TinyEYE Blog

Online Occupational Therapy:  Why Should we Care?

Hello Everyone,

When you consider your occupation, does your current ability to participate either contribute or detract from your sense of self-worth, success, and joy?  If you were aware of tools and ideas that could improve your occupation experience, would you appreciate the opportunity to access the support?

According to the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT), the term ‘occupation’ refers to a group of activities and tasks of everyday life that people do to occupy themselves, including self-care, leisure, and productivity (contributing socially or economically to their community).  Occupational therapy enables people to engage in everyday living, helps people to perform occupations that foster health and well-being, and fosters a just and inclusive society so that all people can participate to their potential in the daily occupations of life.  http://www.caot.ca/

A couple weeks ago, we asked what you want to know about the TinyEYE robot. You had some great questions, and we have done our very best to answer them!

I wonder if the robot would be used for 5^th grade and higher?

Yes. Much like our "traditional" remote therapy service, the robot can be used for any age group. The robot is as flexible as the therapist running it. We work with you to develop a plan for your service, and maintain a constant relationship with each school to ensure that the program is meeting and exceeding expectations.
 

Did y'all borrow this from Big Bang Theory? #Shelbot

Online Occupational Therapy:  How Does it Work?

Raise your hand if your heart warms and stretches when you know you have improved a child's life.  What a joyful purpose to serve.  

Therapists are self-driven to influence the quality of children’s lives.  Because we advocate for communities that do not have equal access to quality therapy services, speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists around the world have joined our online therapy team so that they can experience the joy that grows from improving the life of a child.  What is the point of online occupational therapy and how does it work?

The desire to be able to see others while talking to them on the phone has been around as long as the phone itself. The first attempts at videoconferencing appeared to be something  only the most wealthy could access. In 1961, Picturephone by AT&T was launched It cost $160/month, and $6/minute per call, and sent black and white pictures back and forth every 2 seconds.

In 2005, video communication had become more popular and affordable. Most people had dial-up internet at minimum, and MSN Messenger and other video conferencing tools were becoming more popular. However, reliability was far from guaranteed. It was around the same time that TinyEYE was established, integrating the video technology available at the time with additional programming and support, and adding in the capability for a third-party to monitor a video stream and adjust the settings to ensure reliability.

All over North America there are schools where students are not receiving the speech and occupational therapy services they need. The majority of these cases are simply because the school faces recruitment shortages and has been trying to hire a speech pathologist or occupational therapist for years. This is often simply a question of social or geographic concerns.

In the past 9 years since TinyEYE software began development, technology has grown exponentially. People are connected in ways that they never were before. One of those ways is that therapists from everywhere are able to log in and provide therapy to students all over the world. Students who were struggling to communicate and became hopeless and withdrawn are laughing and speaking in ways that they never before could. 9 years later, these schools faced the same recruitment challenges, but they found TinyEYE, and began working with us to provide SLP and OT services and change their student’s lives.