Today we talk with Aubrey Schmalle, a registered occupational therapist, about Body Activated Learning to support attention and engagement. This is an innovative, sensory-based program to support attention and engagement in children that can be embedded into the existing curriculum of any school environment. Schools and parents can implement this program as a universal design support for all classrooms to enhance every students’ ability to be more active learners. The outcomes include improved active listening, visual attention, and direction-following as well as greater independent learning skills and enhanced task completion.
A little bit about Aubrey…. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in 2002, she completed a specialty fieldwork at a clinic that is a leader in the field of sensory integration research. She continued her studies to obtain advanced certification in sensory integration theory and practice. Her areas of expertise include functional visual skill development, visual-vestibular integration, praxis, and executive function, and using sound-based therapies to enhance treatment outcomes.
Since 2005, she has developed four in-clinic fieldwork programs and supervised several masters-level occupational therapy students. She also educates parents, teachers, and other professionals on the value of using sensory-based treatment techniques to facilitate learning and speech development.
She has worked with children with a variety of diagnoses including autism spectrum and sensory processing disorders, as well as neuromotor impairments, genetic disabilities, and vision impairments. Aubrey believes that the most effective treatment is one that is dynamic and specific to the child. As an educator, evaluator, and treating clinician, she strives to provide high quality, individualized treatment interventions. These interventions are designed to help children develop confidence and a desire to explore and engage in the world around them as they continue to learn and grow.
How to contact Aubrey:
www.sensational-achievements.com
Sensational Achievements is a pediatric occupational therapy clinic specializing in the evaluation and treatment of children, adolescents, and adults with sensory processing, autism spectrum, and learning disabilities.
Set up an initial 15 minute phone consult with Aubrey
Visit the Sensational Achievements Youtube Channel for more videos about Body Activated Learning and Distance Learning.
FREE Resources:
Optimizing your Sensory Diet Digital Download
Masterclass to implement a sensory diet using Body Activated Learning
Resources for Purchase:
Meltdowns to Motivated Parent Coaching Program
Hardcopy or Ebook version of the Body Activated Learning Handbook and activity expansion packs
Coming Mid-November: Level 1 Body Activated Learning Certification for parents, paraprofessionals, camp counselors, leaders of distance learning pods, volunteers, and teachers.
TRANSCRIPT (not proofread)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
learning, sensory, brain, children, activated, people, kids, parents, body, adhd, movement, attention, visual, information, thinking, calming, build, screen, exercise, evaluations
SPEAKERS
Aubrey Schmalle, OTR/L, SIPT, Dana Jonson
Dana Jonson 00:02
Hello, and welcome to need to know with Dana Jonson. I’m your host, Dana Jonson and I’m here to give you the information you need to know to best advocate for your child. I’m a special education attorney in private practice, a former special education teacher and administrator, a current mom to four children with IPS and I myself have ADHD and dyslexia. So I have approached the world of disability and special education from many angles. And I’ll provide straightforward information about your rights and your schools obligations, information from other professionals on many topics, as well as tips and tricks for working with your school district. My goal is to empower you through your journey. So if there’s anything you want to hear, comment on, join our Facebook group, it’s aptly named need to know with Dana Jonson, or you can email me at Dana at special ed dot life. Okay, let’s get started. Today we’re jogging with Aubrey Smalley of body activated learning. Aubrey is an occupational therapist. And Aubrey, I wanted to have you on, I want you to tell a little bit about your background and how you got to where we are. But I want to talk to you about body activated learning because I can’t think of a time when that might be most important, given how much we are all stuck at home on a screen in front of the camera. And we are all starting to recognize the real importance of moving our body. And you know, for people who don’t require it on a daily basis, but the body activated learning is really an issue. So tell us your background and why I went to you to talk to us about body activated learning. Sure. So I am a pediatric sensory integrative occupational therapist. So that’s a whole bunch of big words all in one. But I specialize in the connection between understanding the way that you collect information from the world through your senses, and how your body and your brain use that information to adapt and respond to whatever the demands are around you, including your ability to learn and attend and participate. And I think, unfortunately, when a lot of people hear the term sensory or sensory diet, they just think about exercises that are supposed to get your energy out or help you get focused when really the idea that we collect information from the world through our senses. And that’s how our brain determines what to do next is really valuable, and a really critical piece when you’re talking about learning and development. So what made you get into this field? So I, I’ve actually been a pediatric occupational therapist, since Oh, gosh, well, I fell in love with sensory integration, I’ll say in 2000. Now 2020. And I work in a sensory clinic starting in 2004. And that’s really where I started specializing in sensory integration itself. And then when I opened my own clinic in 2010, I started doing independent educational evaluations for the Board of Education. And that really was an eye opener for me one because I love having the opportunity to do an in depth evaluation and really figure out the connections between sensory processing and learning. But I also over the years have really added on this piece as far as the digital learning that kids are participating in, and the amount of screen time that’s really occurring, especially at the middle school and high school levels. So my evaluations have actually gone from being a lot of preschoolers, because that’s what people think of when they think of sensory processing being middle schoolers and high schoolers who are really struggling with attention and focus and reading and being able to get through their learning day. Well, and that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about. Because as a former teacher, when I was teaching, which was 20 years ago, sensory diets were not the norm. And actually, at that time, a lot of people thought it was just blood. And we’re just giving kids an excuse to play. But we those of us working in the school systems are starting to see the actual progress that children were making when they were given something to fidget with or when they were given time to get that energy out. And now it’s so funny because I was just at an IEP meeting the other day, where someone said, Oh, should we just do a sensory? What is it a sensory screening or something along those lines, and it was just totally normal to add that to the list of assessments. So I love that it’s come that far, but I wanted to ask you about that. What are the changes from Being in those brick and mortar buildings to now working from home because I know that there’s a lot of needs just being in a classroom.
Aubrey Schmalle, OTR/L, SIPT 05:09
And even the classroom itself has changed because exactly have shared materials, the OT really can’t just go around giving out tools and dropping off things in the classroom for the children to try. Everything needs to be assigned to a child. And so there’s only so many materials to go around. And in addition to that, some teachers did start incorporating movement rates, a lot of those movement rates, unfortunately, for my perspective, were screen based, or led by a video or something that you watched. And now even that you have to be mindful of everybody maintaining their personal space, and you might not be able to circulate around the room and have flexible seating. And you might not be able to have that common corner or have corners in your classroom that were set up for common use. So within the classroom, we’ve seen a huge shift. And then we’ve got this other piece with distance learning is how is your home environment set up to maybe balance the fact that you’ve lost some of those schools in school. So now it’s even more important as a community to really kind of build as much of a sensory based total learning program as you can to complement whatever they’re doing in school, or even to replace the things that they’re, they’re not able to have access to anymore. And that’s interesting, because I know, for example, when my daughter was going into middle school, I was terrified, that was going to be a nightmare for her, I really did all the getting up and moving and from class to class. And it ended up being amazing for her. And what I started to figure out was the getting up and moving from room to room and the class was giving her enough at that moment to sort of get her recalibrate, get her brain back in order and get back to Okay, now and then the next. What should we be doing at home to try and yeah, are there things that they’re missing simply by not being in the building that we should be emulating at home? Well, actually, it’s interesting, because I would say one, yes, there’s things that are missing in the building. But to body activated learning is actually a new framework that goes above and beyond the old sensory diet. So the the diet and the purpose of the old sensory diet that was maybe use the cognitive program, like the alert program or zones of regulation. If you weren’t by like you were in the right zone. And you got to choose something that would help you feel better, which could be a walk, or it could be a fidget or it could be going to the OT room and jumping on the trampoline. But it also relied on your ability to cognitively self reflect and say, Okay, how am I feeling? And what should I do to get my body back in the right place, or maybe you were in the other boat and you had a planned break, where you would go out into the hallway with a paraprofessional every so often and do a certain set of movements or take a walk or go to the water fountain, whatever it was. But this generation needs a lot more than that. Because our sensory processing and sensory integration for learning is not just about helping you feel better. It really is about giving your brain energy for learning, or being able to recover and de stress when you need to, but also to teach your body how to work for you. So a quick example would be we need our body to be stable and our eyes to be able to stay focused in one spot just to sit at the computer and participate in distance learning. But if I don’t have good postural control, or if my eyes are moving twice as much as everyone else like a child with ADHD, it’s impossible to keep that your body in a good place. So what do you see a lot of fidgeting, a lot of adjustments, a lot of racking, and it’s the body working overtime to try to stay present and participate. And even children with ADHD they actually do move more by nature just to get their thoughts out when they’re finding correctly to information coming in. So if you train the eyes to guide what the body is doing, and you incorporate movements that are really designed to get all the sensory systems working together, then your body is also going to be in a better place for learning and listening. And then you need to teach recovery because of the screentime issue. So the final piece of the puzzle is that you do need vision breaks, you should not just put on a movement break that comes from a YouTube video. You really need to actually either actively take a walk and move away and look in the distance or do some eye cupping by simply just putting your hands over your eyes like two scoops and blocking out the light for about 30 seconds and doing stretching because We’re sitting in these fixation postures in front of the computer all the time. And it’s much more sedentary and much more visually based that our bodies are really designed for. So the way to get the brain actually activated is by using movement to incorporate and build in the other senses that are really going to help build executive function, attention and focus, because it really is the body foundation that sets the stage for the information that’s coming in and how your brain is processing it. So what I’m hearing is the sensory diet is reactive. That’s the reaction. So you’re overloaded, and you need to let that out. And with body activated learning, you’re proactive, would that be an accurate way to describe it? Yes. And ideally, sensory diets should have always been proactive. But I think sometimes depending on the other programs they got mixed with, or whether it’s combined with a behavior program and use as a reinforcer, some of that has shifted where sensory experiences have become reinforcers. When really, if you shift your lens and recognize that the body was meant to support the brain and building cognitive skills and executive function, then it really should always be proactive, and it should never be contingent on you putting the effort out first, and then going somewhere to recover, you need to activate. Hence, body activated learning, activate the brain in the body for learning so that it’s easier to get the output, it’s easier to pay attention. And then simultaneously, this new piece of really being mindful of the vision breaks and the level of visual demands that kids are experiencing during this time. And during distance learning where we’re going very screen based, because it really does increase the amount of eye strain back and neck pain from Tech neck where you know, hunched over your eyes doing your work. And now not only are you dysregulated, but you also have old people symptoms of child where you’re physically uncomfortable. And the other thing that we never had to deal with Really? No, my daughter called me and texted me, I should say from her program, and she says, Do you have any tips for my back hurting so much. And I was thought was the first time she’s asked my advice on anything ever. Like I got to get this right. But it was interesting to me that she was acknowledging that this isn’t, and that’s what she’s used to like that she’s used to all this technology, she grew up with it. But we’re really at a place where we’re using it so much. I feel like we were going in this direction anyway. But COVID just, it was a seed round, this might have taken a couple years for us to get to this level. But now that we’re all stuck inside. And I love what you’re saying about how the sensory diet sort of accidentally became a reward. And really feeling good about yourself, and learning shouldn’t be the reward. That should be how you’re learning. Right. And if you frame it from a wellness perspective, all of the wellness information out there says you should exercise in the morning because it not only gives you your endorphins and helps you feel good for the day. But actually increasing your heart rate increases the production of BDNF, which is a brain derived neurotrophic hormone that helps the brain grow and make new connections simultaneously, when you take a break from screens, or you shut out visual information that’s coming in, you create whitespace for your brain to integrate all of the information that they just synthesize through that visual interaction with whatever they’re learning on the screen. And unfortunately, one we’ve just stopped prepping our bodies for learning, we’ve just done it as let’s get your wiggles out, because it looks like you just can’t sit anymore, right. And that’s not ideal. And then we need to put that white space back in and you mentioned your daughter having that movement. But the other benefit to that movement is that white space, just being away from a whole bunch of incoming auditory and visual information where you really have to have sustained attention and focus. And that creates the opportunity for creativity and really synthesizing information. And I think, unfortunately, one of the reasons that we’ve seen such a spike not just in ADHD diagnoses, but ADHD symptoms, is that there’s too much coming in, and the volume coming in from the computer and from the internet is just way more than our brains were ever doing. designed to handle as we removed the physical barriers. So when you think about distance learning at home, you really have to think how do I put those physical barriers back in between my child and the screen. And it’s not about just turning on a three time app and locking the amount of time that they’re spending, you actually do have to build in replacements. And you have to schedule other things into your day proactively, that are going to fill the space between and create the opportunities for movement. So it could be setting up, you know, a little obstacle course in your living room, it could just be okay, well, now I have to practice my sight words, I’m going to get off the computer, and we’re going to throw the ball back and forth, and mom’s gonna show me a flashcard. And I have to figure out what it is. Or for teenagers, a lot of my teams, they really like just simple exercises. So we’ll add the resistance fans, or we’ll add a weighted ball or something like that, where they’re even just doing cross punches and turning, or just tipping their head and then lifting their weights, but then touching the ground in between, because any of those movement patterns, they enhance the way that your posture is activated against gravity, they get your eyes shifting their visual attention. So your eyes are getting trained, you get the heavy work and the calming organizing input through the weights. And then you get the vestibular input, which is actually what gives your brain energy for alertness and attention through this type of thing and turning. So anybody at any age, as long as you’re building in those key elements, you’re really going to optimize your exercise routine, so to speak, to help your brain focus and attend to give your eyes an opportunity to get more coordinated, and practice, you know, working somewhere else besides in the screen, so that you can focus and pay attention and do and do what you have to do. When you mentioned ADHD or ADHD symptoms. Are you finding that since we shifted to this digital life, are there more diagnoses? Is it that we are identifying more kids with ADHD? Or is it that we are putting them in a brand new situation that they are not accustomed to? And some of them just need to learn how to because I look at like how to use zoom now is a life skill. So I see, for example, when you’re saying some kids need to move around, they do. But then that means that the person over there is watching you move around. And so by you meeting your own sensory needs, you may be depriving somebody else of what they need. So are these genuine ADHD issues? Or is it a transition? Or is it both? Or what are you seeing on your end? It’s actually both the research shows that over the last 10 years, no matter what survey you give, to what parent and what format, everyone is reporting a steady increase of children that are diagnosed with ADHD. Now, it’s not like a 5% increase, it’s like a one to 2% increase over the course of five years. So I don’t think that they’re over diagnosing yet, which was something five years ago, we really, you know, worried about is that are there way too many people that are really just getting the diagnosis to have it, I don’t see the rate going up so significantly, as far as a clinical diagnosis to tell me that it’s just over diagnosis. But there are many teenagers when you survey the team that actually are reporting a lot of ADHD symptoms from multitasking. And it’s called media multitasking. Because if you’ve ever watched, you know, even the millennials going forward, the the the speed at which they’re able to go in and out of an app and move from one thing to another, they are multitasking all the time. And then here we are socially going back and forth between five different social media accounts, and sending text messages and watching this YouTube video. And now, now we have to go and participate in our distance learning. And we’re supposed to stay on the same tab. And we’re not supposed to play with the font and play with the colors and highlight when we’re not really sure what to do post to just sit and think. But none of the visual input was shut out in the process. So funny fit last night, I was trying to watch The Daily Show. And I was unable to pay attention because I kept grabbing my tablet or my phone or my computer or my book. And I was like I kept rewinding I thought okay, I have to stop what I’m doing but I was it was so natural for me to grab something else to do. While I had the show on that I was unable to focus on the show. I know if that’s happening to adults. And many of us have been force to learn this because we don’t just get in trouble. Many of us had to learn this for work. Some of us use this before COVID. This is just what we’re used to. But now it’s going to be an issue for everybody. Right. And you have to remember that while us as parents have concerns about screentime, and we just call it screen time screen trends, screentime really self reflect and say, This isn’t the world you grew up in either. So you are actually learning a new habit alongside your children. And that makes it very challenging because it wasn’t like your parents instilled these disciplines for you, and you are now passing them on. For the most part, parents are still enforcing regular sleeping and eating habits. Some people when they had when they themselves had too much time in front of the screen working from home, then it was the parents who started prioritizing, let’s go outside, let’s go outside, because the parents were feeling the impact of the technology. But when you’re not, there are a lot of kids who really could end up zoning out on the iPad or whatnot. And the research is showing that if you’ve got a device in close proximity to you, it doesn’t even matter if you’re looking at it, you just know that it’s there. So even your watch, that’s your smartwatch, if it buzzes or whatever, your attention is always divided, just because you know that it’s there. Oh, interesting. And people who perform better on thinking and learning tests, they actually did a study where they tested the proximity of your device while you were taking the test. And they found that the ones who did the best did the best when their phone was outside the room and there was no physical access. Wow, I love that that is so true, because I heard recently that, and I’m going to get the numbers wrong. So don’t quote me. But it’s like, every time you get interrupted, if you’re in your groove, it takes a minimum of 90 seconds or something to get back into your groove. So if you think of that, as getting off of task for a minute and a half, for every single text, or Ding, and that’s before you’ve checked it, that’s before you’ve gotten sidetracked by it. And then I also think about we’re joking in our office meetings, we’re talking about something and someone said, Oh, is this another rabbit hole, you’re going to go down for me which it is I find rabbit holes on the internet, because there’s so much information that I’m like, Oh, I wanted to learn about this. And four hours later, you know, I’ve gone through every site. So it is an addictive thing we are attached. So what do you recommend for
Dana Jonson 22:43
the different ages, like a preschooler versus elementary versus Middle School versus high school? What’s age appropriate. So with the little ones, obviously, the parents, if you’re distance learning, you have to set up, the first thing I would say is first take stock of yourself and where you are at and how much time you’re devoting to your own screens. Because when you stop becoming the leader, then the children get locked in their own devices. And this is especially true if you have children that are prone to temper tantrums and meltdowns is that mom also likes to go to the smartphone for a little bit of relief. And just check out and talk to her friends for a second, and then go back to the situation at hand. But you really have to get yourself into a good place, make a family green time plan and put the physical barriers back in as to where the screens are going to be in the house. And then you start adding you start adding activity areas that have like I said, it’s really head tipping and turning, you know, fast movement alternating with slow movement. If you’re talking about regulation, you’re talking about rhythm and pressure and respiration. So if your child needs calming, those are the key elements that are going to be in your program. And that is across every age domain. What gives me energy is had to be interning and resistive active movements. So you know, that could be a real activity, going outdoors playing tennis, riding your bike, something like that. And then the calming down piece. If you do yoga, great, you know if you can use the rhythm and the pressure and the breath of the yoga, fantastic. kids who don’t have the coordination, it can really meet as simple as rocking side to side and practicing your breathing. or sitting in a rocking chair and getting that rhythm or getting the pressure from a heavy blanket or cuddling with your puppy or whatever it is. Those are the things that provide you that calming and organizing input. If your child does not breathe in a meditative way, which many little kids do not right, you know, then you’re gonna have to get low toys. You’re gonna have to blow over. You’re gonna have to get blow guards You’re gonna have to do something physical that actually makes them want to breathe. So you have to breathe deeper, if you have a blow toy that has a cause and effect aspect to it, so their brain could be just doing the blow darts, and then they’ll have visual focus, there’s still a goal. So you’re still building some of that attention and focus and executive function, but you’re also pairing in with it, something that is naturally calming, which is taking a deep breath in a way that’s fun and focused, one of the things that I try to say to our kids is, it’s not so much that I’m taking the phone away from you, as I want you to build other skills. So you’re not building those skills when you have your device. So that’s the way I try to position it. So when you think about the middle school and the high school group, they’re, they’re very different, because a lot of them are not just going to pick up something to play with, because they’re socially motivated. And so because the social motivator is so strong, sometimes actually, it can work to your benefit, because some children will actually latch on to the idea that they want to be strong, or they want to be physically fit, or they want to be able to throw the ball around, just so they can do something with their peers. And so I have a team that I’m working with right now on exactly that we learned the five part exercise routine that really incorporated the things that he valued, which becomes really important, what is his goal for learning this? And sometimes it’s driving. And so I’ll build a whole exercise program and say, Well, you know, you need spatial judgment, you need timing. So if you do these exercises, this is how your body builds that skill, and then you’re going to be a better driver. And so for them, well, I’ll always try to link it to something that they value, rather than, like you said, mom’s just taking away the screen. And then if you need other motivators, or if you need green time management, app sync, those are individual decisions for families based on how your environment is set up. And also for modeling as a parent, because those middle schoolers and high schoolers, if you’re on your phone all the time, forget it. They’re not that you can’t enforce a rule, because you’re definitely going to get called
27:11
out Oh, absolutely. And I find like, I like the app, the apps that follow what you’re doing, because it’s very telling, like not so much to charge them and follow them. Because I I’ll be candid, I don’t care what my kids are doing online. I mean, unless as long as they’re being safe, which they aren’t always and we have been down that road as well. So I speak from experience, but what I find interesting is when they have it on their phone, and we have to have that conversation where I say you’re just on it too much. It’s driving me nuts. And they say, well, you are and we open it up, and it’s like, Okay, well, you’re on Snapchat, you know, like you get, and then I think it helps them because I don’t think they actually are paying attention. So I don’t think it’s a lie. It’s not No, I haven’t been on it all day. And they’re lying. I think in their perception, they haven’t been or they accepted in those micro moments. That then I added up because of all the multitasking that was really happening. And I actually started if I am trying to be present with my family, and then I turn my phone down so that I can’t even visually see when it lights up just yet, because have that proximity of your smartphone, it really pulls you in, unless you put the physical boundaries back in. And so that’s one of the other things that I talked to middle schooler and high school parents about is, if you’re doing a project, for example, online, how do you put back in the white space, because we used to walk out of our house, drive to the library, write down our sources, go to the library stacks, photocopy what we need, checked it out. And think about that, not just as oh my gosh, it took so much time. But what a sensory experience, you lifted the books, you shifted your attention, you were constantly walking, and spatially navigating your world, there were all these great things that were in the in between of research that created white space for your brain to synthesize the information as you were gathering it. And you only went home with a finite amount of resources, you did not, you know, check out the entire library, which is now what you can do online, right. And then you wrote your outline. And then you wrote your paper. And your brain actually had a process of organizing through that movements in the steps that you use to write your paper. And we’ve removed all of that. So now you can binge on research on research articles. You could go to so many sites, you don’t even know where you went. And then you’re toggling back and forth trying to create your slide, look for the image, manage the design aspects of what you’re doing and write your information simultaneously. The brain just wasn’t designed for the letter. So the idea of even just doing my research first and then getting up and taking a walk on purpose, so that my brain has white space to kind of think about what I saw. And then write things down even on a post it note, and using those post it notes as your slide deck, you can actually use the post it note strategy on the board or wherever you want to put it in your room to organize your titles and your details. And then if you want to put a keyword for some sort of image, you’re going to look up later, that’s fine. So that when you go to build your slides, you actually have a clear thought and plan. And you’re less prone to those distractions, because the distractions come when you get stuck. And you’re not sure what to write or type Max, I’ve heard that I’ve heard that if you’re going to start a system like Camden board or something like that, which is way of charting your to do list, I guess sort of I’ve never used one, but that using it manually first use sticky notes to make sure it works before you go use a digital version, because you can get more out of doing it in person. And getting that done. Fascinating what you say. Because when we talk about neuroplasticity, and the fact that we can build new paths in our brain, we’re so excited by that, that we forget about all the paths we stopped building. So, for example, and I love using this example, using our GPS in our car, we feel like we’ve eliminated so much stress and so much trouble. But if I handed my children a map, I don’t think they could figure out where they were. And there’s so many other skills. So I love hearing that what you’re working on is building the skills, I think a lot of times we take a child and we say, okay, they don’t know how to read a map. So we’re gonna teach them these very individual skills, when really, they they need to learn how to handle that situation,
31:57
right. And you also have to understand that the body learns first through the experience, the physical experience with the world and being in space, so that you can develop that spatial map, and then you add words and pictures, then you add the things that actually help you articulate or explain to someone else. But first, it’s your physical experience. And so when I’m helping a child develop their skills, you only have to build it from a movement perspective first. So think about it. That’s why I say this is really not just your regular sensory diet, because you do need exercise to feel good. But you also need movement to train the brain in the body to work and get the right information, to help with the distractions to help with the focus. Because if your body’s working more efficiently in the process, then you’re actually able to be more organized. And some of those visual distractors that are now everywhere, even if I look at my computer, you’ve got all the little icons down at the bottom of the screen, how many things can you really hide, you have to actually choose to filter out those visual distractions, and younger children and even adults they just don’t. And the process of thinking about these different pieces, not just where do I build in my movement race, but then how do I make my movement race also productive for my learning, and support my learning, instead of getting in the way of my learning, and make sure that they’re goal directed, you don’t have to have a movement break that’s just running around the block. Some people hate that. And my daughter, I like I will never just take a walk or go running. I hate it. But I’ll play tennis because my brain needs a point of focus, to help me be calm and be organized so that when I go back to do my work, I’m in a better place. And she’s absolutely right. And nice to hear her reflecting on that, and internalizing it as she notices the days when she doesn’t do anything and how that impacts her work. So that she can make better decisions. And I think you can go through that learning curve. But you also need to model it, do it with your children and reflect the process because we really are all going through it. And we all need division breaks. We all need the stretching breaks. And we forget because you either get too focused or you’re like young children who just they don’t inhibit, and they could stay on something for hours. And before you know it, they’re blinking their eyes and their eyes are watering and they can’t focus on anything. And no one ever told them to stop. I realized that when I was getting really irritated with one of my children who kept going up to their room and hiding every single night after dinner and they weren’t getting their chores done and we’re getting so irritated finally she you know what I realized she didn’t even realize this is I was doing the exact same thing. I was at the end of my day going up to my room and saying Okay, guys, go do your chores, go do whatever you need to do. I’m going to be locked in my room. I did not Work for the day. And I realized that that was exactly what she needed. So everyone is impacted differently. So for the kids who aren’t at the end of their wit’s end, at the end of the day, maybe you’re the person who takes out the trash. And maybe this kid is the one who’s going to walk the dog at 6am, because she’s better than so that’s been an interesting shift to in trying to figure out when they can do any movement. Because if I say right now is the moment that you have to get up and go walk the dog or go for a run or play tennis is not necessarily going to work either, because we’re putting it on my schedule, right. And some people have a lot of energy, when they get out of bed in the morning, they don’t need to energize they’re already there. And some people may get very stressed, because they’re worried about what’s coming. So they need something that gives them that rhythm and that pressure to kind of help regulate them before they go into the day. So you’re right, everybody might need something different in the morning, some people are more alert and ready to just activate and they’ll get stuff done and be focused, and other people need something to prepare themselves to get to that place. And when you’re thinking about chores, it’s the same thing. What are the inherent sensory value of a chore? Even if you think about the process of mopping, or vacuuming? It’s rhythm and repetition and rhythm, pressure and repetition. So if I’m doing organizing, that is actually a more organizing tour, and
Aubrey Schmalle, OTR/L, SIPT 36:33
then dusting everything. Right? Okay, interesting, you’re moving from one place to the next, we’re constantly having to think, oh, I don’t want to knock that over, oh, I don’t, I can’t push the TV too hard. Whatever it is just actually, a more requires a little bit more attention and focus than the rhythm and the repetition of mopping or vacuuming. And so even in that if you know the things that your child needs, what what level of skill is involved in the chore that you’re asking? And is it something that gives them energy, maybe you’re purposely having them run up and down the stairs, because you’re only letting them deliver the clothes into one person’s room at a time. That’s how you’re building in more energy, energizing kind of opportunities, and it makes such a big difference, and you know, your child the best. But it also is, if I think about my generation, and the generations before me, we look at our kids and like, they’re not focused, they’re not following directions, they’re not doing this, they’re not doing that. And we wonder why this, this self management and these executive functions are not developing in the same timeline that they used to because they should be coming out in middle school in high school. That’s why we made Middle School in high school the way that it is. And so many of our kids are not going into middle and high school, having those in place, because they actually still are at that sensory and body foundation. And they haven’t yet built some of those skills, or some of those skills are getting boarded by the amount of technology that they need to use throughout the day. And there’s actually a study right now that you can find on abcd.org, the adolescent brain cognitive development study, and it’s a 10 year study. So unfortunately, we’re not going to know the major impact until after we already see it very clearly for ourselves. Right now, there’s about I think, over 4500 kids in the study, so it’s pretty big. And they did do brain scans of those children. And they also looked at their thinking and learning scores for on language testing, things like that. And even at two hours of screen time a day, they saw an impact on those thinking and language tests. And the MRIs were actually showing thinning in the part of the brain that’s responsible for integrating sensory information. Oh, my gosh. So while we’re recreating the problem, yeah. So we’re like, well, we don’t want to say exactly why that is, we know what the original process right, your brain is supposed to prune off the things that it doesn’t need. Because it’s, you know, doing different stuff. But we don’t want this kind of pruning. From my perspective, I want the brain to be able to utilize all those sensory connections to work the way that it was designed to work. Because that’s how you get creative thinkers. That’s how you get entrepreneurs. That’s how you get the leaders of tomorrow. Everything that’s analytical is going to be automated. So we have to build creative brains that have that ability, in whitespaces think in and combine information in new ways. And I definitely see them and I have four kids with ADHD and it impacts all of them differently. So jackpot. But what we’re trying to do anyway is trying to build better habits because Children have their phone 24 seven. And they do use it as an alarm clock. And they do use it as a reminder, and they do use it for all these things that do make life so much easier, especially for a kid with ADHD. There’s so many benefits to it. But I remember one of my children saying, Why can other kids keep their phone on and get their homework done. And the reality is, some kids can and can’t. And if you don’t have the executive function skills, one of the dangers is when you collide, someone who’s already neurologically diverse, with a lot of these automated tasks that the smartphones and the iPads and whatnot can do. We use them so much as accommodations. And while there’s benefit, and obviously people thought of these things, because they wanted their life to be easier, so that they could get more done in less time. But the people who thought of them already had executive function skills. And now what’s happening is because it’s so much in the hands of children, we really are outsourcing our brains to technology. And we’re not simultaneously continuing to try to fill in the gaps, it’s still important to make yourself if you need it a color coded schedule, and it’s important for you to be the one to make it versus someone else making it and giving it to you. Because the planning and the sequencing that goes along with that process is such a life skill that you need planning and sequencing for other things. Even if you’re going to automate your reminder for her dental appointment. You know, we, someone might be able to go through their whole life and never need to learn how to read a map. But the skills that we obtained, and the skills that we built by learning how to read and map we still need, we still need to get them somewhere else. So for somebody listening to this and saying, okay, Aubrey is the one she speaks my truth, she knows exactly what I’m going through. And she’s the only person that I can talk to? How would somebody find you? And well, first, I’ll actually before I even get to that, what is it you do? Like I go, I don’t deal with so many. I wear a lot of hats these days. So I have an actual brick and mortar clinical practice in Stanford is called sensational achievements. And myself and another colleague, we work together on all the independent educational evaluation on the regular evaluations and treatment planning around whatever the concern is, if you come and you have dyslexia, then that’s going to be a critical piece in to what we’re looking at as far as the value of sensory integration to get what you need out of a sensory based intervention. So we do do direct clinical intervention, but we’ll also even have adult people are listening, and you’re like, this is me. And it’s my case, like I say, we should, we should be really clear, this isn’t only about kids. And so I do do an adult consult as well. Some of the adults have disabilities. And some of them really just have specific concerns for themselves. And we’ll put together a program to support them more on a consultation basis with home programming. I do also do home program planning consultations with families, too, if they if you just really need that one to one. But then I’ve got these other exciting things going on. So I do have a body activated learning Handbook, that takes you through the framework in a very simple way. So all the stuff that we talked about with the computer planning matters a little bit outside the scope of the handbook. But the handbook talks you through this energizing and calming the activating, and the regrouping and taking a break from the visual demands. So each section gives you ideas for exercises that kind of fall in that category. And they give you a little sensory cheats to remind you of what it is that you’re trying to get out of that particular experience. And the reason being is that’s a starting block, so that you can start to mindfully choose the activities that you might want to add. If you have more space, and you’re not in a classroom. But teachers and paraprofessionals can really use this in the classroom with no equipment to help all of the kids have a better movement break opportunities. So this really is meant to be something that brings the parents and the teachers together and brings the community to a new place of thinking about how we support kids in a digital world a little bit differently. So I have a membership that’s open to parents, which is really a parent coaching program that I do group coaching calls and post videos and additional information. So you can be part of that parent coaching group or in November. I actually have the level One body activated learning certification program come out. And that’s where you can actually just take the course and get certified in level one body activated learning, which means you can use it for your child, you can use it with someone else if you’re a paraprofessional, but you’ll get all the information more in depth knowledge about how the senses work specific disabilities, and what their challenges are, and how to really utilize the body activated learning framework across environments. So that is that body activated, learning calm. And if you need to find me at my brick and mortar business, that’s sensational bash, achievements, calm, okay, and all of this will be in my show notes. So if anybody is listening to this, and they’re driving, and they’re like, there’s no way I’m gonna remember all this, it’s okay. You don’t have to just go back to the show notes. And all of that stuff will be there, all the links and everything that we talked about. And I thank you, I mean, this all really brief sounds to me, like it’s appropriate for anybody. When I listen to you talk, I don’t think Special Ed, I just think everybody needs this kind of knowledge and understanding of themselves in order to be the best they can be in this new digital world. And it’s really about empowering children and parents and for the kids that I work with, as they develop what we call sensational self awareness, they really do start to reflect and they are empowered to make their own choices. Do they still get sucked into technology? Yes, but that’s everyone. And that is how the marketing world decided it should be. Yeah, we’re always fighting against it. However, they, when kids hit upon the things that actually make them feel better, and make them feel more successful at school, then they want to do more of them. Because it comes naturally reinforcing. Not just okay, well, maybe I’ll say I’m in the red zone so that I can get out of the classroom, because this work is hard for me. And why I think what you do is so critical is, at least for me, and other Gen Xers we were raised that that stuff doesn’t matter. So we don’t naturally have that. And what’s great is our children are growing up in a world where that matters. But we as parents don’t know how to do it. And you’re the kind of person who’s perfect for me, because I want to call you up and be like, okay, I’ve recognized that I need body activated learning, and I have no idea what I’m doing. And I don’t want to read 27 websites. So let’s go over here. So I I just think this is excellent for everybody. But particularly for parents of kids with ADHD, I know you’re all feeling the same pain I am. So body activities, learning, I will have a link in my show notes to how to get the book that is really sort of a guideline, it’s really simple to follow and read and helpful to understand what kinds of activities kids can do that will help and not waiting until children melt down before we start getting their bodies up and activated. Thank you so much, Aubrey, thank you for having me. I’m glad that I could be here today. And hopefully, there’s a lot of families who really are thinking differently, because my goal really is to change people’s blends about the way that they view sensory diet, sensory strategies and the value that it has, you know, for us in life right now. Well, that’s we talked about before that it is proactive, not reactive. It’s proactive. We’re not just recovering from something we can actually make learning better. So thank you so much. And actually I’m going to have to have you back to talk about evaluations another time. But
Dana Jonson 48:41
thank you so much for joining me today. Please don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast so that you get notifications when new episodes come out. And I want to know what you want to know. So join our Facebook group also named need to know with Dana Jonson or you can email me at Dana at special ed dot life. But definitely reach out with your comments and questions and I’ll see you next time here on me to know with Dana Jonson have a fabulous day
