Role of Occupational Therapy as an educational service
The role of the Occupational Therapist (OT) in the school setting is to improve the student’s learning, participation and performance of activities important for successful school functioning.
School-based OT can include services to all students, to a small group of students or individual students. This can include the OT providing a presentation in order to help build capacity of teachers and parents to understand and support students’ needs. An OT may provide services to a group, by providing screenings for students presenting challenges or by accompanying the teacher to help manage these. In terms of direct services, the OT intervenes with a particular student for example, by performing assessments to identify skills, which facilitate and impede function and by providing strategies and accommodations. Within all three levels of intervention, collaborative consultation with the educational team is key to the delivery of OT services.