FREE ESSAY ON OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

The career that I chose to research is Occupational Therapy. An Occupational Therapists
job is to deal with people with physical disabilities, mental illnesses, and other such
handicaps. There are many different applications of Occupational Therapy, like for
example, one who's hired by a hospital to help with stroke victims, or one who works for
a school district working with handicapped children. The person I chose to interview was
the latter. There are many different classifications of OT's as well. There are OTR's,
Registered Occupational Therapists, who must be registered by the state, and COTA's,
Certified Occupational Therapist Assistants, who must recieve 2 years of training to
assist an OTR and work under OTR supervision.
The average pay of an OT is about $40,000 to $50,000 a year. In order to be an
occupational therapist, one must acquire a college degree, plus the afforementioned
licensing by the state of Minnesota. Also, you need to go through intense training in
order to become an OTR. Besides that, if one has a Master's Degree in teaching, one can
make up to $6,000-$8,000 more a year.
Some of the job expectations of an Registered Occupational Therapist working in a school
environment are supervising COTA's, assessing students in the areas of fine motor skills,
visual motor and visual perceptual processing, helping with assistive technology,
adaptive seating, adaptations for writing, cutting difficulties, and computer program
needs and adaptations. Also, the Occupational Therapist is often required to participate
in "Student Study Teams" to plan and implement special education assessments and
programs. 
An OT is also required to be a expert in "adaptive equipment", which may include special
scissors, pencil adaptations, holding cuffs for people with weak grasp, extended shoe
horns, special seats, standers, walkers, computer access adaptations, switch operated
toys, games, learning tools, and anything else that may help the person be more
functional despite their disability.
I talked to the Occupational Therapist I chose to interview about the specific
requirements she has in her job, and she provided some details, including: traveling to
every building in the district, working with kids from the Preschool level all the way up
to High School age, getting information about students from their teachers, student
records, from requesting medical records from nurses or parents. She is an OTR, who
supervises 3 COTA's. She is currently working on getting a Masters degree.
Some things she likes about her job is the fact that it constantly varies, which means
she faces something new every day, she does lots of traveling, and she gets to know
people all over the district. Some things she doesn't like is the long hours required by
her job, and all of the paperwork she has to do. She also denounces all of the "red tape
and nonsense laws", and the perception that parents have become more demanding and less
appreciative in the last few years.
A typical day in her life may go as follows:
7:00- Arrives at office, does paperwork, listens to messages, writes reports, scores
assessments.
8:00- Attends a Student Study meeting to discuss the assessment plan for a student with
fine motor concerns.
9:00- Assesses a student- may complete 2 or 3 assessments at one time.
10:30- Observes children in classrooms.
11:00- Scores assessments, types information into assessment summary reports.
12:15- Sets up a battery-powered car with a new seat to fit a student, helps transfer the
child into the car and works on driving with him.
1:15- Teach paraprofessionals how to use the Intellikeys programs with their third grade
students with physical and mental disabilities.
2:15- Travels to Central Junior High School for a Student Study Team meeting with parents
to discuss the needs of a student with a traumatic brain injury.
3:00- Goes to a meeting at Forest Lake Elementary to go over a three year reassessment
with parents.
4:00- Comes home.
Resources: 
http://home.sol.no/~evpeders/occupational.html- A page from an occupation therapist
detailing his job requirements and spreading information about his job.
http://www.aauj.edu/OTC.htm- the AAUJ website
...and last, the person who I chose to interview, specifically, my mom.
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