Podcasts about rehabilitation institute

What happens when a promising athlete faces a life-changing injury that threatens to silence his dreams? Kenneth Jennings, a remarkable football coach and quadriplegic, opens up about his powerful journey from the southside of Chicago to becoming an inspiring mentor for others with spinal cord injuries. With a vibrant narrative, Kenneth shares the soulful moments that shaped his path, from the support of a coach during his darkest times to an unexpected out-of-body experience that offered peace amidst chaos.Kenneth's story is a testament to the resilience and hope found in the face of adversity. His candid discussion about the emotional and physical challenges of adapting to life after his spinal cord injury reveals profound insights into the human spirit. Through creative therapies like singing to strengthen his diaphragm, and the sheer determination to breathe independently, Kenneth found new purpose. His experiences at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, alongside mentors who had walked similar paths, provided the strength needed to redefine his new normal.Join us as we explore Kenneth's journey to independence, the transformative impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the innovative adaptive technologies that have become vital tools in his life. From the determination required to overcome transportation hurdles to the indispensable role of the mouse stick, Kenneth's narrative not only celebrates personal triumphs but also highlights the enduring power of community and support. His insights remind us that, with passion and perseverance, one can truly live life to the max.

“The psychosocial issues need to be dealt with if you think your mechanical approach is going to have a response.'' - Annie O'Connor Our guest is Annie O'Connor PT, OCS, Cert. MDT. Annie is the founder and CEO of World of Hurt LLC, a company dedicated to the teaching, research, consulting, and clinical practice of the Pain Mechanism Classification System. Annie is a physical therapist with over 30 years of experience. She is also a sought-after speaker and teacher nationally and internationally on musculoskeletal pain mechanism classification, neurodynamic evaluation and treatment, mechanical diagnosis and therapy of spine and extremities, kinetic chain evaluation, functional manual therapy and exercise prescription. She was instrumental in establishing the Pain Mechanism Classification System approach for musculoskeletal pain and neurological spasticity at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab formerly known as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  She co-authored the 2015 book 'A World of Hurt: A Guide to Classifying Pain', along with other book chapters, and has published research promoting a paradigm shift in pain management. She is a member of APTA orthopedic and canine section, the North American Spine Society exercise committee, and McKenzie Institute. Annie sits on the Advisory Board for Greentree Mind Company, Specialty Panel Member for Physical Therapy with AIM Specialty Healthcare Company, and Research and Advisory Board for My Abilities a Health Care data analytics company.

“The psychosocial issues need to be dealt with if you think your mechanical approach is going to have a response.'' - Annie O'Connor Our guest is Annie O'Connor PT, OCS, Cert. MDT. Annie is the founder and CEO of World of Hurt LLC, a company dedicated to the teaching, research, consulting, and clinical practice of the Pain Mechanism Classification System. Annie is a physical therapist with over 30 years of experience. She is also a sought-after speaker and teacher nationally and internationally on musculoskeletal pain mechanism classification, neurodynamic evaluation and treatment, mechanical diagnosis and therapy of spine and extremities, kinetic chain evaluation, functional manual therapy and exercise prescription. She was instrumental in establishing the Pain Mechanism Classification System approach for musculoskeletal pain and neurological spasticity at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab formerly known as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  She co-authored the 2015 book 'A World of Hurt: A Guide to Classifying Pain', along with other book chapters, and has published research promoting a paradigm shift in pain management. She is a member of APTA orthopedic and canine section, the North American Spine Society exercise committee, and McKenzie Institute. Annie sits on the Advisory Board for Greentree Mind Company, Specialty Panel Member for Physical Therapy with AIM Specialty Healthcare Company, and Research and Advisory Board for My Abilities a Health Care data analytics company.

The Rehabilitation Institute at Palmdale Regional Medical Center is blazing a pathway of excellent patient care through our team-centered approach. This team is being recognized for their hard work by gaining awards of excellence through our CARF accreditation and most recently through being recognized as ranking in the top 10 percent of 861 inpatient rehabilitation facilities in the country from the database of Netsmart Technologies.

In this episode we welcome back Robin Speizman and Katherine Wilkie to the Gifted Ed Podcast to explore classroom strategies and structures that support executive functioning needs. We discuss how to develop tiered levels of intervention within instruction as it pertains to executive functioning. Katie Wilkie is the owner of Imagination Therapy PLLC, a speech-language pathology and executive function coaching business serving Forest Park, Oak Park, and the surrounding areas. She is a graduate of Rush Medical Center and her business, Imagination Therapy PLLC, was established in 2017 to service individuals from ages 7-65, with a particular interest in teens and younger adults. Utilizing both bottom-up and top-down interventions, Imagination Therapy approaches executive function needs through a brain-based approach with the understanding that an individualized and tailored plan can target personal strengths and weaknesses.  You can find out more at⁠⁠ www.imaginationtherapyllc.com⁠⁠, or find her on Meta. Robin Grais-Speizman received a MS.Ed in Educational Psychology from National Louis University in June of 1994. She received Bachelors Degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1989, in both Rehabilitation Psychology and in Special Education with a Type 10 Certification. She then worked at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (currently Shirley Ryan Ability Lab) as a Pediatric Behavioral Specialist and Senior Neuropsychometrician for 11 years. She performed neuropsychological testing evaluations to both inpatients and outpatients suffering from brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. She also provided cognitive retraining and school reentry services to children and adolescents upon inpatient discharge and often continued for long term follow-up.  From 1999 -present, Robin has worked as a neuropsychometrician, executive function coach, and clinical intake coordinator in the practice Roger Stefani and Associates, Chicago NeuroBehavior Specialists and now Stefani Neuropsychology Services. She continues to provide neuropsychological testing, school observations, and executive function coaching to patients with ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, learning and educational struggles and other neurodivergent diagnoses to pediatric patients ages 6-22. In January of 2019, Robin established this executive coaching and consultation practice named Refocus. Co-Hosts: Angel Van Howe and Meghan McCarthy Co-Producers: Adam Metcalf and Jeff Westbrook Original Music by Adam G-F How you can be involved: Subscribe to The Gifted Ed Podcast Email us at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thegiftededpodcast@averycoonley.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Submit a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠feedback form⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to the podcast team to let us know of any topics that you would like discussed. Additionally, you can use this form to let us know that you would like to appear on an episode as a guest and what topic(s) you would like to discuss

In this episode we welcome back Robin Speizman and Katherine Wilkie to the Gifted Ed Podcast to explore classroom strategies and structures that support executive functioning needs (Shifting/Flexibility, Social Awareness/ Perspective Taking, and Organization and Planning). We discuss how to develop tiered levels of intervention within instruction as it pertains to executive functioning. Katie Wilkie is the owner of Imagination Therapy PLLC, a speech-language pathology and executive function coaching business serving Forest Park, Oak Park, and the surrounding areas. She is a graduate of Rush Medical Center and her business, Imagination Therapy PLLC, was established in 2017 to service individuals from ages 7-65, with a particular interest in teens and younger adults. Utilizing both bottom-up and top-down interventions, Imagination Therapy approaches executive function needs through a brain-based approach with the understanding that an individualized and tailored plan can target personal strengths and weaknesses.  You can find out more at⁠ www.imaginationtherapyllc.com⁠, or find her on Meta. Robin Grais-Speizman received a MS.Ed in Educational Psychology from National Louis University in June of 1994. She received Bachelors Degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1989, in both Rehabilitation Psychology and in Special Education with a Type 10 Certification. She then worked at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (currently Shirley Ryan Ability Lab) as a Pediatric Behavioral Specialist and Senior Neuropsychometrician for 11 years. She performed neuropsychological testing evaluations to both inpatients and outpatients suffering from brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. She also provided cognitive retraining and school reentry services to children and adolescents upon inpatient discharge and often continued for long term follow-up.  From 1999 -present, Robin has worked as a neuropsychometrician, executive function coach, and clinical intake coordinator in the practice Roger Stefani and Associates, Chicago NeuroBehavior Specialists and now Stefani Neuropsychology Services. She continues to provide neuropsychological testing, school observations, and executive function coaching to patients with ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, learning and educational struggles and other neurodivergent diagnoses to pediatric patients ages 6-22. In January of 2019, Robin established this executive coaching and consultation practice named Refocus. Co-Hosts: Angel Van Howe and Meghan McCarthy Co-Producers: Adam Metcalf and Jeff Westbrook Original Music by Adam G-F How you can be involved: Subscribe to The Gifted Ed Podcast Email us at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegiftededpodcast@averycoonley.org⁠⁠⁠⁠ Submit a ⁠⁠⁠⁠feedback form⁠⁠⁠⁠ to the podcast team to let us know of any topics that you would like discussed. Additionally, you can use this form to let us know that you would like to appear on an episode as a guest and what topic(s) you would like to discuss

Richard D. Zorowitz, M.D. is a graduate of the Tulane University School of Medicine.  He completed an internship in internal medicine at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY, and a residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Northwestern University, IL.  He is board-certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spinal Cord Injury Medicine, and Brain Injury Medicine. Dr. Zorowitz focuses his clinical activities on the rehabilitation of stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and other neurological conditions.  He specializes in the management of spasticity, including oral medications, botulinum toxin injections, and intrathecal baclofen.  His research activities focus on stroke rehabilitation, including motor recovery, hemiplegic shoulder pain, dysphagia, spasticity, pseudobulbar affect, and functional outcomes.   5 Thoughts Friday: Learning, Lost, and Lao   For more information you can visit www.biamd.org or call the free helpline at 1-800-221-6443.   Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute endorsement of treatments, individuals, or programs which appear herein. Any external links on the website are provided for the visitor's convenience; once you click on any of these links you are leaving the BIAMD website. BIAMD has no control over and is not responsible for the nature, content, and availability of those sites.

In this episode we invite Robin Speizman and Katherine Wilkie to define and discuss the components of executive functioning and how it presents within our gifted community. Katie Wilkie is the owner of Imagination Therapy PLLC, a speech-language pathology and executive function coaching business serving Forest Park, Oak Park, and the surrounding areas. She is a graduate of Rush Medical Center and her business, Imagination Therapy PLLC, was established in 2017 to service individuals from ages 7-65, with a particular interest in teens and younger adults. Utilizing both bottom-up and top-down interventions, Imagination Therapy approaches executive function needs through a brain-based approach with the understanding that an individualized and tailored plan can target personal strengths and weaknesses.  You can find out more at www.imaginationtherapyllc.com, or find her on Meta. Robin Grais-Speizman received a MS.Ed in Educational Psychology from National Louis University in June of 1994. She received Bachelors Degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1989, in both Rehabilitation Psychology and in Special Education with a Type 10 Certification. She then worked at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (currently Shirley Ryan Ability Lab) as a Pediatric Behavioral Specialist and Senior Neuropsychometrician for 11 years. She performed neuropsychological testing evaluations to both inpatients and outpatients suffering from brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. She also provided cognitive retraining and school reentry services to children and adolescents upon inpatient discharge and often continued for long term follow-up.  From 1999 -present, Robin has worked as a neuropsychometrician, executive function coach, and clinical intake coordinator in the practice Roger Stefani and Associates, Chicago NeuroBehavior Specialists and now Stefani Neuropsychology Services. She continues to provide neuropsychological testing, school observations, and executive function coaching to patients with ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, learning and educational struggles and other neurodivergent diagnoses to pediatric patients ages 6-22. In January of 2019, Robin established this executive coaching and consultation practice named Refocus. Co-Hosts: Angel Van Howe and Meghan McCarthy Co-Producers: Adam Metcalf and Jeff Westbrook Original Music by Adam G-F How you can be involved: Subscribe to The Gifted Ed Podcast Email us at: ⁠⁠⁠thegiftededpodcast@averycoonley.org⁠⁠⁠ Submit a ⁠⁠⁠feedback form⁠⁠⁠ to the podcast team to let us know of any topics that you would like discussed. Additionally, you can use this form to let us know that you would like to appear on an episode as a guest and what topic(s) you would like to discuss

This is an exciting year for RUSK, celebrating our 75th anniversary! As part of our celebration, we are hosting a number of events including our Research Symposium, podcasts, and interviews. Our content continues to cover a wide range of topics within PM&R, and this particular segment includes special Rusk 75th Anniversary episodes featuring Rusk leadership, faculty, and residents. This is the third of three special episodes... Dr. Lindsey Gurin specializes in Dementia & Alzheimer's, Neuropsychiatry and is Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, an Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine ,and an Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine She is also Director of both the  Neurology/Psychiatry Residency Program and Behavioral Neurology, NYU Langone Orthopedics Hospital. Dr. Prin Amorapanth is an Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine . He completed his residency at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Rehab Medicine and his fellowship at NYU Langone Medical Center, Brain Injury Medicine.  Dr. Jessica Rivetz is currently a resident physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabiitation at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and will be applying for her fellowship in brain injury medicine.         

Hear from our Rehabilitation Services Administrator, Veronica Gadomski, as she talks about Palmdale Regional's recent CARF Accreditation for our inpatient unit, The Rehabilitation Institute. This accreditation is a huge accomplishment that bolsters an already successful rehabilitation program.

In this episode, Marc and Heather are joined by Gil Castillo Jr., the Director of Platinum Wealth Solutions, and Federica Soriano, the CEO of the Children's Rehabilitation Institute, TeletonUSA, in San Antonio. ▶ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://goo.gl/dzqVGV Host: ✅ Marc Ebinger, Crükus Marketing Agency

Julie Papievis is a remarkable survivor of the traumatic brain stem injury who has transformed her experience into a thriving career as a national speaker, advocate for injury prevention, and peer advisor to various organizations. Her journey to recovery and remarkable resilience has been featured on major media outlets such as CNN, The Chicago Tribune, and Lifetime TV's "Beyond Chance." Today, Julie is a VIP member of ThinkFirst, an international program that promotes injury prevention and safe driving. She speaks to students nationwide, inspiring them with her story and the importance of injury prevention. Julie also volunteers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and serves as a Brand Ambassador for Fairhaven Wealth Management. With over 20 years of experience working as a community relations advisor for a top Chicago law firm, Julie has a wealth of knowledge in legal matters and uses her expertise to help others. She is a powerful voice for survivors and has collaborated with various organizations such as the Brain Injury Association and the Spinal Cord Injury Association. Through her book, "Go Back and Be Happy," Julie shares her incredible journey and provides guidance and hope for others who are struggling with traumatic brain injury. Her remarkable story serves as a testament to the power of resilience and the ability to overcome adversity. Join us on this inspiring journey of survival and recovery with Julie Papievis. Subscribe to our channel and don't miss out on her powerful message of hope and injury prevention.

Free Occupational Science 101 Guidebookhttps://beacon.by/evolved-living/occupational-science-101-guide-podcastOS Empowered OT Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/1569824073462362/ In this episode, Dr. Tim Dionne explores the importance of building active partnerships between clinicians and academics and exploring where together we have the agency to transform the systems and services our current and future clients receive. We are working together on a textbook chapter exploring how we can start to share and develop information to support our practice outside of official channels that tend to be more exclusive than inclusive.  He will be at AOTA this year sharing information on how OTPs can access research in the field to support their practice and we are working together to develop a knowledge dissemination/discussion/networking/collaboration platform that you can check out here to allow connect more with his work and resources for OTPs: community.evolvedlivingnetwork.com  Submit Comments on ACOTE Standards by end of the day April 10th here: https://acoteonline.org/accreditation-explained/standards/ AOTA Representative Assembly submissions are not closed for comment Project ECHO: https://hsc.unm.edu/echo/AOTA Commission on Practice (Currently in need of an OTA Rep, Reach out to Tim if Interested): https://www.aota.org/community/volunteer-groups/commission-on-practice-copNetwork with Tim at AOTA Inspire and on our new online knowledge translation, discussion, and collaboration platform here: https://community.evolvedlivingnetwork.com/tpdionneBiographyDr. Tim Dionne earned his BS in Occupational Science and MS in Occupational Therapy from the University at Buffalo in 2010 and worked at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (now Shirley Ryan Ability Lab) for 5 years. Then transitioned to Rehab Science PhD program at the University at Buffalo, completed in 2019His research emphasis is on supporting therapists provided quality care, through knowledge dissemination and dissemination and implementation research methods. Improving expertise in occupational therapy across urban and rural settings and equity of knowledge are my top research priorities.Areas of SpecialtyNeurorehabilitationAssistive TechnologyPhysical Agent ModalitiesDissemination and ImplementationMixed-methods research designLink to full Podcast DisclaimerEvolved Living Network Instragram @EvolvedLivingNetworkFree Occupational Science 101 Guidebookhttps://swiy.co/OS101GuidePodcastOS Empowered OT Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/1569824073462362/Link to Full Podcast Disclaimer https://docs.google.com/document/d/13DI0RVawzWrsY-Gmj7qOLk5A6tH-V9150xETzAdd6MQ/edit

Dr. Aadeel Akhtar is the Founder and CEO of PSYONIC, a company whose mission is to develop advanced prostheses that are affordable for everyone. Victoria talks to Dr. Akhtar about the gaps in the market he you saw in current prosthetic ability, advancements PSYONIC has been able to make since commercializing, and essential principles and values when you were building out the team. PSYONIC (https://www.psyonic.io/) Follow PSYONIC on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/psyonicinc/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/PSYONICinc). Follow Dr. Aadeel Akhtar on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aadeelakhtar/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host Victoria Guido. And with me today is Dr. Aadeel Akhtar, Founder and CEO of PSYONIC, a company whose mission is to develop advanced prostheses that are affordable for everyone. Aadeel, thank you for joining me. DR. AADEEL: Thank you for having me, Victoria. This is fun. VICTORIA: Yes, I'm excited to meet you. So I actually ran into you earlier this week at a San Diego tech meetup. And I'm curious just to hear more about your company PSYONIC. DR. AADEEL: So, as you mentioned, we develop advanced bionic limbs that are affordable and accessible. And this is actually something I've wanted to do my whole life ever since I was seven years old. My parents are from Pakistan. I was born in the Chicago suburbs. But I was visiting, and that was the first time I met someone missing a limb; and she was my age missing her right leg, using a tree branch as a crutch, living in poverty. And that's kind of what inspired me to go into this field. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And maybe you can start with what gaps in the market did you see in current prosthetic ability? DR. AADEEL: When we first started making these prosthetic devices, we were 3D printing them. And we thought that the biggest issue with prosthetic devices was that they were way too expensive and saw that with 3D printing, we'd be able to reduce the prices on them. And that's true; it was actually one of the biggest issues, but it wasn't the biggest issue. After talking with hundreds of patients and clinicians, the number one thing that we found that patients and clinicians would raise issue with was that their super expensive bionic hands were breaking all the time. And these were made with injection molded plastics and custom-machined steel. And they weren't doing anything crazy with it. They would accidentally hit the hand against the side of a table, but because they were made out of rigid components, they would end up snapping up those joints. And a natural hand, for example, if you bang a natural hand against a table or a rigid object, then it flexes out of the way. It has compliance in it, and that's why it's able to survive those types of hits and impacts a little bit more. It forced us to think outside the box of how can we still leverage the low-cost manufacturing of 3D printing but make this hand more robust than anything out there? And that's when I started looking into soft robotics. And with soft robotics, instead of making rigid links in your robot, so instead of having rigid joints and components, you'd use soft materials like silicone that are more akin to your skin and your own biological tissues that are more flexible and compliant. So we started making the fingers out of rubber and silicone. And now we've been able to do things like punch through flaming boards, and I dropped it from the roof of my house 30 feet up in the air, and it survived. We put it in a dryer for 10 minutes, and it survived tumbling around in a dryer. I've arm wrestled against the para-triathlete national champion and lost. So this thing was built to survive a lot more than just hitting your hand against the side of a table. VICTORIA: Wow, that sounds incredible. And I love that you started with a premise, and then you got feedback from your users and found a completely different problem, even though that same problem still existed [laughs] about the low cost. DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. VICTORIA: Wow. So taking it back a little bit more to the beginning, so you knew you always wanted to do prosthetics since you grew up in Pakistan and saw people without their limbs. Take me a little bit more from the beginning of the journey. When did you decide to start the company officially? DR. AADEEL: And just to clarify, I was just visiting Pakistan for the summer, but I grew up and was raised here in the U.S. So I went to Loyola University Chicago for undergrad, and I got a bachelor's degree in biology there, followed by a master's in computer science. And the original plan was to actually become an MD working with patients with amputations and developing prosthetics for them. But while I was an undergraduate student at Loyola, I took my first computer science class, and I absolutely loved it. I loved everything about coding, and programming, and engineering. And I realized that if I became a straight-up MD, I wouldn't get to do any of the cool things that I was learning in my computer science classes. And I wanted to figure out a way to combine my passions in engineering and computer science with clinical medicine and prosthetics. And right down the street at a hospital formerly known as The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago...it's now the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. It's the number-one rehabilitation hospital in the U.S. for the last 31 years. They made these huge breakthroughs in mind control bionic limbs where they were doing a surgery where they would reroute your nerves to other muscles that you already have on your body. And then, when you try to imagine bending your phantom elbow or making a phantom fist, your chest muscles would contract. And then you could use those signals to then control this robotic limb that was designed by Dean Kamen that was sponsored by DARPA and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That was just absolutely incredible. And it was this perfect mixture of engineering and clinical medicine, and it was exactly what I wanted to get into. But, as you'd mentioned, we're all about accessibility, and a $100,000 cost hand would not cut it. And so I ended up finishing a master's in computer science. I taught at Loyola for a couple of years and then went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I got another master's in electrical and computer engineering, a Ph.D. in neuroscience. And then I finished the first year of medical school before I left to run PSYONIC because it is a lot more fun building bionic limbs [laughs] than finishing medical school. And while I was a graduate student, we started 3D printing our own prosthetic hands, and we got the chance in 2014 to go down to Quito, Ecuador, where we were working with a nonprofit organization called The Range of Motion Project. And their whole mission is to provide prosthetics to those who can't afford them in the U.S., Guatemala, and Ecuador. And we went down there, and we were working with a patient who had lost his left hand 35 years prior due to machine gunfire from a helicopter; he was in the Ecuadorian Army. And there was a border war between Ecuador and Peru. And Juan, our patient, in front of international news stations, said that he felt as though a part of him had come back. And that was because he actually made a pinch with his left hand for the first time in 35 years. And you have to imagine the hand at that time was three times the size of an average natural hand, adult human hand. Had wires going everywhere, breadboards, power supplies, the walls, you name it. And despite that, he said that a part of him had come back. And he actually forgot how to make a pinch with his left hand, and we had to retrain his brain by placing a mirror in front of his left side reflecting his right hand, tricking his brain into thinking that his left hand was actually there. And he would make a pinch with both sides, and it would reactivate the muscles in his forearm on his left side. And when he said that, that's when I realized that if I stay in academia, then this just ends up as a journal paper. And if we want everyone to feel the same way that Juan did, we had to commercialize the technology. And so that's when PSYONIC was born. VICTORIA: I love that you're working on that as someone who's from Washington, D.C., and has done a lot of work in veterans and homeless organizations and seen how life-changing getting access to limbs and regaining capability can be for people. DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. In fact, our first user in the U.S. is a U.S. Army sergeant who lost his hand in Iraq in 2005 due to roadside bombs, Sergeant Garrett Anderson. He used a hook on a daily basis, and with our hand, he's actually able to feel his daughter's hand, which is something that he wasn't able to do with any other prosthesis. And for him to tell us that that is why we do what we do. VICTORIA: Right. And I saw on your website that you have several patents and have talked about the advances you've been able to make in what I'm going to call the sensorimotor bionic limbs. Can you tell me a little bit more about some of the advancements you've been able to make since you decided to commercialize this? DR. AADEEL: The first thing that usually users notice is that, and clinicians notice as well, is that the hand is the fastest bionic hand in the world. So the fingers close in about 200 milliseconds. And to put that into context, we can wink our eyes in about 300 milliseconds. So it's technically faster than the blink of an eye, which is kind of a cool statistic there. So it's super fast. And the fingers are super resistant to impact, so they're very durable. And so we've got a couple of patents on both of those items in particular. And then there's the touch feedback aspect. So this is the only hand on the market that gives users touch feedback. And so the methods that we have to mold the fingers to enable that sensory feedback that is what our third patent is on for the hand, and it just looks really cool. It's got like this black carbon fiber on it that just looks really futuristic and bionic. And it just gives users the confidence that this isn't something to be pitied; this is something that's really cool. And especially for our war heroes, that's something to be celebrated that I lost my hand for our country, and now I've got this really cool one that can do all of the things that my hand used to do. VICTORIA: And I also saw that it's reimbursable by Medicare in the U.S. And I was curious if you had any lessons learned from that process for getting eligible for that. DR. AADEEL: Yeah. And that was part of the goal from the very beginning. After we did our customer discovery process, where we figured out what the pain points are and found out that durability was one of the biggest issues, obviously, one of the other issues was the really expensive price of the other hands, and typically what we call a multi-articulated hand, so that's one where each one of the fingers move individually. Those are only covered by the VA, so if you're in the military or workman's comp so if you had a workplace accident. And that only accounted for about 10% of the U.S. market. And what the clinicians kept telling us over and over again was that if you can get the hand covered by Medicare, then usually all the other insurance companies will follow suit, like your Blue Cross Blue Shield, your Aetna, your Kaiser, et cetera. So that was our design goal from the beginning. So how can we hit a price point that Medicare would cover but also make this fully featured that no other hand can do any of these other things? What it primarily came down to was hitting that price point. And as long as we hit that price point, then Medicare was going to be fine with it. So we invented a lot of the manufacturing methods that we use in-house to make the hand in particular. So we do all the silicone molding. We do all the carbon fiber work. We do all the fabric work. We do all the assembly of it in-house in our warehouse here in San Diego. And by being so vertically integrated, we're able to then iterate very quickly and make these innovations happen at a much more rapid scale so that we can get them out there faster and then help more people who need it. VICTORIA: So you've really grown tremendously from when you first had the project, and now you have a team here in San Diego. Do you have any lessons learned for enabling your team to drive faster in that innovation? DR. AADEEL: Yeah, the biggest thing that I feel like a lot of things come down to is just having grit. So especially with a startup, it's always going to be a roller coaster ride. And for us, I think one of the big motivating factors for us is the patients themselves when they get to do these things that they weren't able to do before. So another one of our first patients, Tina, had just become a grandmother, and she was able to feed her granddaughter for the first time because she was able to hold the bottle with her bionic hand, The Ability Hand, and then hold her granddaughter with her natural hand and then feed her using The Ability Hand. It's, like I said, moments like that is why we do what we're doing. It gives us that motivation to work those long hours, make those deadlines so that we can help as many people as possible. VICTORIA: Right. So you have that motivating power behind your idea, which makes a lot of sense. What else in your customer discovery sprint was surprising to you as you moved through that process? DR. AADEEL: So there was definitely the robustness that was surprising. There was the cost that wasn't necessarily the highest priority thing, which we thought would be the highest priority. And the speed and just having to rely on visual feedback, you have to kind of look at the hand as you're doing the task that you're doing, but you have to look at it very intently. So that takes a lot of cognitive load. You have to pay attention very specifically to am I doing the right movement with my hand? In ways that you wouldn't necessarily have to do with a natural hand. And by making the hand move so responsive as it is and move so quickly, in addition to having that touch feedback, that reduces, or at least we believe it'll reduce a lot of that cognitive load for our patients so that they don't have to be constantly monitoring exactly what the hand is doing in order to do a lot of the tasks or the activities of daily living that they're doing on a day to day basis. The whole customer discovery process drove what features we were going to focus on in actually making this hand a reality. VICTORIA: Yeah, that makes sense. And I love hearing about what came up that surprised people. And I appreciate your commitment to that process to really drive your business idea and to solve this problem that happens to so many people in the United States. Well, how widespread is this issue? And, of course, I'm sure you're targeting more than just the United States with rollout, but... DR. AADEEL: So, globally, there are over 10 million people with hand amputations, and 80% of them actually live in developing nations, and less than 3% have access to affordable rehabilitative care. So it's a huge need worldwide, and we want to make sure that everyone has access to the best available prosthetic devices. VICTORIA: That makes sense. So I guess commercializing this product leads to more room, more availability across for everyone. DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. And interesting thing about that, too, is that as we were developing these, the hand in particular, we've optimized it for humans to do human tasks. And we have a programming interface that we put on it that allows researchers to control each one of the fingers like you control the speed, the position, and the force from each one of those fingers as well as you can stream all of the touch sensors like over Bluetooth or over a USB connection, and then also the location of each one of those fingers as well. A lot of robotics researchers who are building humanoid robots and robot arms to do other tasks like manufacturing and robotic surgery and things like that have been purchasing our hand too. So notably, for example, NASA and Meta, so Facebook Meta, have purchased our hands, and NASA is putting it on a humanoid astronaut robot, which hopefully will eventually go into space. And then, on Earth, they'd be able to control it and then manipulate objects in space. And it's opened up an entirely new market, but the critical thing here is that it's the exact same hand that the humans are getting that the robots are getting. And what this allows us to do is just expand our volume of production and our sales so that we can actually further drive down the costs and the pricing for the human side of things as well. So if we're talking about places like India, or Pakistan, or Guatemala, or Ecuador where there are no government incentives in place to reimburse at a rate that they might in the U.S., then we can actually get the price point to one that's actually affordable in those areas as well. And I'm really excited about those prospects. VICTORIA: That's so cool that future robot astronauts will be financing people who have no ability [laughs] to go into space or anything like that. That's a cool business idea. I wonder, when did that happen for you, or what was that like when you realized that there was this other potential untapped market for robotic limbs? DR. AADEEL: It's interesting. It was always in the back of our minds because, as I was a Ph.D. student, I was in the Ph.D. group that focused on robotics, in particular more so than prosthetics. And I was the first one in the group to actually kind of have the prosthetic spin on things. And so I had an idea of where the market was for the robotic side of things. And I had some connections as well. And so I was actually giving a talk at Georgia Tech early last year. The Director of the Georgia Tech Robotics Institute, Dr. Seth Hutchinson, he was telling me that...he was like, "You should go to the big robotics conference, ICRA, because people are going to be like...absolutely love this product for their robots." And we were just like, huh, we never considered that. And so we decided to go, and it was just absolutely nuts. We've had researchers from all over the world being like, "How can I get this hand?" And compared to a lot of the robotic hands that are out there, even on the robotic side, this is a much lower price point than what they've been dealing with. And by solving a lot of the problems on the human side, like durability, and sensory feedback, and dexterity, and the pricing, it actually solved a lot of the problems on the robotic side as well. So I was just like...after we had gone to that conference, we realized that, yeah, we can actually make this work as well. VICTORIA: That's really cool. And it sounds like tapping into this robotics market and networking really worked for you. What else about your market research or strategy seem to be effective in your business growth? DR. AADEEL: This is interesting as well. So half of our sales actually come from social media, which for a medical device company is usually unheard of. [laughs] Because usually the model is, for medical devices, where you have a group of sales reps located across the regions that you're selling and so across the U.S. And they would visit each one of the clinics, and then they would work with the clinicians directly in getting these on the patients. That usually accounts for like 99% of sales. And so for us, for half of them to come from social media, it was a goal that we had set out to, but it was also surprising that that accounted for so much of our volumes and our revenue. The way we set it up was that we wanted to make videos of our hand that highlighted things that our hand could do that were novel and unique. And so, for example, we wanted to highlight the durability of the hand as well as the dexterity and the touch feedback. And so some of the first videos that we made were like arm wrestling against a bionic hand. And what's cool about that is that the general public just found that very interesting in general. But also, when a clinician and a patient sees that, wow, this hand can actually withstand the forces of an actual arm wrestling match, then they're also just as impressed. And the same thing with punching through three wooden boards that we set on fire; if it can handle that, then it can handle activities of daily living. General public seizes, and they're just like, "Whoa, that's so cool." But then clinicians and the patients they see that, and they were like, "My prosthetic hand couldn't do this before." And so then they contact us, and we're like, "How can we get your hand?" And then we'll either put them in contact with a clinician, or we'll work with one of the clinicians that they are already working with then go through their insurance that way. And so it's just been a really exciting and fun way to generate, like, expand our market and generate sales that we didn't necessarily think was going to be a viable way from the start. VICTORIA: Right. I totally get it. I mean, I want one, and both my hands still work. MID-ROLL AD: thoughtbot is thrilled to announce our own incubator launching this year. If you are a non-technical founding team with a business idea that involves a web or mobile app, we encourage you to apply for our eight-week program. We'll help you move forward with confidence in your team, your product vision, and a roadmap for getting you there. Learn more and apply at tbot.io/incubator, that's tbot.io/incubator. VICTORIA: Have you ever seen someone rock climb with the prosthetic hand? DR. AADEEL: Not yet, but that is something that is definitely on our docket. VICTORIA: Okay, well, we need to do it. Since we're both in San Diego, I can help you. [laughs] DR. AADEEL: Sweet. I love it. [laughs] VICTORIA: Yeah, we can figure that out because there are, especially in the climbing gyms, there are usually groups that come in and climb with prosthetic limbs on a regular basis since it's a kind of a surprisingly accessible sport. [laughs] DR. AADEEL: So one of the great things about being here in San Diego is that there's like a ton of incredible resources for building prosthetics and then for users of them as well. So the Challenged Athletes Foundation is located 10 minutes from us. So we're located in Scripps Ranch. And the Challenged Athletes Foundation they're like over in the Sorrento Valley area. They hold the para-triathlon every year. And so we just went to their event a couple of months ago, and it was absolutely incredible. And so we've got like a five-year goal of making an ability leg. So we have The Ability Hand right now. So the ability leg, we want to actually be able to perform a triathlon, so run, bike, and swim with the leg. And I think that would be a phenomenal goal. And all the pieces are here in San Diego. We got the military hospital, and so we've got the veteran population. We've got the Challenged Athletes Foundation. We've got UCSD, and they're incredible at engineering. We've got two prosthetic schools right around LA, so Loma Linda University in California State University, Dominguez Hills. And there are only 11 in the entire nation, and two of them just happen to be right around here. It's a med tech hub. There's like a bunch of med tech companies and both startups and huge ones like NuVasive that are in the area. And it's a huge engineering place, too, with Qualcomm. And so we want to bring all of those resources together. And it's my goal to turn San Diego into the bionics capital of the world, where people from all over the world are coming here to have the most advanced devices ever created. VICTORIA: Oh, I love that idea. And you just moved to San Diego a few years ago. Is that right? DR. AADEEL: Actually, six months ago, so it's very new for us. VICTORIA: Six months? [laughter] Well, you sound like me when I moved to San Diego. I was like; it's great here. [laughter] DR. AADEEL: Well, I hope you still find it to be great. [laughs] VICTORIA: Yeah, I love it. I've been here for two years now. And, yes, there's more to it than just the weather being good all the time. [laughter] There's a lot here. DR. AADEEL: [laughs] It doesn't hurt, though, right? VICTORIA: Yeah. And, I mean, I love that I can still do my networking events outdoors all year long, so going on hikes and stuff versus being indoors in the winter. But I find it fascinating that San Diego has just so much biotech all around, and I will happily support how I can [laughs] turning it into a bionic limb capital. I think that's a great idea. Well, so I wanted to get back...we're talking about the future right now. I wanted to ask about building your team. So you started the company almost seven years ago, and you've grown the team a lot since then. Did you have any essential principles or values that you started with when you were building out your team? DR. AADEEL: Yeah. So when we were first hiring, I was still a Ph.D. student when I started the company. Our first employee was actually my undergraduate student. He's currently our Director of Engineering, Jesse Cornman. And we specifically were recruiting people that did stuff outside of the lab, so the electrical engineers and the mechanical engineers that we initially hired. We wanted to make sure that it wasn't just like the university projects that they were working on. And we would find a lot of our early people from like car team so like this was like building like a solar car, so Illini Solar Car was one of our places where we'd get a lot of our early employees as well as the electrical vehicle concept team and design, build, fly, and these student organizations where they had like competitions, and they had to build real, tangible things to compete in with. And the thing is that those are the people who do this stuff for fun, and you learn the most when you're having fun doing this stuff. And so we would always look for that stuff in particular. And there were some litmus tests that we'd have to be able to weed out very quickly what people know what. And so for electrical engineers, we would always ask if they know surface mount soldering because it's not like your typical soldering on a perf board or even like using a breadboard. It's like you have a circuit board, and you have to solder these very small components on there. And if you know how to solder those small components, you typically know how to code them as well. So they have some embedded systems background as well and some PCB design experience as well. And so that was like a quick litmus test that we use for the electrical engineers. For the mechanical engineers, it was typically if they knew how to do surface modeling. And so we would ask them, "How would you make the palm of a hand where you got these complex structures and these complex surfaces that have different geometries and different curvature?" And if they were able to do a surface modeling, then we knew that they'd be able to CAD that up pretty quickly. They probably have some sort of 3D printing experience from that as well, and that they can just rapidly iterate and prototype on the devices. And so that worked really, really well. And so we were able to get a lot of bright engineers who early on in the company...and many who were student interns at the time that eventually even went on to Microsoft and Google or some of the students went to MIT and places like that. And we were very fortunate to be in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's ecosystem, where it was just one of the best engineering schools in the world to develop this kind of stuff. VICTORIA: That's great. So you had really specific skills that you needed. [laughs] And you kind of knew the type of work or an experience that led to that. As you've expanded your team and you're building a culture of collaboration, how do you set expectations with how you all work together? DR. AADEEL: As a startup, we all wear many, many hats. So my job, I feel like, is to fill in all the gaps. And so some days, I might be doing marketing; some days, I might be visiting a clinic and doing sales. Other times I'm working with the engineering team to make sure that we're on track over there. And it's like all this stuff in between. And so being able to work cohesively like that and put on those many hats so that you know every part of the process from the marketing and sales sides but also the engineering and operations side, I think that's really allowed us to get to the point where we have by doing all these different functions together. VICTORIA: That makes sense. So you are all located in San Diego now, so you have to be in person to work on robot hands? DR. AADEEL: Yeah, we found that it was much easier to build a physical object in person than it was to do things remotely. At the beginning of COVID, we actually did try to, like, you know, we moved 3D printers out into people's houses and the manufacturing equipment. And then I remember just to put together a power switch that usually took like one hour to do in the lab. It took us a day and a half because one person had the circuit board, the other person had the enclosure, the other person had the thing to program it. And then each thing depended on each other. So you had to keep carting that small piece back and forth between houses, and it was just a nightmare to do that. And so after a couple of months, we ended up moving back into the offices and manufacturing there with staggered work hours or whatever. And at that point, we were just like, okay, this is much more efficient when we're all in person. And honestly, a lot of our best ideas have come from just me sitting here and then just walking over to one of the engineers and being like, "Hey, what do you think of this idea?" And it's a lot harder to do when you're all remote, right? VICTORIA: That makes sense. Yeah, just the need to physically put pieces together [laughs] as a group makes it hard to be fully remote. And you get a lot of those ideas flowing when you're in person. What is on the horizon for you? What are you most excited about in your upcoming feature set? DR. AADEEL: Like I said, one of the reasons why we moved here was to work with the military hospital, and so some of the work that we're doing with them is particularly exciting. The way you typically wear these prosthetic devices...so you'll have muscle sensors that are embedded in a...it's like a shell that goes around your residual limb. We call it the socket. Think about it as like a shoe for your residual limb. And the thing is, as you're wearing this throughout the day, it starts to get sweaty. It starts to get uncomfortable. Things shift around. Your signals don't control the hand as well because of all these changes and everything. And with the military hospital, we're working on something called osseointegration. So instead of having this socket that's molded to your residual limb that you shove your arm into, you have a titanium implant that goes inside your bones and then comes out of your body, and then you directly attach the hand to your bones like a limb naturally should be. And then, on top of that, instead of using these muscles sensors on the outside of your body, we're actually working on implanted electrodes with some of our collaborators. For example, at University of Chicago, they're doing brain implants to control prosthetic limbs. And a company in Dallas called Nerves Incorporated that's working with the University of Minnesota and UT Southwestern; they're doing nerve implants in your forearm and in your upper arm to control prosthetic limbs. And with those, you get much more fine control, so it's not like you're just controlling different grips, like preset grips in the hand, but you're actually doing individual finger control. And then, when you touch the finger, it's actually stimulating your nerves to make it feel like it's coming from your hand that you no longer have anymore. And this is where we're heading with all of this stuff in the future. And so we built The Ability Hand to work with clinically available systems now, like sockets, and muscle sensors, and vibration motors that are all outside of the body. But then also, when these future technologies come up that are more invasive that are directly implanted on your nerves as well as into your bones as well, we're really excited about those prospects coming out in the horizon. VICTORIA: That's really cool. [laughs] I mean, that would be really life-changing for a lot of people, I'm sure, to have that ability to really control your fingers and get that extra comfort as well. How do you manage quality into your process, especially when you're getting invasive and putting in nerve implants? What kind of testing and other types of things do you all do? DR. AADEEL: With The Ability Hand itself, there was actually an FDA Class I exempt device, meaning that we didn't have to go through the formal approval process that you typically do. And that was primarily because it's attached to your residual limb as opposed to going invasive. But with going invasive, with our clinical partners they're actually doing FDA clinical trials right now. And so they've gone through a lot of those processes. We're starting to enroll some of our patients who are using The Ability Hand to get these implanted electrodes. We're kind of navigating that whole process ourselves right now too. So I think that was one of the reasons why we moved to San Diego, to work with and leverage a lot of the expertise from people who've done it already, from the med tech device companies that are big that have gone through those processes and can guide us through that process as well. So we're excited to be able to leverage those resources in order to streamline these clinical trial processes so that we can get these devices out there more quickly. VICTORIA: That's very cool. I'm super excited to hear about that and to learn more about PSYONIC. Is there anything else you want to share with our audience today as a final takeaway? DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. So in order to make all this stuff happen, we're actually in the middle of raising a round right now. Our biggest issue right now is actually that we've got more demand than we can produce, so we're working on scaling our manufacturing here in San Diego. So we're in the middle of an equity crowdfunding round. And we're all about accessibility, so about making our hand accessible to as many people as possible. So we were like, why don't we make the company accessible as well? And one of the most beautiful things about doing this as an equity crowdfunding round is our patients actually have invested in the company as well. And so it's like, we're making these devices for them, and then they get to be a part of it as well. And it's just this beautiful synergy that I couldn't have asked for anything more out of a crowdfunding campaign. And so we've raised over 750k already on StartEngine. And you can find out more and invest for as little as $250 at psyonic.io, so that's psyonic.io/invest. And the other thing I was going to mention, especially Victoria since you're in San Diego as well, is that I happily give tours to anyone who is in the area. So if anyone wants to see how we build all these bionic hands and just a cool robotics startup in general, we'd be happy to have you come visit us. VICTORIA: That's very cool. I'll have to connect with you later and schedule a tour myself. [laughs] That's wonderful. I'm excited to hear all the things you're working on and hope to see you more in the San Diego community coming up. And we'll share links to the funding page and other information about PSYONIC in our show notes. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Mastodon at Victoria Guido. And this podcast is brought to by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Aadeel Akhtar.

Annie O'Connor received her BS in PT from St. Louis University in 1986 and a masters in Orthopedic PT from Northwest University in 1993. She's also an orthopedic clinical specialist as recognized by the APTA. She's co-authored multiple peer-reviewed studies, articles in national and international publications, and book chapters and is the co-author of her new book A World of Hurt: A Guide to Classifying Pain.Annie lectures nationally and internationally on pain classification and intervention, neurodynamic evaluation and treatment, mechanical diagnosis and therapy of spine and extremities, kinetic chain evaluation, and functional manual therapy and exercise prescription. She was instrumental in establishing the allied health's clinical diagnostic approach for musculoskeletal pain at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.This is a CAN'T MISS episode where Annie touches on how A World Of Hurt came about, communicating pain to patients, hurt vs harm, and so much more! Follow Annie on Twitter at twitter.com/worldofhurt2Contact her at worldofhurt2 [at] gmail.comAs always, find more information about courses at https://www.mwri.co and follow us on Instagram to keep up with Clinical Leadership Podcast updates!PS: Please help us grow our youtube channel! Like and subscribe HERE!

Cheryl Angelelli sustained a spinal cord injury from a diving accident in 1983. 15 years later, she took up swimming again and would become a 3x Paralympian and 4X Paralympic medalist in the sport. After retiring from swimming, Cheryl turned to wheelchair ballroom dancing. In addition to her work with Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, a Move United member organization, she travels the country to promote dance to other individuals with disabilities.

Join Sydney Cariel and Vince Muscat for another edition of STATE CHAMPS! Above The Net presented by Raymond James Financial. They'll preview the upcoming MHSAA Volleyball Playoffs Above the Net is powered by Lawrence Technological University and it's also brought to you by the MHSAA, Michigan Elite Volleyball, Michigan Army National Guard, Detroit Athletic Club and Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

Join Sydney Cariel and Vince Muscat for another edition of STATE CHAMPS! Above The Net presented by Raymond James Financial. Above the Net is powered by Lawrence Technological University and it's also brought to you by the MHSAA, Michigan Elite Volleyball, Michigan Army National Guard, Detroit Athletic Club and Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

Interviewer I'm Ellen Bernstein-Ellis, Program Specialist and Clinical Supervisor for the Aphasia Treatment Program at Cal State East Bay and a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. AA's strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.  Today, I have the honor of speaking with Dr. Jamie Lee who was selected as a 2022 Tavistock Distinguished Scholar. We'll discuss her research interests and do a deeper dive into her work involving the study of texting behaviors of individuals with aphasia and her efforts to develop an outcome measure that looks at success at the transactional level of message exchange.  As we frame our podcast episodes in terms of the Gap Areas identified in the 2017 Aphasia Access State of Aphasia  Report by Nina Simmons-Mackie, today's episode best addresses Gap areas:  Insufficient attention to life participation across the continuum of care;  Insufficient training and protocols or guidelines to aid implementation of participation-oriented intervention across the continuum of care;  Insufficient or absent communication access for people with aphasia or other communication barriers  For more information about the Gap areas, you can listen to episode #62 with Dr. Liz Hoover or go to the Aphasia Access website.   Guest bio Jaime Lee is an Associate Professor in the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at James Madison University. Jaime's clinical experience goes back nearly 20 years when she worked as an inpatient rehab SLP at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (now Shirley Ryan Ability Lab). She later worked for several years as a Research SLP in Leora Cherney's Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment. Jaime earned her PhD at the University of Oregon, where she studied with McKay Sohlberg. Her research interests have included evaluating computer-delivered treatments to improve language skills in aphasia, including script training and ORLA, examining facilitation of aphasia groups, and most recently, exploring text messaging to improve participation, social connection and quality of life in IWA.   Listener Take-aways In today's episode you will: Learn about why texting might be a beneficial communication mode for IwA Explore the reasons it's important to consider the communication partner in the texting dyad Find out more about measures examining texting behaviors, like the Texting Transactional Success (TTS) tool. Consider how Conversational Analysis may be helpful in understanding texting interactions Edited show notes Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Jamie, welcome to the podcast today. I'm so excited that we finally get to talk to you. And I want to offer a shout out because you mentioned two mentors and colleagues who I just value so much, McKay Solberg and Leora Cherney, and I'm so excited that you've also had them as mentors.   Jaime Lee  02:44 Thanks, Ellen. It's really great to talk with you today. And speaking of shout outs, I feel like I have to give you a shout out because I was so excited to meet you earlier this summer at IARC. We met at a breakfast. And it was exciting because I got to tell you that I assigned to my students your efficacy of aphasia group paper, so it was really fun to finally meet you in person.   Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  03:11 Thank you, that is the paper that Roberta Elman was first author on. I was really proud to be part of that.   I was excited to get to come over and congratulate you at the breakfast on your Tavistock award. I think it's very, very deserving. And I'm excited today that we can explore your work and get to know each other better. And I'm just going to start with this question about the Tavistock. Can you share with our listeners what you think the benefits of the Tavistock Distinguished Scholar Award will be to your work? Jaime Lee  03:43 Sure, I think first off being selected as a Tavistock Distinguished Scholar has been really validating of my work in terms of research and scholarship. It's made me feel like I'm on the right track. And at least maybe I'm asking the right kinds of questions. And it's also really meaningful to receive an award that recognizes my teaching and impact on students. And I was thinking about this and a conversation that I had with my PhD mentor McKay Solberg. And it was early into my PhD when we were talking about the impact of teaching and how important it was, where she had said that when we work as a clinician, we're working directly with clients and patients were hopefully able to have a really positive meaningful impact. But when we teach, and we train the next generation of clinicians, you know, we have this even greater impact on all of the people that our students will eventually work with throughout their career. And so that's just huge.  Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  04:51 It really is huge. And I have to say I went to grad school with McKay and that sounds like something she would say, absolutely, her value of teaching.  I just want to do a quick shout out to Aphasia Access, because I think they also recognize and value the importance of teaching. They have shown that commitment by their LPAA curricular modules that they developed and make accessible to Aphasia Access members, so people can bring content right into their coursework, which is helpful because it takes so much time to prepare these materials. So, if you haven't heard of these curricular modules yet, please go to the website and check them out.  So yes, I'm so glad that you feel your work is validated. It's really important to validate our young researchers.  I think there's an opportunity to expand who you meet during this year. Is that true? Jaime Lee  05:40 That is already true. This honor has already led to growing connections with other aphasia scholars and getting more involved with Aphasia Access. I'm excited to share that I'll be chairing next year's 2023 Aphasia Access Leadership Summit together with colleagues Esther Kim and Gretchen Szabo. We're really enthusiastic about putting together a meaningful and inspiring program. I am just really grateful for the opportunity to have a leadership role in the conference. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  06:17 Wow, that's a fantastic team. And I, again, will encourage our listeners, if you've never been to a Aphasia Access  Leadership Summit, it is worth going to and everybody is welcomed. We've had several podcast guests who have said that it has been a game changer for them-- their first attendance at the Leadership Summit. So, we'll be hearing more about that.  Well, I want to start our interview today by laying some foundation for your work with texting and developing some outcome measures for treatment that captures transactional exchange in individuals with aphasia. And let me just ask what piqued your interest in this area? Jaime Lee  06:57 Yeah, thanks. Well, before I got interested specifically, in texting, I had this amazing opportunity to work as a research SLP with Leora Cherney and her Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment. And we all know Leora well for the contributions she's made to our field. At that time, she had developed ORLA, oral reading for language and aphasia, and a computerized version, and also a computerized version of aphasia scripts for script training. And these were treatments that not only improve language abilities in people with aphasia, but I really had this front row seat to seeing how her interventions really made a difference in the lives of people with aphasia, and help them reengage in the activities that they wanted to pursue-- reading for pleasure and being able to converse about topics that they want to do with their script training. So at the same time, I was gaining these really valuable research skills and understanding more about how to evaluate treatment. I was also able to start learning how to facilitate aphasia groups because Leora has this amazing aphasia community that she developed at what was then RIC. I'm just really grateful for the opportunity I had to have Leora as a mentor, and now as a collaborator. And her work really helped orient me to research questions that address the needs of people with aphasia, and to this importance of building aphasia community. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  08:37 Wow, that sounds like a really amazing opportunity. And I think it's wonderful that you've got to have Leora as a mentor and to develop those interests. Then look at where you're taking it now. So that's really exciting to talk about with you today. Jaime Lee  08:54 As for the texting interest that really started after I earned my PhD and was back at the Rehab Institute, now Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, Leora was awarded a NIDILRR field initiated grant and I served as a co-investigator on this grant. It was a randomized, controlled trial, evaluating ORLA, combined with sentence level writing.  The two arms of the trial were looking at ORLA plus writing using a handwriting modality, versus ORLA combined with electronic writing or we kind of thought about this as texting. So we call that arm T-write. And ORLA was originally designed to improve reading comprehension, but we know from some of Leora's work that there were also these nice cross-modal language improvements, including improvements in written expression. This was a study where we really were comparing two different arms, two different writing modalities, with some secondary interest in seeing if the participants who were randomized to practice electronic writing, would those improvements potentially carry over into actual texting, and perhaps even changes in social connectedness? Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  10:15 Those are great questions to look at. Interest in exploring texting's role in communication has just been growing and growing since you initiated this very early study. Jamie, would you like to explain how you actually gathered data on participants texting behaviors? How did that work? Jaime Lee  10:32 Yes. So we were very fortunate that the participants in this trial, in the T-write study, consented to have us extract and take a look at their real texting data from their mobile phones prior to starting the treatment. So, for those who consented, and everyone, I think we had 60 participants in the trial, and every single participant was open to letting us look at their texts and record them.    We recorded a week's worth of text messages between the participant and their contacts at baseline, and then again at a follow up point after the treatment that they were assigned to. And that was so that maybe we could look for some potential changes related to participating in the treatment. So maybe we would see if they were texting more, or if they had more contacts, or maybe they might even be using some of the same sentences that were trained in the ORLA treatment. We haven't quite looked at that, the trial just finished so we haven't looked at those pre/ post data. But when my colleagues at Shirley Ryan and I started collecting these texting data, we realized there were some really interesting things to be learned from these texts.  And there have been a couple of studies, we know Pagie Beeson's work, she did a T-CART study on texting, right? And later with her colleague, Mira Fein. So we had some texting studies, but nothing that really reported on how people with aphasia were texting in their everyday lives.  Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  12:08 Well, Jamie, do you want to share what you learned about how individuals with aphasia texts are different from individuals without aphasia? Jaime Lee  12:15 We saw that first, people with aphasia do text, there were messages to be recorded. I think only a couple of participants in the trial didn't have any text messages. But we took a look at the first 20 people to enroll in the trial. We actually have a paper out-- my collaborator, Laura Kinsey is the first author. This is a descriptive paper where we describe the sample, 20 people, both fluent aphasia and nonfluent aphasia, a range of ages from mid 30s up to 72. And one striking finding, but maybe not too surprising for listeners, is that the participants with aphasia in our sample texted much less frequently than neurologically healthy adults, where we compared our findings to Pew Research data on texting. And our sample, if we took an average of our 20 participants and look at their texts sent and received over a week, over the seven days, they exchanged an average of about 40 texts over the week. Adults without aphasia, send and receive 41.5 texts a day. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  13:36 Wow, that's quite a difference. Right?  Jaime Lee  13:39 Yes, even knowing that younger people tend to text more frequently than older adults. Even if we look at our youngest participants in that sample who were in their mid 30s, they were sending and receiving text much less frequently than the age matched Pew data. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  13:56 Okay, now, I want to let our listeners know that we're going to have the citation for the Kinsey et al. article that you just mentioned in our show notes. How can we situate addressing texting as a clinical goal within the life participation approach to aphasia?  Jaime Lee  14:14 I love this question. And it was kind of surprising from the descriptive paper, that texting activity, so how many texts participants were sending and receiving, was not correlated with overall severity of aphasia or severity of writing impairment?  Ellen Bernstein-Ellis I'm surprised by that. Were you?    Jaime Lee Yes, we thought that there would be a relationship. But in other words, having severe aphasia was not associated with texting less. And we recognize, it's dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a such a small sample. But a major takeaway, at least an aha moment for us, was that we can't make assumptions about texting behaviors based on participants' language impairments, also based on their age, their gender. You know, in fact, our oldest participant in the sample, who was 72, was actually most active texter. He sent and received 170 texts over the week period. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  15:22 Wow, that does blow assumptions out of the water there, Jamie. So that's a really good reminder that this to be individualized with that person at the center? Because you don't know.  Jaime Lee  15:32 You don't know. Yeah. And I think it comes down to getting to know our clients and our patients, finding out if texting is important to them. And if it's something they'd like to be doing more of, or doing more effectively, and going from there.    Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Wow, that makes a lot of sense.    Jaime Lee   Yeah, of course, some people didn't text, before their stroke and don't want to text. But given how popular texting has become as a form of communication, I think there are many, many people with aphasia, who would be interested in pursuing texting as a rehab goal.   Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  16:08 Right? You really have to ask, right?    Jaime Lee  16:11 Yes, actually, there's a story that comes to mind about a participant who was in the T-write study, who had stopped using her phone after her stroke. Her family had turned off service; she wasn't going to be making calls or texting.   Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Well, I've seen that happen too many times.  Jaime Lee   And when she enrolled in the study, and she was a participant at Shirley Ryan, because we ran participants here at JMU and they ran participants in Chicago. And she was so excited. I heard from my colleagues that she went out and got a new phone so that she could use her phone to participate in the study. And then her follow up data. When we look at her real texts gathered after the study at the last assessment point, her text consists of her reaching out to all of her contacts with this new number, and saying hello, and getting in touch and in some cases, even explaining that she'd had a stroke and has aphasia.  Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  17:13 Oh, well, that really reminds me of the value and importance of patient reported outcomes, because that may not be captured by a standardized test, per se, but man, is that impactful. Great story. Thank you for sharing that. So well, you've done a really nice job in your 2021 paper with Cherney that's cited in our show notes of addressing texting's  role in popular culture and the role it's taking in terms of a communication mode. Would you explain some of the ways that conversation and texting are similar and ways that they're different? Jaime Lee  17:45 That is a great question, Ellen and a question I have spent a lot of time reading about and thinking about. And there is a great review of research that used conversation analysis (CA) to study online interactions. This is a review paper by Joanne Meredith from 2019. And what the review tells us is that there are many of the same organizing features of face to face conversation that are also present in our online communications. So we see things like turn taking, and we see conversation and texting or apps unfold in a sequence. So what CA refers to as sequential organization.  We also see, just like in face to face conversation, there are some communication breakdowns or trouble sources in online communication. And sometimes we see the need for repair to resolve that breakdown. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  18:45 Yeah, Absolutely. I'm just thinking about auto corrects there for a moment. Jaime Lee  18:51 And they can cause problems too. When the predictive text or the AutoCorrect is not what we meant to say that can cause a problem.Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  18:59 Absolutely. Those are good similarities, I get that.   Jaime Lee  19:03 I think another big similarity is just about how conversation is co-constructed. It takes place between a person and a conversation partner and in texting, we have that too. We have a texting partner, or in the case of a group text, we have multiple partners. There's definitely similarities. And another big one is that purpose, I think we use conversation ultimately, and just like we're using texting to build connection, and that's really important Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  19:32 Yeah, I can really see all of those parallels. And there are some differences, I'm going to assume. Jaime Lee  19:39 Okay, yes, there are some definite interesting differences in terms of the social aspects of conversation. We do a lot in person, like demonstrating agreement, or giving a compliment, or an apology, or all of these nonverbal things we do like gesture and facial expression and laughter. Those nonverbal things help convey our stance, or affiliation, or connection. But in texting, we can't see each other. Right? So we have some different tools to show our stance, to show affiliation. What we're seeing is people using emojis and Bitmojis, and GIFs, even punctuation, and things like all capitals. We've all seen the all caps and felt like someone is yelling at us over text, that definitely conveys a specific tone, right? Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  20:34 I was just going to say emojis can be a real tool for people with aphasia, right? If the spelling is a barrier, at least they can convey something through an image. That's a real difference.   Jaime Lee  20:45 Absolutely, I think some of the problematic things that can happen and the differences with texting have to do with sequencing and timing. Because people can send multiple texts, they can take multiple turns at once. And so you can respond to multiple texts at once, or that can lead to some confusion, I think we're seeing, but texting can also be asynchronous, so it's not necessarily expected that you would have to respond right away Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  21:16 So maybe giving a person a little more time to collect their thoughts before they feel like they have to respond versus in a person-to-person exchange where the pressure is on?    Jaime Lee   Absolutely, absolutely.  Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Well, why might texting be a beneficial communication mode for individuals with aphasia, Jamie, because you have spelling challenges and all those other things.   Jaime Lee  21:37 Yeah, I think it comes back to what you just said, Ellen, about having more time to read a message, having more time to be able to generate a response. I know that texting and other forms of electronic communication like email, can give users with memory or language problems a way to track and reread their messages. And in some cases, people might choose to bank responses that they can use later. We know this from actually some of Bonnie Todis and McKay Sohlberg's work looking at making email more accessible for users with cognitive impairment. So I think there are some really great tools available to people with aphasia to feel successful using texting. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  22:30 That's great. I think banking messages is a really important strategy that we've used before, too.  Jaime Lee  22:37 So there's all these other built-in features, that I'm still learning about that are in some mobile phones, that individuals with aphasia can potentially take advantage of. I think some features might be difficult, but there are things like we've just talked about, like the predictive text or the autocorrect. And then again, all these nonlexical tools, like the emojis and the GIFS and being able to link to a website or attach a photograph. I think this is a real advantage to communicating through text. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  23:10 It lets you tell more of the story, sometimes. One of my members talks about when his spelling becomes a barrier, he just says the word and then that speech-to-text is really helpful. It's just one more support, I guess.   Jaime Lee  23:24 Yes. And we're needing to find out a little bit more about the features that people are already using, and maybe features that people don't know about, but that they would like to use like that speech-to-text. That's a great point.    Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  23:37 Well, how did you end up wanting to study texting for more than an amount of use or accuracy? In other words, what led you to studying transaction? Maybe we can start with a definition of transaction for our listeners?  Jaime Lee  23:51 Sure. Transaction in the context of communication is the exchange of information. So it involves understanding and expression of meaningful messages and content. And this is a definition that actually comes from Brown and Yule's concepts of transaction and interaction and communication. So Brown, and Yule tell us that transaction again, is this exchange of content, whereas interaction pertains to the more social aspects of communication. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  24:26 Okay, thank you. I think that's really good place to start. Jaime Lee  24:29 Part of the interest in transaction, first came out of that descriptive paper where we were trying to come up with systems to capture what was going on. So we were counting words that the participants texted and coding whether they were initiated or are they texts that are simple responses. We counted things they were doing, like did they use emojis or other multimedia? But we were missing this idea of how meaningful their text were and kind of what was happening in their texting exchanges. So this kind of combined with another measure we had, it was another measure in T-write really inspired by Pagie Beeson and Mira Fein's paper where they were using some texting scripts in their study.  We also love scripting. We wanted to just have a simple measure, a simple brief texting script that we could go back and look at. We had as part of our protocol a three turn script. And I remember we sat around and said, what would be a really common thing to text about? And we decided to make a script about making dinner plans. And so we're collecting these simple scripts. And as I'm looking at these data coming in, I'm asking myself, what's happening here? How are we going to analyze what's happening? What was important didn't seem to be spelling or grammar. What seemed most important in this texting script was how meaningful the response was. And ultimately, would the person be able to make dinner plans and go plan a dinner date with a friend. So it seemed like we needed a measure of successful transaction within texting. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  26:23 Jamie, I'm just going say that that reminded me of one of my very favorite papers, whereas you started out counting a lot of things that we can count, and it did give you information, like how much less people with aphasia are texting compared to people without aphasia, and I think that data is really essential. But there's a paper by Aura Kagan and colleagues about counting what counts, right, not just what we can count. And we'll put that citation and all the citations in the show notes-- you're  bringing up some wonderful literature. So I think you decided to make sure that you're counting what counts, right? In addition to what we can count.    Jaime Lee  26:59 Yes. And I do love counting. I was trained at the University of Oregon in single case experimental design. So really, behavioral observation and counting. So I am a person who likes to count but that sounds, like counting what counts. I love that. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  27:13 Yeah, absolutely. In that 2021 paper, you look at the way some researchers have approached conversational analysis measures and you acknowledge Ramsberger and Rende's 2002 work that uses sitcom retells in the partner context. And you look at the scale that Leaman and Edmonds developed to measure conversation. And again, I can refer listeners to Marion Leaman's podcast as a 2021 Tavistock distinguished scholar that discusses her work on capturing conversation treatment outcomes, but you particularly referred to Aura Kagan and colleagues' Measurement of Participation in Conversation, the MPC. We'll put the citation in the show notes with all the others, but could you describe how it influenced your work?   Jaime Lee  27:58 Yeah, sure. That's funny that you just brought up a paper by Aura Kagan, because I think I'll just first say how much Aura's work on Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia, SCA, how influential it's been throughout my career. First as a clinician and actually interacting with people with aphasia, and then later in facilitating conversation groups and helping to train other staff on the rehab team, the nursing staff. And now, it's actually a part of my coursework that I have students take the Aphasia Institute's free eLearning module, the introduction to SCA, as part of my graduate course, and aphasia, and all of the new students coming into my lab, do that module. So they're exposed really early on to SCA. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  28:50 I'm just gonna say me too. We also use that as a training tool at the Aphasia Treatment Program, It's really been a cornerstone of how we help students start to learn how to be a skilled communication partner. So I'm glad you brought that up. Jaime Lee  29:03 Absolutely. So yes, Kagan's Measurement of Participation in Conversation (MPC), was really influential in developing our texting transactional success rating scale. And this is a measure that they created to evaluate participation and conversation. And they were looking actually both at transaction and interaction, I needed to start simply and just look at transaction first. They considered various factors. They have a person with aphasia and a partner engage in a five minute conversation. And they looked at factors like how accurately the person with aphasia was responding, whether or not they could indicate yes/no reliably, and could they repair misunderstandings or miscommunications. And then the raters made judgments on how transactional was that conversation? So, we looked at that measure and modeled our anchors for texting transactional success after their anchors. We had a different Likert scale, but we basically took this range from no successful transaction, partial transaction, to fully successful. And that was really modeled after their MPC.   Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  30:17 Wow. Thank you for describing all of that. Jaime Lee  30:20 Yeah. Another big takeaway I'll add is that, and this really resonated with what we were hoping to capture, the scores on the MPC weren't necessarily related to traditional levels of severity. So Kagan and colleagues write that someone even with very severe aphasia, could score at the top of the range on the MPC. And I think similarly, what we feel about texting is even someone with severe writing impairments could be very successful, communicating via text message, really, depending on the tools they used, and perhaps, depending on the support they received from their texting partner.   Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  31:02 You and your colleagues develop this Texting Transaction Success tool, the TTS, right? What is the goal of this measure?    Jaime Lee  31:13 The goal of the TTS is to measure communicative success via texting. We wanted this functional measure of texting, not limited to accuracy, not looking specifically at spelling, or syntax, or morphology, but something that reflected the person with aphasia-- his ability to exchange meaningful information. I think the measure is really grounded in the idea that people with aphasia are competent and able to understand and convey meaningful information even despite any errors or incorrect output. So this is really relevant to texting because lots of us are using texting without correct spelling or without any punctuation or grammar. Yet lots and lots of people are texting and conveying information and feeling that benefit of connecting and exchanging information. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  32:08 It sounds like a really helpful tool that you're developing. Could you please explain how it's used and how it's scored? Jaime Lee  32:16 Sure. So the TTS is a three-point rating scale that ranges from zero, which would be no successful transaction, no meaningful information exchanged, one, which is partial transaction, to two, which is successful transaction. And we apply the rating scale to responses from an individual with aphasia on the short texting script that I was talking about earlier. So this is a three-turn script that is delivered to a person with aphasia where the first line there, we ask them to use their mobile phone or give them a device, and the prompt is: “What are you doing this weekend?” We tell the person to respond any way they want, without any further cues. And then the script goes on, we deliver another prompt, “What about dinner?” And then another prompt, “Great, when should we go?” Each of those responses, we score on the TTS rating scale. We give either a zero, a one or a two. We have lots of examples in the paper of scores that should elicit a zero, a one or a two.We feel like it should be pretty easy for readers to use.   Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  33:33 Wow, that's going to be really important. I always appreciate when I can see examples of how to do things. Jaime Lee  33:40 We did some really initial interrater reliability on it. The tools are pretty easy to score. We're able to recognize when something is fully transactional, even if it has a spelling error or lexical error, we can understand what they're saying. And a zero is pretty easy to score, if there are graphemes letters that don't convey any meaning, there's no transaction. Where things are a little more interesting, are the partial transaction. I think about an example to “What about dinner” and the participant responded, “Subway, Mexico.” So that's a one because the conversation, the texting partner, would really need to come back and clarify like, “Do you want to get a Subway sandwich?”  Or “Do you want to go eat Mexican?” It could still be really transactional, and they could resolve that breakdown, but the partner would have a little bit more of a role in clarifying the information. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  34:36 When you were actually trying to validate the TTS and establish its interrater reliability in your 2021 article with Cherney you mentioned using the Technology Confidence Survey from the 2021 Kinsey et al. article. Having tools that allow us to understand our clients' technology user profile is really informative in terms of understanding what modes of communication might be important to them. We talked earlier about not assuming, right, not assuming what people want to do or have done. Can you describe the survey? And is it available? Jaime Lee  35:13 Sure, yes. This is a survey we developed for the T-write study, the ORLA Plus Electronic Writing study. It's a simple aphasia friendly survey with yes/no questions and pictures that you can ask participants or clients about their technology usage. from “Are you using a computer? Yes or No” or  “Are using a tablet?”, “Are you using a smartphone?”  We ask what kinds of technology they're using and then what are they using it for? Are they doing email? Are they texting? Are they looking up information? Are they taking photos?  It also has some prompts to ask specifically about some of the technology features like “You're texting? Are you using voice to text?” or “Are you using text to speech to help you with reading comprehension of your text?”  At the very end, we added some confidence questions. We modeled this after Leora Cherney and Ed Babbitt's Communication Confidence Rating scale. So we added some questions like, “I am confident in my ability to use my smartphone” or “I am confident in my ability to text” and participants can read that on a rating scale. We use this in the context of the research study to have some background information on our participants. I think it could be a really great tool for starting a conversation about technology usage and goals, with people who are interested in using more technology, or are using it in different ways. This (survey) is in the Kinsey et al. article. It's a supplement that you can download. It's just a really good conversation starter, that when I was giving the technology survey to participants, many times they would take out their phone or take out their iPad and say, “No, I do it. I use it just like this”. It was really hands on and we got to learn about how they're using technology. And I definitely learned some new things that are available. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  37:20 I think many of us use kind of informal technology surveys.  I'm really excited to see the very thoughtful process you went through to develop and frame that (technology use). That's wonderful to share. Jamie, can you speak to the role of the TTS in terms of developing and implementing intervention approaches for texting? You just mentioned goals a moment ago? Jaime Lee  37:42 Sure. I think we have some more work to do in terms of validating the TTS and that's a goal moving forward. But it's a great starting place. If you have a client who wants to work on texting, it only takes a few minutes to give the script and then score their responses and gives us a snapshot of how effectively they're able to communicate through text. But in terms of developing intervention, to support texting, that's really where we're headed with this. I mean, the big drive is to not just study how people are texting, but really to help support them and texting more effectively and using texting to connect socially and improve their quality of life. But with any kind of intervention, we need a really good outcome measure to capture potential changes. Another reason I'm motivated to continue to work on the TTS, if people with aphasia are going to benefit from a treatment, we need rigorous tools to capture that change and document that potential change. 38:50 Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Absolutely. Absolutely. Jaime Lee  38:53 At the same time, I'd say the TTS isn't the only method we are focused on, we're really interested in understanding what unfolds during texting interactions. What's happening in these interactions. So, most recently, I've been working with my amazing collaborator, Jamie Azios, who is an expert in Conversation Analysis. I've been working with Jamie to say, “Hey, what's happening here? Can we use CA to explore what's going on?”  Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  39:25 Well, Jamie, you probably heard this before, but Conversation Analysis can sometimes feel daunting for clinicians to use within their daily treatment settings. In fact, we've had several podcasts that have addressed this and have asked this question. What are you finding? Jaime Lee  39:40 I can definitely relate because I am still very new to CA and learning all the terminology. But Jamie and Laura and I are actually working on paper right now, a CAC special issue, because we presented some data at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference and then will have this paper. We'll be submitting to a JSHL on how we're applying CA to texting interactions. That goal is really based around understanding how people with aphasia and their partners are communicating via texting and looking at these naturalistic conversations to see what barriers they're coming across, and what strategies they are using to communicate in this modality. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  40:27 That makes a lot of sense. And it really circles back again to communication partner training. That does not surprise me. Jaime Lee  40:33 We're seeing some really interesting, creative, and strategic behaviors used both by people with aphasia and their partners. We're seeing people link to a website, or instead of writing out the name of a restaurant, you know, “meet me here” with a link, or using an emoji to help convey their stance when they can't meet up with a friend. They might have more of an agrammatic production. But that emoji helps show the emotion and we're seeing a lot of people with more severe aphasia using photographs really strategically. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  41:09 So those are the strategies are helping and I'm sure that CA also looks at some of the barriers or breakdowns, right?  Jaime Lee  41:15 Yes, we're seeing some breakdowns, trouble sources in the CA lingo. In some instances, we see the partner clarify, send a question mark, like, “I don't know what you're saying”. And that allows the person with aphasia, a chance to self-repair, like, “Oops, here, this is what I meant.” And that's really useful. We also have seen some examples of breakdowns that may not get repaired. And we don't know exactly what was happening. In those instances, I suspect there were some cases where maybe the partner picked up the phone and called the person with aphasia, or they had a conversation to work out the breakdown. But we really don't know because we're using these data that were previously collected. So a lot of this does seem to be pointing towards training the partners to provide supports, and also helping people with aphasia be more aware of some of the nonlinguistic tools, and some of the shortcuts that are available, but there's still a lot to learn. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  42:22 Well, Jamie, as you continue to explore this work, I know you're involved in a special project that you do with your senior undergrads at your university program at James Madison. Do you want to describe the student text buddy program? It sounds really engaging. Jaime Lee  42:38 Sure. This is a program I started here at JMU. JMU has a really big focus on engaging undergrads and research experiences. And we have students who are always asking for opportunities to engage with people with aphasia. Particularly during COVID, there weren't these opportunities. It just wasn't safe. But I know some of the participants from the T-write study and some people with aphasia in our community here in Harrisonburg, were looking for ways to be involved and continue to maybe practice their texting in a non-threatening situation. So this was a project and I was actually inspired by one of the students in my lab, Lindsay LeTellier. She's getting her master's degree now at the University of New Hampshire. But Lindsay had listened to an interview with one of our participants where she said she wanted a pen pal. And Lindsay said, “Oh, this participant says she wants a pen pal, I'd love to volunteer, I'll be her pen pal.” And I said, “Lindsay, that's great. I love the idea of a pen, pal. But if we're going to do it, let's make it a research project. And let's open it up and go bigger with this.” So Lindsey helped spearhead this program where we paired students with people with aphasia to have a texting pen pal relationship for four weeks. And in order to be able to kind of watch their texts unfold, we gave them a Google Voice number, so that we can watch the texts.  We've really seen some really interesting things. We've only run about 10 pairs, but all of the feedback has been really positive from the people with aphasia, they felt like it was a good experience. And the students said it was a tremendous learning experience.  We're seeing some interesting things. Using CA, Jamie and I presented this at IARC, sharing what the students/person with aphasia pairs are doing that's resulting in some really natural topic developments and really natural relationship development. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  44:39 Nice! What a great experience, and we'll look forward to hearing more about that. Jamie, I can't believe how this episode has flown by. But I'm going to ask you a last question. What are you excited about in terms of your next steps for studying texting? Jaime Lee  44:57 I think we definitely want to continue the Text Buddy project because it's such a great learning experience for students, so we'll be continuing to do that. Jamie and I have applied for funding to continue to study texting interactions and use mixed methods, which is a pairing of both of our areas of expertise. I think there's just more to learn, and we're excited to eventually be able to identify some texting supports to help people with aphasia use texting to connect and be more effective in their communication.   Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  45:35 Well, Jamie, this work is going to be really impactful on the daily lives and the daily ability for people with aphasia to have another mode of support for communicating. So thank you for this exciting work. And congratulations again on your Tavistock award, and I just am grateful that you are our guest for this podcast today. Thank you. Jaime Lee  45:58 Thank you so much, Ellen. This has been great, thanks. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  46:01 It's been it's been a pleasure and an honor.  So for our listeners, for more information on Aphasia Access and to access our growing body of materials, go to www.aphasiaaccess.org. And if you have an idea for a future podcast series topic, just email us at info@aphasia access.org. And thanks again for your ongoing support of aphasia access. References and Resources  Babbitt, E. M., Heinemann, A. W., Semik, P., & Cherney, L. R. (2011). Psychometric properties of the communication confidence rating scale for aphasia (CCRSA): Phase 2. Aphasiology, 25(6-7), 727-735. Babbitt, E. M., & Cherney, L. R. (2010). Communication confidence in persons with aphasia. Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation, 17(3), 214-223. Bernstein-Ellis, E. (Host). (2021, July 29). Promoting Conversation and Positive Communication Culture: In conversation with Marion Leaman (No. 73) [Audio podcast episode] In Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations. Resonate. https://aphasiaaccess.libsyn.com/episode-73-conversation-and-promoting-positive-communication-culture-in-conversation-with-marion-leaman Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse analysis. Cambridge. University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805226 Fein, M., Bayley, C., Rising, K., & Beeson, P. M. (2020). A structured approach to train text messaging in an individual with aphasia. Aphasiology, 34(1), 102-118. Kagan, A., Simmons‐Mackie, N., Rowland, A., Huijbregts, M., Shumway, E., McEwen, S., ... & Sharp, S. (2008). Counting what counts: A framework for capturing real‐life outcomes of aphasia intervention. Aphasiology, 22(3), 258-280. Kagan, A., Winckel, J., Black, S., Felson Duchan, J., Simmons-Mackie, N., & Square, P. (2004). A set of observational measures for rating support and participation in conversation between adults with aphasia and their conversation partners. Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation, 11(1), 67-83. Kinsey, L. E., Lee, J. B., Larkin, E. M., & Cherney, L. R. (2022). Texting behaviors of individuals with chronic aphasia: A descriptive study. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(1), 99-112. Leaman, M. C., & Edmonds, L. A. (2021). Assessing language in unstructured conversation in people with aphasia: Methods, psychometric integrity, normative data, and comparison to a structured narrative task. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64(11), 4344-4365. Lee, J. B., & Cherney, L. R. (2022). Transactional Success in the Texting of Individuals With Aphasia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1-18. Meredith, J. (2019). Conversation analysis and online interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 52(3), 241-256. Ramsberger, G., & Rende, B. (2002). Measuring transactional success in the conversation of people with aphasia. Aphasiology, 16(3), 337–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687040143000636 Todis, B., Sohlberg, M. M., Hood, D., & Fickas, S. (2005). Making electronic mail accessible: Perspectives of people with acquired cognitive impairments, caregivers and professionals. Brain Injury, 19(6), 389-401. Link to Jaime Lee's University Profile: https://csd.jmu.edu/people/lee.html  mu.edu/people/lee.html 

On today's episode of The Ramp. It. Up! Podcast we are talking about Recreational Therapy. An often overlooked and underappreciated branch of the rehabilitation process, recreational therapy has been instrumental in my recovery and the recovery of countless others. My friend and long time recreational therapist, Laura Ridler joins me on the show to share about her more than 30 years experience as a Rec Therapist. Her career has taken her to Hawaii, back to the mainland and all over the states as a basketball coach, a therapist, and an overall wellness activist! Tune in for a great conversation and remember, all work and no RECREATION makes Jack a dull boy!Ramp. It. Up! Get to Know Our Guest Laura Ridler is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist/ Recreation Therapist at Rehabilitation Institute of Oregon, Legacy Good Samaritan and Inpatient Pediatric Rehab and Development at Randall Children's Hospital-Legacy Emanuel.  With  30 years working in the field of Therapeutic Recreation/ Recreation Therapy, Laura believes in promoting overall fitness, well-being and working towards improving, maintaining or restoring physical strength, cognition, mobility and independence though wellness, health, recreation, life and sport. Laura has been involved in coaching, promoting or coordinating adaptive sports for 30 years with 23 years coordinating the Wheelchair Division of the Honolulu Marathon, 9 years as the Head Coach of the Jr/Prep WheelBlazers. Laura believes that participating in leisure activities that one enjoys, helps define us, and motivates us to be the best that we can be.Some of her career highlights are really finding out what each person finds joy in and how can I help them get back to that in some form or other where they feel quality of life and purpose.  https://adaptivesportsnw.org/board/laura-ridler/https://www.nctrc.org/about-ncrtc/about-recreational-therapy/Click the link below to register for the United Spinal Association's TechTalkshttps://unitedspinal.org/events/techtalks/Stay Connected to the PodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ramp.it.up.podcast/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZoeOnWheelz/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZAnH8I6sGEf7SJ9OKw8dEAEmail: rampituppodcast@gmail.comSpecial Thanks: JWoods CompanyContact JWoods Company for all of your catering and special event needs.Website: https://www.jwoodscompany.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jwoodscompany/Email: contact@jwoodscompany.comBoss Girl Trucking: ROAD MAP TO BUSINESS CREDITA Step by Step Guide on building Business Credit. Get the strategies on how to access $50K to $100k in funding!Website: https://bossgirltruckin.samcart.com/products/roadmap-to-business-credit/Instagram: https://www.iHandiCup Get 15% OFF when you buy your HandiCup with Discount Code RAMPITUP15Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

Join the Enabled Disabled Community: https://www.enabledchat.com Lisa Rosen, MS, has 30 years of experience in physical rehabilitation with expertise in education, training, and program development. Most recent professional experience as Manager of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab's LIFE Center (formerly known as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), a multimedia education center and web portal for people with physical disabilities, their families, health professionals, and the community. Responsible for supervising Education Program Managers who provide education programs, classes, support groups and special events. Direct content management for globally accessed education and training materials. Led and designed a variety of innovative disability awareness programs for patient, staff and medical education, research, customer service and knowledge management. In addition, co-founded the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago/Shirley Ryan AbilityLab peer mentor program to enhance education and the patient experience, which integrates former patients into clinical teaching across all conditions. Jamee Heelan, OTR/L, brings 35 years of experience with specialty and focus in providing family-centered education for pediatric and adult populations, family, and staff for all levels of care. Conditions include amputee, brain injury, stroke, and spinal cord injury. Jamee's expertise covers specialty education groups for persons with aphasia and teaching children about a sibling, parent or relatives' disability. She uses talking notes and customizes educational materials to use an interactive approach that supports all learning preferences. Her approach strengthens the Center's outreach and impact on community re-integration. Jamee has authored three children's books and developed brain illustrations for patient and family education in four languages. Connect with Shirley Ryan AbilityLab's LIFE Center on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShirleyRyanAbilityLab/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AbilityLab Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ShirleyRyanAbilityLab LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shirley-ryan-abilitylab === Subscribe to Enabled Disabled podcast: https://www.anchor.fm/enableddisabled https://open.spotify.com/show/7vEQbn4GGFLUHNzULIY1hO Learn more: www.enableddisabled.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/enableddisabled/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/enableddisabled/support

Spine & Sport Rehabilitation Institute is at the forefront of providing quality care to the Nashville area.  From professional athletes, pelvic floor therapy...to sports injuries and Team USA.. Dr. Lance has been called "the best of the best".   Tune in and click the link below to find out how Spine & Sport can help you!   https://www.spinesportrehabilitation.com/Feel free to leave us a review! Subscribe wherever you're listening and follow us on instagram @Redline_QualityFitness . Thanks for listening!

Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Listen as Lauren Ayala, a nurse practitioner with Inpatient Neurology and Jessica Smith, a physical therapist with the Rehabilitation Institute, discuss all aspects of stroke - from recognizing the signs to seeking care immediately and recovering in the hospital and beyond. #StrokeMonth

Stuart Schoenfeld is a Partner with Capell, Barnett, Matalon and Schoenfeld, with offices in NY City, Long Island and Florida. Stuart specializes in elder law, estate planning, asset preservation, Medicaid, and property transactions. He's also a published author and frequent speaker on planning for children and adults with developmental disabilities. Stuart enjoys giving back to the community and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Rehabilitation Institute, which provides vocational, educational, and therapeutic services to individuals with disabilities. He previously served as President of the Association for Children with Down syndrome.  Part of the inspiration for serving in these aspects of the law comes from having a daughter with special needs and watching her needs change throughout the years and the importance of dealing with the legal issues. Highlights of our conversation include: People need to plan better to make their finances work in their later years. Not every elder care attorney does estate planning. The unique challenges when you are assisting someone who's chronically ill or developmentally delayed. Understanding the supplemental needs trust and the ABLE account. The difference between a supplemental needs trust and a third-party supplemental needs trust. The difference between Medicare and Medicaid. Clients need to seek help long before they run out of money. Business advice including considerations in a Buy Sell agreement. Don't choose an attorney on price alone. Enjoy the show! Connect with Stuart: Website: https://cbmslaw.com/team/stuart-h-schoenfeld/ Connect with Kris: Website: https://www.lpfadvisors.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristopher-flammang-lpfadv/ Twitter: @kflammang Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susan Johnson Taylor, OTR/L is an occupational therapist who has been practicing in the field of seating and wheeled mobility for 40 years primarily in the Chicago area at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Wheelchair and Seating Center (now the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab). Susan has published and presented nationally and internationally. Susan is both a member and fellow with RESNA. She is currently a member of the Clinician's Task Force and the RESNA/ANSI Wheelchair Standards Committee. She is a Certified member of the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals. Susan joined the Numotion in 2015 and is the Director of Training and Education. Susan and I discuss the roles that the Occupational therapist, Physical Therapist, Assistive Technology Professional, and most importantly the customer play in configuring and ordering a new custom wheelchair

We've got a jam-packed episode of Hockey Time this week! Jon Kidd & Sean Baligian kick things off this week with some more beanies before jumping into the recaps from last week's top games, including a milestone achievement from Salem head coach Ryan Ossenmacher. Jon then sits down with Flint Powers head coach Travis Perry and later with DMC Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Steven Slotkin. We've got updates to The Wall Award and the Warrior Hockey Player of the Year award. As always, we close things up with a preview of some of the top games from next week.Presented by Alta Equipment Company & LTU Athletics. Sponsored by the MHSAA, DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Warrior Hockey, Hystyx, Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association, and the Detroit Athletic Club Athlete of the Year Award.--Recruit yourself to any of over two-dozen varsity NAIA programs at Lawrence Technological University by visiting www.ltuathletics.comLearn more about becoming a registered MHSAA Official at https://www.mhsaa.com/officialsCheck out all of the Game Changers segments on YouTube: https://bit.ly/DMCGameChangersOr visit www.dmc.org/gamechangers to schedule an appointment to take your game to the next level.Vote for the Warrior Hockey Player of the Year: https://bit.ly/HockeyPOTY2022Vote for The Wall Award presented by Warrior Hockey: https://bit.ly/TheWall2022And check out Warrior Hockey's premier lineup of hockey equipment: https://www.warrior.com/hockeyFor custom jerseys and apparel, look no further than Hystyx. www.hystyx.comGet the latest scores, stats, and more at the Michigan High School Hockey Hub.www.mihshockeyhub.comNominations are now being accepted for the Detroit Athletic Club Athlete of the Year Award. If you're a high school senior who has earned (or is projected to earn) All-State Honors, maintains a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and loves to give back to the community, download your application from www.dacathleteoftheyear.com

This week on Hockey Time, Jon Kidd and Sean Baligian kick things off with the latest round of beanies for Sean followed by recaps of some of the top games from the holiday break, including a few key milestones. Then we give an update on the Warrior Hockey Player of the Year and we introduce our newest award, "The Wall Award" for the state's top goalie. Then Jon sits down with Muskegon Mona Shores head coach Christ Benedict for this week's Coaches' Corner. As always, we close out the show with previews of some of the next week's top matchups.Presented by Alta Equipment Company & LTU Athletics. Sponsored by the MHSAA, Hystyx, Warrior Hockey, Michigan High School Hockey Hub, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, and the Detroit Athletic Club Athlete of the Year Award.

EPISODE 02: Join Sean Baligian and Jonathon Kidd for STATE CHAMPS! Hockey Time presented by Alta Equipment Company.This week, Jon & Sean kick things off with a recap of all the games from the Adam Mitchell KLAA vs MIHL Memorial Showcase at Eddie Edgar Ice Arena in Livonia. Laura Ramus from the DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan has tips for improving your plank. We take a look at the Top 10 for the Warrior Hockey Player of the Year. Sean sits down with Livonia Stevenson head coach David Mitchell for the Coaches Corner. And we wrap up with our first Top 10 rankings of the season.It's also brought to you by LTU Athletics, the Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association, MHSAA, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Hystyx and Warrior Hockey

The second episode of Be Advised features Dr. W. Christian VandenBerg,  who joins us to discuss aligning Care Transitions and Patient Access. Dr. VandenBerg is medical director of Access at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital. He specializes in cancer rehabilitation, traumatic and non-traumatic neurological impairments (spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke and multiple sclerosis) and spasticity/dystonia. He has been a staff member since 1989.Dr. VandenBerg is a graduate of the Michigan State College of Human Medicine and completed his PM&R residency through Northwestern University at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Annie O'Connor is a true integrator and one of the few clinicians in the world that has successfully put pain science research into a manual therapy practice. Annie is the co-author of A World of Hurt: A Guide to Classifying Pain and the Pain Mechanism Classification Chapter, in the Rehabilitation of The Spine: A Patient Center Approach 3e, Liebenson C. She was instrumental in establishing the Pain Mechanism Classification System approach for musculoskeletal pain and neurological spasticity at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab formerly known as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we do! Prepare yourself for the singing and dancing!! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gestalt-education/support

In this episode, we discuss: Birch Market is OPEN in the Downtown District! Grand Opening is scheduled for Sat, Sept 4th The Chamber's Leadership Institute is wrapping up it's current year. Stay tuned for applications for next year's class which will be released mid-October. The Rehabilitation Institute of Southern IL in Shiloh is nearly built! Sat, Aug 28th O'Fallon-Shiloh EMS is hosting a BBQ fundraiser to support their Christmas for Kids campaign. Sat, Aug 28th is O'Fallon's Biggest Yard Sale to support the OTHS Marching Panthers! Mark your calendars for Shiloh's Homecoming Sept 10-11th.  Follow us on Instagram @The618Now. Submit business updates, show ideas and events you'd like us to consider promoting to events@ofallonchamber.com. 

For the final episode of the season, we take a look back at the MHSAA State Championship. We kick things off talking with Ajay Chawla, head coach of the Division 1 Champion Brother Rice Warriors, to learn more about his team, the program, and how they overcame the adversity of the last year. We close things out talking about the Division 2 State Championship.Congratulations to Birmingham Brother Rice on winning the Division 1 State Championship and East Grand Rapids on winning the Division 2 State Championship.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, and the DAC Athlete of the Year Award.

This week, Rob Mendyka and Adam Wooley are joined by University Liggett head coach, and MHSBCA All Star Game Chairman, Dan Cimini to talk about the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Game.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, DAC Athlete of the Year Award, and the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association.

We've got an early edition of State Champs! Hockey Time. Jon Kidd and Sean Baligian kick off this episode with a quick recap of the Regional Finals before they start previewing each Quarterfinal matchup. They'll provide an update on the Warrior Hockey Player of the Year race and Sean sits down with Hartland head coach Rick Gadwa.Presented by Alta Equipment Company and Lawrence Technological University. Presented by the MHSAA, DAC Athlete of the Year Award, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Warrior Hockey, and the Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association.

This week on Ready, Set, Cheer, hosts Genna Rose and Antonette Phelps sit down with Pewamo Westphalia cheerleading coach Staci Myers to talk about her cheerleading background and history with the team and their upcoming competitions this season.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, and the DAC Athlete of the Year Award.

The playoffs are here, which means the end-of-season sprint is now underway. Join Jon Kidd and Sean Baligian for the latest edition of State Champs! Hockey Time. They'll preview the 2021 MHSAA playoffs with a few surprises sprinkled in.Presented by Alta Equipment and Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, Warrior Hockey, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, DAC Athlete of the Year Award, and the Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association.

This week on Hockey Time, Jon Kidd and Sean Baligian introduce the Jersey Bracket Challenge, we add three members to the Warrior Hockey Player of the Year top ten, and Sean sits down with Don Wright, Executive Director of the Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association, and they'll recap a few games from the past week and preview some upcoming games,Presented by Alta Equipment Company and Lawrence Technological University.Sponsored by the MHSAA, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, the DAC Athlete of the Year Award, Warrior Hockey and Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association.

This week, we're joined by Allen Park Cheerleading Coach Julie Goodwin to talk about her team, her support system, and coaching through a pandemic.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, the DAC Athlete of the Year Award, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

This week on Hockey Time, Sean Baligian and Jon Kidd recap a few games from last week and preview some of the top upcoming games. They've also got an update on the 2021 Warrior Hockey Player of the Year, a Coaches Corner with Howell Head Coach Rocky Johnson, and more!Presented by Alta Equipment Company and Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, the DAC Athlete of the Year Award, the MHSAA, the Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association, and Warrior Hockey.

Being an athlete is about more than just your physicality, there is an undeniable mental aspect as well. So this week on the podcast hosts Genna Rose and Antonette Phelps talk with Champion Mindset Group sports psychologist, Dr. Jason Novetsky.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, the DAC Athlete of the Year Award, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

Sean Baligian and Jon Kidd are back in the studio to talk about another week of Michigan high school hockey. They'll also take a look at two of our Player of the Year candidates, Lucas Krol of Detroit Country Day and Billy Shields of Detroit Catholic Central. As always, we close out the show with a preview of some of the most intriguing games from the next week.Presented by the Alta Equipment Company and Lawrence Technological University.Sponsored by the MHSAA, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, the DAC Athlete of the Year Award, the Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association and Warrior Hockey.

This week on Ready, Set, Cheer, Genna & Antonette are joined by Rachel Stahlik, an MHSAA Competitive Cheerleading official. We talk with her about how the competitions are judged this year and what some of the new restrictions are with covid.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, and the DAC Athlete of the Year Award.

Now that the MHSAA Hockey Season is officially underway, hosts Sean Baligian & Jon Kidd take a look across the state to preview the upcoming season.Presented by Alta Equipment Company and brought to you by LTU Athletics, the Michigan Hockey Coaches Association, the MHSAA, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, and the DAC Athlete of the Year Award.

This week on the Ready, Set, Cheer podcast, Genna Rose and Antonette Phelps talk about the wild start to the Cheer season and restrictions on the sport before jumping in to their interview with Michigan State Cheerleading Head Coach Elyse Packard.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, the DAC Athlete of the Year Award, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

This week on the Extra Point Podcast, Lorne Plant, Matt Mowery, and Scott Burnstein take a look at some of the notable headlines from across the state of Michigan on National Signing Day. They also recap the 2020 (2021?) football season and they review the Mr. Football & Anvil Awards.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, Hungry Howie's Pizza, the DAC Athlete of the Year Awards, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

This week on Ready, Set, Cheer, we talk with 5 alumni of Michigan State Cheerleading who were on the team with our host, Antonette.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the MHSAA, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, and the DAC Athlete of the Year award.

This week, Antonette & Genna catch up with Brooke Miller, head coach for Rochester Adams Cheer, to talk about how the season has been going, what they have to look forward to this year, and about winning the 2020 MHSAA Division 1 Competitive Cheer state championship Presented by Lawrence Technological University and sponsored by the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, the MHSAA, and the DAC Athlete of the Year Award.

This week on the Michigan Extra Point Podcast, Lorne, Scott, and Matt recap some of the incredible State Semifinal matchups from last weekend, and they take a deep dive into the State Championship games for all 8 divisions.Presented by Lawerence Technological University and sponsored by the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, the MHSAA, Hungry Howie's Pizza, the DAC Athlete of the Year Award,

Today on Ready, Set, Cheer, hosts Genna Rose and Antonette Phelps are joined by Step One Allstar Cheerleading's Stephanie Beck to talk about the Step One Allstars and how Competitive Cheerleading in Ohio differs from Michigan.Presented by Lawrence Technological University, the MHSAA, DAC Athlete of the Year Award, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

The Michigan high school football playoffs have kicked off - again. Lorne Plant, Scott Burnstein, and Matt Mowery recap a few Regional Final games and everyone's top performances from regionals. Then they dive deep into their top ten State Semifinal games.Presented by Lawrence Technological University and brought to you by the MHSAA, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, DAC Athlete of the Year Award, and Hungry Howie's Pizza.