The equivocal value of (some) school-based occupational therapy
Occupational therapy, at its best, is a change-enabling service that helps people accomplish goals that are personally meaningful and relevant to how they occupy their time. For kids in school, this means being able to learn and socialize and develop skills for future citizenship. Therapists routinely wring their hands over issues of eligibility criteria for said services and balance this out against spoken and unspoken procedural rules that are generally applicable only within their own school systems. The interesting aspect to this is that any given school based OT will then believe that the way THEIR school district operates must represent the way that ALL school districts operate (and for that matter, how they are SUPPOSED to operate). Those of us who have the opportunity to interact with dozens or scores of districts across wide geographic areas have wider exposure to the variety of ways that districts interpret presumably identical criteria and rules. Twice this year I have th...