OTSH: 63 - Sensory Integration & Independent Educational Evaluations with Susanne Smith Roley, OTD
- Jayson Davies
- Feb 9, 2021
- 45 min read
Updated: Jun 30
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Welcome to the show notes for the Episode 63 of the OT School House Podcast.
In episode 63 of the OT School House Podcast, Jayson interviews a leader in the sensory integration community. Dr. Susanne Smith Roley, OTR/L, OTD, FOTA joins the podcast to talk about how she came to know and love both occupational therapy and sensory integration. We also talk a bit about the history and future of SI. We even address the difficult topic of how and why sensory integration has been criticized over the years within the profession and Dr. Roley provides great insight into the research and fidelity within sensory integration. We finish off this podcast with a discussion on Independent Educational Evaluations (IEEs). Listen in for a valuable experience!
Links to Show References:
Sensory Integration and the Child (Book - Affiliate Amazon Link)
Episode 25 of the OT School House Podcast With Zoe Mailloux
Episode 26 of the OT School House Podcast With Kelly Kelly Auld-Wright
Evidence-Based Practices for Children, Youth, and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder ©2020
Building Competency in SI (OT Practice Article) Shared with permission from the Author
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the full episode transcript.
Jayson Davies
Hey, ot practitioners, the conference that your colleagues are calling the most valuable event of the year is returning just in time for the 2025 2026, school year. Join me and over 600 other school based ot practitioners this August for the fifth annual back to school Conference featuring 12 hours of practical a, ot a approved CEUs and resources from expert guests later in today's episode, I'll share with you about our incredible speaker lineup and a special discount just for our podcast listeners like you to learn more about the conference, visit ot schoolhouse.com/conference and secure your spot today.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for school based occupational therapy, tips, interviews and professional development now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jayson Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hello, hello. Welcome everyone to Episode 63 of the OT school house podcast. Thank you all so much for being here with me today. I really appreciate that we have a really great episode. We actually have on an industry leader in the field of sensory integration today. It is Dr Susanne Smith Rowley, and I'm going to introduce her in just a moment, we're going to talk all about sensory integration, how it kind of came to be a thing, a little bit, how she got involved with it, where it's going in the future. And then we're also going to talk about independent educational evaluations, a little bit she provides iees here in Southern California, so I'm going to pick her brain on IEE. So stay tuned for that. But first, I wanted to make just a few quick announcements. I want to thank all of you that have already signed up for the back to school conference in August. Super exciting. I can't wait for it. I have received a frequently asked question about it, and that is, will I be providing continuing education units for it? So I want to make it clear right now, yes, I will be providing a certificate of completion for going. Currently, it is not a ot a approved. I am working on that, but just keep in mind that NBC, OT and most states don't require professional development to be a ot a approved. That being said, I am in the process of working on that, and trust me, I will make a big announcement when it is a ot a approved, crossing my fingers, hopefully within the next few weeks that I can do that all right. Second thing is, big announcement too is transcripts. I am now going to be producing transcripts for the OT school house podcast. So if you hear something and you just want to be able to read it as well, be sure to check out the show notes for this one. Ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 63 you will be able to either view the transcripts right there on the page or download a copy for yourself so you can read it. I don't know anywhere else you might want to read the transcripts. All right, so that is a little bit of housekeeping for today. Let's go ahead and move on now to my introduction for Dr Susanne Smith Rowley. All right. So, Susanne is an occupational therapist with over 40 years of experience in pediatric practice, specializing in child development, sensory integration, learning difficulties, visual impairment and autism. She obtained her bachelor in science in OT at Indiana University, her master's in allied health sciences at Boston University and her ot D at the University of Southern California, Susanne practices in a private practice in Orange County, California, serving children and families through evaluation and consultation services. She was certified in SI sensory integration in 1977 having studied under Dr a jean Ayres, who, of course, we've all heard of, she later co founded and directed the USC WPS sensory integration certificate program for 15 years. She is currently the co founder and president of the nonprofit organization Collaborative for leadership and sensory integration, also known as CLASI, which we will also talk about a little bit later today. She is a past chair of the commission on practice and the sensory integration special interest section for a ot a and a contributing author of the occupational therapy practice framework, domain and process from 2002 and 2008 so she really helped to lay the groundwork for the new otpf. She is an internationally recognized author and lecturer and CO editor of books understanding the nature of sensory integration with diverse populations and sensory integration, applying clinical reasoning to diverse populations. She's a fellow of the American ot Association and recipient of the American ot foundation Virginia scardena Award of Excellence and the American occupational therapy foundation a jean Ayers award. So please help me to welcome. Dr Susanne Smith Roley, hello. Dr Roley, welcome to the OT school house podcast. How are you doing today?
Susanne Smith Roley
I'm good. Jayson, thank you for inviting me.
Jayson Davies
Thank you. Yeah, I'm so happy to have you on I must say, I don't think any occupational therapist or occupational therapy assistant even can graduate out of school without. Seen your name somewhere, whether it's in a textbook or on a article. You have many, many I was actually just looking at your CV the other day, and it's just like pages and pages of so much amazing things that you have done. So thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. We're going to get into that research in a bit, but I want to start off with some questions about how you got to where you are in the OT world, and how you've made such this huge impact on the OT profession. And so my first question that I want to ask, and I do this with all of my guests, is, when and why and how did you decide to become an occupational therapist?
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, it was dumb luck, to be honest, really. Well, I didn't know what ot was, really, but I was, I was, you know, a college student, and my mom was a nurse, and I knew I wanted to work in health care, and I had volunteered in mental hospitals, and I wanted to do something in mental health, but I knew I did not want to be a nurse. That was, it was way too messy. That's funny. But then I looked in the catalog, and I was like, Oh, look at that. You can do crafts and you can do mental health, and, you know. So I, I signed up. I got into ot School, which was amazing. And then, you know, and then I was like, Whoa, you know, what? What is this? What we really doing here? And I but I think, honestly, my confusion with what ot was was a contribution. When later I worked on the OT practice framework, I thought, well, students should come in and have a, you know, summary document that they sort of grasp this profession that is so profoundly important and has such a big impact on on our clients. But it's a little hard to wrap your head around. So, you know, in that old English term occupation, what does it mean? You know, are you? Are you getting people back to work, you know? So, you know that age old thing, you know, what is OT? So, yeah, I was, I was just lucky, wow.
Jayson Davies
So, yeah, it's always interesting, because, you know, you have people that knew they wanted to be an OT, because maybe they themselves, or they had a sibling that that went to OT, but so often you find that no one knew what ot was until they're basically in it. So that's pretty interesting. I had no idea about the practice framework. I actually kind of want to lean into that just a little bit. You did work on the practice framework, but you kind of brought another side of it. And what you just said is that you really wanted to have this document for people coming in to really understand what the profession is. Can you discuss just a little bit about that and your work with that?
Susanne Smith Roley
Yeah, yeah. I was, I was so privileged. I was invited to be on the Commission on practice for the American ot Association. And it was in the tenure of their transition from uniform terminology to to something else, and that something else ended up to be the OT practice, framework, domain and process. So we actually stayed an extra year to get that first version done and and the idea was that the the UT three had become like a shorthand, even for for billing, but it was, it was a bit reductionistic. And so how do we take this volume of work in OT with so many different theories and methods and consolidated into something that can be used for all given the diversity of practice. And so I think that was an enormous achievement. And then I was invited to chair the Commission on practice for the next term. And in that term, we were asked to revise it, to do the second edition. So I was the first author on the second edition, of course, with a team amazing, an amazing team of OTs and scholars and and and in that position, we were also invited to, then, you know, go in different parts of the world to share this with other leaders in other organizations, for example, in Israel, or, you know, where I don't know we went. We went so many different places, Australia and Hong Kong and the leaders of those other countries. They didn't adopt our US model wholesale, but they use this framework to then construct their own, you know, with continuity of OT and of course, then what we saw is that the OT practice framework then changed the curricula in all of the OT programs in the United States so that there was con. Conformity, consistency of language and yeah. So that was, that was a huge and amazing undertaking, of course, now we have the third and fourth, yeah, additions with other teams that have gone on, I think, to make it better and better. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
I mean, there was a great foundation, but, man, I haven't even got through the fourth one, they really added a lot in this new version. I mean, it's a it's a handful, that's for sure. So I'm looking forward to getting into a little bit more. You just talked about having some very unique experiences traveling the world. I just want to ask you about that, because one of my favorite parts of doing this podcast is that I do have people from China that reach out to me, people from Australia, from the UK, what has been a memorable moment for you that has been a result of being an occupational therapist and sharing the profession?
Susanne Smith Roley
You know, I have so many memories. One of the things I was invited to do was to be on a panel in Brazil with scholars there who were talking about the essence of OT and the impact of OT. And it was, it was really interesting for me, because there, most of the people on the panel were really theorists, you know, they were creating ot style theory. And I, and I'm, I identify as a practitioner, okay? And I know I've done education and research, but, but I was like, well, let's get this grounded into practice. And it was really interesting to get feedback on that panel. I mean, I've, I've really traveled on every continent to teach sensory integration courses and and meet with leaders, you know, and you know, really ot so magnificent in terms of the evolution of our profession. You know, the US we have, you know, we have the best textbooks that probably the majority. Not that there's not wonderful textbooks emerging from other countries, but we have such a volume of scholarship emerging out of the United States that then influences people around the world. So in OT in general, but then also in sensory integration. So we've we've really gone everywhere and watched ot evolve in in various countries, and in my opinion, the work that we've done in sensory integration and the foundation of a scientifically theory frame of reference with very scholarly, data driven decision making that that informs clinical reasoning. It really advances the professionality of occupational therapy in in other countries, as well as the United States.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely. I mean, like you said, we just have a lot of the research that's happening here. Ot I think, is just it's more well known here than it is in several other places in the world. And so we have people in school, we have people doing doctor, we have people doing research. That is that leads us to be able to have all that good stuff that we are able to do. Yeah, actually, again, going back to your CV, I saw that you had the W, F, ot on your CV, and so I didn't know it's only like, $36 a year or something like that. So I emailed a, OT, a, I was like, boom, I want to be a part of that, because I want to know what's going on. Want to know what's going on in the row so but yeah, all right, well, you kind of started to mention si a little bit. That's what we're really going to dive into today. And as we transition into that, I want to let you just kind of share where you are at in your ot career. What's important to you right now? What are you focusing on? Yeah, PM, we'll be back after a quick break while it may be summer break now, the school year will be here before you know it. Get ready for it. At the fifth annual back to school Conference coming August, 23 and 24th of this year, join hundreds of school based ot practitioners online for this two day transformative learning event where you can attend live or catch the replays. Don't Miss Amy and Jack from autism level up, sharing neurodiverse strategies to support autistic students or expert handwriting instructor Peggy Morris as she shares the most up to date research on handwriting and how to put it into practice. Don't miss this impactful event for school based ot practitioners. By school based ot practitioners as a thank you for listening to this episode of the OT school house podcast. Use promo code podcast 25 for $50 off your registration at ot schoolhouse.com/conference I'll see you there.
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm on the downhill stretch here. Yeah, I've been doing this for, you know, over 40 years. And you know, what are we focused on? You know, the practical things I do on a day to day one is that I have my, my in. You know, my private practice, my business, and I conduct occupational therapy evaluations and consultation, and you know, it's housed in center point for children. And my daughter is now, she has her doctorate OT, and she's running that clinic. And then the other big piece is continuing with education and research, and we're running the nonprofit Collaborative for leadership in air sensory integration. We're offering synchronous and asynchronous online now because of COVID, we're not doing any on site, but synchronous and asynchronous online education programs in sensory integration.
Jayson Davies
That's awesome. Yeah, I did have the chance to go through the WPS SI program back when it was with WPS. I know now it now it's kind of gone a few different ways. And what you just mentioned is one of the ways. And yeah, you were, I think my course three instructor, one of the instructors, I want to say it might have been you and Zoe, but it was, it was just amazing being a part of that. And so I'm happy to have you here to share more about that. So let's talk about Si, and that first question is, is, how did you learn to come? Or how did you come to learn about sensory integration? And what were your kind of first initial thoughts of sensory integration, if you remember back when you're just kind of starting to learn about it.
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, it started in my undergrad. You know, I got a Bachelor of Science at Indiana University, and one of my professors was Shireen Farber, and she invited us, literally, the students, to come to her house and study neuro beyond the basic curriculum, because we were all kind of stunned with, you know, anatomy and neuro and and she brought it to life. And she was working with joy Huss and I don't know if you know these names, but they were really they were they were producing seminal work and sensory motor functions in theory, and also, you know, getting their toe wet in in research well. And of course, it was about that same time that Dr Ayers was publishing her original set of tests, the Southern California sensory integration tests, and and she came to lecture in in some, some, some place around there, and I went to hear her, and I was blown out of the water. OT in general, didn't captivate me. I was struggling with understanding what we were supposed to do. But as soon as I get it got into that I was I was captivated. And then I had the privilege to work with Jenny scardena in Cincinnati. I had a field work one of my field work assignments was in the Cincinnati Public Schools, and so we learned sensory integration and from the bottom up. And it was just, well, it profoundly affected everything I have done to this day.
Jayson Davies
Wow, yeah, you know, again I hear your name, I see your name, and I just like associate that with USC, but I know that you didn't start at USC. I know that came later, and that you did work your way to Los Angeles then be a huge part of the SI community. How did that kind of come to be? How did you get kind of folded into the actual si leadership and with the USC? And how'd that come to be?
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, I turned right before I turned left. So I was with an amazing group of students. And you will know these leaders names I was with, you know, Shelley lane and Jane Kumar and Joan Dostal and and Mary Schneider and Charlotte Ryan. I mean, these are many people who have become quite well known leaders in occupational therapy and and Jane Well, we started teaching sensory integration, but I didn't have a master's degree, and I knew that that was critical. So Jane, Jane Kumar, went to Boston, and I was thinking, Well, do I go to USC, or do go to Boston University? And I ended up going to Boston University, and Sharon stermack was, you know, my thesis advisor with Anne Henderson. So they were amazing. And then I knew I wanted to work with Dr Ayers, and I heard her, she was ill and and I thought, well, I need to do this as soon as possible. So, you know, given that you've already up ended your life, I moved to California to work with Dr Ayers, and then I was captivated by the weather. Here. It was like, I'm not going back to those winners below wind chill factor, right? I got seduced by the beach and the weather and and then also the work that was going on here, which was really quite phenomenal.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah, and so let's continue on with that. Then let's, let's talk about that work that you, you came to USC, you're here. You're working with Dr Dr Ayers, a little bit. Tell us about that experience.
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, that was also life changing. Dr Ayers was one of the most thoughtful, brilliant minds. She cared deeply about the children and and her insights and her inquiry was just unsurpassed. I mean, I have never encountered anything before or since, and I'm not the only one,
Jayson Davies
right? I heard it many times,
Susanne Smith Roley
yeah, so, I mean, she influenced a lot of people. She taught us how to think in in a scientific way, and then she taught us that to enact those principles, we had to do it in a very humane and compassionate, playful way. So, so this was really pretty phenomenal. And so, yeah, I was, you know, I was able to, you know, anytime she spoke, I went and, you know, if I was like, you know, can I help you in any kind of way? So I was able to help her with some of the RE standardization in a very small way, but, you know, but I kept hanging around, and I would stay in touch then, and so, so through that process, you know, I was around when the sipt was re standardized, and of course, I was one of the instructors for sensory integration International. Until that closed, things were going a little bit haywire there, and that's when we started the USC WPS program. Dr Clark. Florence Clark was the chair at USC OT department then, and we pitched the proposal, and I was the project director then for that program for 15 years.
Jayson Davies
Oh, wow, I had no idea that you're the program director. Yeah, I was the
Susanne Smith Roley
for, well, for the sensory integration certificate program with that partnership between USC and WPS, I left that position a little bit before they dissolved the partnership. They dissolved the partnership in 2016 and that's the point at which USC start teaching this set. We started our program in CLASI around 2017 we felt that, you know, we didn't know that they were going to create another program. USC has since started teaching sensor integration classes again. But so in 2017 we continue to, we continue to teach the sift. I know there's some misinformation that once they dissolve the partnership, the SIFT isn't valid anymore. That's that's not real. But yeah, we continue. Yeah. Continue doing it well. So
Jayson Davies
I don't want to jump too far ahead of myself. I want to ask you more about the CLASI, more about the easy, all that good stuff, but I want to kind of stay where we're at right now, the sipt You mentioned that, as far as I know right now, the SIFT is still the quote, unquote, gold standard sensory integration and Praxis test. Sensory Integration test, is that still the case right now?
Susanne Smith Roley
That is still the case right now. The SIP is quite an amazing set of 17 tests, and it's the only collection of tests that I know that allows you to understand the complexity of sensory motor and Praxis abilities in children. It shows you the different patterns of the way children are processing and integrating information and and it also gives you a road map of how to do intervention, and I don't know any other tests that allow you to do that. It's a it's a performance measure, and you have you get standardized results. So it's quite phenomenal, actually, as as a tool.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I remember I sat, like I said, about six years ago. I think it was the district that I was working for. They wanted someone that has some si training, and so they sent me to all four of the WPS USC courses in SI. I again, like I said earlier, I think it was the third course that you were there. And I just remember being able to, like, something would just pop up on the screen. And you know, you know it very well. It's the bar chart, the bar chart of 17 different tests and black lines going in every which direction. And the fact that you could just look at it and kind of almost give a story about this child based upon this chart. And I'm struggling, because I don't. Know how to how to ask you this question, but, but what does that look like? What goes through your mind as you're looking at the child's sensory integration Praxis test report? What are you seeing that some of us who aren't as well versed don't see?
Susanne Smith Roley
Oh, you know, actually, thank you for bringing that up, because I remember when I was working with Dr Ayers, she did that. She held up a graph, and she and then she just narrated what was going on with the child. And then she said, Well, in this and then Susanne, you should take this child, and you should get on the bolster swing, and they should swing and prone. How'd you get anything? You go, Okay, how did, how did you get there? From there, and then she could also see when there was an error. You know, while this, you know, this is probably measurement error by the on the part of the therapist. I mean, she could see when, when the things weren't scored correctly. Well, now I've tested, I mean, literally, over 1000 children. I mean, you know, I do a lot of tests, so now when we Okay, so a couple of things informs our information. One is, you know, having a lot of experience with this set of tests. But the other thing is that we have so many factor analyzes that have shown us the relationships between the tests. So so when you're looking at the configuration of scores, it almost gives you a profile of the child's nervous system. So you know, if they have a language based concern, if they have visual perceptual concerns. Does the visual perceptual system work well, but they still have visual motor concerns, or do they have poor body awareness through the tactile or proprioceptive systems? Then you start looking for Praxis or dyspraxia, because, you know, that's a pattern, and then you can see the vestibular piece. So, so you start to assess the strengths and weaknesses in the different sensory areas and how that links to those sensory motor skill areas that then are most related, yeah, and then that allows you to understand, you know, what's going on, you know, in a certain kind of way. And then also, you know, where, what are they going to like? And they're not going to like, they're not going to like what's hard for them. They're not going to, you know, if their language system isn't working for them, they're not going to like to follow a lot of verbal directions. You know, if they're dyspraxic, their transitions are going to be hard for them. They're not going to like other people, to figure out something and have them do it, because they're not going to figure that out. If they can't imitate, they're not going to like modeling, because that's going to be hard for them to decode. So it so it helps you understand behaviors that sometimes are interpreted in another way or not easily understood.
Jayson Davies
I like the way you phrase that that are interpreted in a different way or not easily understood with behaviors, because so often, especially in the schools, you know, I'm a school based occupational therapist, we often get dragged in to see a student, and the referral is behaviors. And sometimes the student will have ABA, sometimes the students will have it a functional behavior assessment with a behavior plan, but they still ask the OT to come in and look at these behaviors for sensory reasons, or whatever that might be. And so I actually want to kind of go a little bit further with that and tell me more about those behaviors and how sensory integration can or difficulties with sensory integration can affect behavior.
Susanne Smith Roley
Yeah, and I think that that's interesting. And you know, we're very committed to assessment, so I think it's, it's one thing to see on the the surface of what the children are doing. And you know, you and I know that you're going to see a whole range of behaviors. I mean, you know, depends on the system. So do you have a child with attention issues that can't sit still in the chair, and they're popping up and down, and they're not getting their work done, and they're very capable, but they're not sitting still. Why aren't they sitting still? So what is that? Is that just ADD or ADHD, or maybe, do they have a vestibular problem where they're not processing movement and sustaining a stable posture? Could? Could be a hypothesis. Of course, you have to do the assessment, and you have to figure it out, because it may be just ADHD, that's a you know, biochemical issue that you know is going to respond to Ritalin. And that's, you know, it's not, it's not the foundation isn't sensory, right? So that's fully possible. The what's happening a lot now. So many kids on the autism spectrum is that there's a whole range of behaviors where there may be, you know, self injurious behaviors or or running into other children or somehow pounding their body or throwing themselves on the ground. I mean, so more of a, you know, getting their body involved too much, too vigorously, where they might hurt themselves or others, and really rejecting what other people want them to do. And so for those children, you know what I would start to assess in the line of tactile awareness, kinesthetic awareness and praxis. Do they do they know, can they perceptually interpret what other somebody else is thinking that the other person's plan? And then, you know, even if they understand the goal, do they know how to get there? Do they know how to make that happen, that and so many of those kids with autism have that, and then such extreme responses to sensation, so either very under or over response. So sound hurts, some aspects of touch hurt, you know, food, you know, if they hear the, you know, the pipes. Or I heard one example that just blew me away. It was a it was an adult with autism, and he was explaining, when he was a student, that he took a spelling test, and when he finished this test, he had 40 words, but there were only 20 words on the test, and the teacher discovered that he had written the words that the adjacent teacher in another room was giving to her class well as his own. And so you think, Well, what is going on with that auditory system. And of course, this man would get completely dysregulated by the end of the day, or if there was too much sound, because he couldn't, he couldn't inhibit, yeah, all of that. And then, you know, keep decoding. The decoding was putting such a load on his nervous system that he was just completely fatigued in social environments.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And, you know, that's really why I wanted to come on here. I wish we could go over, you know? I wish I could just show you a video of a kid and you do exactly what you just did. And obviously that's not the time or place for that we're gonna we're talking about sensory integration, but that's really what a course is for. And you know what? We're going to save it till the end. But I'm going to to announce, you know, Dr Rowley has been so kind to actually give us a discount for ot school house listeners. And so we will talk about that, that course in a minute. I want to ask you, for those of everyone out there, there's, there's a lot of people that aren't trained formally in the SIP aren't trained formally through CLASI or through any of the sensory integration programs. What do you? What do you, and I'm sure you get this question a lot, what do you say to school based OTs or even clinic based OTs that say, You know what, I just don't have that training. What can I do? What do you recommend?
Susanne Smith Roley
Yeah, you know our entry level ot preparation is phenomenal. There's so much that that is given to us in it at an entry level. But one of the things that I did when I was the chair of the sensory integration special interest section was to survey all of the programs in the United States. And I did it, of course, with my committee. None of this I did by myself, but we surveyed everyone, and we said, how much information do you get on sensory integration? And it was somewhere between none and maybe a week or two weeks, but that, you know, generally it was like a couple hours, and it was usually embedded in a peds. Course, we did it again, okay? And I think that this was when Theresa May Benson was the chair. So, so again, we surveyed say, Okay, well, what's going on? It was very similar results. So what we know is that these specialty areas not just sensory integration, but other kind of specialty styles of practice are not covered in the general curriculum and so. So this is, I think, something to be aware of, that that you need postgraduate training if you're going to specialize in sensory integration. There are, it's not just CLASI. There are other programs. As I mentioned, USC has a program. Theresa May Benson headed up a program through the spiral foundation. I think she's now doing education courses privately. There's, there's, you know, other programs around the world, doing it through the South African Institute of St. Integration, ASI wise, in the UK, Austria, there are other programs, not just ours, but I would very much encourage people to meet the international standard. The International Council for Education and sensory integration have has a set of guidelines. We published an article on this in OT practice. I'm happy to share that with you, if you want to share it with your your your listeners, yeah, definitely, yeah. To to move from entry, you know, our basic level understanding, to a certificate, and then, of course, on to more advanced and expert levels. So, so when, when I'm sitting across an IEP with a with a therapist who doesn't have this training, and then it's a little harder to to have that understanding of what the what the assessment data shows and and sometimes there's not always agreement on on what to do about it. So that's, you know, that's always,
Jayson Davies
where would you Where would you recommend that someone start? If they say, Hey, you know what? I want to learn more about sensor integration. Maybe they're maybe they're a year out of school, maybe they're five years out of school, and they just say, hey, you know what I want to learn more about? Si, should they start? Should they just say, Hey, I'm going to go through all four or all six, however many classes there are, and just pick a program and go. Or you kind of mentioned the article that you're just talking about, but what would you What's that first, first two or three steps that they should start doing.
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, you know, the the book that I love, that I think everybody should start with, is sensory integration in the child, by Dr Ayers. And, you know, we copy right now, we did a remake of that so that it's updated. It's published by Western psychological service. So sensory integration and child is, you know, that's, that's the beginning. And then, you know, the most recent book, textbook is Schaff and Mehler, 2015 a clinician's guide to using sensory integration with autism. It's based on shop at all randomized clinical trial. It's a manualized air sensory integration. It's beautifully organized. And then in terms of courses, I would say, you know, to start with a theory course, you know, sensory integration theory, I, you know, made the one for CLASI. But you know, there's others that you you know, I mentioned other programs so, but I think go look at sensory integration theory and and start to get a good understanding of that. Because I think the more depth you have in understanding going into it, the more motivated you will be to continue.
Jayson Davies
I agree. And I mean, I'm sipped technically. I'm SIP trained. I don't use the SIFT very often as a school. I just don't. But the theory, the theory is invaluable. I mean, it is just something that I think every clinician, if you're going to be working in a pediatric setting, you need to at least have the theory. So that way, as you're looking at a kid, as you're coming up with different ideas, at least you know the theory behind it, and so it's an option. So yeah, I agree with that. All right. So let's jump into the classy and the easy a little bit. Just share with us an overview of what is classy versus what is easy. And yeah, just an overview of what that is.
Susanne Smith Roley
All right. Well, CLASI, as I mentioned, is our nonprofit, and we're we formulated it so that we would have an organization that where we could offer educational opportunities, but also seed leadership. So we, we know we're aging out of, you know, of being the people who are teaching and, you know, and of course, many of our mentors are, are retired or retiring and so, so our idea was to get a foundation and to seed leadership around the world. And you know, that's really happening. We have, we have really amazing people all over and across the country and also in the United States. And, you know, Dr Kelly, all right, who's working with us that, you know? And I mean, just to name one, I mean, everybody, okay, so that so that was so CLASI. We've tried to get together materials. We have a training program that has now been offered all over there. I think we're in 20 countries, maybe, maybe more, and when we're collaborating with at least 10 other international organizations, and there's the pandemic sort of slowed things down, but there's a lot of international. Interest. Now, the fact that we've been able to sustain the work of CLASI through virtual media has been amazing, great, and we're trying to get a lot of work out that people don't have to spend a lot of money on that we can get resources. So one of the things that we had so much fun putting together was our wind down Wednesday webinars. Do a few of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, you know, during the pandemic, we said, Okay, how do we stay connected? Because it's this whole idea of social distancing. Was like, okay, physical distancing, distancing, but socially connected. So we were able to make those available, you know, at no no charge. So we're trying to get more resources that, you know, don't cost too much, that are, that are going to be available to, to therapists, and, you know, to to get as many resources in the hands of families. And, you know, one of the goals is children understood. Okay, so this, this is our tagline for assessment. Zoe Mahler, who's my partner with CLASI, and of course, we have Katie Estrada. I mean, there's other like, yeah, I don't want to leave anybody out, but if I start naming names, I'm going to, for sure, leave people out. But Zoe was, was Dr Ayers research assistant when she was being on the SIFT, and so she was and then she ran the airs clinic for many, many years. And so such a powerhouse, brilliant therapist. And so together with Dr Diane Parham, who, who you? She's so wonderful. And yeah, so she, she's been very instrumental in assessment development, including the sensory processing measure, which is very well widely used now. So the three of us, we felt that we understood the limitations of the SIFT, mostly accessibility. And I don't need to go over all of that. You don't use the SIFT much, and you know why? Okay? Because, you know it's big, heavy, but so we, we thought, but here's the problem is, if we don't identify the problem, the problem will not be adequately addressed. And one of the dilemmas is that most of our materials are in English, you know? So so that privilege we have in the United States of having so many resources. We kind of started out that idea of like, oh, we have so many textbooks. Well, they're in English. So how do we get this in the hands of people all over the world, and not just in our, you know, us language, and also not just US centric, normative data? So So we developed the easy set of tests. They're a set of 20 tests, and they're designed to assess all of the constructs of the of sensory integration and praxis, so including the perceptual areas, the postural and motor areas and the Praxis areas and reactivity. So these are 20 performance tests. We field tested them. We've pilot tested them. They have high Each item has high discriminative validity, reliability and and then we started collecting normative data all over the world, and we, you know, our goal was 100 countries, and I think we had over 100 countries signed, but then the pandemic really put a wrinkle in our plans and slowed everything down. We still would like to collect more normative data, but right now, what we have is we have about, I want to say, 2400 sets, data sets. That's a lot. It's a lot. It's it's worldwide. I think we have it translated in maybe 10 languages. And so the process that we're in right now is to see, could we generate some preliminary normative data through these, these data sets once, once that's done, which, which we're predicting is in 2021, we're working with an amazing team of experts, including Anita Bundy and her associates. So, yeah, so that's that's what's next. Once we have the normative data, we can start to use the test, and we've tried to make it easily accessible, so at at a very affordable price, just for the cost of the materials. And then. There will be some cost for maintaining the website, but other than that, this is, you know, really a, truly a nonprofit venture, and CLASI has agreed to to be to house this project, you know. So, so yeah, and if we can have an affordable, accessible set of tools. We hope that more therapists will be willing and able to use these tools to to identify and then get the right intervention going.
Jayson Davies
Yeah? And so for anyone I know, we're using acronyms, and just for everyone out there, easy stands for evaluation and air sensory integration, right? Yes, yes, yes. All right. Okay, so you mentioned 20 separate tests for the easy earlier for the SIFT, it was 17. And I know you guys really looked at the SIFT when developing the easy, you really wanted to, kind of, I know you didn't want to redo the SIFT, but you wanted to redo the sift in a way. So are there additional tests, or why is it 20 instead of 17? And why do you decide to do that?
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, we did use the sift. It's a brilliant set of tests. And so yeah, so we looked at that original work that Dr Ayers did in the early to mid, you know, 1980s and and that informs our constructs. And so all of the research that was done using that tool, all the many, many, many factor analyzes that were published. So so we used the SIFT as a model of beginning, and it defined the constructs. So, so where did we get 20 instead of 17? Well, you know, some, some of our tests that we had hoped to do, like a drawing test, like the beary motor coordination test or the motor accuracy test, we we weren't able to obtain, you know, discriminated data. So we don't have one like that, but, but we do have the very and we have the meta accuracy test note, but we have all of the constructs covered. So we have in the perceptual area, we have tests of a visual perception, tactile perception, proprioception, force and direction, and vestibular related measures in the area of reactivity, we have one reactivity test where we're actually doing, you know, sensory things and seeing, does the child like it or not? And then we also have observations of reactivity during the tactile and movement tests. We also have auditory localization that's new. Dr Ayers didn't have an auditory localization test. We have the postural control, the areas of testing that we used to do just clinical observations, but they were, they were not standardized. We took the ones that we had the most confidence in, that were the most reliable, that discriminated. And we have a postural control measure. We also have balance and bilateral coordination. And then praxis. We have
Jayson Davies
everyone knows the blocks, everybody. Everybody has seen that structure,
Susanne Smith Roley
yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, now we have make a silly room. So we have something, something a little different. I mean, such, so exciting. And then we've added an ideation measure. So, so that's an additional measure. You know, Ayers didn't finish an ideation measure. The only thing we have in the tactile area, which is so cool that we've added, is an oral Praxis test shape, you know? So this has huge ramifications, and we have an ocular motor Praxis test. So, so we've added components that are supported by research, that are with items that are reliable and valid. So, so yeah, we've been able to expand a little bit from what the model was with the SIFT awesome. And also it's more modernized, right? So we, we are using Rasch analysis, where we hope to have a start and an end point that will shorten the length of the test. It'll be online, you know, so the examiner could theoretically put the answers in as you go. Now, some of this, you're going to have to learn how to score. For example, ideation, you have to video now. I mean, I do. I mean, okay, count and and score. So, so it won't be automatic, but you will, you know, it'll be much more in real time with, with modern, you know, more modern statistical tools and, and what? We hope is that it will make it more efficient and easier shorter.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's great. I did get asked to do the sipt about a year and a half ago, and first of all, I had to find the little USB key to plug into a computer. Then I had to find a computer that was old enough to run the program. So that'll be great, that it'll be easier to get access to and whatnot. You know, one thing that I do want to we're going to go on, we have one more real topic that we want to talk about today, and that is kind of your practice, where you do evaluations. You mentioned it slightly earlier, but I want to dive a little bit deeper into that. But first I mentioned I meant to talk about this earlier was to congratulate you and everyone who has had their hand in si on it now being recognized as an evidence based intervention for children, youth and young adults by the National Clearinghouse on autism evidence and practice. I want to get your thoughts. How meaningful is that to you? I know there's long been a barrier. It's always si doesn't have enough research. Si doesn't have enough research. That's what a lot of people would say. People would say when, when si was brought up. So how important is this to you that it is now considered an ebp evidence based intervention, sorry, intervention.
Susanne Smith Roley
Yeah, yeah. You know it's it's so exciting to see what's going on right now. But I will tell you that when I started learning sensory integration in the 1970s it was the only evidence based practice I was learning. So sensory integration has always been evidence based. However, one of the things that happened is, as OT, the mandate became that you had to be evidence based. Si was there to critique, right? So many of the things, many of the methods that we were using, didn't have evidence to critique, and si did. And the state of SI research, in terms of, you know, the rigor, I think, also paralleled the maturation of the field, the profession of occupational therapy, we weren't, we weren't sitting at the table getting those big grants with NIH, yeah, and we had the biggest, best, brightest minds submitting grants, and we were not able to play. Nobody got nobody was getting funded because they were not sitting at the table distributing the grant. So, so, so, yes, I know the rhetoric of SI doesn't have enough research, but it ot doesn't have enough research, and so si kind of paralleled that, but, but I was very privileged to be part of the SI research collaborative that started in early 2000s and this was the collection of university based researchers and practitioners that came together with with a small planning grant. And this, this, this little team that we have, about 10 people have have continued for over the last about 20 years, and we've done a lot, so with a very intense intent to build and support the research in sensory integration, we've managed to publish a couple of special issues of age OT, I think maybe three special issues. Um, we've done a lot of, you know, publications, and one, and one of the most recent and influential is the shown at all systematic review in 2018 So, so this systematic review went into the Journal of autism. It's got a very high impact factor, so that means it has, you know, more influence. And so this was huge, because, you know, there's, there's also a press from the outside, not just from the inside, to diminish sensory integration, in lieu of methods that are, you know, maybe more near and dear to the heart of other professions, because Si, in my opinion, belongs in OT. Its best development developed in OT. So, so this was huge. And then that external review, I think you're referring to the Frank Porter Graham report on on evidence based methods in autism. And none of none of us that I know was was involved in that. So that was completely external, and they included sensory integration as an evidence based method. Now this is because, primarily because we have two very strong randomized clinical trials, one by Schaff and all, one by Pfeiffer at all. There's also another article by Dunbar. Now, these are not the only intervention studies in sensory integration. We have many more, but these were the strongest randomized clinical trials. So we have met the external criterias. What is enough? I mean, how much research you have to have to say? You're evidence based, and we've met, met the threshold.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's awesome. I just think it's amazing. Because throughout ot school and my younger years, it was constantly people like saying, you know, si doesn't have the research. Si, oh, it's just a, it's just a one kid, you know, study. And now, like you said, there is that that? Well, it's always been there, but now it's really ingrained. It's a really strong two research articles that you really talked about there. So perfect. I really appreciate you saying that, that I think that helps a lot of people out there who struggle with that. You know, I want to provide Si, but I get that constant push of people saying it doesn't, or it's not, it's not real, or doesn't exist, or there's not enough research. Well, no, there is. There is research. So
Susanne Smith Roley
great, well and but I will say, okay, so what also came out, very loud and clear, especially in the A ot 2018 review, was when you compare the intervention studies, not just two randomized clinical trials, but the the wealth of studies, the studies that used a technique on its own, for example, a weighted vest or a chew toy or a sit and move cushion, those studies show very little evidence that they work at all. Okay, now that could be because maybe the studies aren't very strong, but there's no evidence that says doing a sensory accommodation is evidence based. Okay, so this is really important for school based therapists, because then, when you compare to air sensory integration, which is used with fidelity, the manualized, you know, where you have a space to work, you have equipment to work with, where you're doing the individualized therapy based on the characterization of the problem, where you have done a complete assessment that is the kind of the intervention that is evidence based. So you can't say you're doing an evidence based intervention if you're just using a sensory tool. And so this is also really important, because, you know the rhetoric for sensory and go, you don't have enough evidence. Well, now we do have enough evidence, but then there's a pushback of using evangelized intervention thing. No, we have enough we have the evidence. It works, but you got to do it right?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I know you and the whole team spent a lot of time developing the fidelity measure and making sure that it was separated between what is sensory integration versus what is, might be sensory strategies or something else. And so, yeah, no, I think you're right about that too. Is that we can't confuse articles that aren't sensory integration with sensory integration. So yeah, all right. Well, let's jump to our final segment that I want to talk about, and that is, IEE is independent educational evaluations. I know you provide independent evaluations down here in Southern California, and you know as school based OTs not all, but, but many of us have felt that pressure of finding out that a parent has requested an IE, and you know, sometimes it can cause some anxiety, or it makes us feel like maybe we're not doing everything from the outside provider perspective, because I know you do those ies. What do you interpret when a parent comes to you, or whoever it is that comes to you, the district, the advocate, whoever it might be asking for an IE, how do you interpret that request.
Susanne Smith Roley
Well, okay, yeah, that's, that's the majority of my private practice right now, and I've been doing it for many, many years, since, since the IDEA reauthorization gave parents the the authority to request an outside assessment, you know, from an objective party that was not part of the district and and, you know, I am very happy that that parents have that opportunity, because it does give an environmental press right it, I think it ensures accountability. And the other thing that I've seen in the best possible scenarios is that the team is informed by experts coming in, almost like consultants, and informing the team in their area of expertise. So I think that's when it's working the best. Now, you know, I know that sometimes it feels adversarial, and in my I really wish that it wasn't like that. I wish that I really truly wish it was.
Jayson Davies
I completely agree. I like where you're going with the whole it should be more consultative in nature, in a way, and working together.
Susanne Smith Roley
Yeah, so, so again, you know, as a as an IE evaluator, I think my job, what I'm being asked to do, is to take a snapshot of the child in a certain amount of time to see what's gone on before. How is the child situated as his educational program, and at the end of the day is ot going to be a. Beneficial to as a related service to support that child in his educational program. And is it educationally necessary, right? That's that's the mandate, legal mandate. And so for me, what I need to do is I need to look at the assessment data. I do my own assessment data. I gather information from the teachers, the parents. We observe, we, you know, do performance assessment, and then we come up with our conclusion and our recommendation for service. And sometimes it's in in conflict with what perhaps the district therapist has has recommended. Sometimes it's very consistent with what the district therapist has recommended. And in that case, it's the best possible scenario that we're refining the goals. You know, we're in agreement, okay, maybe we're 15 minutes, you know, a week difference or something. But sometimes I have to say that I do an IEE, and I can't even imagine that the child that I have seen has not been recommended for ot service. And so in that case, then I'm, I'm very much an advocate for this, for this student to get what they need.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I think that's totally appropriate. And I want to ask you, going a little bit further, is within your evaluation, how? What tools do you use, whether it be citing evidence or really the experience that you have, I don't know, but what tools do you use to really bolster your evaluation, to give it the weight that, yes, this is a real good evaluation. Does that make sense?
Susanne Smith Roley
Yes, you know. And I'm glad you asked that as well, because sometimes I think I have sensory tattooed on my forehead, but the reality is that I'm very informed by the OT practice framework that I work, that I have done, and so I tried to get the full spectrum of the OT process engaged, you know, so starting with occupational occupation, and ending with occupation. And so I I use an occupational profile. I use sensory motor assessments. If I can. I can't always use the sip. Sometimes it's not possible. But I try to get sensory motor I try to look at those foundation abilities. I look at Adaptive skill areas. So I want to see, you know, what's actually going on in the daily life for teens, many times, from parent and teacher report. I want to look at skills, the fine motor skills. So I'll also do something like the theory or the test of handwriting. So, you know, I want to see real skill. And then I also look at higher order functions, such as using the brief so I try to hit the range of, you know, of developmental, sensory motor, adaptive occupation skill ability, and try to get into those performance patterns as well. So when I when I make my recommendation, I try to make it with that whole scope of function in mind.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, no, and that's great that it's not just sensory. You are taking it from an occupation base, from the top down approach to get everything you said that in the best case scenario, you and the districts are kind of on the same page. When that happens, do you call it a day after that? IEP? Or do some districts have you kind of maintain a consultative relationship at all. Or
Susanne Smith Roley
how does that work? Well, okay, so usually my job is done after I attend the IEP. I'm sometimes I will collaborate with the OT outside of the IEP to try to refine the goals, or get together with that secondary IEP to make sure that that's but in terms of actually providing a service to the family following the IEE, I don't do that, and that's to prevent conflict of interest. It's so you know, I I try really hard not to have a have a pony in that race, where I would benefit from ongoing consultation with a certain district or a family. I I just don't do that, but I really do try to get the family and the district connected with service providers in their area. So we're always looking for, you know, OTs, that that might be looking for a job in the district, or maybe they have a practice in the in the area, you know, something in proximity, because families come from all over. So try to try to get them connected with resources, awesome.
Jayson Davies
And you know one thing I want to get out of you, because you mentioned this when. We were talking in our phone call that we did the other day, and that was that you sometimes see both influxes and drops in iees from particular areas. What do you make of that?
Susanne Smith Roley
You know that just happened today, I got two referrals from a district that doesn't usually call me, so I think, all right, they've got an advocate in there who's decided that they that they should use me, or maybe they got on a list server, you know, parent group or something, but, but, OT, but over time, what seems to happen is that the districts who are, who are functioning very well, and the and the parents are happy, they don't, they don't contact me, you know, so, so I don't get to see all the good work that you guys are doing out there. I mean, that's not who comes to me, you know, if they're happy, I don't hear from you, but, but then what will happen is that, you know, maybe they're going along. This happened with one district. I won't name it, but things were going so well there. And then suddenly I got 123, I had like, a half a dozen referrals. And, well, what happened, you know? And then you go, Okay, well, you know what's going on in that district, you know? And so I don't, I don't always know as an outside evaluator. What happened? But many times, what happens is either the administration has changed, or they have changed the rules, or suddenly some administrators decided they're going to take a hard line and they're not, or they've started taking services away from children. And then I and then I get a whole raft of them, and then I know, like, Okay, what's going on? And hopefully that situation gets repaired. Or sometimes there's an underserved district, and suddenly somebody's in there who's kind of better informed, and they're going, but wait a minute, we don't get those services. And so this is, this is something, you know, being from, from more of the coastal communities, you know, they, they get lawyered up real quick. And those families, you know, get services pretty quickly. And then you go a little inland to underserved communities. And sometimes you just, you know, it's really hard to believe what they're not getting. You know that? Like, well, if you were in my area, this is what you would be getting more automatically. So sometimes they like, oh, well if and then then families get on board, and then they go, Okay, well, we we want that too, and we want that too. So sometimes it's, it's a bit of a snowball effect. But one thing I want to, I want to say, is that, you know, when I, when I started here in Orange County, I had already worked for a public school in Ohio, and it wasn't just for children with orthopedic handicapped or severe mental illness, or, you know, severely involved kids and and there was nobody in Orange County. There were no OTs being employed in the district. In fact, CCS all the special ed kids. If they didn't get CCS, they didn't get anything. Yeah. And one by one by one, ot we advocated. We advocated hard because the districts didn't want to contract out to, you know, a private agency or an MPA, one by one by one. And I will have to say, you know that OT, that most of the districts now in OT, in Orange County and surrounding counties have OT, but more. And so I continue to advocate. You know that, you know that, that you have this, and now you have and I know you guys have these big caseloads, but you know so you not, yes, so you all those kids need ot you need more OTs. And not only do you need more OTs, but you need a space to work. You need your equipment, you need a reasonable size caseload, and you need the time to assess and make the proper intervention, because otherwise, the OTs feel completely overwhelmed by just the magnitude of demand that that's coming at you and and so that, you know that's hard, but that can't dictate what you recommend for an individual child. I'm
Jayson Davies
so glad you said that, because that's the same thing. I say the same thing. You know, we oftentimes, as OTs, and whether you're in a school or outside of the school, you we complain about our caseload, and then what do we do about it? Oftentimes, we'll try and exit kids. Well, that's a different way to go. A different way to think about that is to say, well, I need help, not to exit kids, but to say, I need help. Look at this growing caseload. It's growing year after year after year, and that's not the time to say, hey, let's exit kids because I have too many kids. No, that's the time to ask for help. Go to your administrator and show them how you can't fit. I don't know. I'm just gonna make. Pick up a number 500 minutes in a week when there's only 400 minutes, like, that's just how it is. And you need to stay help. So I'm glad you said that. And we need to advocate for other things too, like a space.
Susanne Smith Roley
Yeah, yeah. Advocate, yeah. I mean, I was in an IEP team meeting where the OT said, Well, I can I, you know, I use the psychologist room when they're out, and I can use the hallway. And I went around the room. It's like speech, do you have a place to work? Yes, A, P, E, do you have a place to work? Yes. Psychologist, Yes. Teacher, yes. OT was the only one at the table who did not have a place to work. We, I mean this, this is a point of advocacy. We, we need the tools of our trade and access to the the tools of our trade, and then have reasonable caseloads. I mean, that's all advocacy, at it, at a at a local, state and national level, to ensure that the services that we're providing are effective. And I'm not just talking about Si, but you know that I was in an IEP recently where the child was given five minutes a month of OT. And I know people are asking me about the effectiveness of Si, but I want to know what is the effectiveness of five minutes a month consult for OT, what? And you Oh, well, my, my child got ot, but it didn't work. That it doesn't work. It doesn't work to have such a minimum amount of service that that it renders the perception of OT is ineffective when, in fact, you guys haven't been given an adequate amount of resources to to make a difference. The other thing is just to have handwriting goals and not expand. I was in an IEP meeting where they said, well, OTs, don't work on mental health. Oh, my goodness, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, we do. We have a huge history in our profession, absolutely, of mental health. We are such a valuable resource in that direction of mental health for so many of our students and so so also, I advocate not to be reductionistic in the role that ot can play in school based practice, not to overwhelm the practitioner, but but to have more of a breadth of understanding. Also, somebody told me, Oh, well, the child's 13 and and, you know, he's a little too old for OT and our adolescents. This is a huge area of advocacy, because our adolescents are are getting depressed, they're overwhelmed. They're transitioning to a whole other level of demand in their educational process. And 13, you know, when you're my age, 13 still looks like a baby.
Jayson Davies
Oh, man, yeah, no, you're right, though. And I am getting, I mean, I'm all I'm on social media. I had the podcast. And people have been reaching out. A lot of people have been reaching out about what to do with high school, what to do with adult transition, and it is absolutely the right place for occupational therapy. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is the place where there is a need for more of us to find out more information, to be more supportive in that role.
Susanne Smith Roley
Yeah, because we're all about promoting health and participation through occupation. I mean, using lifestyle design and redesign and, yeah, so those high school kids, you know, yeah, there's, there's the need is, is vast, but, you know, okay, so I don't, I don't want to leave on this grievances, but I just think it's so amazing to see that schools are, you know, one of the biggest employers of occupational therapists in the United States. It's phenomenal to see the impact we have had as a profession in schools when, you know, like we started, people didn't know what ot does, and so clearly, ot has something to offer that's that's unique and really valuable, and it's so amazing. I mean, it's so great for me to see that that possibility exists where it didn't exist for, you know, people in my family, my brothers, who had have disabilities, and they didn't get any help, no help. And you know, he's there for these kids. So, you know that's, that's so amazing,
Jayson Davies
yeah? And I think it's now, it's about one in four, one in five. Occupational therapists work in the schools, and like you said, yeah, they're just continuing to grow. I mean, there's more and more OTs in schools every day. It's fantastic, and we just gotta, we gotta keep advocating for ourselves and make it continue to happen. But Dr Rowley, it has been a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for coming on and being able or allowing me to pick your brain a little. Bit on sensory, on schools, on ies. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we wrap up?
Susanne Smith Roley
You know, I just think that we're pretty blessed to have such an amazing profession, and I have had just the best career ever. So just good luck to everybody who's listening. It's, you know, I think it's just great. And anyway, thank you for what you're doing and your contributions. You know, this is, this is pretty awesome, what you're what you're contributing out there. So thank you to everyone. Thank you.
Jayson Davies
And then lastly, can you just really quickly, off the top of your head, give the website for the CLASI, I can't remember what it quite
Susanne Smith Roley
is. Yeah, it's C L, hyphen, A, S, I dot O, R, G, so C L, dash, asi.org,
clasi.org, great, and I will be sure to put up the link to that as well in the show notes, as well as the discount that Dr Rowley and the CLASI team are offering to listeners of this podcast. It's for about a month, so you have access to it until, I think it's about the middle of March of 2021 I know you can listen to this podcast well beyond that, but there is an end date for that promo, and so be sure to check that out soon. If nothing else, take the class, the first class, which is the theory class, right? Take all
Susanne Smith Roley
of them. They're all really good.
Jayson Davies
All righty, well, thank you so much, and we'll see you later.
Susanne Smith Roley
Take care. All right, thank you.
Jayson Davies
All right. So thank you everyone, and a huge special. Thank you to Dr Susanne Smith Rowley for coming on here. Please do check out the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 63 where you can get all the resources that we talked about today, or at least a link to them, as well as the transcript of the show notes, in case you'd like to read along or review it at a later time. All right, so again, take care. Have a great day. Hope to see you at the back to school conference in August. Bye,
Amazing Narrator
bye. Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OT schoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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Well,
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