Sensory Smart Homeschooling: Encore Conversations with the Homeschool OT Sarah Collins

Your child can be bright, curious, and capable and still melt down over an itchy tag, loud kitchen noise, or a schedule that won’t budge. That’s not “bad behavior.” It’s often sensory processing colliding with executive functioning, and once you see it, you can finally respond with the right supports instead of more pressure.

On this collection of encore conversations with Sarah Collins, an occupational therapist and the creator of Homeschool OT, she helps parents figure out the real “why” behind learning struggles by looking at the whole occupation: the task itself, the skills it requires, and the environment surrounding it. Dr. Amy and Sandy ask Sarah to dig into the sensory systems beyond the basic five, including vestibular, proprioception, and interoception, and explain how sensory overload can derail attention, working memory, task initiation, persistence, and emotion regulation. We also talk about what “calm” can actually mean for different kids, and why movement might be a focus tool for one child while it overwhelms another.

Then we get practical about handwriting. Sarah breaks “messy writing” into the pieces parents can actually observe and support: core strength and shoulder stability, fine motor endurance, motor planning, visual processing, and even whether your child believes their thoughts are worth putting on paper. We explore why cursive can help some learners find writing flow, share curriculum ideas like Size Matters and Learning Without Tears, and offer simple homeschool setup tweaks like vertical writing on a mirror.

If you want a clearer map for supporting neurodivergent learners at home, hit play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave us a review so more families can find these tools.

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The Brainy Moms is a parenting podcast hosted by cognitive psychologist Dr. Amy Moore and Sandy Zamalis. Dr. Amy and Sandy have conversations with experts in parenting, child development, education, homeschooling, psychology, mental health, and neuroscience. Listeners leave with tips and advice for helping parents and kids thrive. If you love us, add us to your playlist and follow us on social media! 

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Dr. Amy Moore 0:00

Hi, Smart Moms and Dads. Welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms Podcast, brought to you today by Learning RX Brain Training Centers. I'm Dr. Amy Moore, joined by Sandy Zamalis, and Sandy and I are excited to welcome a returning guest, our friend Sarah Collins. Sarah is an occupational therapist with a specialization in helping parents align homeschooling with their children's unique needs. Through her brand, Homeschool OT, she provides personal consultations. She teaches month-long courses on key topics, fosters community through groups and individual coaching, and speaks at national conferences, which is where we met her. So her work empowers parents to build learning environments that support their children's development and passions. Welcome back, Sarah.

Sarah Collins 0:50

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, I love that we are here together and that we've been at these conferences and seen each other in person. It just makes these conversations more fun. So thank you so much.

What Occupational Therapy Really Means

Dr. Amy Moore 1:02

Talk to us a little bit about what it means to be an occupational therapist first. Because I think that there is a common misperception when people hear the word occupational that they think job.

Sarah Collins 1:14

Well, yeah, I get that all the time. What we do, it actually the word goes back all the way. For those of you in the homeschooling world, if you've read any of Charlotte Mason's books, she talks about occupations all the time. Because that's just the lingo of the 1800s. And here we are bringing it in now to good old 2025. But occupation is how you occupy your time. So it's anything and everything that you want to do during the day. Anything from getting up and brushing your teeth, that's a what we call it activity of daily living. So that's an occupation. Learning to read is an occupation. Going to work, sure, that's an occupation. Talking on Zoom is my occupation with you right now, podcasting. So everything that we need and want to do. So when our kids are struggling with any of those things and we want to know why and how we support them, then that's where I come in. So let's just take, we can take brushing your teeth, right? Since that's something small. So we think about if brushing your teeth is your activity, what motor skills do you need? So I need to be able to grasp it. I need to know the sequence of what comes first, second, and third. I need to be able to rotate my wrist so that I can get around my mouth. I need to be able to turn on the water, I need to be able to stand, right? So there's the motor skills, there's the cognitive skills. Again, I talked some about the motor sequence, but that's also the sequence of what comes first, second, and third, as far as I squeeze the toothpaste before I put it in my mouth, and when do I do this in the day? You know, so those are some of the cognitive skills and then social skills that go along with that. Like, why am I going to do this? And so if our kids are struggling with any of those, then that's where we come in to help figure out that why. And then how do we address it? Do we address it by working on the cognition? Do we address it by changing or adapting? So maybe we change the size of the toothpaste or the toothbrush. Do we do a social story to explain why so that then they're more willing? They're just that same theory. You take that and you apply it to reading. It's the same thing. What are the motor skills, social skills, cognitive skills? Why? How do we come alongside of them, support them? The same exact thing for eating. The same, it's it the theories are all the same, the activity analysis. And then what? So do we specialize? Yes and no. I am working now with homeschool families. And in fact, there are people that are like, I this made me laugh recently when I was trying to figure out how do I explain what I do? Because people are like, if you're gonna Google something, they're they need to know exactly what you do. And so I'm like, I don't know, I do it all, right? And then so someone was like, Oh, you're like this the search engine for when my child is struggling. I was like, great, I love that. So that's what I say now. We I look at what is the struggle? How can we come alongside and support our children? And what do we, how do we adapt, or how do we support our kids specifically?

Sensory Inputs Change Everyday Tasks

Dr. Amy Moore 4:22

I really want to get into talking about sensory processing and its influence on executive functioning, approprioception, and interoception, and all of that good stuff. But as you were giving the teeth brushing example, I was reflecting on how the sensory experience of the temperature of the water would also impact whether or not a child would fully engage in the teeth brushing. If the water's too hot, if the water's too cold, if you have water running down your arm.

Sarah Collins 4:55

Yeah. So it adds a whole component to what you're doing in the environment. And there are so many OTs, and my myself included, where we've really we run the, we say this is our area of expertise within the world, because there's PTs that are working on the motor skills too, right? And there's teachers who are working on the cognitive skills or the speech therapists who are working on the sequencing. So all of us, when we're coming together, what's kind of sets OT apart is that yes, we also are thinking about sensory-wise, what is adding into this experience for you. Because it's not just the things that you have to do, but it's also how the world impacts how you are able to process that information and process what you're gonna do. You know what? Even again, if we keep talking about brushing your teeth, you're brushing your teeth at home and you're familiar sink and you know how loud it's gonna be when you turn it on, and you know exactly the water temperature is gonna be. And then you meet in that bathroom that Amy and I were in, and the hand or the water is so darn cold, no matter what you turn it on, and you touch it and you're shivering. That's a whole other thing to for a kid to be able to do, or there's another person coming in, or it's a the hotel bathroom and it smells different, or anything. But it makes these everything surrounding that actual activity that you're doing impacts your success.

Dr. Amy Moore 6:20

Yeah. Okay. So then let's talk about how sensory processing and that interaction with the environment has an impact on our executive processing.

The Hidden Senses Explained

Sarah Collins 6:34

Yeah. So deep. We're gonna we're gonna get into this. First, I feel like we need to talk about what are the sensory systems, because all of us probably have heard of the top five. You learned this in elementary school, what and what you smell and what you taste, what you hear, and what you touch. Those are our five main systems that everybody knows already. But then there's also your vestibular system, which is your inner ear, and that is knowing where your body is in space. So I'm standing up, right? And how I keep my postural control so that as I'm talking to you, I'm not like falling all over or my posture is not so awful that I'm scrunched in my seat, not falling off of my chair. This is your vestibular system is responsible for that. Proprioception, which is not just how you touch your skin, like, but instead the information that's going in through your joints. So how far, how firm you're picking something up, it's also knowing where your body is in relationship to itself. My arm is up now, my my legs are crossed. I know that because I can feel it through my joints, not just my leg is touching the other one, but I know internally. And then interoception is knowing what's going on inside your body. So it's everything from I know, you know, that I feel calm, but I also know my I don't not noticing my heart rate right now because it's just normal. But if you're running or after you've been going, you might be able to feel your heartbeat. You're noticing that when you feel hungry. And this is a tough one, especially for kiddos who go from zero to hangry in a second, right? Because they're not in tune to their body, or they don't know because there's a whole lot that happens on the stomach area. If you think about if you're hungry or if you have to go to the bathroom, or if you have cramps, right? Or you feel nervous? A lot of times you feel that all in your belly, and you have to be able to interpret that. So that's the sense of intrusion. So now how does that all impact your executive functioning and work through a task all the way to its completion? So that that includes the getting started, it includes your problem solving while you're going, it incom includes your attention, your working memory, like all of these things to get from start to finish. So let's think about your sensory processing, how that would affect it, right? If you're struggling because you're taking in there's so many noises that are around you, or there's lights that are blinking that are different, or you know, that your clothes feel uncomfortable. That's really hard to get started and to keep your attention and stay focused and pers persist through to the end if you're overwhelmed by your sensory system. So we have to help our children and ourselves. We are all included, we all have sensory systems, obviously, to keep that regulated for the task at hand.

Sensory Overload Meets Executive Function

Dr. Amy Moore 9:40

So let's say that your sweater is itchy and you're trying to do a math test, right? The tag in the back of your sweater is driving you crazy, or it's the fabric that's driving you crazy. Is it a frustration response that throws you into fight or flight and that impacts your ability to finish working or engaging on the test? Or is there something else happening? Is that is the influence of that overwhelming sensory experience doing something? Is it a distraction, but not an emotional response?

Sarah Collins 10:26

Or both or either? Yeah, I think it's both. And if it's really interesting, if you've ever read any of Gary Newfeld's work, have you ever read any of that stuff? He wrote how to hold on to your children, I think it was that book, him and Gaber Matte. And he's one of the first people that I've ever heard really talk about here in America, how we we mix the two of feelings and emotions, but in reality, they're different. You feel the emotion, right? You're talking about here, I feel my sweater, right? Your body might be doing something because of the way that sweater is, but your heart rate probably is going faster. You, your pupils may be dilated, right? Because you're having this stress response. And then your emotion is probably frustration and distraction because of those feelings. Then as a result, like here's where OTs come in. And Amy, this is why I'm saying, I bet you can explain what's going on in the brain way better than I can. Because what OTs do is we think about the function, right? So it doesn't actually matter whether it is the emotion or whatever. It matters whether you can be successful in what you need and want to do, which in that case, can you take a test? No. So we need to either A remove the sweater, right? We can change the environment, or B, we can work with you on coping skills to calm the nervous system. Like, how do you calm when you're wearing this itchy sweater? Because maybe you're at this test and you can't just take off your shirt, right? Depends on where you are, whether that's socially acceptable or not. So we need to think about that or see is there something else that we can do right now? Can we remove or change the occupation? So, can we change the test so that it's in a different spot? So maybe your sweater is only that overwhelming because you're also overwhelmed by holding the pencil and using your brain so hard to work. And so, can we change that too? Let's look at all of those things together and figure out how to help you be successful.

When Homeschool Plans Need Flexibility

Dr. Amy Moore 12:30

Yeah. And so what I'm hearing you say too is this is not just going to take working one-on-one with the child who's struggling. The parent's gonna have to be involved too, because if the environment has to change or the task has to change, it's gonna be the parent that makes that call. And so then they have to understand at a fundamental level what is happening here. And I don't mean that they have to understand from a neuroscience perspective. The questions that I was asking you was pure curiosity, right? What you're you're spot on by saying, does it matter whether it's frustration or distraction? What matters is this child is incapable of engaging in this task because of this negative sensory experience that they are having. So we need to make a change in something, but that is going to require a parent to not be frustrated, to stay calm, to stay flexible. We work with a lot of parents who are not willing to be flexible. They have a schedule. They have a schedule and a curriculum, and this is what we're doing today, and this is the time we're doing it, and this is what we have to cover, and we're not deviating. If we deviate, right, then that's a reflection on me as a parent not being able to control the learning environment. It's so hard.

Sarah Collins 13:48

Because we, as parents, for sure, like we want our kids to meet these norms, right? And to be successful. And so to do that, then we're thinking, like, we have to get this done and this done, and this is gonna follow the scope and sequence so that here's the end point that we're trying to get to. And I understand that. I absolutely understand that. My question is typically to parents of all right, but if you're just pushing through, is your child actually learning that material or are they learning how to push through? And sometimes that push through, great, that's important. Resilience, that's important. But it shouldn't be that we're asking them to suppress what they're feeling, what their emotions are, what their body is doing, because then they can't advocate for themselves in the future. They're just learning how to, I don't know. It's funny, my daughter who went to public school up through third grade, I feel like it took her until this year to recognize that she, when she's hungry, when she's thirsty, and she's 16 now, she's a junior in high school, and when she needed to go to the bathroom, that she could do that when she wanted to. It's almost like she never didn't understand the skill of what is it that I'm feeling in my body and what do I do about it? Because like there was only you're only allowed to go at 10. Literally, she ate lunch at 1047. Guys, no one's hungry at 1047. Right. You just got to school at 920. But it didn't matter. That's the time that it needed to happen. So what I would challenge you as a parent to do is to get curious and look at the uh your what is your child's body language telling you? What do you notice with their facial expressions? What do you notice? You can even literally check their heart rate there. Like some of these things that can help us to interpret what is this response that's happening here? And then ask, is this worth it? Is this perseverance worth the the time that that we're having this right now? Is it is the goal the perseverance or is the goal the knowledge? And if it's the knowledge, then persevering isn't going to be the answer.

Dr. Amy Moore 16:02

Yeah, we shouldn't have to persevere just because you think that's what you're supposed to do. And is it worth the struggle and the battle and the conflict and all that's happening just because I said so? And so when I parents push back, when I suggest that they alter something in the child's environment or the schedule or whatever, I say, How's it working for you? You don't have to make a change, but how's it working for you? Nothing changes out. Nothing changes. And as the parent, the change is ours to make.

Sarah Collins 16:33

As adults, if we are expected to be able to advocate and to carry meet our own needs, then why are we telling our children to suppress them just so they can stay for our schedule and for what we're thinking that they need to do?

Sandy Zamalis 16:47

It sounds like what you're saying to me is that I love that you call your friend said you were a search engine, but it's almost like you're a neutral set of eyes. That helps break complex behaviors or things that are happening down into much more manageable pieces for parents to keep a watchful eye on or practice or build skill in. Does that is that a good observation of what you're doing?

Sarah Collins 17:15

Yes, and I feel like I need to take the AI script of what you just said so that I can copy it and be like, that, that's what I do.

Sandy Zamalis 17:25

That's as parents, we just see the big. We see the big rock or elephant in the room, right?

Sarah Collins 17:31

Yeah, but we need someone to help us break it down into much more manageable chunks or so many times that what I'm doing is saying, okay, so here's where the issue is, and we need to prioritize what's what we're gonna go through to to be able to help to support your child. And a lot of times I'm like, all right, so if what we need to do is build within the cognitive system, okay, so sure, let's go to learning RX and let's work on that. While we're doing that, here's some adaptations to the curriculum that you were doing at home or to the setup of your day, because maybe your child is more alert at 9 a.m. Maybe they're more alert because of their time that they're allowed to rest or whatever at 9 p.m. It's dark outside and they're not having to take in all this information from the windows and the birds coming. So maybe it's 9 p.m. Like we I help to break those things down and prioritize and find the best resources to send out so that kids can get the skills that they need to and meet their environment. In the homeschool community,

Why Homeschool Families Seek OT Help

Sarah Collins 18:37

yeah.

Sandy Zamalis 18:37

In the homeschool community, what do you what do you see as the biggest need in the homeschool community, especially coming from an OT perspective? In general, just from our perspective, we see the homeschool community having a growing and growing need for help and like the special needs space, just really understanding neurodivergence and all the different needs that their children have and helping to accommodate that. Are you seeing the same thing?

Sarah Collins 19:05

Yeah, absolutely. And that's I think even the biggest growth area within the homeschool community, just in terms of population, because there are so many kids who, you know, what their needs are, they can't figure out how to match the demands of the public school system or even a private school brick and mortar. We're we're asking kids to sit all the time. So if you're if we're just going back to the sensory system, think and the demands, think of when I was mentioning proprioception, that is the most calming sense. That's our ability to take in this information and organize it. So if you think about you bump your arm, the first thing you do is grab it, right? That's your proprioceptive system, and that's helping to calm that nervous system down because you've heard it. To activate your proprioceptive system, you have to be moving. And so when we're asking our kids not to do that all day, and then but we want them to continue to work and be academic and learn and read and write and whatever, we're seeing a lot of struggle. So people are coming out of the public school system, but in if we're doing that same thing at home, we're also missing the point and not necessarily supporting our kids. So parents need to know just as much as teachers need to know how do we mesh the environment with what our kids need so that they're successful in those demands that we're placing on them.

Dr. Amy Moore 20:28

Yeah, and I think one of the beautiful things about being a homeschooling family is that you get to decide what that environment looks like. And so you get to decide what the seating arrangement looks like and the types of seating that you can offer. And it doesn't have to be in the same seat all day. From the dining room table to the couch, to your deck, to the beanbag chair, to the hammock swing in the on the back porch. That is the way to minimize negative sensory experience and maximize what?

Sarah Collins 21:05

Maximize comfort or yeah, just to understand your body and what your body needs so that you can advocate and then be so you're self-aware so that then you can advocate to maximize the yes, the comfort or the balance. How it doesn't the language doesn't necessarily matter unless it's it matters as far as the language that you're using with your children, right? So if you're telling them, I want you to be calm, right? Does calm mean that you want them to sit quietly and learn to twiddle their thumbs, right? Not talk, right? Is that what calm is? Or is calm that like you're able to take in all the information from me reading your book, right? And you're able to listen and narrate it back. So that might be that you're sitting on a hammock swing and or spinning in a chair or whatever. Your body doesn't have to be still. So we need to make sure that our language matches. What we're asking our kids to do.

Dr. Amy Moore 22:02

I love that. I'm very transparent that I'm an ADHD warrior myself. And I do have a hammock chair on my back porch that I can fully engage in whatever task I'm working on because of that rocking motion. It enables me to ground those misfiring neurotransmitters and be fully present with the task. Same with just gradually turning my chair back and forth at my desk. I don't do it while we're podcasting because it's distracting to whoever's watching. But nine times out of 10, you can move.

Sarah Collins 22:42

Yeah. Yeah. And it's contact others. While I am podcasting, I wish I can't take my camera down, but I wish you could see. Like I have a sit disk that sits on the ground, but I move my feet back and forth like the entire time. I figured out what makes it so I don't look like I'm rocking, but I'm still giving myself movement. So if what our kids are used to us saying is calm down, which really means sit still, that's that's very different than what is calming to your nervous system. And it could be that you need that movement to help you to be able to focus on what you're doing.

Movement Needs Inside One Family

Dr. Amy Moore 23:15

And then I would assume too that some kids get overstimulated by that movement, right? So what works for one might not work for Yeah.

Sarah Collins 23:25

So for example, in our house, we say, and my son, who's now 14, he jokes with me out of him, he's mom, your needs aren't more important than my needs. But that's what I used to say all the time to them when they were little. Because my daughter is she prefers things to be quiet. She prefers not a lot of if you walked into her room, she's it's like mauve and gray, and she has these like textures and candles, and yeah, oh, it's lovely. It just makes me want to have a cup of tea. I don't know. But my son, who is a hockey player because he needs that movement, and now he's allowed to check because he's 14. But when he was 12, he had literally in all of Philadelphia the most penalty minutes, right? Because this is the kid who is the crasher, the mover, all the time. And we were able to give that to him. But imagine the two of them together and then throw in my other, and it can just be chaos. So I would always be telling them, like, Caleb, your needs are not more important than Annabelle's. And Annabelle, your needs for him to be still are not more important than his needs to move. We have to figure this out together as a family.

Dr. Amy Moore 24:38

And then again, you just nailed it. As the parent, you make those adaptations, you make those changes. You're able to say, okay, maybe it doesn't work for you all to be learning in the same room at the same time. Yeah. And that's okay.

Sarah Collins 24:51

Yeah, absolutely. And what one of the things that we figured out for Annabelle was that the movement didn't bother her as much when it was supposed to be happening. Like when she was expecting it, it would be the unexpected movements that she wasn't prepared for. So then, for example, what we would do is we did a morning time where I would do lots of reading aloud and things and rotate through different ones while they were making breakfast. They learned to cook early on because then they were both moving, and actually my younger son in there as well. So they're all moving with a purpose, getting their needs met, but then able to focus on what I was saying. My only thing was you can't be talking because then you can't be listening, but you can move with a purpose. And I the on this day memories that'll pop up. I'm laughing this morning. My son, because he gets them all and he'll text them out here and there. And it was like this pizza crust or something that they were like meeting at the counter, and his hands that it's in the picture, like you can't, it's blurry because you can't even see like how hard he's moving. And so he's like slamming. And my youngest son is sitting next to him with his pointer finger out, like poking at it, and my daughter's watching, and he was like, he just sent it to like our family group chat, and my husband was like, Yep, that's all he said. My daughter was like, on brand. I was like, Yeah, those were the days. That's how we did it. We made it so that everybody could be having opportunities to meet their needs next to each other, or were able to advocate to separate.

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Body Awareness Links To Emotions

Dr. Amy Moore 27:31

Okay, so I want to tell you about a study that I read and just have you give your thoughts on the findings. So this was a 2021 study out of Monash University where researchers examined how sensory processing relates to executive function. And in that study, the strongest single correlation was between body awareness and emotion regulation. So can you speak to that association? Like, why does poor body awareness impact emotional regulate regulation? To me, those seem so far separate.

Sarah Collins 28:08

Right. So think about if you are, let's say it's like a rainy day, right? And you are you're laying down on the couch all day long and you're watching TV or whatever, and then you get up and you're like, oh my gosh, I haven't eaten and I haven't gone to the bathroom. And I like all of a sudden, now that you're moving, you're more aware of what's going on inside your body, and then you're emotional, right? Then you're able to can figure out, wait, what's going on with what all these things that are happening all at one time? And then you need to control that emotion, right? It required that movement or that proprioception. So, and that proprioception is another term for this body awareness here. Now, I haven't read that specific specific article, but that would be my off the cuff kind of answer. And we've actually researched how interoception and proprioception are even genetically linked, right? And so kiddos who struggle with proprioception or that body awareness often also struggle with interoception. So we have to work with them for both. These are kids that are more likely to, when you're like, I can't, I'm noticing that you're having a hard time here, you're writing off the side of the paper and you're slouching in your chair, you're falling down, you need to get up and move. And no, I'm not gonna do that. So they're not necessarily as aware inside of their body, and then they're resisting what you're saying. So we need to increase that proprioception or that body awareness so that then they're able to be more alert as to what's going on inside of their body, and then we can help to regulate it more.

Dr. Amy Moore 29:55

Yeah, my one of my kids, I won't say which one, one of my kids went from zero to 60 from in hangriness. And he, when I would point that out, he would explode. Yeah. Because I would recognize, I has it been a while since you have eaten. Do you think you might need to eat something? And he would catch me mid-sentence. Don't need to eat, I'm not hungry, would lose his mind at me if I would point out that, and I knew that was the problem. I could, but he was not able to recognize his own hunger cues. Either he was too busy or too distracted, or just didn't understand what his body was telling him. How do you train that?

Sarah Collins 30:39

Yeah. So Kelly Mailer is the guru, and we're talking about specializing, right? Like the guru as far as research and work on interoception. And I will be honest with you, when we when I graduated from OT school, which was 2008, so not that long ago, I literally introsception wasn't on the map yet. Like we were not even talking about it. And so this is where OTs are still we're researching, we're learning right alongside with everybody else and recognizing wow, this is a piece of the puzzle that we've missed for so long. Even kids that they've been to therapy or they've been and they can name every single coping skill. Oh, yeah, I should take a deep breath. Oh yeah, I should start my day with it. But then in the moment, are they doing any of those things? Not a chance because they don't have that connection to the body as far as how this will literally help to control or to help their them. Who wants to be screaming and yelling at their parents? Like, that's not sure your son didn't wake up in the morning and be like, yep, today's another day where I'm gonna go yell at my mom. I can't wait. And so we have to help them to make that connection. Kelly has done amazing work on developing a curriculum, even to help children to understand their bodies. She starts even with things where you are confirming visually or with your sound sound or smell, because those are the senses that are easier to interpret. So she, the first activity in this curriculum that she has is you put your hand in water and then you're looking at it and you can see, yep, my hand is wet. I'm not just feeling that with my eyes closed, I can see it. My hand is wet, but it's also cold or hot, whichever. Or how does that make you feel intern? Are you uncomfortable? Or do you like that? So she goes through all of that work and then begins to get more in-depth as time goes on, because we're trying to give that connection to children so that then they are more aware enough to advocate. Like, yes, I am hungry and I do need to eat, and it is making me less able to focus on what I need to do and even to listen to what you're saying. So that I've had families that I've worked with who literally have used that as part of their language arts curriculum for a while because you think about all of that description and describing that you're doing, that's all adjectives, right? We're learning all of that. We're learning how to say it, how to talk through it, how to write it and journal about it? Let's be functional and teaching our kids within their bodies and how that ties over to academia. A little bit of science, too.

Sandy Zamalis 33:21

Sarah, how often when you have a client whose child is struggling in these areas, how often do you also have to help the parent with the same understanding of their own body? Because I feel as adults, since this is like you just said technically in the literature, that there are plenty of adults who don't have these skills either. And so they can't necessarily help their child without someone like you to be the middle person that helped them both see it in themselves.

Sarah Collins 33:56

Since all I do now is work with families, I don't directly work with children anymore. I work only with parents on understanding the why and how they can work through their homeschools. I would say all of the time. But one of the beautiful things of parenting is that we are able to learn alongside of our children. And it doesn't have to be that we know everything and then we're just like, boom, this is what you need to know. But it's that we can do this together. We just need to find the right resources. And then it doesn't matter if I knew whether I was hungry or needed to go to the bathroom or cramps or whatever before, or if I'm learning it right alongside of with you. It it doesn't matter. We're the point is that we're getting from not knowing to knowing and not being able to interpret to interpret, and not being able to advocate to advocate, and we're gonna do it together, or I'm gonna either teach it to you and learn right learn before you, or I'm gonna learn alongside of you.

Dr. Amy Moore 34:57

Well, I'm sure you get lots of parents with aha moments then, right? Oh man, I'm doing the same thing, or I do that too, but that explains everything about my own childhood.

Sandy Zamalis 35:07

Or I'm having a meltdown at three o'clock and I actually haven't eaten anything all day. Wait a minute.

Dr. Amy Moore 35:14

Yeah.

Handwriting Problems Broken Into Skills

Sandy Zamalis 35:17

How can an OT help when a student is having handwriting issues?

Sarah Collins 35:22

All right. So, first of all, I think we have to define so handwriting itself is is an occupation, right? So an occupation is how you occupy your time. And anytime that you're having a struggle with something that you need or you want to do, that's where an OT can come in. So a lot of times, especially in the school system, but also sometimes with parents, we're getting referrals or people coming to ask questions because they want to know, all right, my kiddo's handwriting is a hot mess. You know, that is actual words that I've heard. And they're like, I don't know what else to do about that. It's just a hot mess. But it can come down to more than that. Like when I, as an OT am coming in, then I say, all right, a hot mess, great. That's a perfect term. Let me kind of narrow that down and think through it. Because there's a whole lot that's going into handwriting. So the first thing actually that I look at is does your child recognize that those words on the paper can correspond to the thoughts in their head and that it's important, right? Because so many times when we're just writing like a big line down and then, or a little curve, or we're, you know, copying work, which is great to practice just for motor planning, but we're gonna, I'm gonna table that for a second. Copy work. But the main purpose, we have to say, why are you handwriting? Why are you writing? And our kiddo needs to buy into that and to understand. So our very first thing for me as an OT before I even start, let me mess around with your grip or let me look at your core strength or whatever. I'm wondering, do you understand this purpose? And you would be surprised how many kids, even older kids, that aren't recognizing either one, the value or two, even that their thoughts matter. So I really want them to know like what you're thinking inside of your head. We want to get it out so that you can communicate to other people. So that's my very, very first thing. Do you know that your thoughts matter? If not, we can do some things like where you're gonna narrate to me and I'm gonna write it down, or you're gonna talk to text on the computer. And I have no problem with that. Like we we need to make sure that you mat you understand the value of your thoughts first. So great, you want to talk to text? Sometimes I call that vomit on the paper. Like make it happen. My kiddos are doing that a lot. The purpose of the actual motor now. So let's separate that out. So that was our, you know, our cognitive part, our thoughts matter. Now, when we go into this motor piece, there is a big portion of motor planning. And I know you guys work a lot as far as rhythm and as far as making sure that we can think through, like come up with the idea of how I need to move my pencil or my whatever, I can actually execute that and I can evaluate that. You know, that's a big piece of this whole actual handwriting. But to even do that, to come up with this plan, we have to have sufficient support. So this comes into we are seeing a whole lot of children who, because we are more sedentary, and whether that's at school or whether that's at home, whether that's because we come from, you know, we're we're on the go a lot, so we're spending more time in the car, whatever, we've got decreased core strength. So in OT terms, we call this proximal stability that's going to give us some distal mobility, right? So we have to have this stability here. If even if as you're listening right now, if you like slouch down in your seat and then you try to pick up something and have really good control, or you're washing dishes as you listen to us or whatever, if you slouch over, you try to hold that dish and wash it with the other hand, your grip strength is weaker, right? So without this core stability, which starts here in the stomach, but is also within our shoulders, you're not going to be able to really move these, you know, your this distal mobility really well to have good control. So that's one of the things that I look at first and start with before I even start with these hands. And I know that's like anybody who asks a question on, you know, to a friend on, you know, or on social media or even, you know, to ChatGPT, what they're gonna come out with is your motor skills. And before we get to that, you need to be stable. But then yes, we do want to think about do you have the motor skills in your hands? And again, we're seeing a decrease in that because of the course ability. So then we've got these weaker hands. So we've got to catch up there before we even really start with this motor plan. So next, like I'm rolling through, we've got a whole over here.

Dr. Amy Moore 40:09

So what do you say to the argument that my kid plays video games all day? My kid is such a fast typer. They obviously have to have hand strength and hand coordination to make that happen. What's your response to that?

Sarah Collins 40:25

So they do have some hand coordination for that specific task, right? I mean, think about the difference in when you are using your thumbs on a video game controller and when you're typing here, two very, very different things than when you're actually trying to move your hands. Also, when you're looking at this screen, like what you're doing is very two-dimensional and not three-dimensional, where you're actually having to make this motor plan on a piece of paper or on the whiteboard or on the wall or whatever it is that you're writing. These are very different muscles that you're using. So if we're saying you must have sufficient motor control because you're able to use this, you know, this one motor plan, do you have enough to be able to do all the things that you need to do? Like that's where it comes in. Now, I do want to hold space and say, like, there are kiddos who play video games, and that is fantastic, actually, to help to build some of their motor control. Like, I'm not gonna say this is a whole thing that we should never ever do. Like, that is not, that is not the ground I'm gonna stand on. Although I do have some pretty strong beliefs about screens in my own home. But I am not saying this for everybody, you should never look on a screen ever in a million years. What I am saying is we want our kids to be able to do everything that they need and want to do during the day. And think about the motor control that you need to be able to open all these containers when you're cooking in the kitchen, when you're doing your squeezing your tube of toothpaste, when you are writing, when you are, you know, going outside and you need to be able to hold on to something to play, to hold onto the swings or to pull up on a tree. And then when you get older, like you need to be able to fix the sink or whatever. Like, we don't want to be the people who are holding our kids back because we didn't consider that when they were younger.

Dr. Amy Moore 42:13

Love that. All right, keep going.

unknown 42:16

Okay.

Sarah Collins 42:17

So all right. So now we've got, you know, our motor skills, right? And so now it actually comes into this plan of can I make these letters that, you know, that then correspond to the words that we've thought in our heads, right? So there is a big piece, and we've talked about this briefly of, you know, we've got to have each letter is gonna have a different plan, right? And then we have to put them together. So for some kids, that planning is actually really a struggle, like to come up with this idea first of what it is. So we have to practice that in itself. And a lot of our research says, you know, as much as we can work on these underlying skills, I'm working on core strength, sure. That's working on handwriting without actually writing, but we simultaneously, or a little after we work on that core strength, need to literally teach this motor plan to our younger kids. So, you know, we're we can use a program that's like learning without tears. There's a bunch of different ones that are that are out there. We can use, you know, there's just so many. And we can get into that if you really want to. We can talk through what some of some of them are. But let's at this point just say, like, whatever it is, we need to have some explicit teaching to figure out like what are these different patterns. Because for print, there's a whole lot more. You have to start at different points on the paper, you're having to make bigger letters and smaller letters. Cursive is a lot easier, actually, because you just flow right through rather than all of the stop and start and turning around. And so we in my own home, once we learned to read print, we write in cursive and we go that route rather than actually teaching the print because no. If if you are going to be writing, when and notice I am saying if because I realize that we live in a very interesting society right now. But if you are going to be writing, cursive is going to be a lot more productive than writing really slowly as far as print goes. But so if we can practice this motor plan and the actual patterns going through, that's where the copy work can come in, where you aren't necessarily putting your own thoughts on paper, but you're just looking at it in front of you. And that's an easier task than having to come up with your own thoughts and also the motor plan. And also think about your, you know, punctuation and your capitalization and all of that. That's a whole other component. So now that we've talked through like this these motor pieces, I do really want to mention visual processing. This was a huge piece for my own son. He had visual scanning deficiency and convergence disorder. And this is kind of what brought me along this path of no, this is really important. He did not learn to read by reading, you know, looking on the page because he the visual processing, he learned to read by spelling and then by writing, because he needed that motor component. And I want to make sure, again, that our kids are getting every sense that is possible to influence because all these things come together, right? And so if visual processing, you know, being able to, I mean, this is just the processing that you know this better than me, but processing is different than the actual, you know, scanning, a visual scanning. That's the first piece of that. So for him, when he couldn't, then his visual processing was delayed. So we had to remediate and work through his eye muscular first, and then work on what was the impact of that within the brain. And then we could start to do it. Like then he could start to recognize the letters, then he could start to write the letters. So all kind of came together in that way. But if your child, so for him, it was we noticed one because he told me, Mom, how are you supposed to be reading when the words are moving on the page? I was like, Oh buddy, they're not moving on the page. But what was happening, like he was reading through one eye, trying to read through one eye, and then hit that eye would get tired and he'd go through the other because his eyes just were not fully developed in coordination with each other. But then that really impacted so much of what he was obviously what he was seeing and understanding in that way. So visual processing and the actual hard hardware and software, we can go in that route. The hardware of the eye muscles and the software of the brain both matter in that Sure.

Why Cursive Can Unlock Flow

Dr. Amy Moore 46:44

So you said something really telling. You said that cursive is makes us more productive than printing, or cursive can can you talk more about that? Because so we what you're saying is you can be more productive in the writing task if you're writing in cursive versus printing. And my assumption is because there is not a break in between each letter, that you don't have to worry about spacing in between each letter, that there isn't such a laborious process. Yes, right. How does that impact creativity? And you talked about how important our thoughts are, right? So how does that impact our ability to get thoughts out of our mind and onto paper?

Sarah Collins 47:27

So if we can think about the concept of flow, right? Like when you are in this moment, especially for our kiddos, that really um they're one of the term could be hyper focus. I don't specifically love that term, but like when you're really in your moment of something that you are super interested in, then you're you're in it. You know, you are focused on what that is, you're making this, it's harder to get distracted, right? And we want to help our kids to get into that so that their thoughts can get out, right? We want them in that state of flow, or you're again, another term is hyper focused. So if they can do that, one way to help is we're not gonna stop this every two seconds with forming a different letter and coming out a different space and you know, making moving up to the top of the page and then down to the bottom. I unfortunately can't remember right now, but I would love to, the number of spots that you can start your letter, letters in print versus where you everyone, every single letter in cursive starts at the same spot at the bottom. So I wish I could remember that right now. But we can Google it. You can look that up. Ask ChatGBT that. That's a great thing to ask. How many spots do you start your prints? But if you are using your cursive, you're just flowing right through. And so you're not doing that break every single second to have to come up with a new idea for each single letter, then the execution, then the evaluation. You're just flowing right through. And so our research shows that that can really help, specifically for our kiddos with ADHD, that we're just going right through and we're helping them to get into that state of flow.

Sandy Zamalis 49:05

I've read that it's helped it helps with kids with dyslexia too, especially if they've got the visual processing piece to it, because it helps that differentiation. Like like P's, Bs, D's, and Q's aren't as alike as they are in print. So it's easier for that to flow. And oftentimes they have beautiful cursive handwriting, and so they like that style because it really adapts to their creative side. Um, because you know, in general, with that high visual processing, they tend to tend to have more creative tendencies. So like the flow of the art part of it comes across even more. Um, it's been fun to watch students work through that. I wonder what your take is. I feel like in even in homeschool circles, but definitely in public school circles, the decrease in explicit teaching, both in cursive and in print, has gone down. I find the kids that we work with at our centers, they're just winging it. You know, I can tell because they'll make the same letter five different ways, right? They did because they know what it's supposed to look like, but they, you know, don't have enough muscle memory to pull it all together and make it automatic for them. What is your take on that as a society? Is that just because we're in a digital time, people aren't thinking about it as important anymore?

Sarah Collins 50:24

So I think that yes, we were in that point where we didn't think of it as important. And so, and our teachers are really strapped with trying to get all of this information in by the end of the year in their 180 days. Um, it's really interesting we're seeing a pendulum swing go the other way. In fact, Pennsylvania, which is the state that I live in, just passed legislation, which part of me is like, why is there legislation about what you have to do? But anyway, we're gonna get started. We can digress about that at a different point in time. But legislation that they're gonna put cursive back into the school system. And so they're recognizing that there is a difference and that we do need this explicit teaching. So now, does that carry over into the homeschool community? I sure hope so. Um, I really do think it is important to go through how do we form these letters? Let's practice just this letter. You know, again, this is kind of separating out the task. This is not your, I'm just gonna all of a sudden I want to tell you all about my hike today. So I'm gonna let you know about that. And let me try to put it down in cursive. Like that's you can't just automatically do that. And us expecting that our kids can should, I mean, that's that's really a hard thing to do. So we need to at least give some like basics of let's trace this letter. Where would you start? How do we flow through and to really work in that way?

Sandy Zamalis 51:45

And give them lots of practice, right? Yeah, I feel like that is the piece that gets missing too, is that they just they might get that initial instruction, but the practice is going away. Yeah. Partly because it's tedious, right? And there's a lot of fun things we can do, a lot more computer, so we can transition quickly to doing things on the computer versus having to write in a workbook or on a sheet over and over and over again.

Sarah Collins 52:09

Yep. Exactly. And that's why I mean some of those workbooks are really tedious. And so in fact, I'm putting it all out there, guys. I'm an occupational therapist and I never had my kids do a workbook. Like instead, like we really worked through how do you form these letters. We did that in sand. We did that on, you know, a window in front of us. We did that because that's a vertical surface to help, you know, with our core strength. We did that, you know, by um we got like wooden letters that we went through. The roller coaster writer, she has like wooden things that you can go through. I think grooved writing also does the same. So like you get this feedback of the actual practice, but then we did copy work of books, and I didn't care what they were caught. I think my son did like a Star Wars book. Middle or my youngest son, right now, he's super into zoology. And so I got him one of those big, giant, like every animal under the sun national geographic books, and he and a bunch of stickers. And so he's like working through, I think he just did sloths the other day, like put a sloth pick sticker on his page, and then he's like copying what's there and turning it into cursive. So, you know, he's practicing in that way. I love it. So it doesn't have to be laborious, it can be something you're interested in, too. Right.

Dr. Amy Moore 53:25

And can or what is your recommendation on how you assess that? So, does it decrease motivation to actually assign a grade to how beautiful the writing looks, or should the grade be for effort and practice and something that approximates what a cursive letter B should look like?

Sarah Collins 53:48

Yeah. So when I am looking at quote unquote legibility, I'm not like, wow, this is so beautiful. It should be, you know, hung up on my wall. What instead what I'm looking at is legibility. Now, when I'm thinking about legibility, I'm thinking about line orientation, right? So is it here or are we like going all the way down the paper, which makes it really hard to understand? I'm also looking at the size to see, like, you know, if your cursive L is little, it's an E. Or if your regular um, you know, word, if you're putting your if your B, like if you're printing it and you're putting your B below the line, it what letter is that, right? Um, so we have to think through like your size as your so your size, your formation, and your line orientation. And that's what helps us to know whether it's quote unquote legible or not. So we kind of have to define that term. So if I were to in general, what I do with with my kiddos is I'm we're looking at like the word that they just wrote, right? So let's say he did write about sloths. I'm just gonna make up a sentence like the sloths hanging from a tree, right? Okay. So I'll say, we'll write this down. And then I'll say, like, which word do you think is the best out of your sentence, right? And then we talk about, I agree, sloth was the best. And look how high up your L was, but hmm, that eight, it's below that line, which makes it look like an N. Can we fix that? Let's do it together, right? So I'm not like, nope, that was terrible, let's redo it, but trying to point out, okay, what was the best part that you're doing and something else that we can work on together. And it could be that it's all great. And then we're just building up endurance, right? So, because that's a piece of it too. You know, there's a lot of families that'll come to me and say, you know, my child's hand starts to hurt after a certain amount of time. And I I get that. It's oftentimes that they just don't have the muscular endurance. So that's the same thing. If you're thinking about, you know, I'm going for a run, you can have great formation of your legs and you're, you know, holding your core strength strength, but you can't run longer than, you know, a mile, right? So, okay, we need to build up that endurance. That's what you work on then. And I do get it, there are a lot of people that are like, why do you need a long endurance for writing at this point? You're probably right. I mean, when we think about what's functional, it's not like I'm asking anybody to write a full paper by hand anymore. I say that. But my daughter's a good friend, my daughter's a senior, she'll graduate from our homeschool this year, and she has a lot of friends who are going to college, and St. Joe's specifically, where we've got two, two of her friends are going there. They have teachers who can't quite figure out how they're gonna pull this AI and how we're gonna prevent cheating and whatever. And so they literally can only bring a spiral notebook into their classroom. So I don't know how long that's gonna last, or if that's just like a, oh my gosh, we don't know what we're gonna do, um, or if we're gonna go back that way. But again, we don't want to hold our kids back from that. So just thinking in that realm. What I do think that we are still gonna be using our hands for mostly is that taking notes piece, because it is really important just to be able to have that motor plan and motor pattern. I mean, there the majority of our research, if you were to look up handwriting research, it would be talking about the influences on brain function and on memory specifically. But there's not a whole lot of research out there that's gonna be like, oh, what is it's important because it makes it look pretty. No, like the whole the main reason that people are asking questions about handwriting is because they want to know, does it really matter with our memories? And the answer is yes, it does, because we are using these different motor patterns as you're writing and you are in the flow, and it does add that extra sensory component. So even if you can, you know, just have a recording of your conversation or have a recording of, you know, what's going on in in class, for you to then take it and put it into your own thoughts, pull out what's important, put it on that piece of paper. You're already working more than if you just got this, you know, transcript of the class. So we want to give our children that opportunity to be able to really learn, right? So that's where the endurance can come in.

Dr. Amy Moore 58:22

Yeah, I love that you brought that up because research does say that we encode information differently when we write it in our own handwriting than we do if we type it or hear it. And so in order to bank that information away in long-term memory for use later, um it is important to put it in our our own writing.

Sarah Collins 58:44

Absolutely, and our our own words, you know, you're already doing some narration there. And and if we are teaching note-taking or different types of note-taking as you're going along as part, you know, once they get older, you're already asking them to take this, to encode it, yes, to get it so that they're ready for their memory. But even just the act of writing it and then summarizing it again, you've already heard it three times because you've heard it coming in, you've written it, and then you've summarized it. That's three times that's going there. So that if we remove the handwriting and remove our own summary, it's a lot harder.

Dr. Amy Moore 59:25

Yeah.

Handwriting Red Flags Across Ages

Sandy Zamalis 59:27

So there's different, you know, developmental stages in this whole in writing for sure. From an OT's perspective, what are some key, I would say, red flags or signals to a parent that it might be time to reach out and get an assessment by an OT to see if we need some help and maybe think about it um for our parents, our listeners from those different stages. Okay, because it can look different. There you can seek uh OT help for different purposes throughout their development in handwriting. So let's start with like early, you know, kindergarten. Some of those are a little easier to spot, but I'm sure it gets a little more.

Sarah Collins 1:00:04

I'm actually gonna start even earlier. Really? Okay. Yeah, because crawling really makes a huge difference with our handwriting. It actually, the pressure on your hands when you are crawling helps to form some of those muscles. In fact, the arches in our hands are even formed by that. Plus, we know the crossbody movements, you know, what's that doing to integrating both hemispheres of our brains and even helping to integrate our primitive reflexes? So crawling is really important. And if we skip that, or we have even what we call a janky leg crawl or, you know, scooting along on your on your booty, all of those are impacting what can then later turn into handwriting. So if your child, I know this is gonna sound so strange because so many people are like, my child just went to walking. They must be a genius. And I'm like, sure they are. Push them down, please. They are a genius, but let's go back. I don't want to tell you that your child is not a genius, because I do think every child is so smart. But push them down and get back to that. And so if your kiddo missed that, don't say like, oh my gosh, this is horrible. We're at the end of our rope, right? No, we can think about other ways to do that. In fact, I've talked about hiking in the past, like go hiking and you know, crawl across a log because you can do that later on and you're older and you're not thinking, like, oh my gosh, what's my mom making me do? Now, once we do get to kindergarten, like what are some of our red flags? Now, I really before I even start, you know, with writing, again, we've talked some about this core strength, is I want to know, like, can your kiddo climb the ladder at the playground? Can your kiddo climb that rock wall? Can they climb a tree if they want to? Like these are the beginnings of the motor planning. Can they form adequate grip strength to do so, to pull their bodies up? More so than I'm worried about this. Can they, you know, do this distal movement? Because without that core strength and the motor planning, that little movement within their hands is going to be a lot harder. So I want to look at that. Then some other flags that, you know, are things that I want parents to be paying attention to. When you're, you know, in the kitchen, can you can they open the Ziploc bags? Can they turn the you know, your toothpaste? You know, can you open that? Can you feed yourself well? You know, those that's where a lot of those motor skills are coming in at the beginning when you're younger, is like self-feeding. Can you get that little pincer grasp? And then later on, like, can you control that fork really well? All of these things kind of come together and most of the time we see some carryover between activities that if your struggle is handwriting, it's not only handwriting most of the time. If your child just has messy handwriting, I'm actually not that concerned about it. It's more of if it goes all around in all of these different activities.

Dr. Amy Moore 1:02:56

I love that you say that because I think that as parents, we automatically go to a laziness and a motivation interpretation of messy handwriting. So speak to that a little bit, like why maybe we shouldn't stress so much about it and why maybe that isn't actually what's happening.

Sarah Collins 1:03:15

Right. So we've talked about all of the different pieces that go into handwriting. And so if handwriting is hard, we have to think about wow, there is a lot that's going on here. So most likely it's not just that you're lazy, right? There's a whole lot of, wow, is my body secure? Are my hands warmed up? Am I thinking clearly? Right. So just a messy handwriting, and then we're like, oh, you're so lazy. Wait, actually. So what I want to think through is does this matter across different activities, right? And so that's where where I want to look over at these other like self-feeding and and all the like drawing, painting, like all of these other things, so that we can kind of narrow down like what part of this is it? Is it the words? Is it, you know, your vision? Is it the motor plan itself? Like there's so many different aspects that just us assuming like you have messy handwriting and so you're lazy, hmm, we might be missing an underlying piece. But if it's not impacting anywhere else, like you could do every other thing that you wanted to do under the sun, and all you have is messy handwriting, go be a doctor and write your notes that way. They have messy handwriting.

Handwriting Programs Worth Trying

Dr. Amy Moore 1:04:37

Talk a little bit about different curriculum that you have um evaluated or tried or come across. Do you have specific recommendations uh for curriculums?

Sarah Collins 1:04:49

Yeah, I do actually. There are a lot of different curriculums out there. So let's just take like two for time's sake, two that I really, really love. Number one would be it's called Size Matters. Um and I'm sorry, I I'm laughing because every time that I talk about this, I was leading a this is horrible. I was leading a conversation one time with all of a bunch of different family members of people in our co-op. And my a good friend of mine just sent her husband a text. She was like, I gotta remember this later. Size matters. And he wrote back and he was like, So now every single time I just start laughing. So I'm okay. I'm glad that I shared that now. Anyway, let's digress, let's jump back. And so size matters. See, I know. Now you can't. The funny thing is, I went there too. Like, my mind. And then when you bust it out laughing, then I'm busting out laughing. I don't know, we could edit it out or we can leave it because I bet you that somebody else was thinking that exact same thing.

Sandy Zamalis 1:05:59

They will never. Forget the name of this handwriting.

Sarah Collins 1:06:02

I know. I don't know if that's good or bad, right? But the reason I like this one, it was designed by an occupational therapist. And she has different letter um boxes. So that, you know, your B that's going to go up higher, right? Then your C that's lower. And they're color coded most of the time, which really helps to one, bring that visual attention to your kiddos, but it's also giving you the spatial relation size, like so that you can recognize. And so for kids that are really struggling with the space between their words or that line orientation, because remember, we defined those within if this is legible or not, it starts with those cues and then it removes them as time goes on. So I really love that one for our kiddos that really that we think it could be a visual processing, or that are when you're noticing that their words are really squished together, or they're having a hard time with that line orientation, go that route. So they always use the terms and they're very consistent with it, you know, your big line down or your little line down, or your little curve, or your big curve. And they use those throughout the whole thing. And they also are really great about their order, you know, of things that are happening in the order that they actually present the letters to students. I really enjoy, I again, I told you I did not even use workbooks, so it didn't go in that route. But they have something called wet dry try. So it allows us to try with multi-sensory ways. So basically, I would write the letter H on a small slant board, which has the spot where I'm gonna start it. I'm gonna write the letter H. Then my kiddo's gonna look at it and they're gonna get a little sponge, get it wet, and they're gonna make it wet to erase my H. Then they're gonna dry it with, you know, a little paper towel or whatever. And then they're they still have somewhat of an outline because even if you dry it, you can still see it. And so then they write, you know, their own H and it gives them some spacing within that. So that's my favorite part of that program. But it is, it can be really great to have like they have wooden letters that go along with it that you can make in that way. And we did that a lot with my younger son or with my middle son that I talked about his visual scanning problems and convergence. So that was really helpful for him too. Those are my two favorites.

Sandy Zamalis 1:08:34

Is it beneficial to have um a child be able to write like both on paper or slant board, but also like maybe on a whiteboard, like a vertical surface, so that they can use their core for that?

Sarah Collins 1:08:47

That you mentioned that. Yes, yes, that is a great plan. In fact, we used to in our homeschool, we would do what I called bath math for a really long time. And this was when my youngest was around one, right? So then Caleb, who's my middle son that I keep talking about and coming back to, he was six. And so my one-year-old Reese would be, you know, all over the place. And everyone's always like, How do we homeschool with toddlers everywhere? Well, bath math is how one of the times that it helped us. So I would put him in the bathtub and I would be in the bathroom and have my older son do his math on the mirror. And so he was getting one the core strength and stability. So you're getting that stability through your core, but also through your shoulder blades. Your eye hand coordination is different when you're at that level. And also, if you think about when you're holding a pencil, it's really hard to actually, or a window marker or whatever, to hold it with that same fisted grasp when it's in front of you. It's actually easier to hold it in a way that would translate to a better grasp pattern on a pencil. So he would do that up on the mirror and write his math problems and whatever, and we'd go across that way. And my younger son was safe in the bathtub because I'm right there next to him, too. We're all together in a little tiny bathroom on this vertical surface. So, yeah, anytime that you can do that, going back washing windows, that's the same. Right, you have to do that right after. So now we also have a clean mirror.

How To Work With Sarah Collins

Dr. Amy Moore 1:10:17

So give our listeners a little bit of how they can work with you, what resources you have, why would they choose you rather than just seeing someone who is licensed in their state that perhaps insurance might cover?

Sarah Collins 1:10:30

Right. So, what I do as a homeschool OT is I come alongside of those homeschool parents. And this is very different. In fact, I don't think as of now, and I look frequently that there's someone else who is doing what I'm doing, which makes it important because I can help to bridge that gap, right? So when you are looking absolutely for someone who can work within your state, work with your kiddo. In fact, a lot of times I work with those OTs too, right? And working with parents and kind of help to bridge that. Because if you are working in in a clinic, right, we are often bound as OTs by specific productivity. We have to be seeing this number of clients and this many, you know, minutes that we can be with each one so that we can bill for our insurance. And this is not by any fault of the OT, but this is the system that they that they're working in. And so they only have so much time. And a lot of times parents are coming in at the end and they're like, but we what do I do at home? And sometimes they can be really great and helpful and be able to fill, you know, this is what I want you to do, and this is how this can really impact your day. Or sometimes the parents can come in, but that also depends on how many other students are there. And so there's just so many variables. And so I work with parents and say, all right, this is what's going on according to your, you know, OT or according to your eyes of what you're thinking. How does this impact your day? And how can you either A work within the person? So this is where even a lot of times I'll be referring to you because I'll say, wow, I'm really seeing that there's something cognitive going on here. How can we work on that? Well, it's not me. That's why I'm gonna refer you, you know, over to Learning RX. Or, you know, I'm saying we need to build up a lot of strength. Here's some ways that you can do that within your homeschool day. You need to build up, you know, we're working on executive functioning. How are ways that we can do that during the day? How does that impact your homeschool? Or how can we set up the environment? Or what curriculums are working well? So I'm really kind of on the outskirts of when you're seeing a struggle and you need to either A, build your team, or B, have recommendations exactly for your homeschool. That's me. I'm the resources and recommendations person. And you have a podcast? I do. I have the OT is in, and we cover topics like executive functioning, handwriting, obviously, sensory processing is a huge one. We go through all the different senses. I also look at things like what are other occupations that really matter for our kids. We talk a lot about play, risky play. I talk a lot about handwriting, obviously, literacy, reading, like sometimes even ADLs like getting dressed. And if your kiddo is struggling with toilet training, even we're gonna have an episode on that. So kind of run the gamut of all of those things.

Dr. Amy Moore 1:13:23

And I noticed you have some courses available to you on your website. Yeah. Are you looking at it? You're my favorite. I'm not looking at it. This is straight from memory. I just know you have a lot of stuff happening out there.

Sarah Collins 1:13:37

You're so great. I do. I have courses, you know, we've really uh scraped the top of this handwriting issue. Um, so I have one on handwriting where we dive in way more on what is the visual pieces, what are the core strength, and what can I do about that, right? So I call that one kind of the pieces of the handwriting puzzle. I have a course on sensory processing. What are all these senses that you're talking about? And how does this impact my day? And if my kiddo is really struggling, what do I do? I have a course on that. And then one on executive functioning, like what are each of those executive functioning skills and how can we, you know, address them in the person, in the environment, accommodations with different occupations that we're doing during the day. So I have that one for parents and actually just came out with a course for teens. A lot of times, you know, if we could build a language around executive functioning, then we can begin to learn and advocate for ourselves and then recognize all right, where do I need the most supports? Sometimes we can do that, you know, within ourselves. Sometimes we need to do that with others. So there's a big literature component to that course where we read Hatchet and Ella Enchanted and talk about their executive functioning skills. So really to build that language around it. So I have all those courses as well.

Dr. Amy Moore 1:14:54

Well, Sarah Collins, we are so excited that you joined us again uh to share your wisdom and knowledge and experience with our listeners.

Sarah Collins 1:15:03

So we just thank you for blessing us with your time today. I am really honored. This is super fun. So thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Amy Moore 1:15:13

Um, so listeners, we will put links to Sarah's podcast, Sarah's website, Sarah's courses, Sarah's blog, Sarah's social media in our show notes. And of course, we'll uh put that in those social media posts that you see that we'll be promoting as well. We hope you feel a little smarter after spending this hour with us. Okay, thanks for tuning in to today's episode.

Next Steps And Where To Follow

Dr. Amy Moore 1:15:39

Wondering what's next? Well, don't forget to sign up for our free monthly newsletter at thebrainy moms.com. Be sure to follow us on social media at the Brainy Moms and subscribe to our YouTube channel at the Brainy Moms Podcast. And last, check out our sponsor at learningrx.com.