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Welcome back to The All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein and today we are celebrating Episode 40 and the end of season three, another 10 amazing episodes of the podcast!!!!! I am so grateful to each and every one of you who listen to the podcast, and for sharing it with your friends and in your Facebook groups and in your support groups. I really, really appreciate it and I’m so grateful that you’re listening and to be having these incredible conversations. From the beginning, you guys know this podcast is all about connecting with you guys and having a dialogue. It’s not just me speaking, you know, and lecturing and saying what I think but it’s really important for me to bring on other voices and other stories and perspectives so that we can all learn from one another.

Before I jump into the interview with Stacy Crouse, who has been doing teletherapy for years and she shares some of her greatest tips both for new therapist learning the whole world of teletherapy and for how parents can support their children from home while they’re doing online therapy. But before we jump into that conversation, I would just like to take a few minutes to do a recap of season three. And if you haven’t heard any of the episodes, definitely go back and listen.

Season Three started off with an incredible interview with Mama Manon, who is a parenting coach with her perspective of looking at connection and how can we get close to our children by being really present and seeing what their needs are in the moment and what our needs are in every situation. Lots of amazing tips there for connecting and for remaining present in prioritizing getting to know our children, definitely check out Episode 31 for that interview with Mama Manon.

Now, you guys know that I love audiology and I can talk about it all day and get really excited about the details and things that we can learn. But it’s also really important for me not to only speak in jargon, and use all this medical terminology. I want to know how is this affecting your life, your experience, and how the things that we’re doing in the audiology clinic and during testing appointments, how that applies to you and what that means for you, your family and your child. And that’s why I was very excited about Episode 33, with Dr. Julie Renshaw, and we talked all about the audiology equipment. You’d think that episode is very technical, but in fact, it was a lot about how we use the equipment to get the information that we need and how we can have the parents be a partner in that journey. Dr. Renshaw shared her experience and her tips for new clinicians. So, a lot of you student audiology listeners out there really loved that episode. And it was also beautiful to hear how she includes parents in a diagnostic evaluation so that they can also be following along and understand what the testing means. That was Episode 33. You can go check that out.

Of course, all of these will be linked in the show notes with full transcripts of every episode as always, and then it was March of 2020. And that’s just about the time that the COVID-19 pandemic was really affecting many, many millions of people all around the world, with many of us staying at home with our children. And on episode 34, I had the autism educator, Amanda McGuinness, from Ireland, come on the show and share about the social story that she put together. And that was really going viral for people to be able to use that resource with their children to explain why all these changes were going on. And that’s a theme with the work that I do, and the message of the podcast is to truly truly see your child as a full human being, no matter what’s going on, and no matter what challenges they are facing. We can find a way to communicate with them to try and make them feel safe and to really be partners together.

Then Episode 35 was the long awaited tinnitus episode. I had actually recorded this episode previously as a solo podcast. But when I connected with Dr. Kelly Dyson, I was ecstatic because this is her area of expertise. And she had so many great tips explaining what tinnitus is, how we can test for it and what we can do about it, how to cope with tinnitus. That episode, episode 35 all about tinnitus was the most downloaded episode this season, which was followed by Episode 37 with Colleen Wilkinson. This was about bringing trauma informed practice to everything that you do, both for the professionals who are working and for parents to have an outlook on what is trauma, and how can we build resilience? That’s Episode 37.

In our most recent episode, Episode 39 was all about balance with occupational therapist Michelle Riddle. And again, we take these complicated technical pathways of how our vestibular system, the balance, interacts with our auditory system, our hearing, and our visual system so that all three of these systems work together to help us stay steady and keep ourselves balanced in space. And in that episode 39, you can hear a lots of great tips on how to support your child’s education and their development from a really holistic perspective that’s looking at all these different systems, and really seeing it from a functional perspective. So, if you missed any of those episodes, or if you’re new around here, definitely go back and listen to some of the episodes from season three. And absolutely from seasons two and one.

I recently got a message from an audiology student who told me on Instagram, that they went all the way back to one and are listening in order and that made me so happy and so excited, because there, in the beginning, definitely was more of a structure to what was going on and now I see the podcast as a place where we can really come together in an interdisciplinary way. I believe we have something to learn from every single person we meet and I cannot wait for season four. I already have three or four episodes in the works and I will not do any spoilers so you will just have to stick around. Hahahaha! But I do usually give sneak peeks on my Instagram so you can follow me @allaboutaudiologypodcast.

Now jumping into today’s topic, we are talking about telehealth and telepractice. This is something that many of us have had to adapt to in the last couple of months being home and doing school online. And that comes with a lot of challenges and some opportunities. So, I’m so happy to bring you this conversation I had with Stacy Crouse, who is a longtime tele therapist, speech language pathologist, and she explains how speech therapy can be done online. some great tips and lots of resources.

So here it is:

Dr. Lilach Saperstein: “Today I want to welcome Stacy Crouse. So, recently the whole world has shifted to online, post-COVID era. It’s like before Corona and then after Corona, that’s like the new timeline of life? But you have been doing this for a long time. So, I’m so excited to have Stacy with us today. And we’re going to be talking about teletherapy and how to use the internet to provide services and how to make the most of it.”

Stacy: “Yes.”

LS: “Welcome. Welcome, Stacy. Thank you for coming.”

SC: “I’m excited to be here.”

LS: “Stacy, tell us a little bit about yourself.”

SC: “Let’s see. I graduated in 2008 with my master’s and then started working in an outpatient clinic setting for pretty much the next decade in some capacity, and at about 2014, I started to do a little bit of teletherapy on my days off. And then I kind of slowly added more days of teletherapy and decreased my in person or my face to face days in the clinic. So, I was doing like two days teletherapy, three days, face to face and then it was like four days teletherapy and one day face to face. Anyway, since about 2017 I’ve done full time teletherapy, I do K through 12. They attend a virtual school, a public charter Virtual Academy. So, I see kids, mostly in California and Utah right now. I really like just seeing that whole range of ages.”

LS: “That’s very interesting. So, these are students who are doing virtual school all the time.”

SC: “Yeah, yes.”

LS: “And what would be the main reason or motivation for students to be in that kind of setup?”

SC: “Well, for California, especially just the schools are really populated. And so, I think, you know, there are these other options. Virtual schools are really pretty popular in California. Just to decrease, you know, there’s just not enough space in the building for, you know, large districts to have all of the students there, is kind of my guess. I also have a lot of students that were bullied. Or maybe they have an interest in acting or you know, a sport and want to focus some more time on that and not have to go late into their evening. So, they have a little more flexibility with an online school. Some parents travel, maybe for their job, so they enroll their student on an online school to give more flexibility.”

LS: “Wow, I have to say, I’ve never heard of that. Like, yeah, maybe I have for like actors. Hahaha.”

SC: “Yeah. And it’s not very common here in Iowa, but in California and, you know, northeastern states, I think it’s more common.”

LS: “So, it’s not homeschooling, where the parent is the instructor. They’re still enrolled in school and their classes are online with instructors.”

SC: “Right.”

LS: “Are they joining with other students? Is it still a group with a teacher on the call?”

SC: “Mm hmm. Yeah. And a lot of times those will be recorded if they can’t watch them live. You know, if they have a special ed service, like specialized academic instruction, in addition to speech therapy, you know. Whatever is on their IEP, sometimes that’ll be individual or a small group, but then they can attend the general ed classes with the general ed students online. So, pretty much they’ve got it in place, what a lot of schools are trying to figure out right now.”

LS: “Yeah.”

SC: “You know, I hope that a lot of districts look to the virtual schools to help figure out a model. I think they could really benefit from that because they’ve been doing this for years.”

LS: “That would make a lot of sense. Oh, my gosh, it’s been so difficult the transition for most people. Because it’s like, I’ve heard people say, you know, you’re not working from home. You’re trying to do your work during a global crisis when your children are out of school. You’re not homeschooling, you are dealing with a pandemic while trying to not lose your mind.”

SC: “Yes, I know, I see people talk about being bored during this quarantine. I’m like, bored?!? I am the farthest thing from bored right now. Hahahaha!”

LS: “Yeah. So, it’s not just like, okay, from day one to day two, let’s set it up, now we’re a virtual school. It takes infrastructure, takes training and just for everyone to figure out how to unmute themselves please. Hahahaha!”

SC: “Exactly. I mean, like I said, I slowly dipped my toes into teletherapy and, over years became a teletherapist. And that’s like, literally in the period of a few days. A lot of SLPs (speech language pathologist) and teachers are having to figure it out. And I can’t imagine. It would be really hard.”

LS: “So, you have your caseload, the students that you work with, you do it all, virtually. So, that’s very different then how most SLPs got all their toys and their Playdoughs and not to stereotype. I have a lot of respect for my SLP colleagues.”

SC: “No, I know.”

LS: “You guys have fun, what should I say?!”

SC: “Yeah, we have toys. Actually, I sold all my toys a few years ago, I was like, Well, I’m not [going to use them]. I mean, not my own kids’ toys, but my therapy toys.”

LS: “Hahahah. Can you imagine like, ‘No Mom, you took all of our toys away!’ Okay, so, how do you have materials that are virtual?”

SC: “It’s been an evolution. I mean, when I started, there really wasn’t a lot. I worked for a company, a different company then. They had a kind of a virtual library that we could look through. A lot of it you just kind of have to adapt or think outside the box. And now the platform I use has screen-share which is game changer. Because the internet is your oyster, I mean anything on the internet, you can share with your student, or any other software application like Adobe Reader or PowerPoint or you know, really anything. If you can mirror your iPad, I haven’t done that yet, but you can mirror your iPad, you can do anything that you have on your computer as a therapy activity.”

LS: “Yeah, and I’ve seen a lot of people using Google Forms and Google quizzes and that whole suite.”

SC: “Yes, yes, yes. Google rules the world already, I’m pretty sure but there’s so many. There’s an application in the Google suite called jamboard. And it’s basically like a whiteboard. So, you can draw shapes, put pictures on there, draw on them, and if you have a Gmail account, it’s a free feature of that. Just like you have Google Drive, there’s also jamboard. You have to scroll down to find it, but it’s there. And it’s a really good resource.”

LS: “I’m gonna check that out. Thank you. Because we’ve been doing that just with our family abroad, and we’re doing zoom calls. And then we just do the zoom in color on each other’s screen. That’s like the activity.

So, how do you, I mean, I guess every creative SLP is just full of ideas, but maybe you could share some ideas for how to use this kind of virtual platforms for getting to your goals?”

SC: “Yeah, there’s a lot of different ways to add an interactive component so you’re not “just talking”. I mean, that can be really valuable too just having conversations especially with your social language students, for example. But to add some level of interactivity, like annotation tools, like one of the more basic things where you can draw. I was talking about jamboard where you can draw or highlight or underline text just like you would do on a worksheet with a pencil. So, that is one really simple way to make therapy more interactive, which you can do that in a lot of the platforms like zoom, like you’re saying, you can just draw away in zoom or jamboard or Adobe Reader, which is free. There’s just different software tools that allow for the annotation. So, that’s one way.

I use a lot of interactive PDF resources. So, where a PDF has some built in features where you can type in little text boxes, or you can click on buttons, or you can check mark things. So, that’s one way to kind of make it so the student has some kind of an interactive feature, an interactive component to it. Let’s see here. PowerPoint games are really fun. There’s some people that make some really cool PowerPoint games, like pop the pig, you know, you play that on your therapy table. Well, you can play it online too.”

LS: “I have to say, I’m not familiar with that game. What do you have to do?”

SC: “So, there’s this pig and you roll the dice and it says, ‘How many hamburgers to feed the pig?’ And then, once you feed them you click the top of the pig and then at some point it bursts. And that’s the loser, I think or I guess it’s the winner, I’m not sure. But kids love that game. My own kids love it.”

LS: “Okay, got it. So, you can then have a virtual version of this that’s more like a video game, let’s say. But it’s very guided and you’re using all of your therapeutic techniques of, you know, eliciting language.”

SC: “Yeah, it’s familiar to the kids. I mean, there’s also UNO online and connect four. You can play all those games that are familiar, just an online version, which kids are familiar with it. So, it kind of translates pretty easily.”

LS: “So, one of the biggest challenges I think that most people have been having, or I’m sure you have dealt with this as well when there’s virtual [learning or therapy] is getting the child to sit in front of your screen and not walk away or open a different tab. How can you keep their attention? How can you keep them engaged when you’re not in the room?”

SC: “Yeah, well, I mean, my students all attend virtual school, so they’re pretty used to it. But I do see how that would be a challenge when you’re used to seeing Little Tommy in the clinic and you’re on a ball bouncing and you’re doing therapy that way and then all of a sudden, it’s like, okay, sit at the computer for 30 minutes. I can imagine that would be a challenge a lot of people are facing, and I would say to still incorporate movement or sensory brakes or singing and dancing or whatever you were doing in face to face therapy. Okay, let’s still do that in teletherapy. You know, you can make it interactive, so they’re doing the motions to songs or whatever it is to keep them tuned in.

Use the parents, have the parent kind of sit there and help you manage this child and help you if they need a quick sensory break, or they need to go get a drink of water. Be sure to just partner with your parents and see them kind of as your hands essentially to be there and be like the other part of you. I mean, I have middle schoolers who I can tell they have another tab open or something, and I’ll just say, ‘Make sure you’re on our screen here, on our window.’ And then sometimes if it’s like a real issue, I’ll email the student and the parent after and I’ll just say, ‘Hey, I just want to touch base. Make sure that you’ve closed your other windows.’ And that usually does it. I just do it in a nice way, but just trying to clue the parent in that they might need to keep a little closer eye on the student. But for those young ones, I mean, just using all those same things you could, as much as you can in therapy to help them incorporate that movement, high interest activities.”

LS: “And what would you say is the youngest student that, you know, can kind of develop mentally but be able to get therapy virtually?”

SC: “I’ve had a few preschoolers, I couldn’t tell you if they were three or four. It was a very short term assignment several years ago and I would say most of them could attend. We did shorter sessions of 15 or 20 minutes. But I think the early intervention crowd, a lot of SLPs are early intervention SLPs and I’m seeing them talking in Facebook groups and such about: What do we do? We’re used to sitting on the floor. And I think the thing you have to do there is parent coaching and just really strip it down to that parent coach model, so you’re planning with the parent ahead of time what the activity is going to be, and what are they going to have there. And then really, you’re just coaching that parent on how to use strategies to elicit language and speech in that activity. They could have an earbud in almost, and you’re just kind of talking with them.

I mean, that’s hard to get used to. That’s not what you’re used to. But really, researchers support it very much, supports that model for early intervention. So, I mean, really, I don’t think there’s a cutoff. I think some parents might need a little more coaching than others to catch on to it, but I think you know, it’s worth a shot with any of your clients or students at any age.”

LS: “Yeah, definitely. And that’s something that I really, really think needs to even be incorporated more and more all the time, which is including the parent and what’s going on. Even if you have a student for 30 minutes, however many times a week, that’s still a fraction of the hours that they’re spending with their parents at home, especially now that many people have been exclusively at home with their children. So, making use of those hours can be challenging, but can also be a huge opportunity.”

SC: “Yes, yep. 100 percent.”

LS: “And I’ve definitely heard anecdotally, from several friends who just tell me like, we’ve had a vocabulary burst. And this one has, you know, a lot of development. A) I think because we’re watching so, we’re much closer to the kids, and B) because the enrichment of being home, if that’s an enriching environment. LOL!”

SC: “Yeah, there’s a lot of language into our home routines that can be incorporated into bathtime, in books, and snack. There’s so much language there that sometimes maybe, just having a snack with the student and just or the child, the younger child and just helping the parent on some of those strategies to help elicit [language]. That’s the most functional you can get.”

LS: “For sure, that’s awesome. Stacy, what advice do you have to our speech therapists and students and whoever’s working with kids that’s listening now and, you know, either they’re inundated with new resources and information or they don’t know where to start. What would you tell them? Some advice for them?”

SC: “Yeah, I would start in the Asha website. Honestly, they have a pretty good telepractice portal with lots of links to resources and, they’re kind of our gold standards. So, going to them and seeing kind of what they’re recommending, I think is really a good idea. I think there’s tons of different courses out there. I haven’t done a lot of them. I just kind of, like I said, slowly dipped my feet into teletherapy, but learning kind of what you want your platform to do if you’re choosing between platforms, what are the features that are important to you?

Some are set up, some platforms are meant for telehealth with adults, geriatric and it’s really just that they need to talk with a physician where that might not be the best fit if you’re serving elementary students, you would want some more the ability for you to screen share, or for them to have the control of the mouse to change the video sizes. So, knowing what features are important for your population, and then just really using that platforms Help Center to learn how to do it. A lot of times they’ll have videos, little tutorials on how do I share your screen. So, just looking that up and kind of practicing it with a family member in another room or something can be really valuable.

I always like go to YouTube to see how to do something because somebody has put out a video, even if they don’t work for that company, a lot of people put up videos to show, this is how I do this. Just seeing what you can find about being comfortable with your platform, I think is kind of the big part of “jumping in first.” If you can feel comfortable with that, I mean, you can do the rest. The therapy is the easy part. So, kind of getting a good basis for how to run your platform and what are the features that it has is kind of where I would start.”

LS: “That’s very helpful. And I was wondering if you would talk to us a little bit about TPT and all these amazing resources that are out there. There’s such an abundance for anything, any topic you want to talk about, like, learning left first right in the color blue, like, that exists. You know what I mean? There’s anything, any topic, any age level, like so much on there. If there’s someone who has no idea what this is, tell us about TPT.”

SC: “TPT is I mean, it started as a place for resources for teachers to go and then speech therapists and a lot of other professionals have gotten in there. When I started teletherapy I don’t think I even knew what TPT was. But it has grown. I mean, now there really wasn’t much on there for teletherapy especially. There’s a lot of printables and there still are a lot of things you can print and worksheets and whatever you can do with students.

But there really wasn’t a lot of digital made for teletherapy you know, landscape orientation for resources that fit on a screen that are full color that you can annotate on that aren’t like cut out. There really wasn’t a lot of that five years ago, and there is a lot now. So, really just if you’re looking for no print resources, I mean getting on there and searching, no print, digital speech therapy or whatever the goal you’re looking for, interactive PDF tele therapy. Google Slides is another search term if you’re comfortable with using Google Slides. So, I mean, yeah, now there’s just tons of different options for no print boom cards. I can’t believe I didn’t say those, like 20 minutes ago.”

LS: “Can you please tell me, I’ve heard this term 15 times in the last two days. What is a boom card?”

SC: “Yes, I know. I remember hearing it like two years ago. I was like, What? And now I’m obsessed.”

LS: “I mean, I figured it’s a teletherapy thing but I would like the rundown.”

SC: “Yeah. So, boom cards are digital task cards. Again, it was started for teachers like multiplication flashcards that are on the computer that you can assign your students and their centers. But again, speech therapists, we’ve kind of snuck in there and made them be our jam for therapy. So, I mean, you can find activities for adults, for life skills, to teaching nursery rhymes, all kinds of things. But it’s basically, you don’t download anything, you just kind of have a library on your boom learning account.

You can buy decks. There’s tons of free decks that you can get. And then it adds to your library and you have access to it forever. And you can just use it in therapy as like an activity or like idioms, practicing figurative language, you know, and just kind of looking at a deck with that. Or you can build a scene with different objects and move them around. I mean, really, there’s so much variability, but you can play it in teletherapy. I mean, they’re great for activities or you can “send it” (air quotes). You can assign it to a student to do for homework or over the summer or over a break or something. So, you can let the students play on their own.”

LS: “Umm, I’m still not sure. Is this its own website or its own platform?”

SC: “Yes. It’s a website, yes. Sorry. Sometimes I forget those details.”

LS: “It’s okay. That’s why you need me here to ask the hard hitting questions.”

SC: “Yes, it’s a website. So, your library is stored on the website. You don’t download them. You just log into the website.”

LS: “Got it!”

SC: “And there is everything that you have, or they have an app for tablets or smartphones.”

LS: “So, that’s amazing. Okay, got it. So, boom cards. How would you then integrate? Can you then integrate boom cards with your teletherapy? Like you’re sharing your screen so you can have your boom card account open? Am I getting this?”

SC: “Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, we’re in zoom right now. But if I had a separate window open with my boom library, then I could just screen share that window and show the boom card deck.”

LS: “Now I get it.”

SC: “Zoom has mouse control. So, if you were the student, you could actually manipulate the deck on your end, even though the browser window is open on my computer. Not all platforms have that.”

LS: “Zoom has mouse control?!?”

SC: “Yes.”

LS: “Does everybody know this?”

SC: “No. No, this is what I’ve been trying to preach this. I don’t use zoom for teletherapy. But yes, it does.”

LS: “Okay, here’s the thing I’m thinking about, you know, when you call tech support, and then they’re like, ‘we’re taking over your computer,’ and then you see them opening all the stuff. That is a very scary experience.”

SC: “Oh, no. It’s not like that.”

LS: “Okay, so how does zoom mouse control work? How do I know you’re not going to open my browser and I don’t know, open my credit card information?”

SC: “Yeah. So, you choose. I use Adobe Connects, so it’s a little different, but I’ll say, like share, or, I can’t remember what it says, like give mouse control or whatever and I pick. Do I want them to do this window or this whole screen? But usually I just do the window, like the internet browser window.”

LS: “Okay.”

SC: “Now I’m watching and I can take it away. I can stop them.”

LS: “Okay. It’s not like they can access your settings, I mean, I guess you can assign that they could access your settings. This is getting very technical.”

SC: “Technically, I guess they could go into your internet settings. I’ve never had a student try that. What they’ll do is, I’ve only had this a few times, make my browser full screen. They’ll just hit expand so they can see it better. But that’s really the only thing.”

LS: “Okay.”

SC: “Yeah, I’ve never had that as a problem. But technically they could go into your browser settings, you gotta just cut them off with their mouse control really quick.”

LS: “I’m thinking about our super sophisticated coders and hackers, hahahaha.

Alright, so back to teletherapy. For practicing and for trying to reach all the goals that a student might have on their IEP or things that they’re working on, do you think that teletherapy is business feasible and that someone can can reach those goals through any modality in person versus teletherapy?”

SC: “Yeah, that’s a good question. I’ve looked up some research. I know my friend Andy, at the whimsical word has done a presentation last summer on it. And she presented several different research studies that show that the effectiveness, you know, in terms of students meeting their goals was just as good, if not better in teletherapy. Which, obviously, that doesn’t apply to every single kid. There have been times where I’m like, ‘This child is not appropriate for teletherapy. They need a face to face therapist.’ So, that is definitely something you have to keep in mind. If it’s not working. There’s no point in doing it.

But really I do find that my students are engaged, they are interested in the digital activities, they attend well to me and the activity. So, I think, really, you have to bring a little bit more energy. I think it’s the one thing, you have to have maybe a little bit more energy in your voice and a little more excitement sometimes just to keep them in, especially the younger ones. But I really think, and the research shows too, that it can be just as effective for meeting the goals.”

LS: “That’s great to hear. Now, for our population, most of our listeners will have some connection to children who have hearing loss. And this whole moving to online has actually been pretty challenging for this population. For people who use American Sign Language or any Sign Language modality, that population has been using video conferencing for ages. It’s really hit or miss, case by case if this is a positive or a detractor.”

SC: “Yeah. I had Lindsay Cockburn, an audiologist, who I’m sure you know.”

LS: “She’s been on the show, of course. @listenwithLindsay

SC: “Of course. Yes, she did a blog post for me a week or two ago about considerations for teletherapy for kids with hearing loss. I mean, everything from modifications like the speaker the therapists can make, use a headset, having good internet speed, so there’s not a lag time so that reading the lips is not a 3 second delay from the audio. Using strong internet signal, captioning if you can, obviously, having visuals, if you can have the text present. So, she also talked about modifications that the student can have like using remote microphone technology, using if they have Bluetooth capability right to the device, using a splitter if the parent is present so the parent can hear. And then [she mentioned] environmental modifications, so, limiting background noise and controlling the reverberation as much as you can. Also, have good lighting to help with those visual cues. Yeah, so, that’s a good blog post to check out with lots of little tidbits for that population.”

LS: “Excellent. We will definitely link that in the show notes and there’s always a full transcript of all episodes so you can check that out at allaboutaudiology.com and you can check out Stacy Crouse at…”

SC: “My website, Stacycrouse.com or Instagram @Stacycrouse.SLP“

LS: “Super fun. Thank you so much for sharing and for coming on the show.”

SC: “I really just want to commend everyone that’s giving this a shot and this time because it’s not easy. Anything is better than nothing in just about any case, so you know, just doing what you can to be there and provide what you can but not sweating the small stuff is, I guess my best advice.”

LS: “That really is very, very sweet. I feel bad because I think there’s so much pressure to do everything great. And I recently heard someone say, ‘My child went to speech therapy, and they just played a YouTube video for them. I can do that.’ And my response was, ‘Well, do you know which YouTube video they played for them and what they talked about before and what they talked about after and maybe it was a reward. They didn’t just play them a YouTube video.”

SC: “Right.”

LS: “There was a thought process that went into that.”

SC: “A 30 minute video.”

LS: “No, it was not 30 minutes. That’s another thing. Okay, now I’m just going on a tangent again, because, screens are not the enemy. There’s a lot of amazing resources. We’ve been watching StoryBots on Netflix. Are you familiar with the show?”

SC: “No.”

LS: “Oh my gosh, it is incredible production value through the roof. It’s like an animated series and these storybots are adorable. They go on adventures to learn stuff about the world. And my kids who are very young have watched all three seasons over the last two months, honestly, and I am happy about that. They have learned so much. There’s a difference between watching reruns of, I don’t want to bad mouth anybody but you know, baby shark has been on repeat. How valuable is that? Okay, well, they learn grandma shark and daddy shark, like, okay, we’re getting some vocabulary words, haha.”

SC: “Right. That’s so true. And there’s research on that too. I mean, teletherapy really isn’t synonymous with screen time. You know, the integrated technology, I mean, that’s being integrated to schools before all of this and it’s important for kids to know how to utilize technology to learn and find things and communicate with others. I mean, those are all life skills. So, yeah, it’s different. It’s different.”

LS: “Okay, good. All right.”

SC: “That was my mini soapbox.”

LS: “Perfect. Perfect. Very good. I’m so grateful. Thank you again.”

SC: “Yes, of course. Thanks for having me.”

There you have it. Thank you again to Stacy Crouse for coming on the show and sharing her expertise with us. This has been an incredible season of season three. I am so grateful to each and every one of you for listening and for sharing the show. You don’t know how much it means to me when I get the messages of encouragement, people telling me that certain stories really resonated for them. I ran a poll on my Instagram to see which was the most popular episode and I got lots of answers for all different episodes. So, that’s why I just am telling you about all of them to go back and listen to Dr. Julie Renshaw and Mama Manon and the Autism Educator and Dr. Kelly Dyson, Colleen Wilkinson and Michelle Riddle, who have all been guests this season. Thank you to them. And thank you to you again for being a listener. You can always reach out to me. I read all my DMS, email me through the website, All About Audiology podcast. I’m Dr. Lilach Saperstein, gearing up for season four of the All About Audiology podcast.