ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

A new day, a new document, a new definition for the profession: For many years, the American Occupational Therapy Association has stated that students need to promote the profession by developing an effective 'elevator speech' explaining occupational therapy. This essay explains that the reason why students will be making elevator speeches for the next 100 years is because the leaders of the profession keep changing definitions about what OT is and who it serves. +++ There is a new draft document on The Philosophical Base of OT Education that is going to be debated and voted on by the Representative Assembly .  The current document was published in 2007. There are contrasting statements in the two documents.  From the 2007 document: Occupational therapy education promotes integration of philosophical and theoretical knowledge, values, beliefs, ethics, and technical skills for broad application to practice in order to improve human participation and quality of life ...

Chia-Ting Su and Diane Parham (2014) wrote an interesting article that appears in this month's American Journal of Occupational Therapy.  Their study involved use of confirmatory factor analysis to test constructs within sensory integration theory.  Results of their analysis have rather broad implications and raise many important questions. A highly popularized notion based on Dunn's (2001) Slagle lecture is that sensory processing can be identified as occurring within different systems where there might be over or under responsiveness to incoming stimuli.  Su and Parham applied data to this model and could not confirm that this conceptualization fit their data.  This in itself is a significant finding because it puts into question whether or not SOR/SUR models are the most appropriate way to explain problems with sensory processing. Also germane to this finding is the concern that tools like the Sensory Profile confound analysis by including questions about tem...

The lynchpin of this conversation goes back to the patient v. client debates which quite clearly have not been resolved.  I think it is important to look at those issues very carefully.  Client-based ethics are simply different than patient-based ethics, and the more that we walk down paths of client-based ethics the more risks we take of straying too far from our roots, as we were clearly warned by Reilly (1984) and Yerxa and Sharrott (1985). It should be very interesting to note that the entire argument for client-based ethics as originally made by Herzberg (1990) revolved around the allegedly 'faulty' logic of Reilly, Yerxa, and Sharrott. Herzberg stated that the term ‘patient’ implies that people are sick.  She also argued that using the 'patient' term removed autonomy, limited participation, and restricted our roles in mental health and wellness.  She made that claim in 1990, and I would argue that nearly 25 years later of client-based ethics that our roles ...

On a professional occupational therapy forum some participants were asking for more information about the Mendability program, which is a 'sensory enrichment' therapy for autism.  I decided to post my response here for broader distribution. +++ Here are some additional resources so  people can learn more about Mendability. Kim Pomares and Eyal Aronoff are the co-founders of Mendability.  Pomares is a Social Media and Content Development Creator and Aronoff is co-Founder of Quest Software.  It does not appear that they have any clinical training in autism or any kind of therapies that I could find. Pomares' mother reportedly has the "clinical" ideas behind the program: "The theory behind Mendability originated out of France by Pomares’ mother. He said she came to Canada to train nurses in hospitals to do this therapy, but she only had an idea and needed scientific evidence for validation. After extensive research efforts, he secured the m...

This picture, and some similar to it, were widely passed around social media within the last year as an expression of the occupational therapy profession.  The picture is a play on the humorous limitations of T-Rex, and how adaptive equipment presumably supplied by an OT could help him with his 'reach.' There have been discussions on social media sites about the divide between academia and clinical practice.  This is not a new debate but it has become more important as the profession discusses a possible switch to a doctoral degree for entry level practice. One primary criticism is that that AOTA Ad Hoc group that came up with the recommendation was populated almost entirely by academics.  It is an undeniable reality, and underscores a problem with not properly consulting all stakeholders before publishing a position statement. Unfortunately, constricted regard for feedback continues.  The AOTA Board of Directors announced that there would be opportunities f...