TWG019 How can you become a professional advocate for kids with dysgraphia? with Marie Lewis

In today's episode, Marie Lewis shares how her son's life with autism changed her life. She hired multiple lawyers and kept demanding that her son be helped. By the time her son was leaving school, she realized that she could help others advocate for their children. Her background as a nurse administrator gave her a unique perspective on the IEP. She relates the IEP to a care plan. Anyone who has taken her course hears these words repeatedly during her training: Specially designed instruction and well-written goals make a great IEP. Listen to our conversation. Meet my mentor and Executive Director of the National Special Education Advocacy Institute, Marie Lewis.
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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.

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.

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Join The Writing Glitch Community. https://thewritingglitch.com/
Connect with Cheri at www.cheridotterer.com or [e-mail]

Hey, good morning, everybody. It's Cheri from the writing glitch, it is great to be with you today. Hey, I'm an occupational therapist and dysgraphia expert.
I am here today with Marie Lewis. And I've got to say Marie was a facilitator in my life that totally changed my life. She is the owner of, or the founder or Executive Director, I think is the right way to put it, of the National Special Education Advocacy Institute. She is the parent of an autistic child who is now an adult. But this was the facilitator of her getting really into the world of special education. Because before that, I believe if I remember correctly, Maria, you were an ICU nurse? Am I right?
Yes, I was an ICU nurse and a hospital administrator. And I have two children with autism, one of them adopted, and I never expected to be in the special education arena ever.
Oh, welcome to the broadcast. Thank you for changing my thought process on what an occupational therapist should look like in the school based setting. Thank you so much for being here today. And I want to ask you, how are you really,
I'm doing great. I I'm out there teaching Special Education Advocates nationally and a board certification program. And it means that we're changing lives every single day, helping parents get the services they need for their children. And that's a mission from the heart. As you feel the calling to become a special education advocate professionally. come our way. I'll have a cup of tea with you. Coffee, matcha, tea, whatever you want.
Fabulous. I love spending time with you. Your dinners are amazing that you recall those. That's been a while how's it going out?
We have good dinners. We have very good dinners.
Yeah. Before we really go into the interview, I just want to recognize that our educational consulting
it is our mission to help teachers, parents, and therapists raise the next generation of leaders by hacking the barriers to writing success. I would love it if you guys could join me in Texas on July 19. I will be a keynote presenter for the summer dyslexia Institute with region 10. Right outside Dallas, I believe it's up in Plano. And I will be also speaking with Jonily Zupancic. And we are the co authors of math disconnected. I also want to share kudos to some amazing people. And they have no idea that this is happening. But one of the things that I have chosen to do is anybody who asked for a signed copy of my book through my website, Cheri dotterer.com. I am donating that $5 differential to the International Dyslexia Association, Pennsylvania branch. And these are the folks in it 2022 That provided that extra $5 and they didn't even know it at the time. They just thought they were getting a signature but I just wanted to share their names Jennifer Griffin, Chris Hill, Julia Dunlap, Meredith Foster, Maritza Murphy, Zara young, Melissa Harbor, MC Paul, and Patricia Keenan. Again, that's at cheri dotterer.com. If you want to get a signed copy and be mentioned in the podcast. Marie, we've already talked about that you came from the world of health care. You were an administrator and an ICU nurse. And we also mentioned that you are a parent of two autistic children. Tell me what did that look like early on and how did n s e ai the national Special Education Advocacy Institute? Really get started? Go back to the beginning and tell us the story.
Sure. I was had a child who was my oldest son is was not reading. And I was using, I didn't back then I didn't know who to use. And I was using a lawyer and I use the advocates and I was getting nowhere absolutely nowhere. And he wasn't reading and he wasn't speaking well. I had already taught him to decode at the fifth grade level. By the third grade he was decoding at the fifth grade level. And but in fifth grade He had a pre primmer comprehension level, and you think isn't a ministry?
per second? Like you're talking all these terms? And I'm gonna bet yeah. Nobody understands what you mean, you're decoding in fifth grade. But you got to pre primmer level, can you? Yes. Take a second and explain that.
Sure. He's decoding. So he's able to say the words, he's able to read out loud, he's able to say the words and do the oral reading. But he doesn't have the comprehension of what he's reading. He was pre primary, it was before kindergarten level of comprehension. He could read the words as if it was Chinese, he could read the words out loud, but he didn't have the comprehension to go along with it. And I'm being an administrator at the University of Penn hospital, and also an ICU nurse. And you'd think I'd have the answers. You think I didn't fall for all the rigamarole at that IEP table? I couldn't get the answers. I asked everybody. I was asking lawyers, I was asking advocates, I was hiring them. But I didn't get it. I went out and I took 60 seminars, 60 Special Ed seminars across the country to figure it out. 66, zero, that's insane. It was years ago,
but yet on the same idea, you were that parent who was relentless, you have that perseverance that grit, that motivation, who are determined to help your child?
Wow, what I learned is that I didn't need to learn about necessarily reading, I didn't need to learn about decoding, I didn't need to learn about, I didn't really learn to learn how to put the IV in, I needed to learn how an IEP should be written. That's what I needed to learn. I didn't need to learn how to do due process. I didn't need to learn that the IP was not an illegal IP, it wasn't something I needed to go to due process about it was that the IP was not developed correctly. I didn't have the data I needed. And so it wasn't valid for due process, I needed to learn what should be in the IEP. And what should be evaluated by the psychologist,
I'm going to pause you because my brain just went, Wait a minute, your IEP was not suitable for due process because you didn't have the data. I just wanted to leave it sit on that a minute.
Yes, it was legally sufficient. And so I didn't have a case, I kept spending money. And advocates weren't helping me. And lawyers were not helping me. And my son was basically sitting there never learning.
Because I think that's happening a lot with parents, it's happening all over the place, that you have IEPs that aren't sufficient for due process. And oh, wow, my OB
knows how to develop the IEP. That's what education advocates should be doing. They're not there to do due process. They're not there to write briefs, they're not there to hold your hand. They're not there to be parent buddies. They're there to show you how to write the IEP and write it correctly, and get you the data that you need. And I wasn't stupid. I was I didn't know that. Like what I didn't know. But what I found out what should have been evaluated by the school psychologist and wasn't. That's what I learned in one of the seminars. And then what was research based and what wasn't. They were throwing eclectic material remediation material at my son, which is basically throwing spaghetti at the wall and finding out what would stick. And instead of using research material, and finding out what was appropriate for him, I found out what the clinicians at my son's IEP meetings should have been doing and weren't.
And I think that they didn't know what they didn't know either.
Oh, they knew their club and I just like I call you on stuff. I call you at the your class and the classes. You were one of the most brilliant students I had.
Oh, bless you. You knew
your stuff. You were you were really child focused at those courses. And you were always looking at the future. How can I be more child focused? And but they weren't. They were looking at just getting through and I learned what a child focused data driven IEP was in those 60 seminars I really did. And I refuse to give up on my child. I had letters from a school psychologist that actually said the following words that he was not educated will and needed to be institutionalized. And by the way, this is from a main line outside of Philadelphia, very wealthy area. school district that has money. This is not from pin books. too, okay. This made no sense to me because as a nurse that I had been head of a rehab center, and everyone is able to learn everyone. So I found it an error in their approach. And my son learn to read and talk, he did, because I would not give up. Despite the school fighting with me all the way. We had nine IEPs, in one year, they loved me. And we were not even disagreeing with each other. They just didn't want to do what they needed to do. We were just modifying his program. So it would work for him. It wasn't that we needed to go to due process, they need to get the IEP, right. They needed to get it right. And that's what education advocates need to do. They need to know their stuff. They need to know how to develop IEP s. And that's what NSCA does.
Tell us a little bit more about NSCA. Now we have the background. What's different about your program versus some of the other programs that are out there that are teaching advocates?
One is, we came together as a group of professional advocates, we were all sitting at a seminar in the back of the room as five lawyers were actually presenting on a topic. And they each gave five different answers. And all of us looked at each other. And they said those answers were wrong. And we all looked at each other. And we're just like, flabbergasted, because none of us would have done any of those answers in an IEP meeting. And they all turned to me and said, you have to write the course. And I went, No, I'm not writing the course. And they all took me to a Chinese dinner. And we wrote the coursework, the actual syllabus for the course, on four Chinese napkins, which I still to this day of looking for. I'm dying to know where they are. But we've moved I don't know where they are.
The most brilliant business plans are written on a napkin at a dinner.
Well, and we put the courses together to teach the advocates how to professionally and effectively write IEPs. It included every component of the IEP development, and you need to remember that 85% of the people at the IEP meeting, it's not lawyers, it's clinicians. They're clinicians. There's two educators. And then there's a whole bunch of clinician going to due process did not work, unless you already have the data that you know, and you need and what what you already want. That works. Because the lawyer is gonna you go in the lawyer's office, and I work with lawyers every day educational lawyers. And by the way, I have three educational lawyers that are my clients that hire me to get their IP. They go, you go into a lawyer's office and they go, What do you want? Oh, oh, you're there go. You're going in there because you want them to tell you.
That's like going into the doctor's office and saying, what do you do for this piece of bone sticking out of my arm?
Yes, exactly. You've taken this course Jerry. I've heard some
of these stories, and they're bringing back memories.
Alright. This is not a program for parents buddies. This is not about I went to due process. I'm an advocate. No, you're not. This is not about IEP coaching, where I coach from the sidelines. This is about knowing how to actually facilitate IEP development for parents. This is a professional educational advocacy program. This is a program that views educational advocacy as an actual profession. And it provides the only only homogeneous Professional Association for Educational Advocacy, and nurses and doctors. We have board certifications out the kazoo we have ever met any kind of imaginable number of them. We know what the board certification means. And we did this professionally. And as a profession, and NSCA is able to provide a legitimate national board certification program for the profession of educational advocacy. We've been offering this for over 13 years. It's a program in special education, law advocacy, you can go to seai.org and look at the full syllabus of each course. And it listen incredible knowledge and all the successful strategies you have. It's offered in a 12 day program on the webinar and you can take it in your pajamas now at your own pace. That didn't happen when I took it. No I tortured you all and at your own schedule and it is available for over a full year for you to review after you take it you can keep reviewing it after you take it. Teachers special Let directors, parents, lawyers, clinicians all take this. We had certifications and continuing ed, for all those professions, and is the fastest and most direct and efficient path to becoming a professional special education advocate. And finally, you are paying for the knowledge that is comprehensive and works. And is for those who want to actually achieve what they want to achieve as education advocates. We even offer a 48 hour money back guarantee. Who else does that? But Spaces are limited every year, it's NSC ai.org. And you can call us discuss it have a cup of tea with us. And that's what we do. We don't do legal briefs. We don't go to due process. We're absolutely not a gotcha kind of approach. We're collaborative. Most of our staff has taken the other programs, and it's a unique cross training program. It's both the legal, clinical and educational aspects of IP development. And we Why would you ask a lawyer to address dysgraphia sensory reading behavior or math issues, really,
they don't know what that is, unless they have a kid at home who's suffering from it, and then they don't know what to do about it.
And they have their place. I use them all the time, I absolutely use them all the time for what they're supposed to be used for. But it's not in the development of the IEP, you need professional IEP development experts, and as educational advocates. And that's what IEP, IEP development experts do is get the parents to have informed consents as to what's going on, and get the child the IEP to be child focused. And make sure that parents know what the options are, really what their options are. I didn't know what my options are. Were excuse me back then. I didn't know those 60 seminars, told me, I could ask for certain things that I didn't know. Now, remember, you need to do this fast. When you're doing your ID development. I'm not talking about taking the course I'm talking about, you need to know how to develop that IEP correctly. Because if you as you remember, we had a prominent neuropsychologist come in and she said, If your child is one year behind, it takes two years to catch up. And two years behind, it takes five years to catch up both academically and functionally. When I use,
yeah, I use that that particular scenario when I'm talking with folks today. Now, I'm willing to step back in time a little bit because I did get certified. I went through the practicum, I took the program. And I was advocating for a child that was down in the main area mainline offer outside Philadelphia. And I had a supervisor with me who had gone through the course before me. And then I participated as a staff advisor, I'm not quite sure I wasn't really a staff person, I was all volunteer. And then I was out on my own Is that still the paths that people take? After they've taken the 12 classes, they still have to take a practicum with a supervisor and eventually get out on their own. How does that work at this point,
you can still take an independent practicum. Or you can do it with someone else. It's the number of cases that you do and you submit your practicum hours. So that that's part of the process. And those practicum hours are based on three different levels, consultant, diplomat or fellow level based on your education, you can enter at the most basic level as a consultant with not with no education behind you, you can be a high school graduate, or not a high school graduate to do it. Or you could be at a masters or PhD level fellow level and do it at that level. And there's different requirements for each level. So you would be required to to have different levels of practicum in each level. That did change since you I think you've been there. That's the difference.
I remember the levels, but I worked. I wasn't clear anymore about what that meant. I'm thinking about myself and my travel through this process. I was sitting in class number five. Class Number five is about related services. And I had this aha moment about lunchtime and I think you saw it on my face that day. And I want to say exactly what was going on my head but I can't. I was Oh s what have I been doing as an OT in the schools for the last five years.
I have not been doing my job. And I think that is been that was like the start of this precipice and where I am today, because I realized at that moment that OT, speech therapy, physical therapy, school psychology, guidance counselors can be doing so much more for the students than they are in this box that the world has put them in. It's Rehab, we come from a rehab perspective. And it's to rehab rehabilitation, so that child can access their education. And it doesn't mean that their education is in a box in a room in the back of the school called Special Ed. And because education doesn't that Special Ed does not occur in a place. It occurs across environments. And it occurs across all environments. It occurs across all community environments. It requires generalization across all environments. People say no, it does. It's only in the school. No, it's not. My IP, the IPS from my children occur across environments. I have home programs, they have community programs, etc. I have those children are supported across all those environments. And they're like, how did you do that are read the regs and I because we don't do the law. We're not lawyers, we implement the regulation. And we also implement with the Department of Education for each state, as each state implements. They're pretty close, by the way, because it's federal law. The regulations are almost the same. We implement what they say we're supposed to do for each of the children. And it's a comprehensive educational programming that we're supposed to provide to them. And it means that they must be functional. It doesn't say that there's only supposed to read and write for special ed. And when I look at OT, are you kidding me? I have to thank you, Sherry, because, you know, you've listened for you listening to your blessed calling and helping children with dysgraphia. Because my son, and I know your programming is life altering, and is saving children from emotional difficulty with low self esteem being bullied and distressed. And unless we address those things directly, it's not going in and fighting with the OT, it's saying you are a valued member of this IEP team, I need your services, because you are helping this child be functional. I need your expertise. I need your brain. Please help me show me how you can bring this child's functional ability to this level. And you got to go back to the evaluation. Remember the educational needs? How can it's been identified in the RR that's your tool, your reevaluation, your evaluation. And if you don't have the right testing, educational advocates, if you didn't ask for the right testing, you're not going to get the services. And if you get the right testing, you're gonna get the services, I learned to ask for the right testing. And then all of a sudden, they're they're stuck with it. They're stuck with an evaluation that says, whoo, they have a deficit here. There's an educational need here. Oh, darn it, now I have to address it. And it's their own documents, darn it. And now their ot has to address it because we got them to do an evaluation on their own terms, not an independent one. And it's Hello, there you go. And there ot has to address it.
There's one thing that I often talk about with my therapists that have been training under me. And why is like a therapist. Yeah. My therapists that are training under me, oh, they're OTS. And I get teachers as well. But when I'm talking to the OTs, I say, when was the last time you addressed sleep? We can't do that in school based therapy. And I'm like, What do you mean? You can't? Yes, you can. And I talk about it. It's no we're not discussing whether they slept or not. We're talking we're educating the parent on if they don't go to sleep by nine o'clock, what's going to happen? What are some strategies for you to take the lights out of the room and get the melatonin levels where they need to be? What are some of the positionings that need to happen with those kids to help them and Oaties look at me like deer in headlights. What are you talking about?
I know I know, but you know what, if you must to be, we must all be special ed advocates no matter who we are. And every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be a passive in the presence of injustice, and therefore, we will eventually lose the ability to defend ourselves and those we love. And I look at it that way. This is a social justice issue. I laugh nursing to do this, I left administration, I make a whole lot of money making doing back to hospital administration, by the way, and that versus training these advocates, which seriously the issue is that it's a social justice piece. And I still have my own private practice. I continued to do I have clients for who I take care of, and their IEPs across the country. And even though I'm based out here outside of Philadelphia, but the can't stand in the sight of injustice like this and not respond, it's just terrible. You can't
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
And you actually did a training for us on sensory, and it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
And that was a really bad, I'm sorry. But that was really bad presentation that day, that has gotten much better with time.
Oh, you're so funny.
Maybe I need to come back and read and re and redo it again. But I think that, I think that was some of the stuff. The stimulus behind where I am today was having that realization sitting in the class on related services, and going through the practicum. And going through, and learning that IEPs are beyond the classroom. And one of the things that absolutely got me personally, and I think this was happening around the same time that I was taking the class. And I had a whole bunch of standard scores that were 86 on my son's evaluation, plus a whole bunch of gifted level, right? Nothing was below the 85 on the standard score, which put him in this, he doesn't qualify, and I could not have, she would not do it, the school psychologist would not sit down with me and talk to me, she made the special ed director come. And all I could do was cry, because they refused to help because he got an 86 or above.
Remember how I taught you how that even though the score was an 86, you're not that I use that number, but that we could address those issues because of functional ability, and that you take good data on functional ability. And if you can't do it functionally, darn it, I was going to swear but darn it, you go in the side door from a behavior, if it's gonna just call it behavior, if you can't do it from a functional ability, he must be refusing. Which is not true, because it's a functional ability. And you take it from a functional perspective, and you take that data and then you they have to address it. If I can't go in one door, I do the functional. And then they have to take a functional assessment. And then they if you can't do that, you say, golly gee, he must be refusing Oh, my golly, gee, and then they go, it's not a behavior, then it must be functional. And you keep going back and forth. And until you just wear them down until they just go, oh, my gosh, fine, I'll make a goal. Go away.
I went away, and I found a new school.
I was a little dramatic. But okay.
But I hope that story helps somebody out in the audience who is struggling right now. And they reach out to NSCI. Because it was my understanding of what the IEP was supposed to look like. And the fact that he didn't get one is beside the point. The point is, it is supposed to we're supposed to be able to help these kids from 12am to 11:59pm. Because their education isn't school driven. It's it's environment driven. And we need to look at children as a whole. So that is why I brought Marie on today because she has a gift. And it was facilitated and the precipice was that she lived through it. And I learned because I was arrogant. And she put me in my place. And I have realized, oh God, we did. We did it. You did it came way you did it with constructive discipline. But what I want to I'm trying to really say here is there, there's parts of therapy that are being missed, that we really need to think about. And when I was looking at a handwriting curriculum, and looking at function, and looking at what the teachers understood, I saw this huge hole, this gap in this triangle going, Wait a minute, what, how can we close this hole? This gaping hole, this tunnel needs to be closed? Because there's no reason for that this open hole here. And that is why I'm doing what I'm doing today. And I got to thank you, Marie publicly, because you were the precipice to me going, Oh, but I need to step back one more part behind that. I also want to thank you for giving me the opportunity. And the saying yes to Tina DeLonge. To bring me along. Because if it wasn't for the relationship I had with Tina, we would not have met. And, Tina, if you're out there, if you hear this, thank you for helping me see beyond what I understood
back in those days. Oh, Tina rocks. Absolutely.
So we remember, you know that
you got to improve your IEP outcomes. And if you want to advance your use those advanced advocacy tools, you gotta be child focused and have a child focused attitude. You got to have IEP preparation, and participation. So the parents are equal members of the IEP team, and you got to have the momentum for your child's progress. So you close the educational gap. That's what I NSC AI does for you.
Thank you. I'm just trying to hold the tears back, bro. Okay,
I have a gift for you, by the way. Oh, no. SAP. And for your group? I don't think I prepared an ebook for you. You did?
Is that what you have for free? Yes, I do. I was just getting to that point right now. I wanted to find out a little bit about what it is that he helped people can reach out for you. And what is this ebook you're talking about?
I prepared 20 Questions 20 IEP questions to ask at the IEP table, and have them all on the floor crying? Going? Wow. Wow, these are the questions that every single advocate asks, board certified educational advocate should ask across the country. And we give this out to the advocates now in their as in their courses now so that they can get the IEP right from the start. I have a limited time I have it up on the web for you guys. It's you can download the eBook for them. And it's do identify the educational areas and needs the baselines and to make sure that the goals are actually addressing the actual area of educational need, because my son's goal was about his decoding. But his area of need was about comprehension. Constantly. His goal was being met because his decoding was perfect. But he didn't have a comprehension goal. For years, he kept mastering his goal. And he never was making any gains in his reading. But in a car blogs always have every so often not always. But on a regular basis. We have major major handouts in our blogs. And Jay is always giving those away. But she's not supposed to. But she does. She's no I have this one. And J is amazing. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah, she's cool.
So where did they find that?
freebie? That that ebook. It's www.nseai.org. Backslash 20 IEP questions? Fabulous. Thank you.
Thank you very much. So Avonworth How long will that be available in case somebody listens to this a year from now?
I'll keep it up for six months. Okay, because it will be just up for you guys. Yeah, they will keep it.
She will keep it up to the end of December. Thank you. Thank you so much, Marie. We are at the point in the episode where I talk about an intervention. And I think I've already mentioned the intervention and that is some accommodations that you can do for sleep. And one of the things that I like to talk about with sleep, and kids, especially kids that have anxiety issues, and that is conscious breathing, where you're consciously breathing in for For you're holding it, give a little extra inhale, hold it again, and then breathe out slowly, twice as long as it as you were breathing in, if you're breathing in for a count of four, you're breathing out for a count of eight. That way, you're getting rid of all the carbon dioxide in your system you're bringing, you're allowing the path for breath of breath for fresh oxygen to be implemented in our intake into your lungs. So that can get distributed, because your brain functions on oxygen, and glucose. If you don't have the oxygen and you don't have the glucose, your brain needs to be refueled. Sleep is one of those things. And I know a lot of kids with special needs have difficulty with sleep. Think about conscious breathing as a way of meditating. And see if your kids can start at a minute, increase it to to increase it to 10. Some people will go as long as 20 minutes. But that's for a kid, I think that's an eternity. If you can get a kid consciously breathing for a minute to five minutes, you will change their behavior and their function. Any thoughts about that one? I
Miss Murray? No, but I have an advocacy tip for you.
You go for it. Let's hear it.
I have one that says what research based programming will be used to remediate my child's deficit. And that's for to ask. And then you ask why is it being used? Why? And why does this intervention address my child's specific needs? And is it going to be used with fidelity? How is it prescribed? How is it supposed to be used? And is it described and noted in these specially designed instruction? And if not, why not? And then you have your case manager note that you requested that the research based instruction be used. And that the put in your parent input that you asked that the above was the above questions. All right.
I always love that. And I'm thinking about all the things that I'm doing and then and the new action research that I've been participating in, that needs to get out there and some kind of documentation somewhere, some research study, but I've been doing a lot of action research on bilateral integration and the functions of where we're going. And I've actually discovered three different levels of bilateral integration. And we'll have to talk about those sometime. But right. Yeah, we are we are running out of time for the podcast, but just want to close here by saying that our podcast releases on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. If you haven't already done subscribe, please subscribe. So you get notified when the episode does go live. It's on Apple. It's on Google. It's on Spotify, and many other platforms as well. And if you go to the writing glitch.com Click on the community button that's at the top menu. You can join the community for free and inside there you will get have can kind of have conversations with other folks about an IEP question. I am not the only one. I do not want to be the only one that is facilitating those questions. Please ask your questions. And remember you were put here for such a time as this post podcast production is managed by CMC productions. Have a wonderful day. Thank you for coming on. Marie. It was great to have you here.
It's great to see you always take care of sharing