Pollie Price

Learning to promote occupational development through co‐occupation

Mothering occupations and co‐occupations have begun to be addressed in the occupational science and therapy literature as well as in childhood development journals. This article reviews literature that details important aspects of co‐occupation and how it develops between parents and their children. Narrative analysis of empirical data of how co‐occupation was facilitated between a young child, Andrew, and his mother, Roxanna, illustrates how co‐occupations strengthened the parent‐child relationship and led to structured opportunities for occupational, social, and emotional development in both. The analysis considers transactionalism as a theoretical lens to illuminate several factors that enabled Roxanna to acquire competence and confidence to manage Andrews ongoing special needs in ways that would optimize his potential to participate in occupations alongside his typical peers. As Roxanna became more confident and successful with Andrew, she was better able to identify and advocate for his needs in their social world.

Explicit or Hidden? Exploring How Occupation Is Taught in Occupational Therapy Curricula in the United States

OBJECTIVE. Occupation is considered core and threshold knowledge for occupational therapy, yet how it is conveyed through education is not well understood. This study examined how the concept of occupation was taught in occupational therapy and occupational therapy assistant curricula in the United States. METHOD. Using a qualitative descriptive research design, in-depth interviews, video recordings, and artifacts of teaching occupation were collected from 25 programs, chosen using stratified random sampling. Interview data were analyzed using an inductive, constant comparative approach; video and artifact data were analyzed deductively using findings from the interviews. RESULTS. Instructional methods were innovative and ranged from didactic to experiential. The degree to which occupation was present in instruction ranged from explicit to implicit to absent. CONCLUSION. Although educators valued teaching occupation, the concept was still elusive in some instructional methods and materials. Occupation knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge may have influenced how explicitly occupation was taught.

Extraordinarily Ordinary Moments of Co-Occupation in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

For occupational therapists working in neonatal intensive care units, the tenuousness of life is part of ordinary daily experience. However, for parents, having a premature infant must feel like a break from their expectations of having a healthy infant and an ordinary family life. Occupational therapists provide opportunities for co-occupation that promote the development of the family and support parents by providing the knowledge that family life is still possible even if the infant has severe disabilities. This article will illustrate how one occupational therapist facilitated extraordinarily ordinary moments of becoming a family for a mother and premature infant through negotiating the meaning of parenting and parenting co-occupations and providing opportunities for parenting co-occupations, which are both important aspects of occupation-based practice implemented in the neonatal intensive care unit.

A Way of Seeing: How Occupation Is Portrayed to Students When Taught as a Concept Beyond Its Use in Therapy

OBJECTIVE. The concept of occupation is core to learning occupational therapy, yet how occupation is taught has not been widely studied. We explored how occupation is addressed in 25 U.S. occupational therapist and occupational therapy assistant programs. METHOD. We used a basic qualitative research design, collecting data through interviews, artifacts, and video recordings of teaching. We secondarily analyzed 8 programs in which occupation was taught beyond its application in practice. RESULTS. Educators portrayed occupation as (1) a way of seeing self (students learn about themselves as occupational beings), (2) a way of seeing others (students learn about others as occupational beings), and (3) a way of seeing the profession (students learn occupation as the central focus of occupational therapy). Varied learning experiences promoted these perspectives. CONCLUSION. Three concepts—subject‐centered learning, threshold concepts, and transformative learning—formed the theoretical foundation for teaching occupation as a way of seeing. Price, P., Hooper, B., Krishnagiri, S., Taff, S. D., & Bilics, A. (2017). A way of seeing: How occupation is portrayed to students when taught as a concept beyond its use in therapy.

Sense of belonging: is inclusion the answer?

Abstract The Americans with Disabilities Act mandated the inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of social and civil life in the United States including sports. As a result, sport and recreation programmes designed for typically developing youth began to include children with disabilities. One popular recreation context providing sport activities for youth with disabilities is summer camp. Research on inclusive camps has shown mixed results, with some studies suggesting that children with disabilities continue to experience exclusion from physical activity and leadership opportunities, social isolation, and stigma. This conceptual and argumentative essay will review current research on inclusive camps and will argue that, until the mechanisms of inclusive camps are better understood and applied in practice, camps for children with disabilities may be the best delivery system to promote inclusion and a sense of belonging, arguably one of the most important outcomes of camp.

Curriculum-Level Strategies That U.S. Occupational Therapy Programs Use to Address Occupation: A Qualitative Study

OBJECTIVE. This studys objective was to describe curriculum‐level strategies used to convey occupation to occupational therapy students. METHOD. The study used a descriptive qualitative research design. Fifteen occupational therapy and 10 occupational therapy assistant programs participated in interviews, submitted curriculum artifacts such as syllabi and assignments, and recorded teaching sessions. Data were coded both inductively and deductively and then categorized into themes. RESULTS. Occupational therapy programs designed strategies on two levels of the curriculum, infrastructure and implementation, to convey knowledge of occupation to students. The degree to which strategies explicitly highlighted occupation and steered instruction fluctuated depending on how differentiated occupation was from other concepts and skills. CONCLUSION. Two arguments are presented about the degree to which occupation needs to be infused in all curricular elements. To guide curriculum design, it is critical for educators to discuss beliefs about how ubiquitous occupation is in a curriculum and whether curricular elements portray occupation to the extent preferred.

Teaching knowledge generated through occupational science and teaching the science itself

ABSTRACT This paper reviewed data that were collected for a study on teaching occupation in the context of occupational therapy programs, in order to explore if and how teaching occupational science was represented. Data that referenced occupational science were sparse but the available instances allowed observations to be made about teaching occupational science. Teaching the concepts and research findings of occupational science was more prevalent than teaching the science itself, raising questions about the implications of dispersing concepts from occupational science across a curriculum detached from their origins. Implications related to curricula, professional identity and translational science are explored. Suggestions are made for teaching concepts in explicit connection to occupational science, as well as stand-alone education about the science.

Traversing hills and valleys: Exploring doing, being, becoming and belonging experiences in teaching and studying occupation

ABSTRACT Research findings in occupational science and occupational therapy education can be mutually informing, yet this mutual benefit is seldom explored. A secondary analysis of data from a study of how occupation is addressed in US occupational therapy curricula explored this question: what latent meanings within education research data are pertinent to occupational science? Data were selected that richly described the tandem occupations of teaching and learning where the focus was occupation-related content. Three processes adopted from Ricœurian hermeneutic interpretive analysis—explanation, understanding, and appropriation—revealed the occupational experiences of doing, being, becoming and belonging as a dynamic web among instructors and students who participated in the study and the researchers. Further, the analytic process united the occupational experiences of research participants and researchers, and prompted researchers to reflect on and engage emotionally with their teaching and other occupations, facilitating appropriation of the research for their classroom practices.