OTS 141: Innovative Strategies for Improving Handwriting
- Jayson Davies
- Jan 16, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 28, 2024
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 141 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
How can the strategic use of color and contrast in writing programs not only capture children's attention but also foster a focused environment for handwriting tasks?
In this episode of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, guest Helene Lieberman discusses her journey of developing a program, seeking feedback from colleagues, and making adjustments based on their input. The program features high-contrast laminated pages to reduce distractions, helping children with low vision and attention deficit disorder focus on writing tasks.
Join us as we explore the intersection of program development, collaborative feedback, and the pursuit of effective interventions!
Listen now to learn the following objectives:
Learners will understand the process and challenges involved in developing a program for school-based occupational therapy.
Learners will identify the potential impact of creating evidence-based programs and interventions in school-based occupational therapy, including the benefits of pairing with academics to conduct formal research projects to evaluate the efficacy of interventions.
Learners will identify the challenges and strategies for managing and collecting program data for multiple students in a school-based setting, and learn about the importance of keeping careful records and monitoring progress during therapy sessions.
Guest Bio
Helene Lieberman MS, OTR/L received her Bachelor’s Degree in Occupational Therapy from Boston University, Sargent College of Allied Health and a Master’s Degree in Family Support Studies at Nova Southeastern University.
She is NDT Trained in Pediatrics, trained to implement Interactive Metronome and IM Home systems, ILS and SIPT Certified.
For the past 34 years she has worked in a variety of settings including hospitals, schools, outpatient clinics, Intermediate Care Facilities and home health.
Helene is the creator of BlackBack Writing to teach shapes, letters and numbers and is developing writing paper to teach the proper alignment of letters.
Quotes
“Take pictures and keep a file and see if you notice a difference… and keeping it in a secure place.”
-Helene Lieberman, OTR/L
“Let's say if you have a problem and you solve it with a good idea, other people probably had similar problems and are looking for something to solve that problem.”
-Helene Lieberman, OTR/L
“Research in 2022…learners who struggle with handwriting also tend to struggle with keyboarding.”
-Jayson Davies, MA., OTR/L
“Research shows that when writing is done, there is an increase in literacy as well, whether it's letter recognition, whether it is, their reading, also memory is increased.”
-Helene Lieberman, OTR/L
Resources
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the full episode transcript.
Jayson Davies
Hello and welcome to episode 141 of the OT schoolhouse podcast, your go to resource for practical strategies and professional development in school based occupational therapy. I'm your host Jayson Davies. And in today's episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Helene Lieberman, and experienced occupational therapist and creator of the black back handwriting program. In this episode with Helene will explore topics like using high contrast writing programs to address handwriting difficulties, practical ways to integrate sensory activities and specialized writing programs into school environments, and even the challenges and triumphs of developing and implementing an innovative handwriting program within your own school based occupational therapy program. If you're a school based occupational therapy practitioner looking for evidence based strategies to empower your students with diverse learning needs, then this episode is for you. Enhance your knowledge of effective reading interventions and sensory activities and gain valuable insights from Helene's extensive experience. Now, enjoy the intro music and tune in to gain valuable tips and inspiration for enhancing your OT practice in the school setting.
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. PLAs is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Helene, welcome to the OT, schoolhouse podcast. So glad to have you. How are you doing today?
Helene Lieberman
I'm doing well. Thank you. How are you?
Jayson Davies
I am wonderful. Thank you for asking. And I'm excited to talk to you, you know, the holidays are coming up. But when this airs, the holidays, we will be in the past. But I would love for you to share to get us started a little bit about your background and experience as a school based occupational therapy practitioner.
Helene Lieberman
Okay, so I graduated many, many years ago in 1988. And I've worked in a variety of settings, school bass being one of them. And I really enjoy the school based setting because you do see a variety of children. And you get to interact with the teachers where they really need to have their work that we're doing an OT applied. So, but before that I worked in outpatient, I worked in a rehabilitation unit for pediatrics. I did homecare early intervention. So a little bit of everything. Awesome.
Jayson Davies
I have a question based on your experience with being in an outpatient clinic was that pediatric? Yes. All pediatrics. Okay, gotcha. Was there anything in particular that you felt was helpful as you moved into the school based OT realm from that clinic based realm?
Helene Lieberman
I guess. Pediatrics has pediatrics. And maybe the goals change to turn the goals to a more school based educationally related goal. But a lot of it carries over I didn't really feel that there was much to learn except maybe how to do an IEP. That was a bit of a learning curve and dealing with some of the parents, the IEP, but an outpatient, you're dealing with parents all the time and other family members. So I think that was good preparation. But I really think it was an easy transition.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I for me, I never worked in a clinic setting, but I did a lot of fieldwork hours at a pediatric clinic. That's how I got into OT. And the biggest takeaways are differences. I guess, for me, that I noticed was the session length, a lot of times in a clinic, you have a full hour with a student versus in school based OT right? We're often that 30 minutes, sometimes even less. And then also with clinic basis, the frequency two, sometimes kids will be in a clinic, three, four times a week, oftentimes at least twice. Versus in school based OT we're kind of lucky if we get that 130 minute session. And so that was the big takeaway for me.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, that is a bit of a difference. But I was lucky enough to work in a school where we were in house, there were four occupational therapists within the school. So even though they might have been on the schedule, once or twice a week, we were able to see them more frequently and just go into the classroom. So it was a really nice setting to work in.
Jayson Davies
Great. Well, we're gonna dive into the content for today. And just a little teaser, you have developed an entire hand writing program. But before we get into that, I want to kind of get into the why and even a little bit about the how that came to be. And so to kind of get started with that section of the episode, I guess, what made you decide you know what, I need to develop a hand writing program what was wrong? What did you see that just kind of drew you to it?
Helene Lieberman
Well, I would say I Other kids and I worked in a preschool for our children on the spectrum. So I would say 95% of the IEPs had a writing goal, whether it was just drawing a line or first letter of their name or something I'm related to writing. And there are quite a few of the children on my caseload, who really just didn't want to have anything to do with writing, it became very difficult to motivate them, even if we weren't using writing tools and trying to use some of the other, you know, components that had to do with writing. Maybe that would be good. But as soon as you brought out a writing tool that related to the goal, and we had to take data on it, it became very stressful. So parents wanted the goal still on their IEP. So I'm like, Okay, we got to figure out a way to make this happen. And I guess there are certain programs we're using, and I'm not saying any of them back, because I really think there's value in every single program, it just really depends on the person you're using the program for. And not every program works for everyone. And that's why occupational therapists really need to have a huge bag of tools in order to accommodate whoever comes onto your caseload. So that being said, I was having trouble meeting goals on the IEPs. And I was like, I need to do something else, because I need to get this done. And I gotta figure out how to do it. And we're creative, as OTs so started coming up with other things.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. And I it's been a little while since this episode, aired that I'm about to talk about what we had an episode with Susan Cahill. And she talked a little bit about creating your own evidence. And one of the important pieces of creating your own evidence is actually using a set program. You know, if we're just kind of coming up on the fly with a with a session, every single week, you're not necessarily creating evidence, because there isn't really a standardized tool that you're using, or even an unstandardized tool that you're using. And so it sounds like you decided, You know what, I need to create something. So it's all kind of put together into a nice, clean, little bundle. I'm sure it wasn't that at first. But that's kind of what it came to be right.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, I was doing things session by session and child by child initially. But once I saw that something was working, I actually did the same thing with certain children. And I kept doing what I was doing with other children. And then I started seeing a more positive outcome with some of the new things I was doing. So then I realized I was onto something.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Okay, I want to ask you a follow up question to this. But to kind of give some context for everyone just briefly describe the premise of the back black writing or get right back black or black back.
Black, it's a black background, basically. So that'll help them remember it. So what I noticed is that the basically, I started noticing, and it was a Halloween project that we were doing. And I used a black piece of construction paper. And I was using white papers and white Q tips in order to make a skeleton figure and some of the children really gravitated towards that children who were very interested in doing a lot of arts and crafts, the fine motor kind of things. So I just thought that was interesting. And then I took a piece of white paper, and I put it vertically on the black construction paper. And the kids started coloring on the white paper. And I was like, oh, that's, that's interesting. And then I turn the paper and there was a horizontal line. And then I started cutting strips and making different shapes. And I noticed that the kids weren't very interested in that. So the preschool was a preschool for children on the autism spectrum. There were some children who also had Attention Deficit Disorder, I also had a few children who had low vision in addition to a diagnosis of ASD, obviously, the children with low vision definitely took towards it. So that was the first concept of just making the black background and the white image and then I started thinking of how are they going to learn to write small because I had that piece of paper from the top of that construction paper to the bottom. So they started making it smaller and smaller so they can learn more about the coordination after the formation of doing whatever it is they were doing. So I just started with the shapes first and then I started cutting a lot of paper and making letters and then go this is and copying it and then eating up the toner on the on the don't tell them that was me. Who did that and making copies and so I said you know what this seems to be working and then I finally this is after a few years now we're told Parking, I had a graphic artist work with me to make it into a program that was then sent to a printer and laminated. So the program itself is letters, upper and lowercase is one, program numbers zero through nine. And all the prewriting shapes that we do. And each program has six sizes except for the letters which just change, but we'll talk about that later. So starting from a larger size, going down to the size of why ruled paper, there is only one image on the page. So there is no numbered pages, there are no pictures identifying if you have a see, there is no car, there's nothing else for the child to do. When they work on the whitespace. They see what they're doing. When they start working in the black space, there's no feedback, so becomes very errorless, where they want to go back and work in the white space to see what they're doing. And there's no other distraction on the page for them to talk about everything. But what is needed to be done.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, great. And so, again, high contrast, you really brought down the focus level, right? You're drawing their focus into exactly what you want them to be doing nothing else to distract them. Of course, we can't control everything around them in the room. But on the paper, we're focusing them into that one letter one number one shape that we want to focus on. Exactly. All right. And so you said that all came from a Halloween Halloween concept idea. Now, before you develop this idea of putting white paper or white color on a black background, I want to ask whether other ideas that you tried that maybe you found weren't as successful?
Helene Lieberman
I would say I mean, other programs that we use are just generally writing on paper using a lot of sensory media to do writing using different types of writing tools, crayons, markers, dry erase boards, chalkboard, Clay, wicky, sticks, everything else that you know, I could think of that would interest the child?
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And I mean, those are types of things that we use every day. But I guess why did you? I'm sure you still use some of that. But ultimately,
Helene Lieberman
I use it all. Exactly, right? Yes, I love all of it.
Jayson Davies
So why focus on the program, as opposed to some of those other tools, or I mean, you said you still use them. But what made you decide like those weren't enough.
Helene Lieberman
It was really the distraction factor. That's what it really was. And I still will use block back along with other programs, again, depending on the child, and there are so many wonderful writing programs out there. But a lot of times to get somebody's attention, and interest in focus. This is how I felt I needed to start because a lot of children were overwhelmed. Whether it was by all the images on a page, or the page looked very busy and confusing, or the page was part of a notebook like a bound notebook. And the child thought that they would have to do the whole notebook, even though you would say just one page, it just became the anxiety started to increase before we even got to do the activity. Yeah. So it became that became a barrier as well. So the this program is laminated pages, but it's there are three holes for our whole time. So you can put them in a binder. But I usually take it out because if you start presenting the binder, I had the same type of reaction where it became a heightened anxiety. So that's where I started. Just just keep it simple. Very simple.
Jayson Davies
What about technology? I know one of my go twos was using an iPad. I liked using a stylus with apps like writing wizard or letter school. What about did you use those and kind of?
Helene Lieberman
I did and sometimes it's successful sometimes it's not depends on the child. I always lock the iPad when I do apps. And I love the the right, right. Stylus Yeah. only works with the proper grip pretty much. And even though I'd lock the iPad, some kids did well with it. Some kids kept trying to press the button to change the app. Yeah. And that became a focus of theirs and they were not happy that they couldn't change what was on the iPad.
Jayson Davies
Right. Follow up question to that one of the biggest difficulties I had with the app and I wanted to know if you had it, too, was carryover from an app onto papers. That's something that you noticed as a difficult thing to overcome.
Helene Lieberman
Not so much. I always go to paper. Even with the black writing I go to write Killer paper also right after, when I use apps, I was good at paper after because that's more most of the kids are gonna end up writing. And of course, there are some kids who end up using typing and, you know, apps for communication. But I always go to paper.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Cool. And kind of on the line to that technology side, I'm sure at some point in your career, you have had this debate in your head, just as most of us have, why not go to typing for our students who are struggling, even if it's, you know, early on, why not go to that next use technology,
Helene Lieberman
because research shows that when writing is done, there is increase in literacy as well, whether it's letter recognition, whether it is their reading, also, memories increased when children are writing. So that's important. And I think the aspect of writing is really something that started drawing pictures. And then leads, of course, to the literacy and being able to express yourself. And it's not just the writing, it's the legibility of it. There's research that shows that students who write messy, get poor grades, even if maybe they wrote the correct thing, sometimes teachers don't want to bother with it, sadly. So they end up getting downgraded on their papers. And then they become more upset and unfocused and their self confidence decreases. So I think it's important thing to write, not every class is going to have the technology. And not every school district is going to go to technology right away are provided. And some families don't have the means for that as well.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, you know, you sent in some, you sent him some slides that we were able to prepare for, for this interview today. And one thing that really struck me with this, you had you actually cited this as a research from, I believe it's more mo HR in 2022, that learners who struggle with handwriting also tend to struggle with keyboarding. And this really struck a chord with me because I have never had nice penmanship. And so I have always tried to focus a little bit on typing. And even at the age of 35, I think I am now my typing speed is probably still slower than a today's seventh grader, like I am terrible at both. And so like I fit right into that study, which I just thought was kind of interesting.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, I thought that was very interesting, too, because you would think, if it's the legibility and the writing, they could type. But again, when you think of the sub skills for typing, you still need to visually scan the keyboard, you still need to be able to have dexterity in your fingers. So there are things that you need for writing that you will need for typing.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and even if you're trying to be more fluent with typing if we want to say same thing with writing, like for me, I've always struggled to Farpoint copy effectively with a pencil, because I don't I personally feel like my tactile awareness is not greater, maybe it's a little bit of probe, but like I have to look down at what I'm writing with a pencil like otherwise, I'm just going to be all over the page. And that same skill is also used very much in typing right to touch type, you rely on a lot of tactile feedback, a lot of muscle memory per se of knowing where all the keys are and so I think like you said, there's a lot of overlaps when we really think about it between handwriting and typing. So
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, I have to look at the keyboard when I type I cannot I think that's the only class I failed in high school was typing.
Jayson Davies
I mean, I'm going to completely admit that I still log into typing club every now and then to practice my own typing skills. i Yeah, that's how bad that is. All right. But but still kind of like for real on typing the keyboard because I know that it is something that people can move on to and I definitely have and I want to get your take on this for me and I honestly don't remember where I read this I want to say it was in like maybe the etch manual or something like this but it was something like we should it move kids over to typing until they have reached at least 15 words per minute and and maybe all of us have our own separate kind of criteria for students when to move to tyffyn But what did you kind of use if you were you know, transitioning to typing what did you kind of use to gauge whether or not that would be okay for a student?
Helene Lieberman
I because I live in Florida third grade is a big year and I don't know you know if your state so Third graders a big year, where they have to often write more sentences and essays. And if their writing is so difficult that they're not going to write much, because it's a struggle. And they don't have somebody to write their thoughts because, you know, they don't have that, that accommodation, usually by third grade.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's by third grade that like, we need to make that decision here, at least, but not make the decision. I understand what
Helene Lieberman
cutter drive I'm like, let's start the typing and see what what happens is going to stick better. Is it going to be more successful?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and this is the perfect transition to the next kind of topic I wanted to talk about which was common core, because, as you know, like there is no real handwriting in common core goals. Like it says that they will print but it doesn't say like, to what degree and the same factor I think unless I'm wrong, you can tell me the same thing with typing. Like it says the kids will type but it doesn't really gauge like, what that exactly looks like.
Helene Lieberman
Exactly. There's no standard on the typing or the writing, I think it says, For the writing it says from a model. So they might be looking at what the teacher does. And what I call is drawing a letter. So the letter in the end might look like the teachers letter, but the formation is maybe not proper. And that eventually starts slowing down the child and their writing, if they're not using a efficient way to form the letter. And in the Common Core, there's a lot of not handwriting requirements, but writing requirements in terms of writing essays, or writing creative thoughts or writing a paragraph or so the writing is there, but the handwriting pieces not.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and and I kind of understand why because I think that they tried to left it more broad as a way to understand within society that we are moving to a digital age. And if they put in there, that the child will hand write a paragraph or hand write an essay, then people will come about and say, Well, what about typing? So I think that being a little more broad opens that up. But go ahead,
Helene Lieberman
but I don't think the states put anything in I know our state doesn't put anything in there. Either. The Common Core can be interpreted differently by the states and we know different schools. Counties also do their own thing. And some counties do put in handwriting as part of their core curriculum, and some do not. Actually, some teachers just do it on their own because they understand the importance of it whether their district has it or not.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And that reminds me that I believe California, just think it was California just signed into law that they're bringing back cursive, like cursive was gone for how many years? And it's still, like you said, I don't think her sister mentioned in the broad, Common Core, but as you mentioned, right states can potentially put some into it. And I think California has made that decision. They're going to put cursive back in. So yeah.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah. So it depends on you know, and there are some states, of course, you don't even have a core curriculum, but that's a whole other. Right. That's all thing. But and the private schools, of course, are different than public schools, private schools can do their own thing. Actually, more private schools, from what I've seen, and when I've heard I don't have any research or data on this. But I have heard and seen that private schools, have handwriting curriculums versus or have more handwriting curriculums that a public school does. And I don't know if that's because they have the funding, or the parents are demanding it or I'm not exactly sure what it is.
Jayson Davies
Who knows, but yeah, yeah. While we're on the common core subject, how do you feel we talked a little bit about Common Core how lacks the handwriting lacks hyping? But aside from that, what have you heard from teachers, from principals from other occupational therapy practitioners, as far as how common core is impacting their day to day with students?
Helene Lieberman
What I've heard is that a lot of teachers are teaching to the test. That is what I've heard. And then for occupational therapists, that the teachers want the therapist to do the homework or whatever the assignment is, that they need to do in the therapy session so that they can keep up with the curriculum, even if it's a push an activity, like, Okay, this is what we're doing. Now. That makes sense, of course, you know, we're pushing it and this is what we're doing. But even if they're pulling out, like, can you do this, they can't miss whatever it is that they're doing, and I think I understand the need for test taking, but I think that's sometimes takes over the learning process.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I definitely have had teachers kind of say, Hey, can you work on this homework in your pullout setting or whatever, like, and we started To have actually, principals, and I know this isn't uncommon, we were being directed to not pull out kids during a certain time, because that was core instruction time. And that gets really hard because now your time to see kids has been shrunk even more with an over impacted, you know, caseload and it's struggling.
Helene Lieberman
I have that problem actually, right after this. I'm going to see a kid in the schools, it happens to be a private school. But because their day is so busy, I cannot see the child till the end of the day. Yeah. So they're pulled out for the last half hour. When I'm not allowed. Nobody's allowed in the classroom either. Oh, wow. All right. So I get the child like the last half hour or the day, and then the child stays a little bit extra. And then the family comes to pick the child up. But it became like, well, there's just no room in our day for OT. Yeah. And if it wasn't for the parent pushing, I don't think they would allow it at all. The parent is a very good advocate for that child.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah. It's there's a lot of restrictions being put on everyone. And it's not just OT, right. Like, it's everyone's speech, teachers, principals. It's everyone, right? It's just making everyone's job a little bit more, more difficult. Right?
Helene Lieberman
There's only so many hours in a day.
Jayson Davies
Exactly, exactly. And then you try to put 60 Kids in, you know, to a matter of a 32 hour work week, it just gets impossible. I kind of want to circle back because we did go off tangent A little bit. But those were important conversations. And now bring us back because I want to ask you, how did common core understanding Common Core or not understanding Common Core at the time? How did that impact the route that you took with black back with the writing program?
Helene Lieberman
I'll be honest, I had no clue about common core, before I started looking into it. So I was looking as to what the schools are requiring for handwriting. And that's when I started talking to some of my teacher friends. And they were the ones who were telling me that there is nothing required. And then I started looking into it. And I found this similarities. So yeah, so I was very clueless, except for my own children. I knew there was a curriculum and a common core. But other than that, as an OT, I really never delved into it, and I should, and I feel we should be in the school system, you know, be more aware of it. So I admit, I was totally unaware until I started looking at well, what are schools to for writing, you know, how do they, you know, get the kids to write.
Jayson Davies
So as you were looking into your school, like, what, what were your teachers doing? What were other therapists, like? What were they doing? if they
Helene Lieberman
Okay, so in other school that I was working in, actually we use, I'm learning without tears, which I do love. I love it. And I incorporated a lot. There's a lot of wonderful things in terms of sensory and movement. And it's a wonderful curriculum. The only issue I had is that some of the children were very distracted by some of it. Again, great curriculum evidence, not for everybody. So I found pairing this, but yeah, there was a curriculum. And actually, the OTs went into the classroom, usually once a week to do a center that every teacher had the materials and incorporated some of the songs into their circle time. So it was it was very successful.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Okay. So they were using the students that were being referred to you then at the time, they were already getting some sort of handwriting instruction. Yes. Okay. Yes. Because a lot of times as occupational therapy practitioners, right, we get the handwriting referral, and then we ask what's been done? And the answer is just like, regular instruction, there's no further program in there. So that's nice to know. That
Helene Lieberman
yeah, it was wonderful.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. Okay. So that's kind of where your school was at, at the time when you thought of blackpack writing. Now, as it started to progress, as you started to see students, you know, it was working for students. At what point did you start to kind of look into more research to kind of maybe adapt it based on research a little bit. Um, so it was looking at some of the research of like, just colors and writing and just in general colors. I found a lot of stuff on media marketing, low vision, you know, things that didn't have to do with writing. I did find one study that was done in Germany. I believe it was in Germany, with children who had attention deficit disorder, and they were given color choices of paper. And they found that the children wrote more, but they their theory was that it was the child's choice like Oh, I love pink, I'm going to write on pink versus white. So they were talking about giving the children color choices as paper. Now we know that there's like the overlays the colored overlays that are helpful. But there was nothing that talked about changing. Now I've worked with children who have low vision, where they and I can't remember the name of the machine for the life of me. But it's a machine that if you put the book under, and you could flip the background. Oh, so I think I know what you're talking about. I don't know the name of it. But I had a student who I believe had that.
Helene Lieberman
Right. So if they're reading a book, you put the book under, and then the light is on top, and then they're knobs and adjustments, so you could flip the color. Oh, do they really?
Jayson Davies
Well, I mean, I was working with a high schooler, you can imagine a high schooler having that on his desk and a general education. Yeah, yeah, we just have iPads.
Helene Lieberman
Right. So the the low vision, you know, piece was, you know, important too. And that's where a lot of the research was, but nothing that had to do with writing and changing the color. And I saw somebody doing research, please.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, because that is something that we see we see the overlays a lot in occupational therapy. And I want to say there is some research around it for reading, but I don't know about writing exactly for reading. And then in the writing space, I think every occupational therapy practitioner just about is familiar with a high rate paper that has that yellow, highlighted area, I created a paper that's called gray space, paper and other one with color, and it was just using gray. So I mean, that is not uncommon, within the OT world, especially to use colors on paper as a visual cue. So, but there isn't a lot of research from what you're able to find. It sounds like I couldn't find any research in terms of writing. Interesting. All right. If anyone out there wants to take my gray space paper and do some research, I would be happy to print out as much as you want. I'm just throwing that out there. I'm sure Holly would be happy to if you use a black bag.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, definitely now that there are more entry level doctoral programs out there. Most students do need some sort of capstone project. So if any of them are listening, or if somebody knows somebody who needs a capstone project, I guess you can get in touch with either of us. And I'm happy to have them doing. I'm doing some research now. And so far, not much. So last school year, we didn't have a very large sample size, we had one classroom, and we did four kids for six weeks of the school year, and then another four children for the second six weeks. So there really wasn't a lot of evidence or significance, I guess, is the word. Limited learning I'm learning. And this year, I'm doing a whole classroom. So there are nine children in the class. And it's a pre K four class. So those children will all be going to kindergarten next year. And there is a another classroom in the same school. So that class is not getting the block back program. Gotcha. So we can make a little bit more of a comparison. And hopefully, we'll see something.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah. So this is your first Oh, this will be like your second time doing research. Officially.
Helene Lieberman
It's part of it's under the same umbrella. It's under the same IRB. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I took a stab at research, you know, I think, I think it's important to do as a clinician, don't do it a lot. I think we need guidance to do it, or at least I needed guidance to do it, because I'm not an academic. So it's, I think it'd be great for clinicians to pair with academics to, you know, we're seeing things in the clinic. And, you know, we want to make sure that it's working, so we need to have some research on it.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. In fact, I think we had an entire episode way back and like, I want to say it's Episode 11, or 13, where we talked with a school based occupational therapy practitioner about like incorporating research into school. And I know it's not easy. So I just want to give you kudos because you've got to go through the district board. You've got to get an IRB, it is not simple.
Helene Lieberman
I'm doing it in a private school because of difficulties with a public school.
Jayson Davies
There you go.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, it was very, very difficult to do with the public school system.
Jayson Davies
Yeah.
Helene Lieberman
But you got to start somewhere.
Jayson Davies
Yep. Yeah. And some people start with their own kids. Like, I mean, just it's right, you start somewhere, but actually taking that step back. Yeah, we dove into the research that you're kind of working on now. But you must have done some of your own like, even if it wasn't written down some of your own like little internal studies, per se, individual case study. So share a little bit about that, like, Well, what did you do before the official IRB stuff?
Helene Lieberman
So I think I mentioned this before, I don't know if I did, where I had some of the kids on my caseload use the black bag program. And some of the other kids just do whatever I was doing before and nothing different. And I noticed that the data was better for the children using block back. So it was very unofficial and it was more are like my little data sheets checking? Yeah, that's, that's about it.
Jayson Davies
You can get I recently, gosh, I think it was an article posted a few weeks ago, I talked about some of the things that we should be doing as OT practitioners that we honestly don't have time for. And one of them is kind of program management and taking data on our own program. At school based occupational therapy practitioners, we're very good at taking data on an individual student presenting that data on that individual student at said child's IEP. And then we do it again, for students to 355. But we are never able to take that step back to see as a whole, our 50% of our 55 kids actually making progress toward their goals are 75% making progress or their goals. 25%. And and I don't know if you have the opportunity to do that, probably not just because it's so difficult. But that's great that you were at least able to kind of look at some of the kids who were getting the program and some of the kids who weren't and just kind of anecdotally, you know, keeping in your mind and a little checklist that it was working.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah. So it's you have to be very mindful of it. Because, as you know, sometimes days get really busy.
Jayson Davies
Yes, yes, absolutely. So how long did you actually use the program, kind of or the the prototype, I guess you want to call it where you were just printing out things before you decided, you know, what, this is something that is really working, and I need to make this known to other people.
Helene Lieberman
Great questions. So I think, like, for a couple of years, I was doing it on my own. And I have to say I was a little shy thinking everyone's gonna think it's weird, or just doubting myself as to this and the theory I had. But now just looking back on it, I see when I go to conferences, and people are looking at it. They're like, wow, this is so simple, but so effective. So in the beginning, like I said, I was a little shy about it. So took I did it a few years on my own. Then like I said, I got sick of copying everything. So I found a graphic artist to do it. And I used it on my own. And then finally, I got the guts to speak with a printer. to actually print it in bulk. And, you know, okay, I'm going to do this. And if I if fails, and everyone says it's a dumb idea, then okay, but at least I tried. So it finally got printed in early 2020. And I was probably doing this for at least eight years before that, I would think using what I did on my own. Yeah. And I finally got it printed. And it came to my house in huge pallets. And it was about, yeah, it was a lot. And it was in March of 2020. And I was supposed to show Yep, exactly. showcase it at that a OTA in Boston, I had a booth.
Jayson Davies
Okay, Oh, no.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, so we had a lot of stuff in our garage for a long, long time. And eventually, you know, I brought it out. But I would say I was shy at the beginning to do it. You know, it's anything new, you have to put, of course, a lot of work into it. And I was still working full time. So I would try to do something on my free time. And then my free time got eaten up by something else. So but now I'm doing it a little bit more. And it it has been well received. So I would say since about 2011 2012. Maybe
Jayson Davies
working on a long time in the works.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
Fantastic, though. That'd be I mean, and you think about right where you are right now, like you're starting out with really selling these I know you've you've already, you've sold some it's not like you haven't sold one, you know, you've sold some they're going out. But even if you never did that there's so many kids that you were able to work with using this program. That I mean, you helped a lot of kids with this program without ever selling a single copy. Right? Like, that's awesome. And now moving forward to think about it. Like all those years of development of you working with it, figuring out what worked, what didn't work, and now others are going to be able to use that to help countless individuals with the program. That's pretty cool to think about. Right?
Helene Lieberman
Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons we become therapists. And we have a desire to be, you know, to make an impact on somebody, and hopefully, maybe people.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, definitely. All right. I want to kind of take a step back within the development phase, because this was a question I had, and I probably could have asked it a few questions ago, but I often get asked, Hey, Jason, I'm typing out some worksheets for handwriting, what typing style or what typing fonts should I use? And so I'm sure you have had Have things to look into and kind of trialed out a few things and what do you? What did you try allowed? I guess? Or what did you learn? And what did you end up using?
Helene Lieberman
Um, again, to be honest, I can't remember the font. But if I would go back and do it, I think I'd go to Comic Sans. Why is that? I think it's very easy to read. I think the letters are likely the way we write them. And I just think it's easy on the eye also.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah. That's smart. I personally, on my website, I use Poppins. Okay. And the sole reason that I use Poppins or not the sole reason, but honestly, there are many that I actually like better. But I use Poppins because of the lowercase a, it actually makes a lowercase A the way that we write it as opposed to
Helene Lieberman
Comic Sans. Yep.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah. So
Helene Lieberman
that one,
Jayson Davies
don't know how to describe it. I don't even know how to write it if you ask me to. But yeah, it's amazing how much emphasis we put on fonts, whether it's on a website, or even the way that we personally write things. I mean, I've had students and I'm sure you have had to where you ask them to write letter A. And they write that other style a and like, you don't even almost recognize it as an eight you're like, Wait, that's not a that's like a D. And then you actually look at it like, Oh, you're writing the a that you probably see typed out on the iPad every single day or right or reading,
Helene Lieberman
right? And I always accept it. I mean, it's it's a it's an A, it's an A, I think it's harder to write than the other way.
Jayson Davies
I agree. And it throws you off when the first time you see it, like you don't see it every day. You don't see kids writing. That's not usually so
Helene Lieberman
you know what we're talking about drawing the letter. That's what happens. Often when children are not taught. They're looking at it, they understand it's an A, so they're just copying what they see. Which is smart.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what we do in life. We copy that's how we learn.
Helene Lieberman
Exactly. That's how I make my.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. Wow. All right. Well, before I'm trying to make sure that we covered everything about like that, though, how and the why you got here, we obviously cover the why a lot about Common Core. And we discovered or we talked about how you learned a lot about how there wasn't necessarily a program ingrained. And so you started to develop this program to work alongside potentially learning without tears or other programs. Was there anything else that you want to share about kind of the how you develop the program?
Helene Lieberman
Um, I, I did send things to my OT friends. To try out.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, freebies, everyone loves freebies.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah. That was another little, like, pilot testing sort of thing. Try let me know what you think of it.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. That's important
Helene Lieberman
Yeah. And so I guess piloting it. And
Jayson Davies
what were some of the feedback that you felt? I mean, everyone, it's hard to give negative feedback to a friend. So was it all positive?
Helene Lieberman
Definitely too much ink. Okay. Too much into print out? That was for sure.
Jayson Davies
Yeah.
Helene Lieberman
And actually, over the years, part of the feedback was six sizes is too much.
Jayson Davies
Okay,
Helene Lieberman
so our second printing of the letters, which should be in my garage, on a pallet, hopefully, by the end of the week, is has only four sizes as opposed to six. And the other feedback that the eight and a half by 11. Size is too large for portability, especially for school therapists. Because it was heavy. No joke, it was 10 pounds.
Jayson Davies
Oh, wow.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, it was a lot. And I always kept it in an uppercase binder and a lowercase binder. And I always would just pull what I needed. But other people who go to schools further away, and they need to have, you know, everything they can just pick and choose for the day. So I don't know what the weight is going to be. I could let you know when I get it. But this is going to be five by seven.
Jayson Davies
Okay,
Helene Lieberman
the letter sizes aren't changing, just there's less background of the black. And I have done prototypes of it. And people say that that should be better.
Jayson Davies
a little bit easier to handle and use
Helene Lieberman
Yes. Easier to manage in terms of size and carrying around and storage. For sure. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. That's gonna be great. I'm sure. Like I would like I said earlier, I'm sure it's gonna help a lot of therapists, a lot of kids out and, and hopefully teachers and parents too, right. Like this isn't necessarily unique to to therapists.
Helene Lieberman
No, actually, teachers really love it in their centers, because they're laminated and they're like, Okay, you can do this. It doesn't require any explanation. And the teachers do a lot of sensory stuff on there, too. And it can be cleaned. So they're like, Oh, this is so easy, and teachers have a hard job. So giving them something easy.
Jayson Davies
It's good, right? You've been instead of asking as always There's always something that key into a teacher, right? The more you can give them, especially if it's a physical product that they can use. Yeah. You mentioned sensory, we kind of touched on that a little bit and OTs are creative, but what have been some of your favorite sensory activities to use alongside the cards?
Helene Lieberman
I would say wicky sticks is really good paint. I've emptied a nail polish bottle. Yeah, it's the nail polish. Well, I don't know if you polish your nails often enough, but the way just seems at the top seems to give me a great grasp and like, oh, and it is kind of interesting. emptying it out and cleaning out and paint and nail polish bottle. What is it wicky sticks. I've done food on it also pretzels, like, stick pretzels, and in circle pretzels and licorice and sticky things and skill.
Jayson Davies
playdough slime, all that fun stuff? I'm sure.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, I've actually put it under let's say shaving cream. And the kids have to? Oh, yes. So they have to find the letter under there.
Jayson Davies
Like a sandbox or shaving cream sample?
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, just cover it in something and they have to use their hands to clean it off to find what's under there.
Jayson Davies
All right, for those of us who don't do our nails on a weekly basis, or monthly basis, or yearly basis? I as hearing you say that, is it easy to get off? Like because it dries right. So
Helene Lieberman
I still with paint, I take off the nail polish?
Jayson Davies
Oh, I get what you're saying you're not using nail polish using the polish?
Helene Lieberman
Yeah, actually, I've tried nail polish. If you get it right away, it comes off, it gets a little tougher. But Magic Eraser pretty much can take off anything eventually.
Jayson Davies
True.
Helene Lieberman
and the nail polish just chip off also. So
Jayson Davies
however, I imagined paint is a lot cheaper than nail polish.
Helene Lieberman
It's definitely cheaper and easier. And if the kids get it on their skin, it's much more washable.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And if you have girls on your caseload, they might start painting their nails instead of doing the activity. That's the whole, we're trying to not distract them. But anyways. Awesome. Well, that's great to hear that, that you're moving forward with changing it up a little bit based upon feedback and making it available for everyone. And you just provided some sensory strategies and other activities that the people can try out if they do decide to use something like this. Alright, so that's kind of the program, I want to ask you kind of about supporting other occupational therapy practitioners who maybe have an idea out there, like this took you you already talked about like a decade or so to really kind of have the idea, have multiple ideas, put those ideas into your own practice and various ways and then eventually get to the point where you printed something out. And now you're selling it. OTs have so many ideas like we are constantly adapting a pencil or changing up a stylus or taking keys and moving them around on a keyboard, whatever it might be. So for OTs out there who have maybe tried a few things, do you have any suggestions for them as to you know, maybe one day could be a program? Where should they start?
Helene Lieberman
I think if you have a good idea. Or if you have, let's say if you have a problem, and you solve it with a good idea, other people probably had similar problems, and are looking for something to solve that problem. So I would think that it could be something that's a marketable, I think, talking to other colleagues and asking if they'd have the same problem and ask them to try the new method that you've figured out. And does this work for you? Sometimes it's a one off thing that just works for one child. And I think not being, I guess, scared of the ideas that you have, and being nervous that it's going to be looked at as Oh, that's a strange idea. But if it works, it works. It's not a strange idea.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of times as an occupational therapy practitioner, we think, Oh, this was just for one kid. Like, we do it just for one kid. But if it works for one kid, it's very likely that it will work for many kids and the on the kids that you can potentially provide service to or even provide whatever that is to the teacher, the parent, there are likely others out there who may benefit. And so that's where, you know, reaching out to people talking to the teachers. Hey, is this helpful to you? I think that's a great idea.
Helene Lieberman
Yeah.
Jayson Davies
And then what about if they wanted to start getting some data on their product or their idea? Where would you suggest that they started? Not? Not necessarily, obviously, I want to say not necessarily using an IRB, you know, style data, but how do you recommend that they just start getting some anecdotal data?
Helene Lieberman
I would just say use your caseload, use your caseload and keep careful records of what you've done. So In a therapy session, tried to take pictures is something that I did without, of course, the child's face in it, you know, try to take pictures and keep a file and see if you notice a difference, whether it's in hand position or quality or whatever it is that you are, you know, working on, and keeping it in a secure place. And then really looking at it from quarter to quarter. And seeing if it makes a difference than trying maybe on another group of kids. And again, keeping your own anecdotal data, you know, writing it down, and then see if you find a pattern in something.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Helene, this has been wonderful. We talked about like kind of the problem with handwriting in schools. And then we kind of talked about kind of the why and what you developed and how you developed it on. And then, of course, just kind of going over a little bit about helping anyone out there who may want to develop a program at all. Before I let you go, I obviously want to ask you about where people can learn more about yourself and the blackpack writing program.
Helene Lieberman
Okay, so actually, I'm meeting with someone tonight, to construct my website, I went spin a my next dream, I'm getting a website, it'll be called Black back. riding.com. I already have the name, but I don't have the website so they can look for that I am on Instagram, and Tiktok. And I have a Facebook page, and I will send those to you so they can look it up, I put up handwriting ideas. If somebody is using the program, I'd love feedback, especially if it's positive. You know, that's always good. But you know, negative too, because you learn from absolutely everything. You know, it's not just about you know, positive, you got to take, take it all in. So that's what I'd say the Tick Tock Facebook and Instagram and soon website. And if somebody's interested in getting a free download of blackpack, I did send you a link. So somebody can try it out and get a free download sample. And remember to have toner in your machine in your printer when you do that,
Jayson Davies
yeah, yeah, that's that's a it does take up some toner. So follow up to this really quickly. Maybe we should have talked about this earlier. But what about using the black back program as a PDF on an iPad? Is it similar? Or is it very different?
Helene Lieberman
So interestingly enough, it hasn't worked that I've seen. Okay, but I was just talking to somebody who wants to do an app with black back. And so that's something I'm thinking. Yeah, I mean, I guess you could,why not?
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
Helene Lieberman
you're not gonna get like on some of the other apps, when you write on it, you're not going to get the same kind of results. But it's still good practice.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So very cool. Well, Helene, thank you so much for sharing all of your information with us your wisdom, really appreciate it. And again, I know that the black bag handwriting program is gonna help a lot of people out there. So I will put all the links to all the different things that we talked about today, everything from the right rate stylist to the different apps that we talked about to of course, your website, your Instagram, your Twitter, and all that over on the show notes at OTSchoolHouse.com slash episode 141. So that'll be an easy place to go find all of it, including that free sample of the black back handwriting program that you can get for yourself. So thank you so much. Really appreciate you being here.
Helene Lieberman
And thank you for having me appreciate the opportunity.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. Thanks.
Helene Lieberman
All right, have a great day. Bye.
Jayson Davies
One last time, a big thank you to Helene Lieberman for coming on and sharing her experiences as a school based occupational therapy practitioner, and as the creator of the black backhand reading program. If you'd like to learn more about Helene and this program that she has created, be sure to check out the show notes at OTSchoolHouse.com slash episode one for one. And also if you really enjoy and just love occupational therapy and school based occupational therapy, be sure to check out our community for school based occupational therapy practitioners at OTSchoolHouse.com slash collab where we have over 100 school based occupational therapy practitioners, learning and growing together to be the best school based OT practitioners they can be. We would love to have you as our newest member and grow together. Thanks again for tuning in. 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 OTSchoolHouse.com Until next time, class is dismissed.
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