Mixing up chickens and eggs: A response to Fleming-Castaldy and Gillen

In the recent AJOT Fleming-Castaldy and Gillen wrote an interesting article entitled "The issue is: Ensuring that education, certification, and practice are evidence based."  In the article, they examine why outdated neurophysiologic techniques are promoted in the profession of occupational therapy as opposed to more current and evidence based motor learning and motor control theories.  They argue that outdated models based on Bobath and Brunnstrom have no place in contemporary practice.In spirit I agree wholeheartedly.  There are many techniques that are still present in contemporary practice and we hang onto those techniques even in the face of mounting evidence that other models are more appropriate.  I have spent considerable time in this blog discussing this issue as it relates to certain sensory-based approaches and the very limited evidence that exists for their continued promotion and use.Toward the end of the article they suggest that educators need to critically appraise their curricula, that textbook authors need to thoughtfully consider what they are including in texts, and that NBCOT needs to consider their exam development methodology.They do not mention any role for the professional association (AOTA) outside of a general reference to ACOTE standards and I think this is a serious error.  This weekend at the AOTA conference I attended a special interest section workshop that promoted three pediatric sensory based interventions that have ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - Category: Occupational Therapists Tags: OT Education evidence-based practice OT practice Source Type: blogs