OTS 30: Balancing Technology in Developing Adolescents
- Jayson Davies
- May 13, 2019
- 50 min read
Updated: May 7
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 30 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode, Jayson interviews Dr. Stephanie Foster, PhD, OTR/L, and her daughter, Nicole Foster on the effects of technology use and the promotion of healthy balance. Dr. Foster is a veteran pediatric occupational therapist with specialized training in Sensory Integration and the Therapeutic Listening Program among other programs. She also runs her own pediatric clinic right out of her garage. This created a unique experience for her daughter Nicole, who basically grew up in a sensory clinic with a parent who understood the need for a balanced life.
Dr. Stephanie Foster, PhD, OTR/L, and her daughter, Nicole Foster embrace in a loving hug. Notice the lack of technology in the picture as they share a fun and memorable moment together!
Listen in, and earn professional development for doing so, as Jayson Interviews Dr. Stephanie Foster, OTR/L, and her OT-bound daughter, Nicole Foster, on the current state and future trends related to technology use among teens.
Objectives for this Professional Development Podcast
Listeners will:
1. Learn current trends related to technology use among teenagers and why this may be problematic.
2. Become familiar with some of the current research related to development in a world with technology.
3. Understand how the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change can be used to assist those who may be addicted to technology.
Links to Show References:
Have a question for Stephanie & Nicole? Visit Dr. Foster's website at www.kidswork.biz
The title of this book really says it all. And as Dr. Foster said, "There is no going back." Social Media is here to stay and all we can do is learn to adapt.
Stanford Marshmallow Test:
Carlson, SM, Ozle, A., Schaefer, Catherine et al (2018). Cohort Effects in Children’s Delay of Gratification. American Psychological Association Vol. 54, No.8, 1395-1407.
Zickuhr, K. and Smith, A. (2012). Digital Differences. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/04/13/digital-differences/
Cash, H., Rae, C. D., Steel, A. H., & Winkler, A. (2012). Internet Addiction: A Brief Summary of Research and Practice. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 8(4), 292-298. Doi:10.2174/157340012803520513
Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
Well,
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Episode Transcript
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Amazing Narrator
Abby, hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hey everyone, and welcome to the OT school house Podcast. Today we have on two very special guests. Actually, we have a mother daughter combo to talk about the effects of technology on human development, but primarily in teenagers. So this is going to be a great one for any of you. OTs working in middle schools, and especially high schools, so stay tuned for that. But first, I have just a few things I want to say. And first this episode, there is an option to earn one and a half contact hours of professional development or continuing education. And you can take advantage of that and see the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 30. For this episode, Dr Foster has graciously provided me with the slides as well. For anyone who does purchase the professional development opportunity, you will receive a copy of those slides to reference to in the future. Also for this episode, I felt like doing a little something different, something special, and so I want to offer to anyone who listened to this podcast within the first week of it, releasing a 25% discount on that professional development opportunity. So all you have to do is go to OT schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 30, within the first week of this episode, releasing and purchase that professional development it will be 25% off, and that is without any promo code. You just have to do it by May 21 as this episode is releasing on May 14, 2019 and last, but not least, before we head into our introductions, I just want to let you all in on a little secret. Maybe you haven't been listening to podcast for very long. Well, podcast, you can actually speed up. And so you can listen to them at one and a half times the speed. Some people even listen to them at twice the speed. And so in this case, that means you can earn an hour and a half of professional development in about an hour by just hitting the little button on your podcast players. Usually down at the bottom, you might see a 1x and if you click that, it might turn into a 1.25x or something like that. And so I just wanted to let you all in on that little secret, in case you want to listen to the episode a little quick or get through it and still get the content. So without further ado, let's get into introducing Stephanie and Nicole Foster. Dr Stephanie Foster is a licensed and registered occupational therapist here in California, and she currently owns her own clinic here in the central coast of California, where she primarily works with children of all ages. Dr Foster has received specialized training in the sensory integration and Praxis test, also known as the sipt. Many of you learned about that back in episode 25 but she also has specialized training in the wheelbarger Brushing protocol, as well as the therapeutic listening program and vision therapy. And not only has Dr Foster received specialized training, but she's also contributed in some form to the development or data collection for several of the tests that you've probably well, you're probably very familiar with them. Some include the sensory profile, the bot test of motor proficiency and the Miller functional scales, assessment tools, also known as the M fun in 2011 as part of her PhD at the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, Doctor Foster completed a large qualitative study entitled The relationship of prenatal perinatal and developmental risk factors on children's sensory processing patterns that looked at several factors that made children more prone to developing a sensory processing disorder. Also joining us today is Dr Foster's daughter, Nicole Foster and Nicole is currently a third year kinesiology student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and we're very lucky to have her, because she has a lot to add to the topic of teenagers and technology. So let's jump into it. Here is Dr Stephanie Foster and her daughter, Nicole. Foster, hi. Dr, Foster, Hi, Nicole. How are you doing this evening Dr, Foster?
Stephanie Foster
I'm very happy and excited to be talking with you tonight. So I'd give this a thumbs up evening.
Jayson Davies
I love it. And how about you, Nicole,
Nicole Foster
I'm doing well too. This is great, and thank you for this opportunity.
Jayson Davies
So I was just sharing in the introduction how you two are a mother daughter combo. But I actually want to give you the the chance to talk a little bit about this dynamic that you guys have going on with occupational therapy and the family and and the mother and daughter kind of working together a little bit.
Stephanie Foster
So it's a real privilege and an honor to to get to work with my daughter. I've always I've been an OT now for over 26 years, and I've always tried to integrate my work. As much as possible with my children and with our home life. And you know, from the actual physical location of my clinic, I run a sensory integration clinic that's very small and private, right out of our home. And I've always integrated my children. They got to be my Toy Testers for us. Yeah, they are well tested. Whenever a new assessment came out, my children provided me with what we hopefully, what we call hopefully normal development, and they let me practice on them for at all stages.
Jayson Davies
Let Did they let you? Or did you just do it anyways? You got it
Stephanie Foster
when we're talking about throwing balls and drawing pictures, I didn't have to do much more. So of course, I'll come out to your room, sure, and
Jayson Davies
it's not like they had to go very far to get to the clinic. You know, everyone listening can't see this, but you guys are in your garage slash Occupational Therapy Clinic, doing this interview right now. And you gave me a little tour of it a second ago, and it's pretty darn nice. I mean, for all purposes, it works out well, right?
Stephanie Foster
It does. It's really a great business model, and really helped me to balance my roles, even as a professional versus as a parent. I found a nice balance in working at home.
Jayson Davies
nice and obviously the commute is unbeatable, and you were also able to be home. I mean, one of the reasons that I have aspirations to own some sort of business where I can work for myself is because of the kids. And it sounds like you were always able to be home, and they came home from elementary school or whatever, and you were there. So I'm sure that was a blessing.
Stephanie Foster
Is a huge blessing. It gave me a lot of control. It gave me a lot of flexibility.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. So right and close, right and close Exactly. So Nicole, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you at in life right now?
Nicole Foster
Yeah. So currently, I am a third year kinesiology kinesiology student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I do want to be an occupational therapist, so this has been just a wild ride to be part of this project. Definitely growing up as the daughter of an occupational therapist has really given me the exposure to kind of explore what I wanted to do. And like you said, I grew up with this clinic in in my garage, my own little play place. I don't it was, I don't remember how old I was, but I definitely was. It took me a while to realize that, like, this wasn't my space clinic.
Jayson Davies
That's funny. Were there any like set rules about the kids in the clinic?
Stephanie Foster
Put away whatever toys you pulled out? That's pretty much it. We also had a lot of strict rules about if you ever saw a child here, that you saw in public, that they could never identify, that the key that my children learned early on that privacy is very important. Go
Jayson Davies
HIPAA, yeah, absolutely, that's important. I mean, I never thought about that part when you told me that you worked out of your garage and that the kids are always around. Never even thought, because they were probably going to school with some of the kids that you might have been treating so definitely very important.
Stephanie Foster
So then it was always, yeah, very privacy is important. They couldn't identify him in the playground, same rules that we would follow. Yeah, of course, practitioners, I do have to say, though, that the other benefit of working out of your home is we have probably the number one place for kids to sleep over.
Nicole Foster
All my friends, even in the high school, love coming over because we have crash pads, we have swings. We have basically everything you'd need for a sensory integration treatment room, but we could actually play with it treated, you know.
Jayson Davies
Yeah,
Stephanie Foster
and they would fight over the ball pit, like, who got to sleep.
Jayson Davies
Of course, every kid fights over the ball pit at some point.
Stephanie Foster
Play great movies while kids are watching both it sitting in the ball pit.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, cool. So today we're here to talk about some technology use among teenagers. And my first question really is, why did you decide to start looking into technology among teens?
Stephanie Foster
You know, I, like we just discussed. I've always tried to integrate my professional journey and my role as a parent. And as we were growing up as parents, we were part of that age when we remember when there wasn't a phone. Slowly the phone became more and more prevalent, and I was thought, I felt I was a responsible parents. So as we gave our kids phones, we also gave them boundaries and rules on when to use them, how to use them, what kind of content that they could look at, and we found that we thought we were doing everything right, but despite our best efforts. Yes, we have children that follow those rules, and then we had children also that thought that they didn't have to follow those rules. And surprisingly, you know, through my children's adolescence, they balked against the rules, and it left us in a quandary, what do we do? It's it's a great opportunity to be able to have a phone, but it caused a lot of problems, rift rifts and stress in our families. And so it wasn't until I kind of turned it around and said, Okay, I might I must not be alone in this, struggling with this, that I kind of turned to my ot roots, did some research, started asking around for help, and then I was able to dig up some really good resources and created the talk, created the early development of this talk.
Nicole Foster
And then somewhere along the way, I jumped in, because I felt like teens needed to be defended, to be completely honest, that was that was my initial reaction, but It also gave me an opportunity to look at the research myself and to engage with why the rules were the way the rules were, and that helped me to kind of be the advocate for teens, but also be like, here are some better ways, or Here are some ways that I think, me specifically, I think would work to help this transition between no technology to technology flow better between kids and parents.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, Perfect. Well, I mean, let's just keep going with that then. So what is the definition of technology that we're going to talk about today, and I guess leading off of what you just said, you know, parents and kids look at technology differently. Is it the same for both, or is it a little different if you're a teen versus an adult?
Nicole Foster
I would argue that it needs to be the same, or at least the definitions need to be understood. We are specifically talking about any instrument utilizing a virtual interface as a means of finding, learning, communicating and relaying information. Um, that includes the internet. Um, a more specific term for this could be specifically communication technology. So we just drop the communication and talk about technology. This is your phones, your computers, your TVs, those kind of devices that would help you communicate with other people to access that information, but specifically, like they have a screen, you know, it's not a book.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, so right now, then, what are some popular trends among teenagers and technology? What are they using?
Nicole Foster
So teens are probably using smartphones the most. That's got to be the computer that's in your pocket. We're seeing a lot of wearable technology like Fitbits and Apple Watches, which have increased connectivity between individuals. We've also got a lot of lot of computers. As computers are moving into our classrooms, especially as college students are you know, it's really easy to take notes on a computer. So there's our more technology available to consumers, and we see it everywhere. We've also got TVs that have been around, you know, since TVs we've been around and we've got, yeah, that's mostly it.
Jayson Davies
Computers, iPads, tablets. Tablets, I count that as a computer, but yeah, I mean. They're just as powerful now, so definitely exactly all right? And so now we have all these devices. You're right, not, not everyone has every device, and most prefer one device over over the other, right? For the most part, you can do the same thing on just about every device. And so what are we seeing teenagers using technology, mostly for?
Nicole Foster
Communication and entertainment. Would be the biggest things that teens are using technology for?
Stephanie Foster
Yeah, I think Nicole hit it right on the mark. Impact. We just asked the youngest teenager in the foster family, and she said, and don't forget, entertainment.
Jayson Davies
And so entertainment being games and Okay, so any type of media that you just take in, and kind of, I think of it as almost passive intake when I think of entertainment a little bit. But there are also, like games which are very not passive and very active. So I guess I can't just say passive, yeah. And so what does the research say about social media and teens? Is there some research out there
Nicole Foster
according to the Pew Research Center. In 2015 most teens were using technology several times a day or less. Um, but in 2015 or in 2018 when they redid the survey and they found that 95% of teens are almost constantly on some sort of device, they're online, they're on their phones, they're on their computers. So that's an incredibly significant jump. As far as their views on social media, those can be pretty ranged again, by the Pew Research Center, about 45% think that. 45% of US teens say that social media has neither a positive nor negative effect on people their age. So that's our biggest group. But 31% say it's mostly a positive effect, and they cite that being connected with family and friends is really important to them, and that's what most social media is supposed to do. About a quarter of teens believe technology is mostly negative, and the biggest reason for that is cyber bullying and rumor spreading. I interpreted these results as teens, in general have a pretty realistic view of technology, and as a group, they're aware of a lot of positive and negative effects of it, yeah.
Jayson Davies
And my only take on that is that this was, it sounds like a self report correct, as far as we know. And so this is how people feel about their own personal use and or just the use of cell phones or technology in general. And I know, and I don't, I don't necessarily expect you to have any information on this, but maybe you do is that I'm sure there are other people now that are looking from the outside in and looking at what the actual effects of someone using technology greater than eight hours a day, or something like that could be and I'm starting to see more of that coming around, where there's people it's not just a survey, it's more of an actual research that they're taking qualitative data on. And I'm sure that's going to continue to pick up, as those numbers that you're just talking about a dramatic spike in three or four years of how often teenagers and adults, I'm sure, are using technology every day. So yeah, how do you feel? Do you agree with the findings of the positive and negative sides of technology
Nicole Foster
for the most part? Yes, I do think that technology, specifically the internet, has allowed us to stay connected to friends more. I mean, I have friends overseas, and it's been really nice to just text them instead of writing letters. Also, information is a lot easier to access, right? You can Google anything, but that comes with its downsides. You are more exposed to false information, wrong information. You are exposed to negatives. Could it like the teams are identifying as bullying and rumor spreading. You also have the pressure to have a personality like a specific way you present yourself online, and that could be really life destroying if it's not what you need it to be.
Jayson Davies
So what I'm what I'm hearing you say, is that some people are trying to pretend to be someone online, that they may not be in real life, and that's kind of the new peer pressure is online peer pressure in a way that people are expected to, you know, take the perfect selfies and and post or reshare this person's post versus this person. You're not allowed to share their post or something like that.
Nicole Foster
So that that that phenomenon we're describing is called the E personality. It's the idea of you have a specific way of presenting yourself online. And yeah, there is high pressure for teenagers to present the best version of themselves when you're online, gotcha.
Jayson Davies
And so, I mean, obviously this is, this is a growing phenomenon, like we were just talking about the the numbers are extreme and changing. What guidelines are out there among well, for anyone, for technology use, is there guidelines for teenagers versus kids or for adults? I don't know who wants to take that one.
Stephanie Foster
Yes, absolutely, because of the prevalence of technology use, the American Academy of Pediatrics has actually come down very firm and very clear on the appropriate media use for children's all the way birth, all the way up.
Jayson Davies
Oh, okay, and so what does that look like?
Stephanie Foster
So here's and here's one of the. Good things that even over the last 10 years, that recommendation hasn't changed. So we checked recently just to see if our doctors are changing their minds, and it actually they're standing firm. So the recommendation is there is never a reason to put an infant in front of media, period.
Jayson Davies
All right, that's pretty clear cut.
Stephanie Foster
And that, I love that they are very firm on this, that really, there's no reason to put any child or toddler, anybody under 24 months old, in front of a TV. The only time that they say that it might be okay is that if that media allows for connection, and they're talking about having a video conference with your grandmother, who lives on the other side of the country, so so that it's okay to Skype with your grandparents as a way of connection and building relationship, but they do. Doctors do not recommend putting a child in front of a TV as a manner of babysitting so that the mother can get dinner cooked or the father can cook dinner. They further pull that out sometime between 18 months and 24 months that it is okay to watch high quality, educationally based movies, but that needs to be done together. So it is okay to put your two year old in front of it, Sesame Street movie, as long as you're together again, never separate, okay? And then as the children grow, the recommendation is for kids two to five years old, only less than an hour per day. And I like that again. I like that a lot, because that's another time when parents can be sitting with your children. They call it co viewing, or just cuddling and on the couch and watching together. And not only is that a time for really good, physical connection, but it's also a time where parents can then say, how does this relate to our world? What is it that we're watching, and how does it relate to the real world?
Nicole Foster
I mean, not in those words, because the five year old, wouldn't you, but that's the idea is, it's, yeah, it's building family, it's building connection.
Jayson Davies
So I remember when hearing you both speak at OTEC, the recommendation for anyone after five years of age was less than two hours of technology a day. But aside from that, what other guidelines are in place that we should try to adhere to, especially when it comes to our kids are, you know, older than five, but still.
Stephanie Foster
Kids after that, we just want it to be so that it doesn't get in the way of function and playing outside. Okay, kind of recommendations are to always have a parent monitor what they're doing for media content, to avoid fast paced programs, to avoid violence in the programs, to turn off the media when it's not in use, so that your movie in the background does not provide the background noise in your house. Okay, actually, watch a movie together and then you turn it off. Okay? They also recommend keeping your bedrooms meal times and parent child times screen free, so we don't bring our phones to dinner table, right? We don't see each other enough anyway. But meal time is not a time that we can look stuff up very, very strong recommendations and good research coming out on the use of screens one hour before bedtime, that we do know that affecting having looking at your phone an hour before you go to bed can actually interrupt your deeper levels of sleep.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I will absolutely admit that I'm guilty on that one, and I noticed the effects last night was not a good one. I stayed up. I stayed up late, on top of that, and I was basically on my computer until I basically shut my computer and walked to bed. And so it was hard to fall asleep, and it was late. So now I'm like working on a little sleep right now. But yeah, so I, I'll raise my hand. I'm guilty on that one.
Stephanie Foster
So, yeah, so you did notice, like, racy thoughts and difficulty settling down, yeah.
Jayson Davies
And then I jump into my mindfulness practice and start to slow down my breathing and to offset but hopefully, you know, I need to, and I am mindful of it, and I I make the conscious decision to disregard it, even though I know that it is best practice and evidence based, and I should be doing it. But, you know, knowing it versus doing it, two very different concepts. So, oh, yeah. So. So what was that?
Nicole Foster
Oh, I was just gonna say that, in and of itself, is one of the problems why parents have issues getting their teens to follow these rules is knowing it versus just following a rule.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back to that in just a second, Nicole, but your mother was talking about, actually, she used the very key word that, like I picked up on and babysitting, letting an iPad or a phone do the babysitting. And I just want to get your thoughts on that, because I see it. I see it too, and and your thoughts can totally be like that. Maybe we shouldn't call it babysitting, or maybe we need to call out parents more or what, because it's it's a hard term to use, and so I want your thoughts on that.
Nicole Foster
Oh, I was very empathetically shaking my head, no, don't ever, ever do it. One of the things I'm learning is from all this research, is technology should never be a substitute. It is a tool, and using YouTube or using Netflix shouldn't be a substitute for other forms of entertainment, especially because screens have such an impact on neural development in kids. So, yeah, don't, don't. Don't put your kid in front of a screen just so they will be quiet. You're I don't think that that's in the long term, helping children develop skills that they need later in life.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I absolutely agree with that. I think that's right on. So my thing, and maybe you're, we're not quite there yet, but I think this is going to be, eventually, an area of practice that there will be. I don't know if it's going to be OTs, hopefully it will be, but people that are helping, helping parents to help their kids with technology. And where do you see that going in the future?
Stephanie Foster
Well, even just in our own case, just getting the word out there, that there, that that schools and that society is so pro use of technology across the board, whether whether you are in an academic setting or you're in a grocery in a store, there's just pushing, pushing. You can use your phone anywhere you're at and the response that we're getting from this message that we need to promote some balance has been really wonderful. Where I offered to give this talk two years ago to a school system, and the superintendent told me she really wanted the teachers to buy into it, and she didn't want to present the other side. And we presented this idea in the last couple weeks to present it to the same school district, and the superintendent is ready to bring us in for parent education night.
Jayson Davies
That's important. What you just said, actually, because I did a similar thing, I actually gave a presentation about the importance of play to a group of parents at a school about a month ago. One of the things I said was, you know, we need to limit technology. We shouldn't rely on technology. All that to parents, and I was actually doing this at my wife's school. She's a fourth grade teacher, and then afterwards, she comes up to me and she's like, it was great, but our school is so heavily focused on technology use, right? I mean, there's high schools now that have a that they provide students with a computer, and every student on campus has a computer, and it's just like the evidence is saying we need to limit technology, and here we are putting it and forcing it down their throat basically seven hours a day, right? And so I again, this is going to be a topic of discussion for many years to come. I believe so going forward, if I remember right, you have some information as far as brain development and how, potentially, what we need to look at as far as technology and neuroplasticity. This is a awesome topic, and takes a little bit go ahead and and let us know what you're thinking as far as the neuroplasticity and technology. Sure.
Stephanie Foster
Let's start with just a very brief review of brain development, I have so much respect for the way our body is wired and that we naturally and beautifully develop and and you probably know that prenatally, your brain is the first structure to form, and then by the time that What do we call neonate, reaches six months gestation, they've already developed a lifetime supply of neurons. So even before the baby's born, they have what they need structurally at birth, a baby is born with 100 billion brain cells. Now these are immature pain. Brain cells, but the baby has everything that they need to live and to grow throughout their life. At eight months old, this number increases to 500 trillion connections. I can't even visualize 500 trillion connections, and then by two years, it's up to 1000 trillion connections. By three years old, the baby, or the child's nervous system has the greatest density of synapses it will ever have, and the brain structure and design is nearly complete. So then the child continues to vent, to develop, and by 10 years old, most of the synapses that they will ever have are completely formed, and at that point we see something called pruning, or the pruning process. Pruning is a process of removing neurons which may have been damaged or degraded in order to improve function or their networking capacity. And this leads this pruning we use only the strong ones which can become permanent and again in normal development. By 18 years old, these this pruning process has decreased the number of connections by half. So that's just a very quick overview of brain development. And then we want to talk a little bit about neuroplasticity. And we we define neuroplasticity as the brain's ability to reorganize itself through the forming of new neural connections. And neuroplasticity is so important. It's what allows us to recover from injury, from environmental exposure from anything that's going to cause a problem in your nervous system, and it occurs over a lifetime. It's neuroplasticity is what allows you to recover from a stroke from a head injury, depending on the level of difficulty or severity. So how does neuroplasticity work? I mean, it's a wonderful, wonderful concept. There's a large amount of research right now that focuses on this question. Scientists are certain that the brain continually adjusts and reorganizes itself. In fact, while they were studying monkeys, they found that the neuron, sorry, neuronal connections in many brain regions appear to be organized differently each time they were examined, so it's kind of neat that we can do the research. We have the brain conduction studies out there that actually can track. Oh, you know, these pathways are working right now, but following this particular type of injury, we can now actually visualize how neuroplasticity is working and how the brain itself is reorganizing so that life can continue.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. And then. So what are some of your hypothesis that exist around technology and brain development? I mean, whether they're your hypothesis or if there's any What are you reading about or hearing about?
Stephanie Foster
Well, we're hearing in a very scary way, that technology has changed how our brains develop. So there is a whole debate in the science world about nature versus nurture. And when we talk about nature, that's what you get when through your genes, so it's your basic wiring, and then there's that nurturing, and I believe that's what you're getting at. What is the nurture? And for us, you know that nurture comes from your environment, and what is the environment doing to fine tune our brains? And we are finding a huge impact and huge change in MRI studies or brain scans between people that have an over abundance use of technology.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, so I know I've seen some studies as far as people using either virtual reality or some sort of technology with patients that may have a stroke to kind of work on that neuroplasticity. What other types of interventions have you seen that maybe focus more on that technological side, as far as aiming toward neuroplasticity?
Stephanie Foster
So there's some really wonderful research out there, ot that that point to the positive implications of using technology. One of them was printed out in came out in 2014 that looked at traumatic brain injury treatment. This one was an online program that taught problem solving for executive dysfunction in children following brain traumatic brain injury, and what they found that this particular online problem solving game improved long term memory, improved executive function, and it helped children with focusing on problem solving communication and self regulation. So. And this particular study looked at adolescents over 14 years old. Another study that came out in 2013 that looked at neuroplasticity in children with ADHD. And this was an online cognitive training program as an alternative to medication, which as an OT I really like that we are still talking about alternatives to medicating, and it found to be very, very helpful for kids with ADHD.
Jayson Davies
Are you from reading that that study, were you able to kind of get in tune with what it kind of looked like, what that model or what they were really doing, or not quite? I know sometimes it can be tricky when you're reading an article to really get the gist of what they're actually doing. It says that they're using this cognitive development type of strategy, but it's hard to see.
Stephanie Foster
So, yeah, no, no, they the article is very, very specific on which one that they're that they were using, um, I'm not finding exactly it here in my notes, which one for this study, okay, but I know even in my own practice, that I am using a internet based technology to help with attention span. So an example of that would be using the interactive metronome, which is a really, which is something I never, first off, never thought I would be advocating for. But the interactive technology, interactive metronome sets up a metronome beat, and children have to meet that beat with their hands and clapping or with hitting one side of their leg. And then when they get good at that, then they use both upper body and lower body, and they're given and they're playing a video game. So the kids are really, really motivated to get the video game to give them scores, and they try. And what I have found here in my clinic is that they try really hard, and they're given really, really specific feedback on how quick, how quick, or what their automatic responses are.
Jayson Davies
So I want to touch on that then. So you're saying it measures their clapping, or it measures their how they hit their knee. How does it measure that? Do you have to put some sort of sensor, like, are they wearing a glove or special pants that have sensor in it? Or what does that look like?
Stephanie Foster
As it's computer based they get they wear earphones, and they hear a sound and interactive technology. It's a cowbell sound, and they have to clap or make a response as close to that cowbell sound as they can. So they are improving bilateral skills. They're improving the reflex response, and the computer then times the difference between the cowbell and their response down to milliseconds. Okay, so
Jayson Davies
does it use like a microphone to pick up when they clap, or is it okay? There is, there is a microphone that attaches to it as well.
Stephanie Foster
They they wear a little trigger on their hands, so when they clap, it triggers, okay? And, yeah, yeah. And if you, you know, like, in one of them, there's a monkey, and he gets to eat a banana. After you get so close milliseconds, the monkey gets the banana, and then that's the inter that's the reward for getting more and more coordinated.
Jayson Davies
So it really is a video game. Then, like, it's straight up, it's got an objective to it, and you just got to do make the right moves to get the banana cool.
Stephanie Foster
Correct, correct, highly motivating, really colorful. And then, as an OT, again, I like that. I can track something right hand and left foot, and I can. I can move it that forward, you know? I can. I can be that specific. Oh, because, you know, I would never be able to tell. What's the difference between five milliseconds and 30 milliseconds, you know, but the computer allows me to be that specific.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, all right. Well, I'm kind of ready to move on to the next area, because I think this is going to be like the super fun, super like, interactive area, and that is looking into the good, the bad and the ugly of technology. And so I don't know. I think we should start off with the good aspects of technology. I know we just talked a little bit about how some of that technology you're using, like the interactive metronome through therapy, but what else is, is the good side of technology.
Stephanie Foster
So I do find in even in my small private practice, that I use technology a lot. So I do have a website. I do reach out to parents on social media. I don't have to put an ad in the newspaper anymore. When people are searching for help for those children, they go right to technology. So that gives us more information quicker. It helps us deal with the problems that we have throughout our day faster. I also use it to help children who are non verbal. So we have something called the pro low quo to go it's a fun word, and that's a software that helps us build communication boards.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and that's an iPad app, right, or phone app, or some sort of app.
Stephanie Foster
And some kind of app right, use on your computer so you print or you could use it on something smaller that you bring with you, that that the child can press into in order to produce a sound. Okay?
Jayson Davies
And then I want to bring this up, because you guys actually touched upon this when I got to see you for the first time, and that was the marshmallow test. This is one of those things that I think every ot you know, you may not remember it, but you probably heard a little bit about it in in school, and it's about delayed gratification, correct, correct. Yeah, I'm going to let you kind of explaining the original and now the new study.
Stephanie Foster
Sure, and you know the reason why I included this? Because initially, the results horrified me as a parent and as a reader of the research, it horrified me. So I'm going to present it to you, and I'm going to challenge you and and our listeners to make their own conclusions. Yeah. So in 1960 Stanford University came up with the marshmallow test, and they they said that this was the gold standard for testing delayed gratification. The test looked at preschoolers of children ages three to five years old in the 1960s in which a child was brought into a room, sat at a table, and on the table, there was nothing in the room except a marshmallow, and the child was told that the examiner had to leave the room, but if the marshmallow was there, when the examiner came back, that the child would then get two marshmallows. At that time, only 1/3 of the kids were actually able to put it off to delay gratification. So in other words, two thirds of the kids couldn't enough, and they just grabbed the marshmallow and ate it. That would have been me. So recently, they so they they have continued this test. And recently, 2018 the American Psychological Association, put together the latest findings, where they checked again on children's abilities to delay gratification in the they did. They use the 1960s they use the 1980s and then they use the 2000 the 2000s and they compared them across for the time. And it took the time that children were allowed, or, I'm sorry, not allowed, but the time that children tolerated looking at that marshmallow without grabbing it. And what they found was that the actual time that children were able to wait increased, which pretty interesting, right? The amount of delayed gratification has actually improved for this particular.
Jayson Davies
And of course, I mean, we're talking 50 years difference between when it originally happened and technology has only been super prevalent for the last 1520 years, you could argue. And so there's more than just technology to that. But I mean, what do you take away from it?
Stephanie Foster
See, the authors were saying that this increase in delayed gratification is due to increase in symbolic thought, the increase in use of technology, the presence of preschool, and where more kids at that age range are actually attending preschool, and also a greater emphasis in parenting on executive functioning skills, so planning and preparing for whatever is coming Next, being able to take your backpack and put in what you need for school and bring it with you. What do I take from it? Do that's that's the challenge for me. Do I agree that kids these days have a greater ability to delay gratification? I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure if I agree with these research, but researchers, but I think that it's food for thought. I think it's something that parents really need to talk about. Do we see that kids are able to wait these these? The authors said that it explains why kids these days have more access to games, and they the games that they play require more ability to wait. So you don't just get to get to the end. You actually have to use, use your coordination to go through each level of the game in order to get that golden prize.
Jayson Davies
That's interesting. So they actually did talk about a little bit of technology within that article, then, and gaming and stuff like that, correct? Wow, okay. Because, I mean, when you say that, when you said that, I was a little taken aback, because I kind of thought it would be the opposite. Because, I mean, now in video games, you die and you come back to life in two seconds. I mean, there's very little time that you get to actually. That you're not, quote, unquote, not playing, you know, your downtime, and so that's actually a surprise. But on the flip side of that, from my video game experience, yes, you're right, that there is that I was never good at finishing games because I didn't like playing like, 810, 12 levels to get to the end. I was more of that I wanted to play the games where you're dead for five seconds and came back to life and so, but there's different types of games and yeah, so All right, well, it's interesting how that that works.
Stephanie Foster
The good news is that, if this is true, if, if our children today have greater perseverance and greater ability for delayed gratification than the children back in the 60s, that it really behooves the parents to take an active role in their technology use, that parents really need to challenge their kids and have these discussions to say, you know, and what am I doing to teach my children perseverance. How do I help my children delay that gratification? How do I help my children plan so that whatever that goal is, or the task is, you know, can be more effective and and maybe that's one way to do it is to use video and video games together as a tool to build that idea of planning and executive function.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I just keep going back to that conversation we had earlier about the like, you know, using technology as a babysitter, and I see that, you know, you're at you're out at the store, and a kid starts crying, and the first thing that we do is hand the kid the iPhone, the iPad. And you know, what's that doing for delayed gratification? I mean, maybe not a whole lot.
Stephanie Foster
So yeah, right, you're absolutely right. It's teaching the child that, if I cry when you get the phone, yeah, in a in a public place. But it doesn't have to be that, yeah, it really doesn't. Parents can make that decision on how they want to train that moment.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, all right. So done with the bad. And on to oh no, sorry. Done with the good. My bad. I could see how things you know from one perspective, they're good. From another perspective, maybe not so good. It all kind of depends on your own personality and beliefs on technology too. I mean, everyone has their own beliefs, but jumping into some of the bad aspects of technology that some of the maybe the research or whatever, is showing what, what do we need to look out for?
Stephanie Foster
So one of, one of the books that I found really, really easy. Talked about the rap on digital media. And the rap on digital media is coming out of MIT. This is talking about the rap is how digital media affects your relationships, affects your attention span, or any potential addiction to to using it, and also privacy. And what they are talking about here is that this constant connectivity really does disrupt our attachments to other people so much that you could be in a room with many other people and you can still feel alone.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I mean, I get that, because technology kind of draws you in, and you get very caught up on that one thing. And you know where, I know you guys aren't school based practitioners, but I'm sure you're probably familiar with IEPs, and it's funny, every now and then you'll be sitting in an IEP and every single person's on their phone. And I'm sure there's many other places where that happens. And you know, it's kind of, make of it as you will, but it's, it's an easy way to get out of a conversation. It's an easy way to embrace yourself in something that is not in the moment. And so now, I mean, we're adults, and that happens. So what about teenagers? I mean, what does this look like for our teenagers?
Stephanie Foster
Then, right, right? I'm sure we've seen lots of groups of teenagers. They go out there together, and, you know, three quarters of room are on a phone. And so how is that an interaction? I think text messaging and the way that we communicate now is also increase it. In some respects, it's increasing our connection, but it's also decreasing the quality of that connection. Because what do you text to your friends? Meet you in five minutes, right? This class is hard, whatever that short snippet of a conversation is it really? It really is making it minimal.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, lots of emojis, yeah.
Stephanie Foster
Now we can even express how we're feeling by sending a smiley face.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And so I think the next progression that to talk about is for parenting, like, what? What guidelines? I mean you we talked about guidelines early. Year, and there weren't really any guidelines past five years old. And so as parents, what? What's your take on parents and disciplining using cell phones? I mean, it can that be done nowadays?
Stephanie Foster
I'm going to say yes. I'm going to say yes. It depends on the rules of the family and it depends on the conversations that happen. So for example, in our house, we had really good rules about our technology use, and then we had an incident. So we had several incidences where those rules didn't apply. And as parents, we were going to be strong, and we took away their phones and the reaction to from our kids surprised us immensely, that the children then withdrew. They started doing sneaky behavior, and at one point I was told, You can't do that, Mom, you're taking away my ability to breathe. It was rough. And of course, as a parent, I said, you're just going to have to learn how to breathe without your phone. Yeah, right.
Nicole Foster
It didn't go down so well.
Stephanie Foster
Go down so well. I mean, it makes sense to me, the parent, but in the teens mind it didn't. And then I came across some more information coming out of the child MIND Institute, where they were replicating my own personal experience, where they were talking about the teens emotional life, they started to not where teens don't trust their parents anymore. They call it an invasion of privacy, and they children just became more and more withdrawn or depressed because the parents were using the phone as a behavioral either motivator or a reward, deterrent, deterrent, sorry, reward or behavioral deterrent. Thank you. Thank you. So that really surprised me, and what come what comes out of that? What's the lesson learned on that is, as a parent, it's my job then to improve that communication. Do everything I can to open and continue to talk with my child, to build trust and to really understand the whys. Why am why is it important for me to have your phone after nine o'clock at night. Why is it important that you know at any time I can take your phone and I can search wherever you've been going? Kids need to know that the parents still hold those boundaries and still hold them because they want to keep their kids safe.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. And I see it in IEP still or now, because often I work at a high school, and I mean, there are very few IEPs where we're not talking about a, the student using their phone way more than they need to be using their phone on campus during class. Or B, how can we use their phone to help them succeed in class? And it seems to be one of the other it's either it's too much of a problem or we need to use their phone to help them, such as, you know, using the Calendar app, using voice to text, using, you know, just telling Siri to remind them to turn in their homework, you know, something like that. But it's becoming, you know, super prevalent. Kids all have phones now, I think, right. I mean, can you agree that that every kid, at least in high school, has a phone, I think, and so, yeah, it's just something that we're talking a lot, a lot about. Nicole, yeah, go ahead.
Nicole Foster
I was just going to say that's why balance is so important, because technology, your phones, your computers, those are tools. They're not anything but a tool. And getting that message across to teenagers takes many different forms, because you've got different types of people, you've got just different experiences, and that's our challenge as professionals, as parents, as teachers, to develop that that balance between overuse and just the right amount.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. And we're gonna get into we got one more section, and then we're really gonna get into that whole teenagers using phones, and what we can do about it. But I want to give you the second to go over the ugly of technology first, and I know we've got some stuff about that to go over. So, yeah, ooh, what is like the worst now? I mean, we've talked about some pretty bad things. We've talked about some good things too, but what is where are we going?
Stephanie Foster
Ah, well, I'd love to just jump into one of the framework, one of my research. I'm sorry it's not mine, one of the research reports that I found that looked at prenatal exposure effects and how it affects postnatal development and behavior. And this particular study was. Done on rats, and mostly it's done on rats because not ethical for us to do this kind of research on living beings. But this study investigated how, how, how maternal restraint stress, which was called being caged up with minimal exercise and Wi Fi signal exposure impacted post natal development of behavior. I found it very interesting. They looked at four groups of pregnant rats. Their control groups were pregnant rats who just were left alone undisturbed in their home cage. There was no Wi Fi, there was no stimulation. They were just left alone in their home cage, there was a Wi Fi Expo exposed group. And the Wi Fi exposed groups actually were two for two hours a day. These freely moving animals in their home cage were exposed to whole body radiation coming from a Wi Fi Wi Fi device via a wireless router, router or antenna, and that antenna was placed 25 centimeters from the cage. Then there was a restraint group, and they took these pregnant rats and restrained them in a between front and back. So they put in Plexiglas boundaries, and they made these rats just basically lay still for two hours a day. Now, the researchers did check so that the rate the rats were not under huge distress, but they were limited. They couldn't do anything for two hours a day. They just leave there, which I thought was pretty interesting, because two hours a day might be you sitting Netflix, not moving, right? So that was really interesting. Recording a podcast. Recording podcast, yes. we're not moving much, right? We're sitting here. So they measured everything. They measured the length of gestation of these, of these, of their babies. They mentioned they measure the number of live, live and dead pups. They measured the sex, they measured eye movement, they looked at neuromuscular tests, and they looked at anxiety like behaviors at 28 days old, and they also looked at it later on, in the in the pups lives, across the board. The end result is, and we're going to make this really simple, because this report had lots of data on it, but across the board, the prenatal Wi Fi radiation and the restraints group had more behavioral and biochemical impairments in both the juvenile and the adult age offspring.
Jayson Davies
Wow. So all that signals that are flying above our head at every given moment of the day. I mean, obviously this was with rats, but we have no idea what the long term effects are for everything that we're experiencing throughout our days, right.
Stephanie Foster
Right? And that's why this was like, wow, we can actually measure it. Now. We can actually measure it. Couple other interesting ones. There's a lot of work being done on addiction, Internet Addiction Disorder. The World Health Organization is actually including internet gaming disorder now in the ICD nine. That's the good news. The bad news is that they won't actually use it. That particular classification system is not out until 2022 but at least it's there. At least it's on the way and they're finding prevalence. They're really doing some nice work on prevalence. So what is the presence of internet addiction that they're seeing now? Because I actually believe you found this one that we were looking at in 12 to 25 year olds, that they were somewhere between 5.7 in males, it was higher 8.4 versus females in was about 2.9% of a population.
Nicole Foster
A lot of that variability is due to the lack of a specific diagnosis between countries, and so I would recommend that we figure out a diagnosis for this disorder so we can have a better handle on how common it is and how to treat it.
Stephanie Foster
But we're finding pretty much it's between that 10 to 20% of the population is coming up with an Internet Addiction Disorder.
Jayson Davies
wow, yeah, and that could potentially mean that they have decreased cortical thickness, is what that research is saying.
Stephanie Foster
Correct, correct. There was some additional research that talked about cortical thickness, where they looked at 15 male adolescents with internet addiction and compared them with a control group of for matched subjects, they did MRIs on them using a 3t MRI, and the results confirmed that actually, male adolescents with interactive internet addiction had significantly decreased critical fitness in the right lateral. Orbital frontal OSC was significant. I was a significant in in all the statistics. And so they are concluding that, yes, Internet people that have internet addiction have actually changed their for on a permanent basis. They've changed the cortical thickness, and they've changed those structures in our brain that are so important, wow.
Jayson Davies
Well, you definitely lived up to the ugly side of technology. That does not sound good. And so, I mean, I guess the next thing to really do is talk about, what do we do about it, and what is based upon. Again, you guys are have done some research. You guys have done some literature reviews. What, what are people doing, or what can we do?
Stephanie Foster
So the message is, and in one of my favorite books, is, there's this really great book called talking back to Facebook, and it was a professor out of Stanford. His name is James Sayer. Is the very readable, readable research. I'm sorry, it's a very readable book for anybody, not just people that like research. And he said his bottom line is that, as parents, what we really want to do is protect our kids. We want to protect them, and we want to help control their environment. But the reality of our modern age is that digital technology is everywhere, that it's impossible to get away from it, and we can't change it, and we can't go back, that we're just it's something that we have to do so as parents and as educators, it's up to us to help kids use their their screen time for productive manner in a way that's balanced.
Jayson Davies
And so then, how do you propose that parents or therapists? I mean, because I have told I've never actually done this, but I have told people in an IEP that I could probably come up with a goal for a student in a school related IEP about social media and or telephone use, because it is absolutely true that you can't separate the two, like you were saying there's no going back. And I know from personal experience now that kids use social media to complete schoolwork. They share notes on on Twitter, they share notes on Snapchat, they send each other videos of like YouTube, videos to study from like. It's completely intertwined, and so obviously we can't, like you said, we can't take this away. The students need this to succeed. But what can we do to, you know, kind of keep it from being too much of an overload.
Nicole Foster
So a media diet is a way to promote that balance use of screens and social media, you've got to help teens develop the skills they need to use media, social media, internet appropriately so that they can use it as that tool and minimize the health effects that can come from that one model of behavior change that I was introduced to as through my classes was the trans theoretical model of behavior change, and this model was designed for behavior change relating to addiction, but you can take the general concepts and apply it to anybody who wants to change their behavior.
Jayson Davies
All right. Well, then how do you apply that to teenagers who may be using their phone too much?
Nicole Foster
There are five basic stages that behavior will cycle through at any time. You've got pre contemplation, which is you, the individual does not recognize that they have a need to change their behavior. Contemplation is the stage where that individual would start to think about their behavior and consider whether or not they need to change or not. Preparation is the planning for that behavior change action. Stage is, where you're developing and adopting those new behaviors and working them into habits, and then once they become habits, you move into that maintenance stage where you're where you're trying to maintain that ongoing new healthy behavior. To move from each of these stages. Are a few concepts called the stages of change, or the processes of change. And there are roles for teens, parents, counselors, health professionals, you name it, in most of these stages, for example. So to move an individual from pre contemplation to contemplation, you have to make the teenager aware that they're spending too much time on their phone. Environmental reevaluation is assessing how your environment is affecting you and other aspects of your situation. So for a teenager, it would be assessing how a screen time affects their physical and social environment. Dramatic relief is the ability to express emotions about your behavior. So this would be helping a teenager express both their positive and their negative emotions about their phone usage, you know, getting them to be real. Like, is this affecting you negatively and well, how does that make you feel? This is a stage where parents and counselors and occupational therapists can be helpful to get those teams to kind of evaluate their situation and evaluate where they're at, to move from that contemplation stage to actually preparing to make a change. Teens have to evaluate themselves and understand what it would be like without this excessive team, the excessive screen time, and then the teen has to make the decision to change their behavior in order to move into that action phase. So this the contemplation to preparation stage is where parents and professionals can help the teen weigh those pros and cons for the excessive screen usage and and help, you know, help prepare, make a plan, come up with realistic ways to change your behavior, and then the team has to make that step to change their behavior. And I would emphasize that this concept, it's called self liberation, would be completely the team's choice, because if it's not, then it's really hard to get the behavior change to stick. The team has to make the decision to spend less time so that they're really behind this behavior change, and then to move from the action to maintenance phase, basically to move from decreasing screen time into a permanent behavior, you have a couple of concepts that can help maintain a healthy media diet. One is counter conditioning, and that is substituting unnecessary screen time for something else. So instead of watching YouTube or Netflix, you read a book or you exercise or you do something that doesn't require you sitting in front of a screen. Yeah. Helping relationships are incredibly important for developing the support you need, the social support in particular, so that the team will continue that good behavior. They're supported by their friends, their families or their professionals that are around them. Stimulus control is controlling situations that would trigger excessive phone use. So if you know you've got, if the team knows that they've got 20 minutes between, I don't know, being picked up from school and when school actually ends, and if that's a case where they're on their phone too much, then got to come up with situations to to stop that trigger. So maybe taking the effort to talk to your teacher for an extra five minutes, or focusing on getting a little bit of reading done for your homework, basically controlling the situations that would trigger excessive feedback. Reinforcement management is also effective to making sure that rewards for not being on your phone are appropriate. So if you are trying to decrease excess screen time, a reward could be face to face social interaction. So instead of being on your phone while you're waiting in line, you actually talk to the person next to you, and you gain that relationship, that friendship as a reward, that one's kind of tricky, and that's where parents and professionals can really help the team hone in on what extrinsic and intrinsic rewards are effective in continuing decreasing their screen time.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and how, how do you go about monitoring screen time? I mean, how is there a way to monitor your screen time versus today, versus yesterday or or tomorrow? I. Mean, how do you actively measure this?
Nicole Foster
So there are a few apps specifically for smartphones that could help with that. I know, um, my my Apple phone has a built in. I don't know if it's an app or whatnot, but it actually my phone measures the amount of screen time that I use my phone, and it categorizes it based on what I'm doing. So at this very moment today, I've been on my phone for two hours and 35 minutes, and 40 minutes of that has been social networking. So there are other apps you can download and that will help you monitor your phone screen. So I would guess the one way to monitor screen time is to have something that measures it. Other ways are to have you like write it down to be more of an active participant in what you're doing and to write it down like i Whoa. I'm on my phone. I've been on my phone for five minutes. I need to write this down, or I am planning to work on my computer. So I'm going to write down the time I'm starting, and then I'll write down the time I stop.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I mean, you started to talk about media diets a little while ago. I mean, what does this kind of sounds to me like? We're headed toward creating a media diet with what you're saying right now. And so what does that ultimately look like?
Stephanie Foster
So a media diet would look at that balance between work, res, play, and time on a screen, and really, really quantifying for people, how much time you're you are talking or being around your family, how much time you've pulled out your phone and you're withdrawing and promoting balance, so that if you know that, you know if, if in your house, it's okay to be on your phone for two hours, then you make sure that you have an equal amount of time outside in the sun playing games and an equal amount of time being nurtured or interacting with your family or your parents. So it's about balance. It's about kind of regulating what that intake of media is balanced with that time that you can just grow live and play.
Nicole Foster
A realistic example for teenagers is, let's say they know they've got two hours of homework that they've got to do because they got an essay that they need to type. So they plan for those two hours, and then they turn around and make sure they get two hours of physical activity. It's really balancing. You know, you have to be on a screen. And then there's the time that you just want to be on the screen with other activities that are engaging with other people or taking care of your health, yeah.
Jayson Davies
And so I want to ask you two more questions before we kind of potentially wrap this up. One is, we've talked about it a little bit already. But why is this important for occupational therapists? Why do OTs need to be aware of technology among teenagers and what? What can they do in the future about it? What do you really see? Where do you see their role in this? This for both of you.
Stephanie Foster
OT don't just look at me. No, I think for OTs, we are, we have a prime role to pay play in self regulation, in that ability to be up, to be down, to be okay with your energy levels. And really teaching children how to regulate their their behavior throughout their days, and seeing the impact of technology on on that self regulation teaching, teaching these kids they have trouble sleeping anyway. You know, using technology and not using technology as a tool for teaching kids regulation. I think that's very critical for us to really step up to that. I know a lot of kids in my caseload don't sleep through the night, and that's very hard for parents. And I think teaching, you know, being being a professional enough to look at a parent and say, you know, maybe it's time to put that phone away, and how can you take it away an hour before bed? Or maybe they this child actually eats two hours before bed so that they can sleep through the night, then they can be happier, healthier throughout the day.
Jayson Davies
I lied. I have an additional question, can parents really get their kids to use less technology when we as adults are using it so frequently.
Nicole Foster
Thank you. Actually, a concept I'm fairly passionate about modeling behavior is incredibly important because you can't expect kids to do as you say. A not as you do. You parents and teachers and anybody who wants to encourage a teenager to use less screens has to also show that they are decreasing their screen usage. Kids know, kids watch. Kids understand that if the adults can do it, then it must be okay, and you've got to be aware of how much power parents have in influencing their kids behavior. So you've really got a role model, and you've really got to explain why you're doing what you're doing, so that they will have more buy in and more intrinsic, more intrinsic rewards to not use their screens as much.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I think that's something that we all need to work on, whether or not you're a parent or I mean, just that modeling, especially working on a school. If you work at a school and you know you're walking around with your head down on your phone, I mean, that's something that all those other kids, they're seeing, they're seeing that.
Stephanie Foster
So all right, yeah, there's three. I mean, if you want it, this three major, major kind of your take home points, yeah, go for it. Okay, so our three, our three major take home points, is set your rules early and follow them. And this is whether you're the parent or the teacher. Set your rules early, and that means early in your child's development, and keep them you always want to keep your computer in common areas. You want your phone use to be defined, and set that when they're young, so that it's not a sudden rule when they're 15. And don't want to follow your rules. My number two is set your children up for success.
Nicole Foster
And this rule is looking at helping kids to understand why they have to follow the rule. This includes avoiding villainizing technology, but also not putting it up on that pedestal you have to be realistic about what using technology means and how to best use it. This also means including teens in your discussions about technology usage, because that'll get them to engage in their own behavior in a more analytical way, so they're not just following whatever mom and dad say they're actually being like, No, this is a good idea because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that's why setting up your children for success really includes bringing them in of the conversation Absolutely. And last, our third point is, be a good role model.
Jayson Davies
Which we just talked about, so we write that one down. All right, I have one more question. This is not in technical relationship to your presentation or to our to our interview, but I recently came across on social media, of course, on Facebook, that there may be a proposed bill to California about completely eliminating the use of technology. Well, I think it's mostly cell phones on campuses in California, on public school campuses. What's your guys' thoughts on that?
Nicole Foster
So I was curious about this, and I looked it up, and according to the press release for assembly bill 272, this requires school districts to develop a policy that either prohibits or restricts the use of smartphones on school grounds during school hours. Basically, this bill is making schools evaluate their media policy and and to come up with a plan, you know, to be to outright prohibit it, or to to put limits on what could be used. You know, maybe immersion feeds are okay or or for educational purposes. You can use your computer. But this bill puts the power in the local school districts to develop programs and develop policies for their students.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and that's, that's a big one, I think, because, I mean, like, again, I work at the high school, I see kids with their ear pods, and all day long, I see kids on their phone. They go to the bathroom and they're making phone calls during, you know, class, it's something that's being used a lot. But on the other side of it, our teachers are required, if they're allowing their students to use their phone for research purposes, they have to put a piece of paper up on their door outside the door saying kids are using their phones for research purposes at this time. And yeah, they have to do that at the high school that way, in case the principal walks in. She knows before she walks in that okay, it's okay for them to have their phones out they're researching a project. Or, you know, maybe a parent on campus that day walking in. The last thing you want is a parent going to the principal saying, Man, I walked into a class. Everyone was on their phone without without knowing it was for research purposes. So it kind of sounds like maybe this high school is already kind of on that track that's going on. But yeah, it sounds like maybe something that I'm sure other schools may not be as caught up to date with and and maybe they do need that.
Stephanie Foster
So just what I like is that it's it's making it a law that the school districts have to create this policy, but the state is not dictating what that policy is. So okay that they're allowing the local school board who should know best what their students need, and it allows for exceptions, for emergencies and educational purposes. But I really like that. Okay, now in California, we are going to say you need to have a policy so you have a thoughtful discussion on on the use of technology, and how much are you allowed to use your phone?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, gotcha. And if there's anyone out there that doesn't live in California, and they already have something like this, and have something like this in place, I'm sure I would love to know. I'm sure you would love to know. And with that, I guess, where can they let you know? What can you share your contact information with us? Maybe your website, at least, if not more?
Stephanie Foster
Yeah, absolutely. We are very sincere that we would love to hear from people. We'd love to hear your comments, suggestions to make, and how this this particular topic, has affected you in your life. So I would be happy to hear from you. My website is kids work. It's www, dot, k, i, d, s, w, O, R, k, dot, biz, B, I, Z, I am Dr Stephanie Foster, and I am also welcoming people to reach out and email me. There is a link through my website, or you can reach me at Stephanie, S, T, E, P, H, A n, i e, at kidswork, dot biz.
Nicole Foster
Great. That's probably the best way to get a hold of me, as well as through the website. Great.
Jayson Davies
There you go. You're not working actually on the business right now, are you Nicole?
Nicole Foster
So growing up, I was helping with summer play groups, and I've even started like developing programs for some of those play groups, and at this point, I am doing more of an office management role because of I'm in school myself.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, gotcha. Well, I really cannot wait to see where you guys go with this in the future. I know you kind of have plans to do more talks like you were talking about at schools. Nicole is just about to start her master's program. So, you know, she's going to be doing stuff related to this, potentially a master's thesis or something, depending on the school she goes to. Yeah, I just can't wait to hear what you guys do at Future A OTA or OTEC or different conferences and stuff. I'm sure this will be something to keep a watch of. So thank you so much for coming on the show, and we'll be sure to keep in touch and maybe have you on again later to see what's going on. All right, thank you an honor. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Well, take care. Have a good night, and we'll see you next time. You too. Thank you. All right. Well, that was Dr Foster and her daughter, Nicole Foster, and we really appreciate them coming on to share all that they have from all the insight into neuronal development by Dr foster as well as all the information about the trans theoretical model of behavioral change presented by Nicole, everything was fantastic. I can't wait to get back into the high schools and really look into technology a bit more. So I'm excited. You just listened to this podcast. It is about an hour and 25 minutes long, and because of that, you can earn professional development now that you've listened to it. So head on over to OT schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 30. There you will have the opportunity to purchase the professional development. It's not too expensive, and all you have to do is take a short quiz that shows that you listen to this episode, and I will then send you a certificate of completion. So so I'm looking forward to seeing you over on the website, and until next time, take care. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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