The Writing Glitch: Hack Dysgraphia No Pencil Required

In today's episode, Nicole Santamaria of OT for Real Life debunks three myths you never knew about executive function skills. Nicole is an occupational therapist and solopreneur in Miami, Florida. She talks about organizational skills, co-morbid diagnoses, and hope for students with executive function delays. Cheri shares an intervention on form constancy. https://learn.nicolesantamaria.com/podcastCheri Promo Code: Cheri10 https://thewritingglitch.com/

Show Notes

In today's episode, Nicole Santamaria of OT for Real Life shares gold nuggets about executive function skills. She answers Three Myths about Executive Function Skills: EF skills just develop, EF skills don’t get better, and EF struggles mean that you have ADHD. She adds a Bonus Myth about medication!

She offered her Executive Function Starter Kit about time management, organization, and working memory at 10% off using the Promo Code Cheri10. The regular price is $87.  She also offers a resource guide. To get her bundle go to https://learn.nicolesantamaria.com/podcastCheri   You can learn more about other courses from Nicole at https://learn.nicolesantamaria.com 

You can find the handouts listed below at The Writing Glitch Community https://thewritingglitch.com/ Click on the Community button at the top right.

Nicole's 3 myths pdf. Listen to the episode to discover how to bust these myths.

Form constancy bdpq worksheet. Listen to the episode about how to use the worksheet.
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Creators & Guests

Host
Cheri Dotterer
Cheri is an international speaker, author, and consultant who helps teachers, therapists, and parents build clarity, community, and competency around the barriers to writing success. Her book, Handwriting Brain-Body DisConnect, has remained in the Top 100 on Amazon since publication in Handwriting Reference and Learning Disabilities. It was also a Top 10 Finalist in the Author Academy Awards in 2019. In addition, she was nominated the USA 2022 Dysgraphia Expert of the Year by Global Health and Pharma Magazine. She has worked in many concentration areas as an occupational therapist for 30 years. However, it wasn't until starting her private practice that she found her passion for helping others understand this disability. In addition, she has been an adjunct instructor at several universities. She lives with her husband of 32 years. They have two adult children. Her heroes are Evelyn Yerger, her grandmother, and Esther, Queen of Susa. Together, we can grow 110 million leaders and hack dysgraphia by building skills, applying knowledge, and transcending futures.
Guest
Nicole Santamaria
Miami Handwriting was founded by Nicole Santamaria OTR/L. Nicole has been an occupational therapist since 1995 with a vast experience in pediatrics and adults. She is NDT trained with a strong foundation in development. She is highly skilled in motor skills development, executive functioning skills development, and handwriting skills. She is currently a school therapist for Miami charter schools. She also provides private occupational therapy services and specializes in everything handwriting, executive skills development and coaching. She has in person, online resources and virtual services available. Nicole reaches out to the local and virtual community with teacher training on normal development as it relates to the classroom, embedding executive functioning skills in the classroom, sensory-motor, visual motor, and handwriting skills at a variety of schools. Nicole firmly believes with the right information both parents and teachers can support their children to reach their maximum potential.

What is The Writing Glitch: Hack Dysgraphia No Pencil Required?

The Writing Glitch is brought to you by Dotterer Educational Consulting. Our Founder and Owner, Cheri Dotterer, is the host.

Build courage, compassion, and collaboration to help students thrive and grow leaders that transcend a lifetime, regardless of dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, using sensory-motor processing and neuroscience-based instructional interventions. No Pencil Required!

We interview teachers, therapists, and parents about how they have seen a transformation in children having these disabilities and co-morbid conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). They share how they help students grow and prosper.

We believe we can grow 110 million leaders together by building skills, applying knowledge, and transcending futures. Join us to hack dysgraphia. No Pencil Required.

Each episode contains one intervention to help you support students with writing challenges the next day you are in your classroom. These interventions are explicit, systematic, cumulative, and multisensory. They are designed to support ALL students through targeted, daily visual-perceptual, visual-motor, and memory interventions. These interventions benefit all students and harm none.

All students have access to writing regardless of their status in the classroom. The interventions were created to take up to 30 seconds to 2 minutes of your classroom time. Strategic lesson planning increases classroom engagement.

All interventions can be adapted for students with physical disabilities because they support the Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and well-being of all students. In addition, these interventions impact all subject matter classrooms. Whether you are teaching English language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, music, or art, these interventions will benefit your classroom atmosphere across ALL grade levels.

You have put your blood, sweat, and tears into investing in your education and children. Don’t let a misunderstanding about this disability stop you from providing best practices.

In case you don’t know me. I’m Cheri Dotterer, 2022 Dysgraphia Expert of the Year. This honor was bestowed on me by Global Health and Pharma Magazine. In 2023, they awarded my company the Best Dysgraphia Professional Development Program.

It took challenges at home and on the job to wake me up to the impact dysgraphia has on all students. Struggling my entire life with communication issues, I was mistaken that only students with learning disabilities could have dysgraphia.

My thoughts shifted when my gifted daughter asked for help with spelling. My son struggles with handwriting. Then, a parent asked me why her child could read and have trouble writing. Finding answers became the drive that gets me out of bed in the morning.

It’s a big shock when you discover how pervasive writing difficulties are and how little people know about how to help–even OTs. I used to think I was the only OT who struggled with understanding dysgraphia. It turns out many have questions.

Occupational, physical, and speech therapists are not trained to teach. Teachers are.

Occupational, speech, and physical therapists are trained in neuroscience. Teachers are not.

Let this podcast be your first line of defense to help your students transcend their learning disabilities. Show your school district how much you genuinely care about all of your students by sharing it with your colleagues.

After each episode, I challenge you to share your key takeaway from the podcast in our FREE yet private community. Share your student wins. Get support on the challenges.

Join The Writing Glitch Community. https://thewritingglitch.com/
Connect with Cheri at www.cheridotterer.com or info@thewritingglitch.com

[00:00:00] Jan: good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, depending on when you listen to the podcast. The podcast is available on iTunes and Spotify. I'm Jan Orcutt, along with Cheri Dotterer, an occupational therapist and dysgraphia expert.
Welcome to The Writing. Glitch Dysgraphia discussions where we hack dysgraphia, no pencil required. Today on episode four, we are interviewing Nicole Santamaria from Miami, Florida. She is the owner of OT for real life.
She is going to be sharing some insights about executive function skills. I am so interested in learning how executive function impacts students with dysgraphia. Hello, Cheri. How are you today? Really?
[00:00:49] Cheri: Hello, Jan. Yes. We record this podcast at Alvernia University and on my way here today, I felt like the universe was trying to push me off the road.
It took all I could do to keep present and alert and just focused on today's podcast. Right now I am just praising God that he brought everyone safely. I didn't get a scratch on the car because the car is not mine. Mine's in the shop this week. Again, it's been absolutely crazy trying to keep two cars on the road, let alone three cars.
We have three drivers and it's just been crazy, but I am totally looking forward to what Nicole has to say. Nicole, how are you?
[00:01:31] Nicole: Hello. I am really doing good. I had a good day. I left my afternoon free to record this podcast with you ladies and hopefully get some good information to your community and talk about executive functioning skills and dysgraphia.
[00:01:47] Cheri: And before we move on, I wanna find out Jan, how are you doing? Really ,
[00:01:53] Jan: really? I'm doing okay. I've done better, but I'm happy to be here. Really happy to be here. And actually, I'm really excited to hear what Nicole has to say because I . Viewed several hours of videos with you and she earlier in the year.
I'm really looking forward to talking with you, Nicole.
[00:02:13] Nicole: Oh, okay. Gotcha. It's if we almost know each other, right?
[00:02:17] Jan: Almost. may I ask the question? Nicole, have you ever had somebody ask you how are you feeling with
a really
[00:02:25] Nicole: no. . , but I like it
[00:02:26] Cheri: exactly. Nicole, we met several years ago online, and we've probably interviewed one another several times over the years.
[00:02:37] Nicole: Couple
times at least,
right?
[00:02:39] Cheri: But I was much more excited to meet you in person recently.
[00:02:42] Nicole: Oh yeah. I know that was a treat. I met one of my online friends in real life.
[00:02:49] Cheri: While you were driving up to meet me in Lake Worth, Florida, what were you feeling? And you were also writing with somebody. Can you share a little bit about those feelings?
[00:03:01] Nicole: , it was actually nice I don't have a lot of colleagues that I work with because I'm a solopreneur, so I work by myself.
And especially not lot of OT colleagues that I get to chit chat with. On my way up it was myself and another ot. At the end of the day we talked about stuff, but we also talked about OT things of course. We were on our way to meet Cheri, my online friend that is also an ot.
I thought it was a great way to spend my evening. Glad we got to.
[00:03:26] Cheri: Was that you or was that Linda That kept poking me and going, I'm starstruck. Is it really you? Is it really you?
[00:03:32] Nicole: Yeah. I don't remember. Probably both of us. Cuz we were like, what? We're really here, .
[00:03:39] Jan: I have a question for you, Cheri.
Why are you asking Nicole about her feelings?
[00:03:45] Cheri: One of the things about asking about how you are really is because feelings and emotions drive what we do. They inhibit and they facilitate reactions in our environment. Emotions are executive function skills that have a strong brain body connection.
Emotions are at the core of positively and , negatively impacting our writing skills and so are executive functions. Jan, I'm ready to kick off some of these questions that Nicole can give us some great gold nuggets. How about you?
[00:04:16] Jan: Yes, but before we do, we need to introduce our sponsor.
Today's podcast was brought to you by Dotterer Educational Consulting. We are a holistic community based organization that supports people with dysgraphia from the inside out. We use neuroscience and research based content to design interventions for the whole classroom that can be completed. In two minutes each day and thwart this Disability before it becomes a challenge.
All without raising the sector a pencil. You can find more information about our services by downloading the app.
A p p dot The. Writing Glitch. Dot com. That's A P P dot W R I T I N G G L T I C H.com. Use the hashtags, The, Writing Glitch, and dysgraphia. Awareness or tag, Cheri Dotterer. We search every day for new ways to cheer you. We believe that every person is a king or queen of their own potential. Unleashing that potential starts with effective writing skills.
Effective writing skills. Start by connecting the brain and body. Join The Writing, Glitch Community today.
Nicole, what is executive function?
[00:05:43] Nicole: . Executive functioning skills. There's a couple of different ways people make analogies. It's sometimes they say it's like the air traffic control system of the brain, and it's navigating everything coming in and out. But essentially executive functioning skills are what?
Helps us get through our day to get things done that we want to do, get things done that we have to do in a way that's smooth, efficient, not stressful. And they develop from a very early age all the way through the age of 25. Executive functioning skills are basically, the root, the foundation of everything and anything that we do, , it's really important to distinguish if it's something we want to do or something we have to do you still need those executive functioning skills for both of those activities.
That's a very important
piece.
[00:06:31] Jan: Cheri, what's your definition of executive function?
[00:06:34] Cheri: I like the analysis of the air traffic control. I've been associating the executive function skills with the prefrontal cortex is the chief executive officer of the brain, and it is making associations with the environment.
Relating everything that we're doing to associate with something else. It is the thing that's making those associations work.
[00:07:01] Jan: Nicole, how did you get into executive functioning skills?
[00:07:05] Nicole: As an OT we have this huge umbrella of all the great, wonderful, awesome ways we can help our clients, whether they're kids or adults, whether they're school based or clinicians, Actually the term executive functioning skills, I wasn't that familiar with it.
And Cheri, I don't know. When we were in school, which was quite for me, it was quite a while ago. I never heard about executive functioning skills when I was in my clinic. We didn't really talk about it either. I feel like. Maybe it was like a speech thing that we would hear, but I didn't, we didn't really use the term executive functioning skills as occupational therapist, or it wasn't as common in the community.
I had a good friend of mine who was taking her little boy to a tutor. And the tutor's Oh, what your son has is executive functioning skills, Executive functioning disorder. And then she comes to me, she's Do you know what this is? And then as she's giving me the description of what it is, they have a hard time getting started doing things.
They have a hard time completing activities. They have a hard time managing all their stuff. They second guess themselves a lot. And I was. Wait a minute. That's like what we do in our OT session all the time with all the kids. We naturally, as OTs embed these executive functioning skills into our sessions.
Now I had a fancy term to put with what executive functioning skills were, which as OTs we already did in our.
[00:08:31] Jan: Was it easy to get information on these executive function skills or what are your go-to resources?
[00:08:38] Nicole: I started taking a couple of classes whenever I would see the term executive functioning skills. Just so I would learn a little bit more about it and have a bigger foundation. I'm a learner, I love to learn. I love to read, I love to get information.
But what I found was a lot of the resources were strictly to improve academics. In the world of executive functioning skills, people freak out when school isn't working, when they're struggling as a student. They either pull in a tutor and if they're lucky, they get somebody to work on executive functioning skills.
But again, it's focused on academics. As the occupational therapist, we know that executive functioning skills are needed for life skills from, managing your time to managing your leisure activities. And managing your schoolwork. One of my favorite resources was the Smart but Scattered books with Dr.
Peg Dawson. And I don't know how I came across it accidentally when I was doing one of my deep dive. She has a coaching program and I wanna say it was like about six months. It was pretty intense, we got to work directly with her. It was a group coaching. . . It was great to hear the coaching model and then take it and apply it to what I do with occupational therapy.
In the group I was the only OT everybody's a teacher, a school person. It's very unique, I feel to have occupational therapy. Look at executive functioning skills , with our OT hat on.
[00:09:59] Cheri: As far as answering your question that you asked a little while ago, I'd never heard the word executive function until my first parent came to me and said, What executive function schools is my son missing? And I went, What the are you talking about? And. It was after that I started really diving into what that meant.
And I did also find Peg Dawson's book Smart, but Scattered. And that helped me as well understand the connections . We learned different terms in OT school than executive function, but we learned the material, we learned it differently. ,
[00:10:43] Nicole: Right? Just like the terminology and maybe the perspective is a little bit different , , I agree. We , didn't really hear about it, our goal is to get people independent, to get our kids independent, and if you don't have executive functioning skills, you cannot be independent. It's a perfect combination of the resources.
If we want to, we can jump right in. I have a special treat for all of your listeners. If you guys are ready to jump into that, I can give it a go.
[00:11:11] Cheri: Go right ahead. I'm looking for the
gold .
[00:11:14] Nicole: Write down these little tips that I'm gonna give you guys. We're gonna do a deep dive into the three myths you didn't know. About executive functioning skills. And I think it's good to write them down because since we are, talking about handwriting as well, when we write things down, we create that motor memory.
We listen to information and it's Oh, this is so great. But the minute we jot it down, even if we don't ever look at it again, Somehow navigates itself into your brain and you remember it. I invite you guys to take notes and write these three things down. Three myths you never knew about executive functioning skills.
, Cheri, just chime in here whenever you want to add anything first one the myth is executive functioning skills just develop, they develop when. Babies and they just magically form throughout life and they become this perfectly functioning adult.
It is partially true That as we're going through life, we develop and we learn executive functioning skills. A big misconception is that there's nothing that we can do to help develop the executive functioning. And that's really important to learn. Cause a lot of times you as a parent get a diagnosis that your child, even as a teacher student, has executive functioning, skills disorder, executive functioning difficulties.
And, you could , look at it as a death sentence because. If you are thinking, they should have just developed and they didn't. Now there's nothing we can do about it. Know that there's lots of things that we can do, put in the child's path to really develop a variety of these executive functioning skills.
There is hope.
The other one that I wanted to jump into, the myth that is huge is again, people think if you have executive functioning, skills disorder and executive functioning skill difficulties, even if they're not calling it that, they're saying, Mary is, so disorganized. That's just the way she is.
There's nothing we can do. That's another myth that is absolutely not true. Depending which way you look at it. Some people say there's nine, some people say there's 11 executive functioning skills and we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Knowing what you're good at and you wanna do more and develop more of those skills.
But we also want to know where we're struggling and scaffold and provide that just right experience so that skill develops. Little by little it's not just gonna magically happen if Mary is naturally disorganized, she probably won't improve her organization unless we, the awesome adults around ,her put some experiences in there to help her.
And these experiences don't need to be complicated. They don't need to cost tons and tons of money. They just need to be very intentional. That's why having a good foundation, knowing what we're good at, knowing what we're not good at is really the perfect recipe. Here's a good one. Executive function struggles mean that you have ADHD or some other official diagnosis, right?
,If you have executive functioning skills, whether it's with attention, whether it's with starting something, whether it's that self talk you have in your head then oh, if you have that, then you have one of these disorders. Some of the people have both, right? They have the disorder diagnosed and undiagnosed and executive functioning skills, but a lot of people don't.
When I look at sensory processing information, we all have a sensory system that we deal with, right? What we talked about in the beginning of the podcast, depending on what was going on with our emotional state, sometimes our sensory preferences, are freaking out, and sometimes they're chill.
We all have sensory differences, with executive functioning, everybody has their own, almost like their own fingerprint, right? Some strengths, some weaknesses, and again, piggyback it with your emotional state, will make you feel more forgetful, will make you, not turn off the oven, will make you write your homework and leave it on your desk.
That doesn't mean that you have a diagnosis. It means that you struggle with being organized and. That's it. That's all it means. Cheri, do. You want to add on,
[00:15:33] Cheri: I'm thinking of the word spectrum.
It's a spectrum of condition where sometimes it even just depends on your hormones of the.
[00:15:42] Nicole: Exactly. Exactly. And that could be another topic, the hormone. . Those are the three. Executive functioning skills just develop, That's a myth, it's a lie, not true. Executive skill functioning skills.
If you have any difficulties, you're stuck. There's no hope, there's not gonna get better. Another myth not true. And executive functioning skills means that you have a diagnosis, whether it could be something on the autism spectrum. Asperger's, ADHD d, again, a hundred percent. Not true. If we have time, I have a bonus myth.
Okay? If you have executive functioning struggle, it does not mean that you fit the description to have a diagnosis, right? However, some people do have a diagnosis of attention deficit. Hyperactive, not hyperactive and attentive. And you take your medication right.
The myth that I'm gonna bust right here is that the medication does not teach executive functioning skills. I'm gonna say it again for the people in the back. Executive functioning skills do not develop by taking any medication that you would be prescribed. We know these have to be developed intentionally.
You gotta know what you're good at. You gotta know what you're not good at and work on them. The medication does allow for the person maybe to learn the skills a little bit better, but we know, and the research shows the best combination. If you have a diagnosis that requires medication, is the medication with a change in your life skills?
For the best success. So that is my bonus. ,
[00:17:17] Cheri: you are incredible the knowledge that you have about executive function skills. Every time I talk to you, I learn something new every day. So thank
[00:17:28] Cheri (2): you, Nicole.
[00:17:29] Nicole: No, thank you. Yeah, I really get. Passionate talking about it cuz it's important. Whenever you guys want, I have a special resource just for your listeners.
[00:17:38] Cheri: Okay. Let's go and talk a little bit about this special offer that you have for our listeners.
[00:17:48] Nicole: I have a resource page. It's an executive functioning guide and it gives you a quick, easy to understand description of what each of the 11 skills are.
And then the next piece tells you what it looks like when it's working. And then the next column, I wish I had a sample to show you guys, but we're on a podcast so I can't show you . The next column shows you what it may look like when it's not working. A parent who's gonna want this, or a teacher.
I want you to be able to briefly get an overview of, what your child's strengths are and what they're not so strong at. And then I challenge you look at yourself. Maybe this guide can help you figure out, Oh, I'm really good at this and that's why I do these things.
And Oh, I struggle with this and now I have a name for it. I challenge you to do that. There is also opt-in that you're gonna put in the show notes, Cheri?
Yes,
It is learn dot nicole santa maria.com/podcast Cheri,. For your listeners, if they use the code Cheri 10, they will be able to get 10% off a bundle of executive functioning workshops.
[00:18:57] Cheri: I have been waiting for this podcast to access that 10% off myself. I'm working into it.
[00:19:06] Nicole: it'll have the executive foundation guide and then the workshops that kind of look at them like as a starter kit, almost like a fast pass. It's a workshop bundle. It goes into time awareness, organization, and working memory.
At the time that we're recording this, they are $87 for all three, which is. A great deal. There are videos, a worksheet and an action plan. It's not about just listening. It gives you a takeaway, which is an action plan on how you can implement it. It's Cheri 10 is the code for all your listeners and the link will be in the show notes, but it is learn dot nicole santa maria.com/podcast Cheri. .
[00:19:46] Cheri: That will be in the show notes.
[00:19:47] Jan: Cheri, we're at the time in our podcast where we need to leave an intervention that helps teachers, parents, and occupational or speech therapists with their students. Cheri, do you have an intervention that a teacher could use that would take about two minutes to implement?
[00:20:07] Cheri: I sure do. I've been looking at form constancy. And this goes back to the executive function because recognition makes those associations with the physical environment.
If we don't have that executive function skills that they can recall they're gonna have difficult time with form constancy. What I like to do is I like to create a beat
and as I'm working on the beat, I like to use my left hand and I raise my left hand on the beat when I'm showing a b on the screen. I like to raise my right hand on the beat when I'm showing a d on the screen. When I'm showing a p on the screen. My left leg
Raises.
[00:20:56] Cheri: . My right leg
Is raised.
When I show a q.
[00:21:03] Cheri: What I do is I create a worksheet
And I put up a whole page that has four or five lines on it with the letters all mixed up. And then the students need to raise that arm for whatever letter is next in the sequence. We change the rate as they're achieving success.
If we start in the morning and do this exercise right before they sit down to practice their writing skills.
They have it in their head and they have a motion that's going to coincide with what they're learning.
[00:21:36] Nicole: Like it.
[00:21:38] Cheri: Thanks.
I'm leaving with you Form constancy today.
[00:21:42] Jan: I always love that
one. . This has been Jan Orcutt, along with Cheri Dotterer, dysgraphia expert of The Writing Glitch.
We have been interviewing Nicole Santamaria about executive function skills. Nicole, can you go ahead and tell us again where they can find out more about
you?
[00:22:01] Nicole: You can find me at nicolesantamaria.com and we will have that all linked in the show notes.
[00:22:08] Jan: Our podcast releases on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month during the school year. Remember to use the hashtag The Writing Glitch when sharing our episodes so we can thank you. www.app.writingglitch.com. Thanks so much for joining us.
[00:22:28] Cheri: Remember you were put here for such a time as this.
Transform the classroom before raising the scepter. A pencil to Unleash student potential. Podcast post-production is managed by Sam -C Productions.