OTS 39: School-Based Occupational Therapy Journal Club: SBOT In The USA
- Jayson Davies
- Sep 23, 2019
- 11 min read
Updated: May 13
Press play below to listen to the podcast
Or click on your preferred podcast player link!
Welcome to the show notes for Episode 39 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode, Jayson reviews a 2015 article about what School-based OT looks like in the united states. It is the first in a series of journal articles Jayson will be reviewing. If you would like to review an article with Jayson, let him know with an email!
This podcast does not qualify as a Professional Development Podcast. You can learn more about how to earn professional development credits through the OTSH Podcast for your OT/COTA renewal certification here!
Links to Show References:
Highlights from this article:
Trending toward inclusion
Expansion of Roles for occupational therapists in schools
Response to Instruction and Intervention
Collaborative and comprehensive evaluations
Collaborative goals based on the Common Core State Standards
Future Trends
Assistive Technology
Transition & Post-Secondary Outcomes
Expansion of occupational therapist roles from being solely a function of special education to a general education role as well.
Be sure to subscribe to the OT School House email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
Well,
Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the full episode transcript
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development now to get the conversation started, here is your host. Jayson Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hey everyone, and welcome to the OT school house Podcast. Today, we're doing things a little bit differently. This is going to kick off the very first journal article review for well ever on this podcast. You know, we usually have nice, long episodes with a guest or myself talking about some experiences, but today we're going to switch it up a little bit. It's just going to be me, and we're only going to be here for about 10 here for about 10 minutes, and we're just going to break down an article real quick. And I hope to continue doing this offset with some of the other normally scheduled podcasts that we go a little bit longer. So again, these ones are going to be a little bit shorter. Sometimes it'll just be me, sometimes I might bring on a guest to help me kind of break down an article, but yeah, that's just kind of how that's going to go. So before I introduce the article, I do want to say real quick, you can find the reference to this article actually in iTunes. If you just kind of swipe up real quick, you'll be able or, sorry, Apple podcast, not iTunes anymore. That doesn't exist. Anyways, swipe up on the screen and you will be able to see a citation of the article as well as that will be a link to the article if you want to review it more. Whenever we have a journal article like this, I will go ahead and do that. You can also head over to OT schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 39 for a few more links about the article. So check that out. But let's get into this article. So for our very first article. I thought it would be fitting actually to start it off with an article by Julie Bissell and Sharon Cermak titled frameworks, models and trends and school based occupational therapy in the United States from 2015 however, although they are from Southern California, this article was actually published in the Israeli Journal of Occupational Therapy back in June of 2015 so it is getting a little bit older in age, but still very relevant. As I read through it, it's a fairly long article. However, it is not a research article. It's more like a paper that describes school based OT and it's important like what I said about it being in the Israeli Journal of Occupational Therapy, because to me, it reads almost as a reflection of what school based occupational therapy looks like here in America. And so, I mean, it does have in the United States in the title, so it's kind of it seems like that's what they were going for. They're trying to share what our process here in America looks like to potentially other nations. However, obviously, I'm in a, I'm an American occupational therapist here in Southern California, school based OT, and for me, reading it, it actually almost read kind of like a, almost like looking in the mirror. And, you know, and like, sometimes you look in the mirror and you think to yourself, Man, I look great. And other times you look into the mirror and like, man, what the heck is going on with my hair? I need to brush my teeth. Man, you just, like, see things, right? And that's kind of how I read this article, in a way, you know, I saw a lot that just stood out to me as, yeah, you know, it makes me feel good. Yep, I do that. I do that. RTI, check. Got that all good. But then other areas, I kind of read it, and I was like, Huh, you know what? I may be able to get a little bit better in that area. So I'm going to kind of go through just a little bit and share with you some of the key points in this article. All right, so let's get started. So the article actually starts off a little bit with current trends in special education, not just occupational therapy, but special education as a whole. And in that sense, it talks a little bit about how inclusion is becoming more and more popular. It talks about the development of RTI a little bit, but then it goes into a little bit about occupational therapy and how occupational therapists in schools are expanding their expertise, you know, and promoting data driven services that we're working a little bit more with general education, not solely special education. It also talks a little bit here. It goes more in depth about it later, but just a little bit how assistive technology, as well as servicing older students, is becoming more of a trend here. So again, it goes into that a little bit later, but what they're trying to focus on here is just that over the last 20 years, we've seen an expansion of roles in the areas that occupational therapists can play within the school district. It also does say that, you know, the primary goal of occupational therapy in schools is to support the child's ability to access their education. And again, we have to always stress this. You know, we are not there necessarily for a student to get therapy. Per se, we are there to help the child access their education. If they need therapy to do that, then that's where we can step. Been but they may not necessarily need therapy, and we have to keep that in mind when we're doing when we're providing our services. The article then continues to talk a little bit about idea. I'm not going to go too far into that right now, because idea, most people that listen to this podcast are pretty familiar with it. Maybe another day we'll really dive into the specifics of IDEA, the things that some of us may not know, but this article just gives a little over brief of what it is for people who may not be familiar with the United States way of going through school based OT and other services. The next step that this article takes on is RTI, and it really talks about how we need to be data driven, and then based upon that data, we can provide treatment or consultation, and then we need to continue to take data to see whether or not that treatment actually had an effect on someone. So in the article, they do give several there's actually a chart that gives out several different types of tier one, tier two and tier three interventions, again, not going to go through these. I highly recommend that you do look up the article if you'd like to see more about that. Along with RTI naturally comes screening. And they do address screening in here a little bit. They do say that currently, teachers are the ones that are doing some sort of universal academic screening. However, moving forward, occupational therapists could potentially have a larger role in that universal screening, especially in regards to like kindergarteners or preschoolers, perhaps, you know, trying to figure out, trying to get that data, that initial data that can then drive into treatments and or consultations and collaborations with those teachers and so screenings are in here just slightly they're addressed as part of the RTI process. The article then goes on to talk about evaluations and how our evaluation should actually be collaborative in nature and should address all areas of concern, and that could be including academics, communication, gross motor fine motor skills, social, emotional and behavioral skills, as well as vocational and daily living skills to determine what needs the child actually has. One thing that I really appreciated about this article is that they looked to the world real health organization, the WHO at to actually formulate this type of model that they that they put together that is called the educational framework for child success. But they did that in a way that they share that, you know, we need to take so many different factors in to to our evaluation, or into this child, you know, there are environmental factors as well as personal factors. And then you also have to take into consideration the core body skills, the different activities that the child may need to do, and the ability to participate in the society, you know, as a social being, and all that kind of goes into the child's educational need. And of course, when we go down even further into the framework, you know, obviously most states, I think it's something like 45 states now, a few come and go as far as who uses the Common Core State Standard, and that's kind of our curriculum. And then, you know, if you think of the person, environment, occupation model that we often learn in school, it's like that three circle tiers. Well here they'd use three circles that kind of all come together, and that is the curriculum, the assessment and the intervention, and all of those have to come together to find that just right medium to where that child can succeed. So we need to look at the curriculum, the assessment and the intervention, and when I say we, I don't just mean occupational therapist, I mean all the collaborators that work with that child, so the entire IEP team, or if the students in general education, student, just all the different factors that make a school work together, they all need to be involved With that said. Dr Bissell and Dr surmack also agree, as far as what I think in that we should be writing collaborative goals that focus on the Common Core State Standards. So, yes, we can write a goal that has to do with the Common Core standards. You know, we can work with a teacher to develop a writing goal that somehow addresses the Common Core State Standards, and then we are there to provide the support, whether it be environmental, through activities or participation, whatever way, to help that student access those common core state standards. The final part of the article, like I mentioned earlier, kind of talks about trends moving forward, and a few of the trends I'm just going to talk about where they see occupational therapists really going from here on out, is like I was talking about earlier that assistive technology piece, you know, working with teams on the IEP to to establish at for a student that may need it. I mean, we have the skills to break down the task and. See what at may or may not work. And so that was one of the areas that that they really see us being involved in in the future. Another area of focus for the future to come happens to be transition and post secondary outcomes. So that is with our students that are older, that either are in high school, that are either in high school or even in that 18 to 22 year old transitional program and too many kids, and this has been identified, not just by occupational therapists, by educators as a whole, too many kids are leaving high school, especially with a disability, and unable to succeed in any form after that, after they leave, you know, the structured environment of the high school. And so there is a increased awareness right now for transitional care and transitional post secondary outcomes. And so Dr Bissell and Dr surmack, again, just feel like occupational therapy can fill in that role, you know, teaching those high school and transitional students, ADLs, teaching them work skills, teaching them how to live independently. So that was another area that that was discussed in the article. And the last topic of discussion in this article was just that continued role expansion for occupational therapists from special education into all of education. And that kind of goes back to what I was talking about earlier with the RTI, you know, having occupational therapists be there from day one, when those kids come into school being part of the screening process. You know, just because a kid doesn't have special education services on an IEP, that doesn't mean that there may be, there may not be concerns that have to do with fine motor skills, sensory processing, different areas of activities of daily living, and so all these areas could potentially be minimized and addressed more quickly if we're able to do that screening early on and then to provide that consult and collaboration with teachers. So yeah, this was just a really great article. Like I said, it's almost like looking in a mirror to see where what we've done and where we come from a little bit. And so I highly recommend it. I will be sure to put the entire citation down in the notes below. Just scroll up on your iPhone, or I don't know exactly how to do it on Google Play. I'm going to be honest with you right there, but you can find the citation. I'll put a link to the actual article in the Israeli Journal of Occupational Therapy, and we will figure this out together. So I hope you all actually really enjoyed this little short episode related to a specific journal and a specific topic. I really do hope to continue doing this in the future. And with that, I do want to invite anyone listening to potentially review an article with me. If you have an article that you know that you just been that you've had on the back of your mind for a while, and you just wanted to read it, and you kind of needed that extra little push to read it. Well, here's a reason, you know, send me an email, send me the name of the journal. You and I, we can read it together, and we can hop on here and have a short discussion about it. Discussion about it. So yeah, it's as simple as that. I hope if you did enjoy this episode, please let me know down in the comments, where you can rate us on Apple podcast, or you can send me an email, find us on Facebook, Instagram, let me know. But yeah, I'm really excited for this. I enjoy actually. I personally enjoy reading some articles. I don't get to do as much as I'd like, but I do enjoy that, so I hope to continue doing this. And yeah, that's about it for today. Again, the show notes, including the citation, you'll be able to find at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 39 or you can go over to the website, click on the podcast tab, and you'll find episode 39 and probably the easiest way to do it@otschoolhouse.com is just click in that search bar and type in Episode 39 three ways. Really easy to find it. Yeah, that's all I got for you this week. We'll see you next time on the podcast. Take care and thank you everyone so much for listening. Thank you for taking me up on the free professional development opportunity a few weeks ago. Really appreciate all the support and love from you guys. Have a good one. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device.
