here, but I want to ask you, because I'm sure there's some people that are listening and they're like, I love my school based occupational therapy job, but I also would love to be in a position on a college campus, working maybe in this arena. And so any advice for ot practitioners who might want to be more involved in supporting the college transition process for the students they work with, or or maybe once kids are even on campus, any advice for where they might whether it be look for jobs or maybe just yeah, how do we get into that field?    Annie Tulkin     I would say that a good way for school based people to connect with the higher ed people is to actually reach out to the Disability Support Office at the college or university that's closest to you and see if they would come to your school and talk to students about, like, what the process is for requesting accommodations. A lot of colleges do that, community colleges, you know, four year institutions, whatever, a lot of them are trying because they on the college side, people want to get to the students more easily, too, so that they're they don't have as much work to do with the students when they once they get there. So creating those connections is a really important thing, you know, I would also say that, like, if someone was trying to break into the higher ed field, you know, I think that for ot to continue ot work might be a little bit challenging, because, like I said, colleges don't typically offer those services. However, there are colleges that have ot programs, right? The OT training programs and things like that. So you know they might be looking for resource sites or placement sites too. So like creating those connections too, so that you know you can help mentor college gets know you, you maybe get a job back at the college, whatever. So there's. There's, there's some inroads there as well, you know. And I think, like there's, there's space for innovation here too. There are some programs that like specifically work adaptive sports, programs in particular, that specifically work with students with physical disabilities, and have summer college programs where they are on a college campus, and they're preparing students for the independent living pieces and things like that. So I think there's about 22 colleges across the United States that have adaptive sports programs, mostly wheelchair basketball. So if you look in the United Spinal guide that we're going to link to, you'll see a lot of those schools. Or if you just Google it, you can find it too. Move United is another great resource for finding adaptive sports programs too, but that might be another sort of inroad for someone to break into the higher ed side of things.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely great. Well, Annie, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for all your knowledge. The resources, I think this is really going to help the OT practitioners better support, especially their high school students, because they now have a better idea of what some of those expectations might be beyond high school, whether it's college or as we talked a little bit near the end, you know work, what it might what it might look like at work. So thank you so much. We really appreciate it, and one last time, remind everyone where they can learn more about you and your programs.    Annie Tulkin     Yeah, folks can find me@accessiblecollege.com I'm also I have Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. I also have a Facebook group. So if you go to the accessible college Facebook page, you can learn about the Facebook group, which is open to healthcare providers, parents, families, students, anybody who wants to talk about physical, physical disabilities, chronic health and mental health is welcome in the group, and you can reach out to me directly to my email is Annie a n, n, i  e@accessiblecollege.com and I look forward to hearing from some folks.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. And we'll be sure to post all the resources over at otschoolhouse com, slash episode 160, so that is going to wrap us up here at the otschoolhouse com, thank you so much, Annie. We really appreciate your time and your knowledge.    Annie Tulkin     Thank you!    Jayson Davies     and there you have it. I hope this conversation with Annie Tolkin from accessible College has provided you with invaluable insights and actionable strategies to better support your students in transitioning to higher education. Remember the takeaways are be aware of the differences in accommodations and supports available in college versus high school. Focus on developing independent living skills like meal preparation, money management and transportation, some of the things that we're often asked not to focus on while working with our students in elementary, middle and high school, and finally, prioritize building strong self advocacy skills in your students. This is true for any student. We need to be able to have students who self advocate for themselves beyond school. Also don't forget to check out all the fantastic resources Annie mentioned. We've included those in the show notes at otschoolhouse com, slash Episode 160 and again, if you're a member of the otschoolhouse com collaborative, you can now earn your certificate of completion for listening to this episode, just log into the community and head to the podcast CEUs tab to take a short quiz and get your certificate. And if you're not a member yet, head on over to otschoolhouse com slash collab to learn more about joining the otschoolhouse com Collaborative for school based ot practitioners. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the otschoolhouse podcast, take care.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the otschoolhouse 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

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 161 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Have you ever wondered how vestibular challenges might be impacting your students’ ability to succeed in the classroom?  In this episode, Dr. Annie Baltazar Mori and Dr. Jennifer Petersen join us to unpack the powerful connection between the vestibular and proprioceptive systems, sharing insights that can transform your approach to these often-overlooked issues. Vestibular disorders are frequently at the root of classroom challenges, affecting everything from focus to motor coordination. Our guests will guide us on how to help students improve not only their physical skills but also their confidence and self-esteem. Tune in as Dr. Baltazar Mori and Dr. Petersen walk us through the latest research, share their clinical expertise, and offer practical strategies to help our students reach their full potential! Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will understand how the vestibular and proprioceptive systems interact. Learners will identify at least 2 standardized assessment tools they can use to evaluate vestibular function in their students. Learners will identify effective intervention strategies for vestibular disorders. Learners will identify key strategies for educating teachers and others on recognizing vestibular challenges and embedding sensory-based interventions. Guests Bios Annie Baltazar Mori OTD, OTR/L & Jennifer Petersen OTD, OTR/L, C/NDT Dr. Annie Baltazar Mori is the owner and founder of playSense, a pediatric occupational therapy clinic in Redondo Beach, CA and ASImentoring.com an online Sensory Integration mentoring program.  She earned her Doctoral and Master’s degrees in Occupational Therapy at the University of Southern California. She lectures, nationally and internationally, on topics related to theory and application of sensory integration and social participation.  She is an instructor for the Collaborative for Leadership in Ayres Sensory Integration (CLASI) and has taught as an adjunct instructor at Thomas Jefferson University teaching advanced practice certificate courses in autism. She regularly participates in research and is a contributing author on several scientific research and professional articles with a focus in the field of occupational therapy and sensory integration (Baltazar Mori et al. 2017; Auld-Wright et al., 2023; 2014; Koester et al., 2014; Mailloux et al., 2014).  She served as the chairperson of the Sensory Integration Special Interest Section for the AOTA. Dr. Jennifer Petersen is on faculty in the Department of Occupational Therapy at St. Ambrose University in Iowa. Her expertise and personal interest have led to leading several projects and studies with her students related to the Evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration (EASI). Beyond research participation, Dr. Petersen has also published scientific research articles (Mailloux et. Al., in press; Petersen et al., 2020; Petersen, 2017; Frolek Clark et al., 2011).  Prior to teaching, she completed her Master’s in Occupational Therapy through St. Ambrose University and her Doctorate from Thomas Jefferson University. Additionally, she pursued advanced practice certificates in ASI through USC/WPS, Autism from TJU, and Neuro-Developmental Treatment from the Neuro-Developmental Treatment Association.  Dr. Petersen has a natural inquiry of understanding how to provide best practice evaluation and intervention to achieve family and child centered goals. Throughout her advanced education, she has practiced at various pediatric clinics and has thoroughly enjoyed being a part of each child and family’s journey. Quotes “Our senses are the only way that we gather information from the world. Sensory integration is needed to learn in the classroom and to participate with our friends and to participate in life. “  -Dr. Baltazar Mori “Sensory integration is a neurological process that we all have, and for us to ignore the integration of the senses outside of a clinic would be a huge disservice to a child.”  -Dr. Baltazar Mori “Vestibular system projects to that cerebellum. We know cerebellum helps us with balancing and motor coordination, and also projects to the oculomotor nuclei”  -Dr. Peterson “We live in a multi sensory world, and our senses work together. We take in multi sensory information, and it doesn't just fall into pockets. The senses work together to understand what's happening and it's really hard to have vestibular input without proprioception.” -Dr. Baltazar Mori “An average nervous system registers movement for about six to 12 seconds. So you'd expect that nystagmus to go for that long.”  -Dr. Baltazar Mori Resources 👉 Dr. Annie Baltazare Mori website   👉 Play sense kids Website 👉 Dr. Peterson website 👉 Email Jennifer   👉 Clasi Website 👉 Dr. Peterson article Easi 👉 SOSI-M 👉 Spm 👉 PRN Research Episode Transcript Expand to view the full episode transcript.   Jayson Davies     Hey there ot friend. Welcome to Episode 161 of the OT school house podcast. Thank you so much for being here today. I want to start off this episode by asking you to raise your hand if you've felt at a loss when it comes to supporting a student that you know has difficulties processing vestibular stimuli. Trust me, I'm raising my hand right alongside you. Perhaps you've tried wiggle cushions, maybe some go noodle videos, and maybe even some sort of swing apparatus that you have access to, but still, you have yet to see a meaningful difference in how the student responds to vestibular input. Now, as you probably know, but are also frustrated by Vestibular Disorders are often the root cause behind so many challenges that we support within the classroom, from handwriting breakdowns as well as behavioral outburst, vestibular always seems to be at the root. Unfortunately, vestibular disorders can also be very difficult to diagnose or to identify and also treat without the proper tools and interventions on today's episode, that's exactly what we're going to uncover the tools and interventions to support students with vestibular disorders. I'm thrilled to be joined by two amazing ot practitioners who are here today to share their approach to evaluating and treating vestibular disorders in the school setting, Dr Jennifer Petersen, a professor at St Ambrose University, and Annie balance our Mori owner of a pediatric ot practice here in Southern California. Annie and Dr Peterson have decades of experience using a sensory integration framework to tackle vestibular challenges, and together, they're going to walk us through the latest research, share their clinical expertise and give us practical strategies that we can use to support our students. So get ready to rethink everything that you thought you knew about Vestibular Disorders. This is going to be an eye opening conversation, and you won't want to miss it. Stay tuned.    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, Jayson Davies class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Dr Petersen and Annie, welcome to the OT school house podcast. It is such a pleasure having you here today. Really appreciate it. And since the two of you, I'm going to go ahead and kick it over to Annie really quickly and say, Hi Annie. How you doing?     Annie Mori     Hi Jayson. Nice to see you.     Jayson Davies     Nice to see you as well. Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. And since we're with you, Annie, we'll, we'll kind of start with you, and then we'll dive over to Dr Peterson in just a moment. But Annie, I'd love for you to just to just to take a moment and share a little bit about where you are in the world of occupational therapy today and and maybe just a brief, brief how you got here.     Annie Mori     Okay, well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here and to speak to your communities. So I've been an occupational therapist for about 24 years now, and you know, from day one I knew I wanted to specialize in sensory integration, and so I've spent my entire career studying sensory integration, writing about it, learning about it, being mentored by experts in it, and Then advocating for it. So currently, I own a pediatric occupational therapy practice in Redondo Beach, California. We serve about 150 clients a week, providing primarily, well providing occupational therapy primarily using a sensory integration approach, because that is our specialty, and that's we're kind of a pretty niche practice in our area, and really diving into that.    Jayson Davies     fantastic, yeah. And I was just looking at your own personal website. Annie blitzesare  morey.com THANK YOU. And, yeah, I was looking at some of your publications and your projects and whatnot. And you have been very involved with SI, as you mentioned, and especially with the evaluation of air sensory integration, the easy as as we've come to know it as, and we're going to dive more into that, I'm sure, the easy a little bit, but yeah, I just wanted to kind of mention that a little bit, because that is something that I know has been a long time in the works. And kudos to you and the entire team for kind of getting it to where it is today and where it's going to be in the future. That's awesome.     Annie Mori     Thank you. That's kind of a career highlight for me. I think,     Jayson Davies     yeah.    Annie Mori     It's really wonderful to be able to work on that team.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely, and we will definitely bring that up more as we get into our evaluation piece later today. Moving over to Dr Petersen, welcome First and foremost, but also, please share a little bit about where you are in the in your ot world today.     Jennifer Petersen     Yeah, thank you for having me as well. So I'm a similar story to Annie, and that upon graduating from my master's program, I initially went into learning more about sensory integration right from the beginning. Knowing that it had sparked an interest during my field work, and wanted to continue to learn about it, study it and and practice it. And so I have worked at a variety of different clinics over the years, and am now teaching at a well for me, it's a local university and Iowa, so a small university teaching entry level doctorate students. And beyond that, I still get to practice. So I practice in the summers, and then get to be a part of research opportunities and continue to grow and develop in that way as well.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha, and what does your practice look like when you're practicing in the summers?     Jennifer Petersen     Yeah, in the summers, I get to practice at an outpatient pediatric clinic. In Iowa, it's fairly common to have hospital based clinics, so it is a hospital based outpatient clinic.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, all right. I want to kind of address this, because this is a podcast primarily for school based occupational therapy practitioners, and both of you have mentioned that you're working clinic based, which, in my opinion, is perfectly fine, because I want to give you the opportunity to share this, not me, because people have heard some of my thoughts on this. But why is, I guess, when it comes to sensory integration a little bit, and what you're doing from a quote, unquote clinical perspective with SI, why is that not just unique to a clinical setting and absolutely applicable to a school based setting?    Annie Mori     Well, I'll start off. I've been a school based therapist also, like for a big, big part of my career, over 12 years, and then I also do individual educational evaluations for the school districts currently, so I'm still very well embedded into the school based model. But you know, sensory integration is a neurological process that we all have, and for us to ignore the integration of the senses outside of a clinic would be a huge disservice to a child. We need our senses to learn. Our senses are the only way that we gather information from the world. So it makes sense that sensory integration is needed to learn in the classroom and to participate with our friends and to participate in life. So, you know, there's always, you know, clinic based model, or medical model, versus school based model. And just kind of my own soapbox on that is, at the end of the day, the outcomes might be a little different because school based is focused on certain outcomes, clinic based might be focused on different outcomes, such as ADLs, but the foundations are the same. That does not change. And so that's where I think that the an air sensory integration approach is really important, universally.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely. Dr Peterson, would you like to add anything? I think Andy did a pretty good job. But if there's anything you'd like to add, go for it.     Jennifer Petersen     I agree she, she stated that very well. You know, in even thinking back to kind of the roots of sensory integration, it started with Dr Jean Ayres, working with children with learning difficulties. And so when we think of that, that certainly is relatable to in the school, the setting in the school, because again, we're working to help children be able to learn, participate in their environments, and be able to have social interaction with other children within school. So going back to our history, I think it also supports it too.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, we're going to start to, you know, we talked a little bit about si just now, but transition to the vestibular disorders. And I guess I kind of want to start it off this way, because I've been practicing since 2012 and and correct me if I'm wrong. You both have been kind of practicing, especially within the SI world, longer and just more ingrained into si than I have. But when I was graduating and going through the SIFT program, there's a lot of talk about the vestibular system within Si, but within the last, I don't know, maybe five years, or maybe even less, I really started hearing more about Vestibular Disorders, not always directly tied to sensory integration. Typically, there is a like a sensory component to it, or there's always a sensory component to it, but I'm just hearing about it, I guess, separated out from SI, I hate to say separated out, because, again, like I said, it's a sensory disorder per se. But how is it that we're starting to view Vestibular Disorders Not just as overall sensory integration? If that question makes sense.    Jennifer Petersen     Well, you know, I like to think of this as sensory integration, and air sensory integration as that umbrella term, that ability to take in information, organize, sort through that information, be able to use it purposefully and meaningfully. But from there, what we have found, and this really started with airs earlier work, is that children that were having difficulty participating within their daily activities that there was four different categories, if you will, or constructs that kept showing up. And so what was found from factor analysis of these different tests that she had used is that there was reactivity, difficulties with perception, and then there was this category of vestibular bilateral integration as well as praxis, and so maybe you're referring to this in that category of vestibular bilateral integration, where you're thinking of it kind of it is still related to sensory integration, but it was its own construct. And now we're starting to hear the term postural ocular bilateral integration. So you might hear it called either vestibular bilateral integration or postural ocular bilateral integration.     Jayson Davies     Okay, so really quickly. Then, when we're talking today about a vestibular disorder, are we kind of calling it that vbis Or postural? Sorry, I already lost it, but is that kind of what we're using these terms almost interchangeably, a vestibular disorder would kind of be equal to vbis, vestibular bilateral integration.    Jennifer Petersen     That is one of the areas that they can have difficulty with. And but there's also, right, there's still vestibular reactivity difficulty, which you may have heard of as like gravitational insecurity in the past. And so that's having that hyper reactive response to vestibular input. So vestibular can be manifested, I guess it within the reactivity as well as perception. But then there is that category really pulling in vestibular, and it's these related motor functions, if you will.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha, okay And I kind of in my question, I kind of said that the last question how vestibular disorder is almost separate from sensory integration. But I kind of want to let you address that, is there a vestibular disorder that is outside of sensory integration, or is everything we're talking about today with vestibular disorder within the realm of kind of gene airs original ASI work?    Annie Mori     Well, you know, I think we need to understand where the where the vestibular challenges come from. Is it developmental, or is it an injury? And if it's an injury, then perhaps we think of it separate outside of air sensory integration, so there would be some kind of head injury or insult, or something that might have come that has occurred that then you would treat it a little differently, yeah. But if it's a developmental issue, if it had to do with something that happened in utero, or whatever it was that the vestibular impact on the vestibular system has affected development, then I think we need to look at it under that umbrella of air sensory integration, because the vestibular system is so entwined in our developmental trajectory that you have to look at the integration of the senses and how they're working together when you're working with a child with vestibular difficulties.    Jayson Davies     Perfect. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up, because there is that idea of, you know, more of an injury related vestibular disorder. And I, yeah, I hadn't thought about that. So thanks for bringing that up. But so, so let's dive into it then, because we know what it is. Now we're talking about here a little bit. What are some of those developmental concerns that might start to appear with a child, and we can start as early as zero, of course. But what are some of those developmental concerns that we might begin or might see with a child as they're being referred to. OT why might they be referred if it's related to a vestibular concern?    Annie Mori     Well, I mean, gosh, it could be so many different things. I mean, in early, early infancy, there could be it challenges with breastfeeding, latching on to, you know, a nipple, and with feeding, early feeding issues, there might be some regulation issues that might be happening difficulty. You know, I've had a lot of families talk about how difficult it is to do a diaper change because they can't lay their child back in space without the child having a, you know, having a complete meltdown and being very upset. Oh, wow. So, and nobody's thinking, Oh, that must be their vestibular system. They're just thinking of the performance challenges that they're experiencing. And then it's our job as OTs to decide or to investigate what, what could that possibly be?     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah.     Annie Mori     And so in those instances, I do kind of a task analysis, and I would say to myself, well, it seems like there's some vestibular opportunities within this task, and so maybe we need to look at that.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha.     Annie Mori     So those are like early crawling is another one where it kind of comes up sitting up might be a little delayed, more delayed than usual. Jenny, what would you add?    Jennifer Petersen     In like, yeah, those postural controls, so being able to sit upright or catch themselves when they're starting to fall, so right when they're learning how to sit or to stand, if they that they can orient to where upright is. And if they're not upright, that they are able to catch themselves. Let's start to tell us a little bit more about that vestibular system in those earlier years.     Jayson Davies     All right, and then, like, let's fast forward a little bit, you know, to kindergarten, first grade. TK, what are some of the things that you might start to hear from teachers that might cue you in a little bit? Hey, maybe I need to look at some vestibular stuff.     Annie Mori     Well, you know, I always talk about like, Are they ready for school? Is their body ready for school? And so even just our preschoolers, right? Or the T cares, right? And and what does that mean? Well, vestibular base. Do they have the balance to sit still? Can they do static postures for an appropriate amount of time for a child that age? What do they look like at circle time? Can they stand in line. Can they stay in a chair, you know, for a relative amount of time to to focus and and take in a lesson, you know? And how are they playing on the playground? What is their visual spatial skills like? And then thinking about coordination related to that, the bilateral integration. Are they using scissors by the time they get to kindergarten? That should happen. Can they dress themselves? What happens when they go to the bathroom at school? Are they able to undo if they have a button on their pants? Can they undo that? Can they get their jacket on and they zip up the zipper? Those kinds of things when they get into school?     Jayson Davies     Yeah. And I kind of want to take a step back, because we mentioned vestibular bilateral integration and and you mentioned a little bit of, kind of, some of the ADL skills that that might be impacted as well. For those listening who you know, haven't gone through sift or easy or any of the other trainings, can we get a brief description of vbis and, kind of, what, what sense, obviously, vestibular, is in play, but what other senses might be at play a little bit. What's the interaction going on there?    Jennifer Petersen     Yeah, I'll go ahead and jump in at this. So what we have found through the research is that the vestibular system is demonstrating an inefficiency within processing the information, and then we're seeing it really through the guy I've been kind of calling them related motor functions, but that can be identified as use bilateral integration, using the two sides of the body together. It can also be seen within postural control, just as I talked about with being able to sit up right. And then also the ocular motor skills as well, so the ability to look at an object and be able to complete a tracking of it from right to left, or even complete some jumping with your eyes from right to left or up to down, so looking at your desk and then looking back up at the teacher. And so those are some of the categories within that, but vestibular, bilateral integration that you would see,     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And as you were talking there, the other term that popped into my head was praxis, you know, being able to plan and whatnot. Does Praxis add another component to what you were just kind of talking about? Or is that three step activity, kind of that praxis? Or how would you kind of bring that into the... Yeah.    Annie Mori     And I think I would also add the s, which we haven't talked about, of vbis, which is sequencing. Yes, again, I think good job. And I think that as clinicians, we we get sequencing can be a confusing thing to look at. And really we're looking at motor sequencing, the fluidity of movement from one action to the next. And we often measure it as, you know, like, we'll follow a three step craft activity, or, you know, we'll do a three step something or other, multi step, whatever. But we really need to think of it as, like, motor transitions. So even a sequence of going, when the teacher says they're in circle time, and the teacher says, Okay, now everyone, go grab the spelling paper and go sit at your desk and that sequence of stand up, turn around, walk, stand in line, turn around, go back to your desk, all of the balance, the coordination, The ocular motor stability to navigate a busy environment that you need to do that sequence of motor skills is really important, and those aren't really there's not really much cognitive layered into that, like heavy cognitive requirements layered into that versus a three step craft activity, there's some more cognitive demands embedded in that. So it gets a little murkier in terms of what are we really measuring, but when we really are thinking about like fluid motor sequences, how is this child moving around a space? How are they moving from one, one action to the next, and is it stop and go, which creates inefficiencies and delays? So those are the kids that you often hear, well, they're usually the last ones there. They finish, they finish their work, last those kinds of things. So sequencing is another big piece of that pattern that I think is easy to get missed, because those kids can really mask they're just slow, and maybe they're not a behavior problem, or there's no like, really big Academic issues other than that, they take a long time.  Well, sequencing is a Praxis aspect of praxis, and when we do our assessments, you know, we have an assessment for sequencing, Praxis sequences, and we're looking at that motor fluidity. And you know what Jenny talked about earlier, about this factor analysis of testing scores, and how we got these kind of groups of or these patterns of challenges in sensory integration. Typically, we see that test of sequencing Praxis grouped together with other vestibular based tests like balance, postural control, ocular motor skills, vestibular nystagmus. So that's that's kind of how that got folded into that, for lack of a better word diagnostic category, but that's how I got it got embedded in there.    Jayson Davies     Okay, perfect. And again, for those of us who haven't taken an anatomy course recently, or an easy course recently, remind us again, kind of just in the brain, where a lot of this integration is happening a little bit, so that way we just can kind of visualize it a little bit as we go on to discuss more today.     Jennifer Petersen     Yeah, I'll jump in the vestibular system projects to. At this point, we know it projects to so many different areas within the brain, but I think there's some that are kind of Hallmark ones that we certainly should know that it's projecting to. So that vestibular system projects to that cerebellum. We know cerebellum helps us with balancing and motor coordination. It also projects to the oculomotor nuclei, which, again, as I talked about before, impacting our ability to track with our eyes or complete saccades with our eyes, as well as the lateral vestibular spinal track, which is helps us with our extensor muscles of our posture, so sitting upright. So those are just a few of the different areas that that vestibular system is reaching out to when you think of the nervous system.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, the brain is so complex, right? Like everything is going on. And Dr Peterson, Jenny, I have to give you a round of applause, because I did not prompt you with that question beforehand, and you just pulled those out of thin air, which means you obviously know your stuff, because that is one that I have heard 100 times, but could not explain it to you as well as you just did. So thank you appreciate it. All right, Annie, I spoke to your website earlier, and many of the publications that you have, and Dr Peterson, I know you have been a part of some of those same ones, as well as your own. I kind of want to just give you both the opportunity to just share a little bit about the research behind Vestibular Disorders. Maybe some sensory in there. I know we've talked a little bit about this already, but is there anything else that we haven't addressed before we start diving into evaluations and intervention that you'd like to share related to the research behind Vestibular Disorders.     Annie Mori     Well, really quick before we do dive into the research, I do want to mention, and we haven't talked about, this, is the role of the proprioceptive system with the vestibular system, because I don't want that to get forgotten, or for us to think of treating sensation in silos, because it is sensory integration. They we work we live in a multi sensory world, and our senses work together. We take in multi sensory information, and it doesn't just fall into pockets. It the senses work together to understand what's happening and and it's really hard to have vestibular input without proprioception. So we talk about those ocular motor skills, those vestibular messages are going to the muscles of the eye, which are our proprioceptors right and our postural muscles right. That that sensation of falling or balance, that information is getting sent to our postural muscles to right ourselves. So our proprioceptors rely on vestibular information to do the job that they need to do, to hold us upright, to coordinate ourselves, to balance ourselves, all of those things. So I just needed to make sure we included the proprioceptive system in that, in this discussion.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, the two systems, I mean, and a lot of people are obviously adding the third of interoception, but yeah, I mean OTs, ot practitioners, right? We vestibular and pro go hand in hand. But thank you. Yeah, we can't forget about the all important proprioception, of course, when talking about bbis and vestibular disorders and all of that. So thank you. And yeah, Dr Peterson, I don't know if you want to add anything to that or talk a little bit about just any sort of research that you've done kind of related to Vestibular Disorders and the impact that they have.    Jennifer Petersen     Yeah, well, one of my recent works that I had done was, during my post professional doctorate, I had the opportunity to be mentored by Dr Zoe may you, as well as Dr Roseanne shaft, and in doing so, it afforded the opportunity because of the timing I was able to utilize the developing easy at the time so the evaluation in air sensory integration and examine the vestibular and proprioceptive test on the easy and so some of those tests, just as we had talked about previously, of looking at ocular motor skills, postural control, such as, you know, maybe a prone extension position, and as well as the vestibular nystagmus test. So I was looking at those tests that you may have heard of, and seeing if they differentiated, if we were able to see a difference between children that were typically developing or children with possible sensory integration concerns. And so some of the research that I had done examine, do these tests, can they show a difference between typical and not typical? And in fact, they do. And so they are tests now that are part of the easy so that was one of my more recent research articles. But I believe Annie has some articles that might help us to kind of lead into sensory integration and vestibular impacting students and and learning, If Annie wants to talk on some of those articles that she has found,    Annie Mori     well, you know, I think vestibular disorders have been studied for a long time In sensory integration, and like Jenny mentioned, Dr Ayers studied this with children with learning disabilities, you know, in the in the 70s and, you know, just looking into the research around Vestibular Disorders, you know, in the in the 90s and early 2000s there was some work being done, not just in occupational therapy, But in other fields around learning disorders and the vestibular which is really interesting to see that there's especially around language development, so kids with dyslexia or any kind of reading challenges. So there was, there was, there was some pieces in there, and of understanding that theoretically, this makes sense, that the vestibular system is having a role in in learning. And Dr Ayers had some early research around that as well, showing that kids with vestibular or kids with sensory integration issues, and having identified with learning disorders, actually made, made some nice gains early on with it with an SI approach. So it's in the literature. It's there. For some reason, it just stopped being looked at. You know, I think perhaps autism came on the scene and that became a really big focus. But that, that vestibular system, it's there in the research. And, you know, I had the opportunity to work on a project where we did research around children with cochlear implants and the vestibular and well, we looked at sensory integration challenges with kids with cochlear implants. And what we found, we tested a group of children, and we found, by and large, as a group, they had challenges with Vbi. They fell into that vbis pattern. And so those kids, which makes sense, because the Cochlear, the Cochlear system is, or the Cochlear structure is, is part of the vestibular system. And so, of course, that system would be impacted, and we had hypotheses around it, because we wondered, and we had observed these kids and and so we did the study on them, with them, and it was pretty eye opening to see that that was as a group that was a challenge for them, that they were they had more challenges in that area.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha and again, kind of just because not all of us have the education that that you and and myself, Dr Peterson have with a cochlear implant. What is that process, atomically, and why would they have vestibular difficulties? What I mean, I guess, just really, really briefly, like, why would that that vestibular processing be impacted with a cochlear implant?     Annie Mori     Well, structurally, you know that receptor is right there in the inner ear, your cochlea, your lateral your semicircular canals, your otolus, which are two structures of the vestibular system. They're right there. They're together and so and then the other thing to remember is our cochlea process is sound, but sound is vibration, and vibration is movement, good point. So there's movement going through that space and that structure. So your vestibular system is being impacted and being vibrated when you hear things. So there is an impact on the vestibular system. It's not to say the vestibular system, you know, is a huge player in auditory and I think, you know, I would have to let ot audiologists weigh in on that, because I am not an audiologist, but the structures are close to each other, and they and the vestibular system certainly is getting stimulation from sound. And so when a child has difficulty with that structure and and that vibration might not be accurate or unreliable. That means the vestibular system is not getting reliable information, so it can't provide the rest of the nervous system reliable information to respond.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, and just before you were talking about before we hit record, you were sharing a little bit about working with a student or a client who had dual bilateral cochlear implants, correct? Not cochlear implants. She actually had her cochlea removed. Oh, yeah, and she was a teenager, and so she so this was an injury, right? This was a vestibular injury, but that work that we did together was so illuminating in terms of the impact of the vestibular system. Now she had developmentally sound like nervous system, and so when she lost her vestibular system, her nervous system had to reorganize without this information on balance and coordination. And I mean, the the fallout of the vestibular, of not having a vestibular system was fascinating, and it just impacted everything interesting, everything for her. I would love to learn more about that, whether it be like a paper, I don't know if you put together anything, or if that would be an amazing like feature to just learn more about, whether it's a YouTube video or or an article, but yeah, I mean, that's just not something you obviously see every day, and it's just, yeah, you can't, you can't plan for that, which makes it very unique and very interesting to learn more about.     Annie Mori     Yeah, and because she had had typically developing experiences up until that point, because those experiences had shifted so dramatically, she was really able to articulate what was different and what she was experiencing and so and then, you know, I would step in with questions, because I had my thoughts on what could be happening, and then she and I would really work together to figure out, like how to make how she could participate more fully in life, because it was just so impactful.     Jayson Davies     That's a huge point that you bring up, because as we transition to talking more about evaluations here, we have to remember that our students, especially if it's, you know, whatever the concern is, developmental, they've never experienced anything else, like this teenager that you're talking about that had a functioning vestibular system. And so the students or the clients that we're seeing, whether they be five months old, five years old, 10 years old, unless it is that later on set for whatever reason, right? If it's developmental, they've never experienced anything else, and so they don't know that it shouldn't be scary to be five feet off the ground and whatnot. And so that's just really important for us to all keep in mind when we're evaluating students. That's a That's a tough one to remember. Sometimes agreed. All right, so let's dive into the evaluation process a little bit. Earlier, you spoke about some of the concerns, and I think a lot of what you mentioned earlier, whether it be ADL, difficulty crossing midline, some of those are just pretty common things that we see in the schools. So now as you're seeing those things as a teacher is referring a student for maybe it be some some behavioral concern. Maybe it'd be for handwriting or whatnot. And in your mind, what makes you start to wonder, could this be a vestibular thing? Could this be a vestibular related disorder?    Jennifer Petersen     Yeah, I think just like you started to say, you start to have this hunch of what you're seeing. So maybe the teacher is saying that the child's having difficulty with cutting, and then they're not using, you know, they're not holding their paper with their hand while they're coloring, and then maybe they're having difficulty with zipping their backpack. And so you start to hear from the teacher some of these concerns, and then maybe you get an opportunity to stop by the classroom, and you can actually see some of the challenges that we had described earlier. And that's, you know, that starting to build your that's just the start of building kind of this hunch of, oh, I need to put on my sensory integration lens and look into this further, and from then though, and I know your listeners have had information on evaluation, so because I have listened in the past, right, we have to document you. Has talked about, well, we have to get multiple forms of evidence. So that's great that we've heard from the teacher. We might hear from a parent sometimes, and then we can see the child having these difficulties. And then from there, we want to gather more information. So a performance based assessment is really helpful. And that's there's a couple that would look at these the vestibular system. And of course, I alluded to one with my own research of the evaluation in air sensory integration. There's also the so cm, I believe, has come out, and so it's looked at, also at vestibular so those are some performance based assessments. And then beyond that, we want to, you know, maybe we have a questionnaire, a standardized questionnaire, and so possibly, like the SPM two, would look further into it?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely. And I actually want to dive into maybe not all of those, but definitely some of those a little bit further, especially the easy I know that's one that both of you are very familiar with. And so I do kind of want to deconstruct that a little bit and kind of talk about some of the specific pieces of the easy that might relate to the vestibular sense. And I actually want to start with one that I think everyone knows the initials of PRN. And this was something that recently, like, again, kind of just had a moment where someone asked, what is PRN? At a conference I was at recently, I was like, Oh my gosh, I forgot. Not everyone knows what PRN is. Not everyone knows the research behind PRN. Not everyone knows whether it is a research based, evidence based, way to look at vestibular and so I want to give you two again. You two are brilliant. You know more about sensory than I ever will, but what is the PRN and kind of what's the research a little bit behind it, into what it actually shows.    Annie Mori     So post triggering Nystagmus is a reflex, and it's a symptom of or indicator for the integrity of the vestibular system. Is it registering? Is it inhibiting sensation? And it really only measures when you when you administer this test, because it is, it is standardized. We do have norms around it. You can assess children from six months through 13 years now, 12 years, 11 months. We don't have norms for adults yet, but I'm sure that will happen one of these days. But we do know we have norms for that age group, and we are assessing you, how you position the child, the number of rotations, the velocity you use, that's all very standardized. And then you're looking at how long you have a nystagmus after you spin. And that's that flicker back and forth of your eyes. And the standard amount of time is between six and 12 seconds. An average nervous system registers movement for about six to nine seconds, so you'd or six to 12 seconds, so you'd expect that nystagmus to go for that long. Anything lower than that, we understand that as hypo or poor registration of movement that they're not readily registering it. It doesn't happen fast enough for them anything longer, any longer duration. We tend to interpret that as lack of inhibition, and that's a different part of the brain. It's more of those regulatory centers of the brain that's acting on the vestibular system, rather than the vestibular systems not receiving the information which is or not readily receiving the information it's receiving it. But so that comes from that's that's a different aspect. And so that test helps us to understand a piece of the vestibular system, because we're really only looking at one of the semicircular canals. We have three. And the way that this child's position and the way that we're administering the test, we just really get at the lateral canal, and that is why we don't just use that test to say that child has a vestibular challenge, because there are many variables when you administer that test that make those scores not strong, not very reliable, and so we want to be sure that we pair that test with other measures of the vestibular system, so balance, bilateral integration, ocular motor skills, sequencing, postural control. We want to make sure we're we are building as much evidence for that, for a challenge in that area.     Jayson Davies     Awesome, Annie, as I was listening to you, you kept answering the next question that I wanted to ask you, because you just knew what I was going to add. No, that's perfect. But one thing you didn't answer that I want to ask, because if I recall correctly, the PRN actually stabilizes pretty early on and correct me if I'm wrong. But you said, what was it six to 12 seconds for an average PRN of nystagmus after the rotations? Is there a point pretty early on or later that that becomes kind of like everyone beyond this is up to 13 of course, we haven't gone into adults, as you mentioned. But does that kind of that six to 12 seconds? Is that established pretty early on and pretty consistent beyond that, or does it change all the way up to that 13 years?     Annie Mori     Yeah, we have a article on that, and we tested children as young as six months. And so that was from that age, from six months old through 12 years, 11 months, we know that it's pretty stable between six and 12 seconds.     Jayson Davies     Okay.     Annie Mori     So a school age child, you could definitely expect that.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, definitely right. So I guess my follow up question then is, is the PRN one of the first, to a degree, it can almost be like a screening tool, maybe, and correct me if I'm wrong. But would that be one of the first, like little pieces that you might use with a student who you have considerations with vestibular disorder, and then from there, move on to some of those other tests that you were talking about?     Jennifer Petersen     I mean, as a screener, potentially, potentially. But I think I just with caution, because, you know, you can still have, like, an average registration in that one time that you administer it and and then show challenges in other areas. So it's, it's that test is not like the the key to a vestibular disorder, it's just a piece of data. So I think I would, I would do that with caution. If there was a lot of reports of related challenges that seemingly are could be vestibular based, then you definitely should look deeper, even with or without problems with PRN.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay, cool, so let's talk about some of those other assessment pieces, especially within the easy or if you want to venture out of the easy as well. What are some of those other components that you want to look at? You mentioned that the PR end looking at, I believe you said it's the lateral.    Jennifer Petersen     My circular canal.     Jayson Davies     Yes, canal, thank you. Yes. But you mentioned, right? We have to look at the other areas, and it's just one piece of it. So it. So can you go into a little bit more detail as to what those other pieces might be and what they look like?     Jennifer Petersen     Yeah. So, you know, in looking at balance, that's primarily looking at more of a static ability to sustain that upright position. It can become more dynamic depending on your if you're doing movement with it, or if you have the child close their eyes, but that's going to be looking at those OTs. So that's the structures within the vestibular system that is primarily where gravitational pull is being processed and registered, as well as any kind of the linear movement, or maybe even just like a slight head tilt, so balance postural control would be the same way of looking at the OT list is looking at their functioning and and then when we look at the ocular motor skills, that is definitely something that's more again, does go back. So back to kind of my research when I was doing the examining the Construct validity of the vestibular test. What I had also done was looked at these related tests of ocular motor balance, postural control, bilateral integration. And what I found when I looked at the vestibular Nystagmus is what we called it, but otherwise known as the post rotary nystagmus, is that it had the strongest relationship with ocular motor and that makes sense, because we also see that within the reflex, right? So I think that's that certainly is easier to grasp that type of concept. Is why, you know, vestibular we would also see that in ocular motor skills, because of knowing are the knowledge on the post ordering nystagmus.    Jayson Davies     So you called it vestibular nystagmus, aka PRN, within that. And remind me again, either of you how many total a tool, or, I guess, how many total pieces are within the easy?     Jennifer Petersen     there are 20 tests total.    Jayson Davies     20 total test. And then how many of those would you say are kind of help to build up your picture of the vestibular system all 20? Or is it kind of?    Jennifer Petersen     Well, there's six of these that are related to this vestibular proprioceptive test as to kind of what we're describing right now, but there are other there are more than six when you're starting to look at more sensory reactivity and.    Annie Mori     Visual spatial skills.     Jennifer Petersen     visual spatial Thank you.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Okay. So then I I'm trying to, like, in my mind, I'm trying to think, Okay, if we have a student, we're interested in learning more about the vestibular system, whether or not we start with PRN, but we have at least six of these different tools within the easy that we could potentially use. We have the SPM to which I think most of us are pretty familiar with. And then, of course, we just have our standard observations and our structured observations, seeing the student in the classroom as well as maybe one on one to look at some balance, even if we're not necessarily using the structured version of the easy, but I guess, how does this all come together? What are we it's hard because I don't want to dive, like, too far into the easy, because I know not everyone has the training of the easy, but I really want to give you both the opportunity to kind of share, like, what you are really looking for during that evaluation. What? What are really keen into and if you want to dive further into the easy, feel free to it. But what are you really starting to synthesize, I guess, when it comes to your evaluation and a child that has a vestibular disorder?     Annie Mori     Well, you know, when I'm looking at I first look at the performance challenges. I'm listening to what the teacher is saying, what the parents are saying. I'm going in and observing something similar and trying to just gather data about the child's performance. And then I'm going into my actual performance assessment, where I'm going to get, you know, standard scores that are going to confirm or deny my Soft Skills of observation, right? So then I go in and I'm I'm looking for and I'm going to choose an assessment that's going to help me understand these performance challenges I'm seeing. So if I see a child struggling with sitting upright in a chair difficulty at circle time, and I'm not going to choose a fine motor test, I'm going to choose a test that's going to look at balance and look at some functions that might like get to that issue. So I might use the brunix. I might go to that and look at the balance test of the brew Next, if that's what I have accessible to myself, but I want to make sure that I'm choosing tests that are going to actually tell me what I need to know. You know, if you have that training in using a performance based sensory assessment, then certainly you should be doing that, because that's going to give you those pieces. Now, on the easy You don't have to give all 20 of those tests. You can, if you have an understanding of what you're looking at and you really just want to hone in on the vestibular test, you can. But I think Jenny and I would both agree that the whole battery gives you a full picture, because, like I said, they don't work in silos. One impacts the other. There's kind of a cascade that happens. And so you do want to, you want to get that, that evaluation piece, in place, and and you know, you're looking at again, depending on the performance challenges, is it, does it seem like it's a bilateral task, right? Are they struggling with, like putting papers into a folder, zipping their backpack using scissors, okay, that could be bilaterally. Jenny said, like not holding their paper down, that could be bilateral. And we also know, like developmentally, we got to go back to those postural skills, because you can't use your two hands at midline if you don't have stable posture. So you got to look at that. Then you have to look at the integrity of the vestibular system, which would be your vestibular nystagmus test. So like looking at the bilateral, the postural, the balance and in a static environment, I think that's what's really important, is that a lot of these kids with vestibular issues, they are probably pretty good, good athletes. They do really, really well, as long as they're moving right or they want to move, they want to move a lot because they're trying to turn on their vestibular system. And once it's on, those functions help them. But in a classroom, they don't get to turn that on like, I mean, it should be on all the time in typical development. By the time you're school aged, your vestibular system should work with relatively little stimulation. But, you know, for some kids, that's not the case. And the older they get, the younger grades, teachers are much more forgiving for those kids that need to move, but by the time they get to, you know, second grade, that forgiveness kind of goes away, and they're expected to sit still, and they're not sitting still. And then, you know, guess what? We get more referrals in second and third grade, because that's when the training wheels start to fall off, and those kids are like, Oh, well, now I can't move, and I need to move to do so that's why those static environments are really important. And understanding how they do when they're still.    Jayson Davies     I love that we just got, like, an entire insight into Annie's evaluation process, and, like, how she goes through that. And I love that, and it kind of leads right into the next, the next step, which is that intervention phase, and how you start to move from what you were just talking about. Especially important. Like, as you mentioned, a lot of our evaluations come in that second, third grade, when the training wheels are falling off, as you've mentioned. And and how do we then begin to take those assessment results and move into the intervention process? And I guess kind of a way to start off with is when we do our evaluation, we can provide direct, direct intervention. We can provide accommodations. We can provide, potentially, teacher training support to a paraprofessional and whatnot. And so what are some of the things that you might start to recommend, kind of thinking of that classroom setting, what are some things that might come out of your evaluation that you might want to start to recommend?     Jennifer Petersen     I think starting, just as you said, starting with kind of parent teacher education is an important piece, because if you can create awareness as to the area of difficulty, the area of challenge that then is impacting the student's ability to participate in in the action required of them, or to be able to sit at their desk, or to be able to complete those bilateral tests that that we keep talking about from there. Then we, you know, the teachers, has this buy in of, okay, so what can we do about it? Then, if I have an understanding of the problem, what can we do about it? And so at that point, we can certainly encourage, within that classroom, encourage participating in more vestibular activities, so that would be getting the head out of the upright position. And to make that, you know, those movement breaks are great, the ability to participate in, you know, encouraging recess for these children. So instead of taking away recess, if it's occurring, making sure that these children need recess, because they will participate better after recess. So I think that goes along with the education component. And I'll let Annie add on some more to this as well.    Annie Mori     Yeah, I think when I'm starting to develop kind of my intervention plan, after I've done my evaluation, I think of two approaches. First, I have the getting by approach, because what is this child? What can I put in place for this child now to help them get by? Do they need a rocking chair? Do they need? They're a band on their chair. What does my assessment tell me that will support them the best? And sometimes looking at the scores that they actually where they perform well, that tells you their strengths, and that might tell you, Okay, this is actually, if I put this into place, this might help them do better. So looking at their strengths as well can help you align those accommodations for them. So you've got your getting getting by strategies, and I think the education falls into that as well, right? So everybody can start problem solving, and then you've got your getting better approach. And this is like, how am I going to directly intervene for this child? What am I going to do to address the vestibular system? So that long term, this child is making gains and that they don't need ot at some point, right, because that their vestibular system is doing what it's supposed to do, and it's supporting them. And then eventually these getting by strategies start to fade away as well. So I kind of think of those two approaches, and I use my assessment results to tell me what to do with that if there's a vestibular based, you know, for example, if the child has, you know, unreliable vestibular input, and I see that their vestibular nystagmus score is low, they have a low score on, you know, postural control and a low ocular motor score, but balance and bilateral integration look good. Well, maybe I'm really going to work on a lot of vestibular, ocular motor activities and postural activities. So I'm going to do a lot of scooter board, a lot of scooter board, and a lot of targets, and in a really fun way, maybe prone over the ball, working on those postural and ocular skills, along with vestibular input to get that system working and making the connections it needs to make.    Jayson Davies     Again, just another little gem there. I love how you broke it down into two different ways to go about it, both the proximal kind of the accommodation get by right now, but then the more longer term of what can we do for the future? And I think that is really tough for school based occupational therapy practitioners, because we're constantly told, call it right, call it incorrect, whatever you want to say right, like we are kind of at the taxpayers discretion, per se. And so it's almost like you need to do the least to do the most. And so I think some people get stuck in that. Let me just provide the rocking chair. Let me just provide the sit and wiggle cushion. And then we don't move forward with the how to get better aspect, and that's important. I think a lot of us have administrators that might say, Hey, if you can do this with a consult, providing a rocking chair or whatnot, then why do you need to do the one time a week service? And so I kind of want to touch upon that really quickly, is what's your elevator pitch? I would love to hear both of yours. Kind of like, what is that elevator pitch for? Why this student doesn't just need a simple accommodation, and you kind of already not an elevator pitch, but a very detailed explanation, but Dr Peterson, if you might like, just a quickly explanation to an administrator, to a parent, to a teacher, as to why maybe just the accommodation isn't enough.     Jennifer Petersen     Yeah, you know one piece I guess, that we haven't talked on yet, that I usually pull in is when children are having these difficulties and students are having these difficulties, they become fairly self aware that it's taking them a little bit longer to do these tasks. It's more challenging for them to do these tasks, and it starts to weigh on them. And then that impacts their confidence and it impacts their self esteem. And as their confidence and their self esteem can diminish then at that point, you know, then, then we're dealing with more occurring, you know, mental health difficulties, and so we know that that can be one of the products if we don't work on improving and providing these compensatory strategies to help that child get through the day, but also to help change that system so that it is working better, so that things become a little bit easier for them. And so that's a piece that I also speak to when talking with parents and teachers.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and then kind of on, not necessarily a flip side, but another side of the spectrum, is that we have many people, myself included, over the years, that it's just really hard to implement sensory integration in a school setting. We oftentimes don't have the necessary requirement for the sensory integration fidelity measure, right? We don't have that that equipment. A lot of the research is like three hours a week or plus, and we just don't have that time frame within school based occupational therapy, right? So what are some things that we can start to do to use some of maybe the theory, the strategies behind Si, even if we're not following the fidelity measure, how can we start to support students in that way?    Annie Mori     Yeah, I mean, I think you can always use an SI informed approach in schools, and even if you don't have an air sensory integration clinic space at the school, there's a lot you can do with a scooter board and a ball. And I had many years where I walked onto a playground, carrying my platform swing, hanging it over the monkey bars, and doing that. So there are ways that you can get the intensity or the activities that you you need to do to implement an air sensory integration approach, or at least an informed approach at school. And so you have a lot of equipment, actually, as a school based therapist, that you can do, and you don't necessarily need 45 minutes. You know, a good chunk of of a clinic based or an outpatient setting is we're working on self rate. We're working on the regulation. And if you can embed regulating activities ahead of your treatment session, perhaps you're picking up the child a little more regulated. So you can get to some of that work of the bilateral, the postural, if that's the case, so you don't have to kind of organize the child up front.    Jayson Davies     Okay, and I and kind of to go along that with that, because you mentioned maybe getting the student a little more regulated before your session. That just popped into my mind, like working with the teacher, working with the paraprofessional. To what extent might a pair professional be able to support you in this role of being able to provide si self regulating supports? What might you be able to support them in their I guess? How far can they go? How far can should we not be asking them to go? And I know that's all you know, very dependent on the people, dependent on the setting. But if you have any experience or any thoughts on that, I'd love to hear from either of you.    Jennifer Petersen     Yeah. So you know, certainly there is the role, right, and making sure we're sticking within within our role. But a lot of times in Iowa, the role is consultative, and so we are providing education to teachers as well as paraprofessionals. And so that education piece is going to be really important. And when we think of the education piece, yes, we can give the anatomical structures, or, you know, all those components that I talked about earlier, but we can also help them just pick up on cues from the child. So helping them pick up on the cues of the child starting to get frustrated, or the child that's starting to move around or get a little antsy in their seat by being able to pick up on some of those subtle cues that can then allow the paraprofessional to say, Oh, hey, why don't you go up and get a drink? Okay, so that we can at least then provide some activity within the day and provide some of those more regulation strategies, or maybe we're going to put heavy books in the backpack so that way, then the child can carry those books from one classroom to another. Or, you know, we need to find what works for the school, certainly. But I think the beginning piece is picking up on the subtle cues that we are skilled at doing as a clinician, and teaching those skilled observations to someone else, so that way they can then embed the strategies that we might have for them.    Jayson Davies     Perfect. Thank you. And then, of course, just before we wrap up today, the biggest reason for referrals in school based occupational therapy is handwriting. We can't deny that self regulation is up there. Sensory is up there. Other fine motor skills were up there. Executive functioning now is up there. But handwriting is definitely, by far and foremost, the largest reason for referrals. So when talking about Vestibular Disorders and handwriting, where does that come into play? I know you talked a little bit about gene airs, originally looking at learning disorders, so kind of go hand in hand here, but from your perspectives, how does Vestibular Disorders and handwriting go hand in hand? And what can we do?     Annie Mori     Well, the vestibular system really informs that timing and sequencing that we need for handwriting. So like, how do we coordinate the speed of our hand moving across the paper with the strokes that we're making for our letters? And just this letter formation is a sequence in and of itself. And then there's spatial aspects right to handwriting, and that spatial awareness comes from our vestibular system as well. So it's important to look at all of those links, and we often work on handwriting here at play sense and without ever picking up a pencil, we make improvements in handwriting by just being on the swing. And what we always tell parents is children practice handwriting every day, and if we're not addressing the underlying challenges with handwriting, such as the vestibular system, then they will continue to practice imperfectly all the time. So we want to get that, get that underlying challenges addressed, so that that practice becomes perfect.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely, that's awesome. Again, Annie, I just love your very simple, straight to the point, but like, very relatable answers that, like teachers, parents, can understand these, like, these are things that we can share with them, and we're not going deep into the weeds as to what vbis is, what you know, vestibular, what proprioceptive is we can kind of keep it more, you know, neutral level, I guess you call it ot jargon aside, and really explain to them. So that's fantastic, yeah. Well, Annie and Dr Petersen, I want to say thank you so much for being here today. We really appreciate it. And this is, again, I kind of alluded to it up front. I'm starting to hear vestibular disorder outside of just within sensory integration, or maybe it's just that we're highlighting vestibular disorders within sensory integration. Maybe that's a better way of putting it, but it's definitely something that I think people are starting to key into more we're kind of associating it, as you just said, Annie more with like handwriting and other skills, as opposed to just fine motor skills for handwriting, or just fine motor skills for cutting, there is that vestibular component. So thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming in and just sharing about how it all connects with that. I want to give you both the opportunity to just kind of share where anyone listening out there can learn more about you and or the work that you're working on right now. And Dr Petersen, if you'd like to kick us off with that.     Jennifer Petersen     Yeah. So you can certainly reach me through our university website, through so st Ambrose University in Iowa, dr, Jenny Peterson is where you'll be able to find me. You can always email me too with any questions. So Peterson, jennifer@sau.edu and then both of us. You can find us through CLASI as well, because we both are affiliated with the CLASI organization.     Jayson Davies     Awesome. And we'll share all the links to that as on the OT school house podcast website. So be sure to check that out. Also, I will add to that just Google Scholar her name, and you will find many articles come up. So between Annie and Dr Peterson, you'll find plenty of sensory related articles that I think would be a great if you want to learn more. That's a great way to do it. Articles are never a bad way to learn more. And Annie, I don't know if you want to share, maybe your clinic website.    Annie Mori     Yeah, you can reach me at my placeence clinic, my website's placensekids.com or you can email me directly at Annie at place kids.com     Jayson Davies     Great. Well, thank you so much, Annie. Thank you, Jenny. We really appreciate you being here, and definitely we'll be in touch.     Annie Mori     Thanks, Jayson.    Jennifer Petersen     thanks so much.    Jayson Davies     One more time. Thank you so much to Annie and Dr Peterson for joining us today to share their wealth and knowledge on Vestibular Disorders and how we can support our students with vestibular disorders, from understanding the connection between the vestibular and proprioceptive systems to also understanding assessment tools like the easy to get a comprehensive picture, they have given us so many clinical truths to take back to our practice, I personally really appreciate how they emphasize both the need for short term, quote unquote, getting by strategies, as well as the longer term, quote unquote, getting better interventions. I think that that is something we often forget as ot practitioners, that we can kind of do both. I think sometimes we get locked in to try and do in one versus the other, but it is something where we can do both. We can kind of maybe put some accommodations in to support the student right now, while also providing interventions to support the student longer term. So now that you've wrapped up this episode, be sure to revisit the resources that Annie and Dr Peterson mentioned, like the CLASI the easy as well as their own websites. And you can also dive in deeper to the research and keep expanding your toolbox when it comes to evaluating and treating vestibular disorders. We have provided the resources that they mentioned on this episode over at ot  schoolhouse.com/episode161 , so you can head over there to get all the resources that we discussed today. And as an extra bonus for all of you, ot school house collaborative members listening today, you can also receive a certificate of completion for listening inside the community right now. And if you're not a member yet, we would love to have you join us over at ot  schoolhouse.com/collab members of the OT school house collaborative have the ability to earn professional development from listening to select episodes of the OT school house podcast. And you also have unlimited access to our CEU courses, resources, goal, bank, research, library and so much more. Again, you can learn all about that over at ot  schoolhouse.com/collab I'd love to see you over there, and I'd love to help you out. All right. Well, that is going to wrap us up for today. Thank you so much for listening along, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode of the OT school house podcast. Until then, keep being the OT practitioner that your students and teachers want and need. I'll catch you next time. 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. 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