OTS 156: AI Beyond chat GPT
- Jayson Davies
- Aug 19, 2024
- 33 min read
Updated: Dec 18, 2024
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
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.
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
