ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

  I recently wrote that occupational therapy’s real AI problem is not ChatGPT itself, but us. More specifically, it is our profession’s vulnerability to confident, polished, automated explanations built on partial knowledge, private frameworks, and unexamined assumptions. I argued that the real risk is not that a machine will invent nonsense from nowhere, but that it will absorb and amplify the profession’s existing epistemic weaknesses. Now we have Part II of this discussion. I was reminded of this topic when I posed a straightforward question to AOTA’s new chatbot . I asked it "Has there ever been any tension around how to operationalize the ethical principle of social justice in occupational therapy, and what would a violation of that look like in practice?" The answer I received was plausible, polished, but very superficially informed - and thus, fully incorrect. It discussed system barriers, inequities in access, conflicting values, organizational constraints, and the ...

Before the profession gets too deep into updating the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework, I think we should take some time to pause and reflect on both the substance and process of the revision. While preparing a lecture recently, I found myself revisiting a section from my occupational therapy theory textbook where I trace the successive definitions of occupational therapy that have appeared in the various editions of the Practice Framework. I included that section in the book because the pattern bothered me when I first noticed it, and it still does. When the definitions are placed side by side, something becomes clear that is easy to miss when each revision appears on its own. Since the first Occupational Therapy Practice Framework was published in 2002, the profession has repeatedly revised its official definition of occupational therapy through successive editions of that document. None of the changes are dramatic in isolation. But taken together they represent a gradual and ...

I recently came across a project from students at Rochester Institute of Technology that got me thinking. At the Game Developers Conference, RIT students showcased a collection of alternative game controllers that were definitely not standard - they were i nterfaces built from oversized scissors, giant toothbrushes, physical wiring stations, and other unconventional objects. The assignment challenged students to design interactive systems that deliberately moved beyond traditional controllers like keyboards, mice, and gamepads. At first glance, these projects are playful and experimental and I think that is part of the point. The exercise seems designed to disrupt assumptions about how humans interact with digital systems. But the deeper idea embedded in the project is more interesting and is something I would like our future occupational therapy students to deeply integrate into their thinking: Input is not fixed. Once you step outside the standard paradigm of buttons and joysticks, y...