The American Journal of Occupational Therapy 529 The changing health care environment has led to an expansion of pediatric health care services tow a rd m o re community-based, family-centered, teambased, and culturally re l e vant early intervention and schoolbased programs (Schaaf, Mi l l e r, & Bu rke, 1995). Mo re than one third of all occupational therapists practice in pediatric occupatio...

D eveloping new behavior or encou rag ing behav iora l changes in children can be challenging even for experienced parents and teachers. Such persuasion is usually verbal, but verbal-only persuasion isn’t always effective, particularly in children with communication difficulties, because it offers limited incentive to change. So, pediatric occupational therapists often use play-based activities...

OBJECTIVE A national survey was conducted to identify occupational therapists' current attitudes and values in their working relationships with parents of preschool children with developmental disabilities. This study replicated a 1987 national survey that examined therapists' relationships with parents of preschool children with cerebral palsy. METHOD Surveys were sent to a random sample of ...

Occupational therapists interested in physical disabilities practice (N = 629) responded to a questionnaire regarding their use of, training in, and opinions on physical agent modalities. Therapists in hand rehabilitation were the most frequent users of these modalities. Of the listed modalities, the most frequently used was hot and cold packs; the least used was ultrasound. The modalities used...

PURPOSE The purpose of this article is to describe guidelines for frequency of therapy services that were developed to help physical therapists and occupational therapists determine appropriate utilization of therapy services in a pediatric medical setting. DESCRIPTION The guidelines were developed for use by physical and occupational therapists when treating inpatients and outpatients at a l...

On July 26, 1990, President George Bush signed the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (Public Law 101-336) into law. The ADA guarantees Americans with disabilities civil rights, that is, access to employment, local and state services, transportation, telecommunications, and public accommodations equal to that of Americans without disabilities. Its passage was the result of much effor...

OBJECTIVES Recent literature indicates that there is an inconsistent use of theory to guide clinical actions by occupational therapists, including those working in pediatrics. The purpose of this study was to describe school-based therapists' theory application by collecting information about what frames of reference they used and why. METHOD Of the 72 school-based therapists in the mid-Atlan...

This article highlights some observations made in the American Occupational Therapy Association/American Occupational Therapy Foundation Clinical Reasoning Study, an ethnographic study of 14 occupational therapists working in a large teaching hospital. Concepts and premises that frequently appear in the clinical reasoning in medicine literature are discussed and compared and contrasted to obser...

The purpose of this paper is to describe occupational therapy’s contribution in the areas of health promotion and prevention and is intended for internal and external audiences. The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) supports and promotes involvement of occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants in the development and provision of health promotion and disease or d...