Episode 282: Judith Schoonover (Part 1): Quickly Create AT Solutions From Common Objects

This week, Chris interviews Judith Schoonover, an occupational therapist who, along with Chris, was a founding member of the Loudoun County School District Assistive Technology Team. She shares about the importance of focusing on the specific needs of a student during assessment, not just their label; the consistent move of technology from special education to general education, her history as an AT “maker”, ideas for supporting maker groups in your area, and more!

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel catch up about Rachel’s work during the summer with clients doing “intensives.”! Intensives in Rachel’s practice involve having the entire communication parter team, along with the AAC user, attend three 90 minute sessions per week for two weeks. This is followed by three more sessions with just communication partners to train them further on how to be an effective communication partner using the information learned the previous two weeks. Rachel also discusses her new literacy intensive, and the positive results she has been getting from them as well.

Key Ideas This Week:

🔑 When people request assistive technology using broad terms (“What app is good for Down Syndrome?”), we should guide them towards figuring out the task that needs to be done and then help them feature match for those specific needs.

🔑 There is always a move for assistive technology to become more widely adopted in general education; for example, computers were initially only given to students in special education, while now many districts  have 1:1 computer initiatives. When supporting kids in special education who use a particular AT tool, try and consider if the tool is something that would be of benefit to kids in general education as well.

🔑 Judith likes quick AT solutions using Therese Willkomm’s “make in a minute” strategy, which capitalizes on the momentum we feel when we first start a project. She advocates for using notepads, squeeze balls, pool noodles, and more to quickly create helpful AT solutions. That way, the maker builds confidence in their skills and the district builds capacity. Watch more at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNpOeH4jnC4

🔑  Judith works part time on the Assistive Technology Outcomes & Benefits journal, ATIA’s open-access, online, annual publication of peer-reviewed papers. Sign up for this free journal at https://www.atia.org/home/at-resources/atob/

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Transcript of the Episode

Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.

00:00:08
Welcome to Talking With Tech. I'm your host, Rachel Madel, joined as always by Chris Bugaj. Hey Chris,

00:00:14

Hey Rachel. Oh, it's been a hot second for us, hasn't it been? I know, what have you been up to? Welcome back from the summer, right? So this is our first episode back after a summer break. We tried something new after doing this podcast for over 5 1/2 years now, and that is. We decided to air some of our old episodes in a remastered format. So Michaela went back and remastered some episodes. We hope you enjoyed those over the last few weeks. If maybe they were new to you because you're a new listener and there's going back into the archives could be a little bit intimidating. We picked out of some of our favorite episodes and and I don't know, I think they've been fun to go back and listen to. What are your thoughts about the old episodes there, Rachel?

00:00:55

Yeah, I mean, I think that oftentimes now when I share the podcast, I feel very, I feel excited for people who are introduced to it for the first time. But I also feel this like, sense of overwhelm, like, Oh yeah, go through 300 plus episodes to find all those nuggets, right? And so we were really strategic with how we decided on those episodes. We felt like those were really good foundational episodes and a really good place to get people started. So I think that those episodes are just kind of classics, if you will. And I think that if you are introducing our podcast to someone for the first time, those would be really good episodes to kind of build a really strong foundation for kind of the things that we go into more detail in, you know, as in further episodes and other banters and things like that. Now something that I've been eager to talk to you about because I miss talking to you every week and learning about what you're learning about and chatting with my bestie here about AAC stuff. Certainly we were texting, certainly we were sending Marco Polos. But it's not the same as getting on a Zoom call and just going what's going on in your world.

00:02:06

So fill us, in what's going been going on with your summer?

00:02:15

So this summer, Chris, I was like, oh, you know, I'm going to take like some, some time off. I'm going to try to like work a little bit less. I'm going to try to, you know, just enjoy the summer. And that was my intention. We also simultaneously were offering intensives in my practice. And so I thought I was going to just like, you know, do a little bit of work with the intensives. And these were, you know, intensives that my, my SLP's were doing. And I was involved at some level. But I realized that it really is in the word intensive, really is what it is. And I wasn't able to take off. I wasn't able to like really enjoy. I was really deep diving in some of our cases. And so we've been doing intensives that are just wrapping up, actually.

00:03:01

Let me ask you like when I think of speech therapy, certainly when I was doing speech therapy, I think the, the, the typical model is we pick a certain number of times per week to meet with a child, let's say every other day for 30 minutes or 60 minutes a week or something like that, right. But when you're using the word intensives, that feels like to me. And I know sure, certainly you've described it to me in the past. But for those that are like, what the heck is she talking about? What's an intensive, What does the model look like when you're doing an intensive?

00:03:34

So we've kind of played around with different models. I've been doing intensives for years in my practice. I was doing them mostly with communication partner training. So it was intensive communication partner support and that's all it was. I wasn't working directly with the child, I was working directly with all of the communication partners on the team, which we still do. But this summer I was like, okay, can we can we try something a little bit different? So we ended up landing on a model of two weeks of intensive direct kind of service. I say direct, it was direct because the kid was with us. We were one-on-one with the child, but we also were incorporated communication partner, coaching and training. So we we're seeing the kid directly for two for 333 sessions in a row, so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for 90 minute sessions, so a longer session time and more frequent. And we were incorporating a lot of modeling of kind of here's what it looks like, here's an activity and then really pulling in the communication partners, whether that was the parents who were there, the behavior therapist, there was lots of different people. So kind of the way that we set this up was who's on your team? Okay, we're all going to be a part of this. So we're going to have to figure out when the behavior therapist is going to attend the session, when the parents are going to be there. And so really it was intensive levels of you know, modeling and practice using core language. Some of our cases it was like just figuring out kind of what a some of the roadblocks have been. And so that's that that's the first two weeks and then the last week, the third week of the intensive, the child goes back to camp or whatever it is that they were doing ESY and it's all communication partner coaching. So that last week is here's what we learned from this intensive here's kind of the some of the skills that we were practicing, How do we go forward and integrate into your daily routines with the child? What are your thoughts? What are some of the roadblocks that you're having now that you learned some of those strategies and you're practicing them at home? And so that was kind of the model that we used this summer and it was really successful actually. I'm like, really proud of what we did and how much progress we saw.

00:06:01
OK, let me let me ask. So what? What is it that you really liked about it? And then of course, the follow-up question of that'll be, what would you change?

00:06:09

So the thing I really liked about it is that it feels like when we are seeing a child one time a week for 50 minutes, we do 50 minute sessions or twice a week for that time. It's just kind of like this drop in the bucket, right? It's just like a little baby drop of modeling of that core word or practicing those skills. And so the 90 minute sessions were really great because we could kind of get into the groove and and model with enough repetition and then incorporate more communication partners, right. So we're thinking about the work we do as speech language pathologist and the idea of generalizing, right. So often kids can do something in a therapy session and then they don't generalize it. They don't leave that therapy session and go use it in the car and at home and with mom and with you know grand mom. And so the more we kind of practice a word and then pulled in other communication partners and then we're able to say okay mom, We practice open today. We practiced it. I practiced it first, then you practice it now. How are you going to practice that at home every day, you know, until we see you next. And so it's just like that repetitive practice and and really in different environments with different communication partners was really powerful I think in ways that we just don't necessarily have that same bandwidth in our normal kind of traditional model. The other thing that I think is hugely beneficial is that when parents sign up for an AAC intensive, they are like rolling their sleeves up and like it's go time, right? Like there's this energy around and intensive that's like okay, like we're not doing what we normally do, we're doing like the intensive. And so it just like it really does get people on board with all of the skills that we know they need to be practicing. It's that we chose as a short window kind of two weeks of like intensive practice and then that support carry over piece for the third week. Because I know some people they're doing intensives for three or four weeks at a time. We are kind of really strategic about that. So there was a momentum that was built and and and again we're interfacing with the whole team. We're teaching all these skills and we're interacting with all the different communication partners. And so throughout that child's day, if the word is open as an example, think about all the opportunities there are for modeling and practice and repetition. And so we had kids kind of start, you know, adding new words to the vocabulary and really be being able to use them throughout their day with more independence. And that was just super exciting. And so I feel like those are the two things that just like the the increase in the exposure to kind of some of the things that we're doing and then this like idea that like I'm doing it intensive. So like I'm accountable to like do this cuz I'm gonna see them again tomorrow and I'm gonna have to report back like what do we do and how did it go? So what would you change? So it's a great question cuz I've tried to figure out like how, how can we keep it going. And I feel like so we're we did two different sets. So the first set was in July and the second set was in August and we're just finishing up kind of August. So July we've had those those kids and those families kind of go through the process and part of me is thinking I probably should have kept like some type of implementation plan in place, some type of like reminder or maybe like a follow up two weeks later or a check in, a monthly check in or something like that for the communication partners. Because I feel like that's the most powerful thing, right? Is like getting the whole team on board, doing all the communication, partner training. And my fear, it's not confirmed yet, but my fear is that we're kind of kind of slipped back into like the ways that we were doing things before and like we're losing some of that momentum. And the accountability piece, what has the feedback been like from the parents that have participated in these intensives? It's been awesome. It's been, everyone has been, I love this. He's talking so much more now. I'm practicing modeling so much more. I finally understand what I'm supposed to be doing and I'm thinking like, oh, you finally understand. I'm like why we were really dropping the ball then if you didn't understand what you should have been doing. But like, the feedback has been really awesome. And I think that sometimes this idea of like a 90 minute session, like parents are like what? Like that's way too long for my child. Like, I can't possibly imagine and I'm like, yes, but like you're going to be involved. We're going to be teaching you like this is partially for your child but partially for you. And so I think that that that can be a little daunting and overwhelming. But yeah, we've had really great feedback and success. And I think that it's just, it goes to show that like when you practice something enough and you give kids enough repetition exposure, like they can learn it right. And it if it's just like, oh, I modeled it five times, like that's not enough to actually become a word and their and their vocabulary and their lexicon. And so I think it's just like really across different environments and different people. Like that has been such a game changer. And it shows because kids now have new words that they're using and they're now combining words. Some of our kids and you know they're typing on their keyboard. There were lots of different kind of target areas that we decided on based on what we were kind of seeing. And we also asked families like, what are your goals for this intensive? And so yeah, it's been great. And I've been getting like text messages from like OT that's like, Oh my gosh, they're doing so great in my session. Like they're using their device now. I'm like awesome. Like I'm so excited. So it's been, it's been great.

00:12:06
Let me ask structure wise because something is still a little nebulous for me is, you said you did a bunch of these over the summer. Is this a summer thing that you do or is this something you do all year long and they just happened to fall in the summer because they all sort of came up that way or like you said, you've been doing it for years as well. So help me understand that the I'm a new parent and I come and I work with Rachel Madel. Do I get an intensive right at the beginning or no, we've transitioned into doing that. We're going to do that, that we've worked with you for a while and done it or to just help me help clarify it for me.

00:12:45

It's a great question and it kind of is like more of a the business side of things, right. So I we can potentially offer the communication partner intensive because I can do that and I can typically figure out the scheduling at least for one family at a time. It's very intense for me though because I'm like you know, I have so many extra sessions added to my already kind of busy calendar. But I've done it and I have offered that depending on the situation and you know, so that's always kind of an option. The reason we chose we we typically traditionally do it in the summer and then sometimes we offer it over winter break because one, kids are more available like they have the time. And the the hardest part about this is the scheduling. So like my office manager is like, Oh my gosh, like do we have to do intensives? And I'm like, yes, because they're so effective that I really want to offer that. But the scheduling becomes kind of crazy. And so part of what allows me to do the intensive, especially over the summer and winter break is that I have SLP's who work part time for me and they are off during the summer and during winter break. And so they're not. They're working full time in the schools and then they can come do intensives for me. And so it's it's my practice is is at a wait list at this point for regular speech, you know speech therapy meaning like we're I'm, I'm in the process of going to be hiring another full time SLP. So I don't they don't my clinicians don't have the availability to do the intensives, right like so it kind of works out perfectly that people who work part time for me who also work full time in the schools have the time off and then I'm like great. So there's schedule up with a few intensives and so that's kind of the way that the logistics have been working and why we've made those decisions. So that's really got me thinking about a school based practice where again traditionally I think what happens at most I EP meetings is that you get a service that gets listed on the I EP and it's the same all year long. There might be some consult time. So there's direct intervention and then there's consult time and that's what's listed on the I EP. But I wonder if we took the model that you're describing and said Okay right after an I EP you get this intensive service that has many more minutes that includes direct therapy plus communication partner coaching and we do that intensively for 2-3 weeks whatever the the the the time frame might be and then scale that back for the rest of the year. I I don't know any school district that might be doing that but I it makes it's a huge I wonder for me and then I also wonder about the summer like you said, well okay maybe the summer time is a time that we could offer this intensive therapy. I don't know. I just wonder, the way that I do AAC assessments in my practice is through kind of that model. So like you can't just come and get an assessment with me without also purchasing a whole package full of coaching sessions after we land on a system. And I do that because kind of it's kind of similar. It's an intensive coaching model. After you get a system, I'm going to coach you on how to use it. I'm going to coach your other SLP and I'm going to coach your teacher and I'm going to coach everybody on the team how to use it. And so it it. I think that in the initial stages of a AAC especially, it can be so powerful when not only do you have this new thing, but now you have intensive support and how to use it and you feel more confident moving forward. And then you can scale back some of the coaching and some of kind of the intensity. So yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense based on what I see clinically. And I think that it's just like, sometimes I have this like feeling like, oh, we're just kind of like sludging along, like, can we get in there and like move things along quickly? And I think that these intensives, that's what they do, which is exciting because I like things moving and shaking. Well, it certainly sounds like it from the feedback that you've gotten right. People feel like they're OK. I know what I'm doing now. I feel more comfortable. I have better skills. I'm seeing improvements in the kids that I'm working with. So my own child, if you're the parent, So it sounds like it's working. One other thing I'll add, Chris, cuz not only did I do AAC intensives, most of that was my SLP is doing the intensives. But I was like involved in some of the trickier cases and I was kind of observing them and I was like excited to help, you know, support. And then I did a lot of the communication partner coaching just from like a scheduling standpoint. It was easier for me to kind of hop in and do some of the coaching. But the other thing I did, I left how I started off like I was going to take the summer easy and then I'm like all I did was intensive this summer. But the other thing I did was literacy intensives. So I worked intensively with some of my students on literacy development and creating programs with families on, you know, all the framework from comprehensive literacy for all and really setting up systems and routines within the family unit to address literacy. So independent reading, independent writing, shared reading, like all of that framework. We, you know, together I worked with families on starting to implement literacy and that was super successful too. Like so many, like, I had kids that were like, not even be next to a book, not even be near a book. After two weeks independently reading. Like, I literally have my client sent me a picture and it's like her son on her and his bed. And she was like, he took all the books from the bookshop and put them all over his bed. And it's literally him paging through. And I was like, when we started this thing, you said he hates books and he never will. He will never read with you or without you. Like, he just doesn't touch a book. And sure enough, like we set up these routines that were predictable and we committed to those routines and look at the results.

00:18:52
Exactly, exactly. So that was also really exciting to the literacy intensives. Was that a first time you've done something like that?

00:18:58

Yes. I've never done. I've always supported literacy. So it's always something I'm talking about when I'm doing parent coaching and working with families. It's always something I'm teaching, you know, my Slp's about and really checking in like how they doing with literacy. Are you integrating literacy? I'm kind of like a broken record, but I've never done an intensive approach to literacy. So some of my families, I was seeing like two or three times a week to really get things off the ground because things move fast. And like, again, there's this huge accountability piece. If I know I'm going to see Rachel tomorrow, like I have to do something after we get off this call. I have to do the shared reading. I have to do, you know, the independent writing that we just talked about. And so I think that's probably the biggest value, is that there's a huge accountability piece when you're doing something intensively awesome. Rachel, it sounds like you had an awesome summer. And when we come back for the next Panther, I'll tell you about all the sort of the things that I did over the summer. Do you know who else is a huge fan of literacy? Judie Scoonover, my longtime friend and colleague and in some aspects mentor and Judie Scoonover was the first person to ever teach me and show me board maker back in the day. And that's who our interview is with today.

Can't wait to listen to the interview that Chris did with Judie Scoonover.

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Welcome to Talking With Tech. My name is Chris Bugaj, and today I'm here with the one and only Judith Schoonover. So, Judie, before we get started, let me just tell everybody.

00:20:57
We were supposed to record last Wednesday, but at the time, we were going to record 4:00. I sent you a furious text message probably a few minutes after going Judie, I'm not going to make it. I'm still. I'm wrapped up into school, and I was in a meeting that was supposed to be an hour, and then it turned into two hours. You know how that goes. Not every person that comes in the Talking with Tech podcast do I have their text number. But because you and I have such history, you and I have known each other for many, other many, many years. So I was like, I know Judie will understand, you know, And I was able to send you a text message and then afterwards take a little selfie of me and my coworker that I was with and send it right to you. So you can see, let's see, we're right outside the school that you've been in back in the years. So with that little introduction, Judie, let tell us a little bit about who you are because I know who you are, but let's let everyone listening to the podcast know who you are and what you do. OK Well, first of all, I was disappointed I couldn't do it last week because that day was day of the International Day of the Woman. And I thought I am women hear me roar. And I was very delighted that I was going to get a chance to roar. And I was going to give a shout out to all the women out there who are in the AT profession, but I will do that anyway. Well, I'm an occupational therapist and I have been an educational therapist since 1975, and the only reason I bring up how elderly I am is because things have changed so much, Chris, in in the years since I started practicing. When I started practicing, the very first year was when the very first iteration of IGEA was passed and I started out working with children in a medical therapy unit. They were called. Back then. They were associated with an elementary school, but the kids were not included at all. Their education was very sketchy mostly, and I say sketchy. That's probably not the right word and it probably depended on the environment, but there wasn't the rigor that and the presumed potential and and capacity that we have now. So I did that for 14 years and it was very interesting. One of the things that we'll talk about because you're you're going to ask me about a T evolving in the last 20 years is the fact that a lot of the evolution as an OT had to do with what we called adaptive equipment back then. And there was really a limitation to what you could order from a catalog. And so part of my evolution as an OT and part of my education before I started practicing was I took weaving, I took general crafts, I took woodworking, I took ceramics, and I made a lot of the equipment that my students used when I was working in that medical model. I made corner seats, I made wheelchair trays. There OT practice for for, well, it was at the age at the American Journal of Occupational Therapy at the time. At that point wasn't the research journal that we have now. It was like recipes on how to make things. So one of the first things I made was a feeding thing on a Lazy Susan out of theraplas. The kind of the the old plastic, this plastic stuff that you had to to make warm in a an electric fry pan with water in order to mold for a student's hand to make a splint. I made this spoon tray so the middle of the of the plate looked like a regular plate, but then the outer edge dipped down like a spoon and it was put on a screw that was very loosely screwed on with with nuts not nuts washers in between so that the person who was taking a bite the food all went on that scoop part on the end.

00:24:49
Person that would take a bite would use their head to turn that to get the next bite of food as the as the plate turned around. So those are the kinds of things that we were experimenting and playing with. Well, let me let me just say real quick there and this maybe is foreshadowing a little bit later, but that sounds like making to me like when you were 18 makers or the maker move in maker spaces and making for a really an authentic purpose. That sounds like what you were doing way back in 1974 and beyond. Absolutely. And. And for those that aren't familiar with the roots of occupational therapy is it really was grounded in mental health and having meaningful occupations. Being involved in routines and being part of what everybody else was doing and having things to do was part of the healing process for veterans coming back from World War One and people with mental health issues. You gave them meaningful occupations and part of those meaningful occupations we're making maybe making at bedside maybe doing weaving to learn sequencing or or upper arm strengthening or things like that. So there is there's a strong component to making in in the field of occupational therapy. It may be not as evident now because I'm so much of the the current education is centered around research and less about the doing that we had to do when I was in OT school because there weren't a lot of resources for the kinds of materials that that we commonly use today. So after after practicing for 14 years as an OTI was very frustrated with seeing what kinds of educational opportunities the students in in the school where I was working were getting, and my assistant principal encouraged me to get my teaching credential. He thought, you know, if if you're so adamant about what things things need to change, you need to be part of the change. So he influenced me to to go back to school while I was working and I got my teaching credential and Oh my goodness, teaching in a classroom was so exciting because things happen so, so much quicker and kids change so much quicker. And I was seeing kids learning and so I started teaching and I was, I loved, loved, loved it. But I kept thinking about the kids that we're We're not still learning. And part of what California required was you had to have your regular Ed credential before you could teach special education or get a special Ed. So I was heading towards special Ed when my husband got assigned to the FAA facility in Virginia and we moved. I applied for a job in Loudon County, Virginia in 1993, and at that point there was a glut of teachers, but there was not a glut of schoolbased practitioners. So I was coaxed by several of the OT staff in Loudon County to to come back to the fold and become an OT again or practices an OT again. And I did. But the great thing about it was I was so familiar as a teacher with where, you know, the the math manipulatives were hidden and where the little thing with the chalk that you put in and you drew lines on the on the blackboard with for, for working with handwriting. I knew where all of those were, and I knew how to use them, and so I was pretty interested in collaboration, which I think not everybody was real interested in having me collaborate. At the time, I really wanted to be in the classroom. I didn't want to be down the hall, and I didn't want to be in the closet. And so I learned a lot about collaboration by being by having experience in both fields. So while I was working as an OT, Loudon County was growing and growing and growing as you know. And probably you met me right about the time that that we were looking at assistive technology from the standpoint of we needed to have people that knew something about assistive technology because the demand was starting to come in. We were doing a better job of including kids with disabilities into the classroom, but they there were tools that they needed. They couldn't necessarily do things in the same way and they were looking for people that knew a little bit more or could learn a little bit more about that to guide those practices. So I was invited to be a founding member of the Loudon County Assistive Technology team along with you, Chris. And there was just, you know that we were the bare minimum.

00:29:32
There was there was a part time OT, you were the part time speech. There was another part time OT, there was a tech guy and then there was a director. And luckily for us, our director at the time had the vision to say we need more training. And so we were lucky enough to be trained by Joy Zabala. We were lucky enough to be able to go to conferences to learn more. And so it kind of went from there into the last part of the time that that I worked full time. I retired two years, three years ago now from from Loudon County Public Schools. That time was the best time of my life in terms of professionally and collaboratively. It was so exciting and we'll talk about that because I think I know what your next question is. And now that I'm semi retired, I do some writing. I I not the greater that you are my my goal and my my dream is to publish an entire book. But I've published, I've published in a number of books on assistive technology and on occupational therapy. And I also do some consulting around the country and some speaking. Right. You do speaking engagements, yes. Yes. And sometimes to talk with you and and talk not only with you as a presenter but talk with you like doing now. So all right. So let's talk about that, how you see things, how things evolved over the last 20 years in assisted technology. I mean I think you're right you you were the first person to teach me board maker like you came out and we had the big like Mac or those those those Mac they look like bubble gum. They were all those pretty colors. Yes, yes. And we had the board maker and you taught you taught me and the the the autism teacher at the time how to use board maker. So. So from that so even before then but then that time in Loudon when we were working on building that team together, which I would agree those early years of creating the team and then how it evolved over time. Still I reflect back on as the best professional experience of my life. You know because it was like this little startup, right. I know Sally, Sally is one of the the speech therapist that came on year two and she always uses that phrase right. Like it's a little startup company we have and you have this energy around it and that's certainly was the feel. But so how have you seen assisted technology evolve over those 20 years? Well, I'm going to do a little plug here. It's, it's interesting you brought up that topic because I'm on the Managing Editor board of the Assistive Technology Outcomes and benefits online journal that a Tia puts out and that's free and it's peer reviewed and you can look at the journal on the ATIA website. But their newest, the one that they're going to put out next fall, is looking back and moving forward 20 years of assistive technology outcomes and benefits. And so anybody who's listening, I would encourage you. And can you put something in the manuscript about a link that would be wonderful because the authors are invited to submit manuscripts that describe assistive technology outcomes and benefits. They can be any age group and they can be either research based or just voices from the field. And so much has happened since since we started talking about assistive technology in Loudon. Anyway, Board Maker is no longer a notebook of reproducibles.

00:33:21
When I started out we were talking about assistive technology and we were putting out black line masters from board Maker and people colored them in based on parts of speech and you'll pronounce this better than me. Is it Gosens or Rosins, Brusins, Crane and Elder in 1992, But that's my that was my introduction to assistive technology from the falling at that as opposed to making adaptive equipment in my little workspace in California. So that we were doing that and I learned in the last 20 years there's more to voice output devices than single recorded message devices. I can't believe, I believe that iPads came out in 2010 and everything that changed from then. I remember when when our team formed and we got our first order of of Big Macs and Little Macs and I sat in the office putting batteries in and I thought wow, these are so cool and how limited they were. And and we thought, you know this was the best thing. And we've gone from alpha smarts which were just those little portable typewriters that couldn't really do much, much of anything except if you hit the key it would produce the letters to. Now we've got aim. We've got accessible educational materials. We've got them in all sizes and shapes. It is so exciting. And voice typing, Oh my goodness. And we've even evolved with voice typing. I think you've had some of the some of the people that talk about voice typing and how it's emerged from that one product drag and dictate that we had so many prerequisites and priorities before. You could start using that to Dan Cochrane and Kelly keys with their with their newest and they keep updating it. How to teach voice typing and the fact that we can scribble with our voices just like we scribble with our hands as a pre literacy activity with voice typing. So kids can see the power of their words and their voices with with letters coming out. I mean that is a thrill and we've also gone from the expert and and I know you've had a lot of talk about this we've gone from the expert the AT expert to coaching to communities of practice where everybody gets a chance to to have a say. It's not the the person that comes in and and I still find it very frustrating and you probably can't say because you're still working. But I find it very frustrating that often times the expert comes in from the outside as opposed to someone who is in house and I'm I you brought up the fact that that I am doing some some work some of the school districts with with whom I've been working they have that's who does their assistive technology assessments is someone who doesn't know the culture and the climate they don't know what the tools and materials that are already available and so there's duplication there's frustration it's not a good plan and when a when a team can be formed with a vision like we created our vision statement we we created our goals. We also did work on how to assess whether we were doing it right. We use the quiet indicators. There's a lot that we can do. And even though we may be going away from an expert model, teams still need to have some leadership from the standpoint of someone who maybe knows a little bit more about what's out there. That can guide everybody so that the person doesn't make the decision. But maybe can be part of the go to of knowing that there's a little bit more out there than than everybody is feeling responsible for learning all at once because it can be overwhelming. Let's see, what else do I want to say about 20 years? We need to be we need to be cognizant that we have to describe the tool and what it needs to do before we can decide what tools to use. Because I do see a tendency for a question like what's a good app for Down syndrome as opposed to how can I help my child who has a lot to say but doesn't have a a way to say it. And so we we still have to, you know, it's it's like this is like Pandora's box and there's a lot of good in Pandora's box, but if it's not used with with fidelity, it doesn't help as much as it's intended to help. Does that make sense? It all makes sense.

00:38:04
And I I guess the other thing in the last 20 years is that we have more choices now and tools don't have to be 1 and done. And I think there was a tendency at one point is OK, we've got this app or we've got this software or we've got this tool. We're done. Our job is done. We've we got our training done. It's good. What? What about going outside on the playground? What about going into messy art class? What about going into the cafeteria? Is A1 and done for a voice output device going to be inclusive or is it going to become exclusive because it's not always carried to the locations where it's needed. So I think that we have to remember that assistive technology is situational and it's a longer continuum. And because we have many toys, we can give many choices and provide more than one thing. This is awesome, Judie. Yes, I am screaming in my head like yes, yes, yes to all of this. Can I just dig into some of these and please, please. So one of the things that you said you were giving examples of like the voice typing and how alpha smarts have have have gone away and we've been looking at now accessible educational materials and and how things have evolved right from a tool centric point something that seems to have happened over the years is that we technology that was designed for individuals with disabilities has now moved into a place that is something available to everyone. So like you mentioned Dragondictate voice typing. An example I use always with OT in mind is the vestibular disks. You know how many OTS back in the day were the first ones to give the vestibular disk because a kid was needed to move in their kindergarten or first grade or second grade? And now we build the elementary. Secondary is a different story. We're not quite there yet, but many elementary classrooms are built with that flexible seating in mind because it's like, Oh yeah, movement's good for everybody, right. And so it just seems to be a theme that keeps coming up over the last 20 years. Is that is that fair? That is really fair. And and as you know, that's how universal design for learning, actually. Came about. You know, they were originally when they started thinking about things was what was it in the 1980s when when the computer started being available to schools and they were looking at the computer from the standpoint of here's a tool for kids with disabilities that can't read or write, we're going to use the computer for them. And then it was sort of wait a minute, if it works, sort of the opposite of now, if it, if it works for kids with disabilities, it should work for everybody. And now it's kind of we're looking at at it from both sides. Now it's if it works for kids with with differences in the way they learn it works for everybody.

00:40:58
If it works for everybody, it should work for kids with differences in the way they learn. So we have to continue to look get those things and challenge those, challenge those things. But it's it's that one example of which came first. And at that point kids with disabilities were on the winwin side because they were really looking at those tools from this is going to makes a difference. Let's dig into the coaching model versus an expert model because I think a lot of people are still wrestling with that. So back in the day, we're sitting around trying to figure out how we got great advice from our administration at the time, which was and tell me a few, this is how you remember it. Our administration came to our assistive technology team and said, OK, we know we don't know about assistive technology. So you go figure it out and then come run it past past us. And we not. This is years and years ago, like over 20 years ago, right. And we were like okay, well, what do we know how to do? We know how to do occupational therapy evaluations, a speech language pathology evaluations. And so we became, we sort of adopted an expert model going in and say this is what you need, you know, and over the years, we sort of realized one that's not sustainable 2, you're not building any capacity. So people were constantly doing that same thing over and over again. And three, no one was having any ownership you mentioned like not any. You know, as we gave a lot of good recommendations and a lot of people did run with them. I don't want to say we didn't, but there was that to your point that you made here, we got you the thing and now we're off going doing the next evaluation for the next kid without really helping them adopt or implement the thing because we had so many evaluations to do. And so that helped us. I think it helped us lead us into this coaching model where it's like what if, what if only occasionally I tell you, you know what you need, you need this. And mostly I sort of ask you questions and facilitate a conversation. So the entire team comes to land on the things that the the, the tasks that they wanted me to do, changes in the environment and then of course what tools we want to implement. Does that sound right? It does sound right. But you know, one of the things that we had the privilege of is we had the privilege of the ears of the administration. And so they were quick in many cases to adopt that attitude that everyone can do this. But I I see school districts that are very very much struggling with that because they're not providing the training and they gave us the luxury of training because that's how we went forward. It was sort of is the right word train the trainer. But, but we went forward from maybe being the repository of the most current knowledge and the and the keepers of the equipment to a train the trainer where we found that if we trained then we didn't have to be the tea keepers of the equipment. Everybody could be the keepers of the equipment. And so I think it was an evolution and not everybody is there yet because you really have to have administration support for educating the entire staff and not educating in silos. And there seems to be that tendencies where the the OT's get educated on the stuff that they're supposed to know and the speech and and the adaptive P/E and stuff. And if we had more of a of an opportunity to be in a professional based on the way that staff development is done where everybody maybe takes the topic.

00:44:38
And I think Loudon did this in some ways several years ago and you can correct me on that because it might have been as I was exiting, but communication became a priority. So there was more training across the board to make communication and understanding of core vocabulary where everybody got the same input. And it wasn't the the eight that the SLP's weren't the keeper of the knowledge or the OT's weren't the keeper of the knowledge or the custodians weren't the keeper of the knowledge. Everybody I still and and I think this is one of the things that I struggle with when when we say there's no need for experts anymore. I do think that there needs to be at least a core of people that know a little bit more and maybe expert is the wrong word and that's maybe why it gets a bad name. But I think if we are all, if we are all expected to hold the same amount of knowledge and yet there are specific roles that we have on top of that Especially for the educator who has to do lesson plans and be responsible for 20 to 30 some kids in the classroom and all the other things there. It it's helpful if there's one go to person that maybe can at least say, yeah, did you know there was a such and such and then the team, not the one person the team looks at that such and such and that the attributes, not the device, but the attributes what the device will do and go. I think Johnny would rock'n'roll if he had something that would take his thoughts or his verbalizations and put them into print form. Then you don't have to be held accountable for what that app is or what that device is. But you need to be responsible for finding out different ways that Johnny can can get his thoughts down and and and that may be anywhere from a device to an alternative for the expectation of how Johnny is graded. And that goes right back to UDL. Maybe Johnny doesn't have to put it in print, maybe he can act it out, or maybe he can make a sculpture and explain it. But it's it's it's being more acceptable about the variability of the learner and providing the learner with more choices as to how to show what they know. And then something else you said that I just want to dig into and that is because I think I'm seeing it happen in in the a AAC world just a little bit. And I, you just waved A caution flag at this notion of, well, a kid has X therefore they get Y right? As opposed to Let's talk about all these different variables that make up a learner and who they are and what they can do and what they need to learn to do and help that inform a decision that's not just so simple as they have X, they therefore they get Y. Is that first, do you still see that? And is that a good way to encapsulate it? That is a good way to encapsulate it. Late it and I'm seeing lovely, lovely examples of when it when it's done well in terms of providing those choices and and allowing for learner variability. One of those is, I don't know, you've probably seen it and and there was one particular website now everybody's doing it. But there was this really cool choice board that I used to use an example in presentations where it was they they had an assignment and and on the choice board it was an electronic choice board. You can do it in PowerPoint and then there was a link that showed them how to use PowerPoint and how to do PowerPoint and then you know how that might work or you can make a video or you can give a speech or you can do a sculpture or a play or whatever. We basically want to know if if you understand what what has been provided in terms of information and can use it and not just regurgitate it, that you're describing providing options and exactly that is universal design for learning. All right. Let's transition back. I said foreshadowing earlier. Let's talk about making. I mean, I know you are, like I said, have some history with making but then at a Tia, you've been running the maker day for a couple years now, right? Am I well for two years with Therese Wilcomb so I I can't say that I'm running it. But Therese and I have collaborated not an expert model but a coaching model. We coach each other since Bill Binko stepped back and I I want to make a a distinction because Bill Binko was was my influence.

00:49:14
He was huge in influencing the direction in in which I went with making. He gave the example of a Tia several years ago about maker clubs that make for the sake of making. And they had he, he and I'm going to get this wrong, I wish he were talking to you. Some sort of electrodes that worked on the eyebrows. So when the person twitched their eyebrow, there was a voice output device that said what's up? And and he was saying, you know, there's more to making than than just finding out what you can do with stuff. There's a philanthropy to it and that's probably the wrong word. But but I think making for for oneself is one thing but making in the assistive technology world is making for other people and it's developing prototypes and it's it's exploring extremes to find out. And you can talk more about adaptive gaming than anybody I I know. But it's it's all about, it's all about making things better and making things possible. And that's to me is, is the true AT maker as opposed to being Craftsy or artsy or or building the best or the the biggest or the tallest, it has to have a function that pertains directly back to how it can be used to make life better. Well, so something adjacent to that Judie that's happening is some people have come to me and said, OK, I run this AT Makerspace and the kids or sorry, I run this Makerspace and the kids want to do something, you know, to help people with disabilities. OK. So what they want to do is print a 3D printed hand, you know, like and I was like, well, okay, do you know anybody that is actually like going to use that? And they're like, no, they just think it's cool. It's like, well, that's, I mean okay, if you want to do that, fine, go do that too because you're there'll be some learning there about 3D printing and modeling and things, but it's not really going to help anybody unless you know somebody, you know. So let's start with what, what is the thing that you want to help somebody with, right. And that there you now you're actually authentically feature matching. It's feature matching. Yeah. So my history with with making started out with I went to this camp in the in the north in Michigan and when I was when we were 16 they they let the this group of 16 year old campers it it was something you aspired to. It was like the year before you became a counselor or whatever. We lived in the woods for a month and we made everything that we used. Our food was provided but if we wanted something to sit on we made it and if we wanted something to cook in we made it. We actually made a a stove out of wood and then lined it with foil and then they shoved the coals in and it cooked. We made a dish drainer. We made you know, containers of some sort of a holder to boil our water so that we could wash our dishes in hot water and all that kind of stuff. And it allowed us that same authenticity that you were talking about with learning we had an authentic problem. And so and we had indigenous materials that were available to us and it let us think outside of the box and it was so much fun. I mean, we we created cutlery, we created cups and plates and all sorts of things from wood and and different things that we had around. And it it was very exciting and very satisfying. Also my mother and my grandma, My grandma, gosh, she died at 97, My mother's 102.

00:53:11
So she lived through the depression. And my grandma saved everything. She saved cool lip container, She saved egg cartons. And my mother was a Renaissance woman. That was the other reason why I wanted to talk last week at International Day of the Woman, because of my mom. She made her own lingerie. She learned to cane chairs. She stripped and refinished. She made table decorations and decorated hats and all sorts of things. They were so creative that that there was a lot of influence on me for making do with what you had. I mean, you know, if my mother can't open something or reach something, she's got all sorts of gimmicks on how to how to make it happen. And there's not just one tool. So if if the can opener's not there, she's figured out something else to do. And I mentioned OT school that there was a lot of a lot of opportunities to create an OT school and to learn why you might use this creation. So it wasn't just enough to learn to weave, but it was the the task, analysis. What does weaving do and what does it require? It requires strength. That requires a certain setup. It requires sequencing. And so you could apply those attributes to someone that needed to practice those things. And so my my OT education was fantastic. You and I made some movies back in the day. We used to call Chris, in case he hasn't volunteered that Fellini because again, we had free reign as an AT team to be become creators and to to do interesting things with the way we provided staff development. One of the things that you had me do, and I was just so reluctant to do it because it meant that I had to put myself out there. But we made a movie called Clinger's Closet, and as as creative as Chris was with filmmaking, I was creative with making things out of junk. And I have to say, my family has a long reputation as being junkers and collectors. And so we made this movie where the staff was sitting around having lunch or doing different things, And I I took things from them like straws and rubber bands and things like that. And then I talked about how you could turn straws or rubber bands or different pieces of material into a piece of assistive technology. And that's one of the things that Therese will come really, really talks about in her presentations and in her Maker Day setup is it's make it in a minute because if you if it takes too long, there's a a loss of the momentum, there's a loss of interest. And so these things that can be just made in a minute, like a notebook, turns sideways. It becomes a slant board or or a pool noodle or or a a squeezy ball on the teacher's desk becomes a pencil grip. Those things can make a difference and create that buy in so that you can take the time later on to get it absolutely right.

00:56:20
But you can use it as a door opener for the possibilities. And once you show people that they can be brave and and they can make mistakes and they can create and they can change, they're more willing to try things out without waiting for the quote X for it to come in. Because you've shown them that that they have the knowledge they have the tools they just need to to feel OK that they can provide some of those things. It doesn't mean that's where you're going to end up. I I would never say that no one can have anything expensive or the things that plug in or or do a ton of different miraculous things. But there are certain things that we can provide right now in the moment that can make a difference. Version one, version one or even prototyping. But then maybe that is, maybe that's what they use or maybe they can follow from there, right. And and I can't say that that, you know, this was all knowledge that I gained by myself. Conferences taught me a lot. And I really encourage people to take advantage of conferences. And now more than ever conferences, so many offerings are free or the recordings are free or people post things or people. There's listservs and things like that that I'm sure you've talked about before in in various podcasts. But one of of the things that I saw early on that continues to be a passion of mine is adapting books. And it was at a conference where there was a presentation called Buckets of literacy, and they put all sorts of things that pertain to the book in a bucket. And then they adapted the book #1 to make the pages easier to turn and and maybe simplify the language. But then they had a whole bunch of multisensory things that went along with it to help that child who maybe was visually impaired to to see the plot of the book through the props. Or a child that that couldn't pay attention for very long. If you could cut the book down by 16 pages by by paraphrasing or getting to the main point quicker, they could stick around and hang in for the whole thing. So that that was a huge influence. There was there was a part time OT, you were the part time speech. There was another part time OT, there was a tech guy and then there was a director. And luckily for us, our director at the time had the vision to say we need more training. And so we were lucky enough to be trained by Joy Zabala. We were lucky enough to be able to go to conferences to learn more. And so it kind of went from there into the last part of the time that that I worked full time. I retired two years, three years ago now from from Loudon County Public Schools. That time was the best time of my life in terms of professionally and collaboratively. It was so exciting and we'll talk about that because I think I know what your next question is. And now that I'm semi retired, I do some writing. I I not the greater that you are my my goal and my my dream is to publish an entire book. But I've published, I've published in a number of books on assistive technology and on occupational therapy. And I also do some consulting around the country and some speaking. Right. Lot of the positioning equipment didn't go home with them. A lot of their devices went home. I mean, one day they were at school and the next day they were gone. And one of the things that that we prided ourselves on as an assistive technology team is providing classroom equipment. And the only problem was if you provide one for the whole class and everybody gets a chance to use it and then all of a sudden it's not there because they're not there.

00:58:57
We haven't done due diligence on what each and every individual needs in order to be successful. So I started doing more workshops during COVID because there were some individuals that had difficulty with that problem solving of looking around the household and figuring out, well, if a Lazy Susan would work for reach so that somebody could get to the things that were out of reach. Or if if a medicine bottle or a squeeze bottle could become a pencil grip or whatever. We needed to, to be able to look around at what was there and help parents solve problems for their kids so that they were empowered too. Because I think sometimes we've held ourselves up as the expert model and our parents don't feel that they're equipped to provide the best things for their kids, and they truly are. They know their kids better than anybody else. Judie, I'm smiling from here to here. Here I wish people could see me because when the emergency distance learning happened I remember putting a slide together with you know what what is the system technology and how can we help for this for staff in general, right. And there was a particular slide and remember saying to the entire team like we are all we know how to do this. We've we've had Judie in our lives for all these years to help us help us see the environment and go well, I can use that to do this and I can use that to do this and we can we could be. We, we would admit the word was MacGyver, right. We would be able to take MacGyver use what you've got to create something to get us through. And maybe it's not the longterm thing, but at the time, remember the emergency of like we didn't know how it was, how it was spread. So we just knew like you were going to be in your home by yourself for a while. So you really influenced us, continue to influence us. But that was one in particular story where I just remember the slide that was like we can do this, we assisted technology peoples in particular and OT's have been doing this for years. So. So we've got you, we've got you. People felt secure that way and we felt secure because we had worked with you. That's funny.