OT History in Clifton Springs!
A group of people made OT History today - pulling off an amazing day of celebration in Clifton Springs that was enjoyed by so many attendees.Eighteen months ago I started corresponding with Steve Egidi, an occupational therapist and Vice President of the Clifton Springs Chamber of Commerce. He invited me to join a working group that was forming to help make plans for the 100th OT Anniversary Celebration in Clifton Springs. Steve was a steady organizing force for the group and it was a real pleasure getting to work with him.Also from the Chamber was Jeff Criblear, President of the Clifton Springs Chamber of C...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - June 4, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: history Source Type: blogs

Re-post: The Passion from a kid's perspective
A story worth re-posting:A fairly standard component of my pediatric occupational therapy evaluations is to ask the child to draw a picture of themselves. This assessment technique provides an opportunity to evaluate the child ' s skill with writing and also is a functional assessment of their cognitive and perceptual ability.Sometimes kids draw things that just beg to be probed and questioned - as was the case recently. I watched intently as 6 year old Patrick drew a representation of himself, but then he began adding odd details to his picture. First he colored dark spots on his figure ' s hands and feet, and then added ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - April 15, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT stories Source Type: blogs

The meaning of a word cloud
This image caught my attention when I attended the Presidential Address at the AOTA national conference in Philadelphia last week, and it has been tweeted around in occupational therapy circles since that time.The question is - what does it mean?The AOTA president discussed population health as a concept that she believes will be integral to occupational therapy ' s future vision.  Unfortunately, this vision has more to do with a misguided alignment with payment models (Triple Aim) than anything to do with patient care.This unusual vision has been promoted by other occupational therapists and also discussed extensivel...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - April 5, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: health insurance OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs

The danger of assuming universal and singular narrative explanations of disability
In a recentarticleappearing on the CNN website, author Wayne Drash reviews the concept of ' wrongful birth ' in context of Lesli, a person who has developmental disabilities.  Drash ' sprofile states that he " specializes in stories off the radar " and that " his passion is to tell narratives about life and the unfolding drama of the world we live in. "It would be more accurate to state that Drash cherry picked one person ' s perspective and advanced a fiction that serves one ideological perspective.His initial description of Lesli in his opening sentence tells us everything he believes about her person-hood.  He...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - April 4, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Disability rights OT practice OT stories parenting Source Type: blogs

The Barton Project: AOTA 2017 Conference Handouts
Hi and thank you for stopping here to look at the poster handouts that are being distributed at the 2017 AOTA conference!If you were unable to get a copy of the handout of the poster presentation, the files below are hi-res JPG scans that you can download and view in a larger format.This version of the timeline is one small step of a multi-year project attempting to document George Barton ' s life.  I was always struck by the fact that his life story was documented in such a limited way as compared to other occupational therapy founders.  The lack of previously published information on Barton motivated my effort....
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 28, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Barton history Source Type: blogs

Governor Cuomo and the Early Intervention State Fiscal Agent boondoggle
Another update in the ongoing saga of the failing New York State Early Intervention program:The Governor ' s 2018 budget proposal adds new requirements on insurance companies and providers.  Under other circumstances, a provider or fiscal intermediary would simply operate within the available rules that exist in the private marketplace, but since the State has designated a fiscal agent that is unable to compete in the free market, the Governor is forced to rewrite insurance laws in order to facilitate payment. In FY 2016, nearly 85% of claims submitted by the Early Intervention State Fiscal Agent to private insur...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 27, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: health insurance OT practice Source Type: blogs

Reasons to yawn: Wrap up analysis of two recent SCOTUS cases involving IDEA
On 11/8/16 IwroteIn both of these cases it is important to carefully analyze the details of what is actually being litigated.  So often the truth of what is being discussed gets lost in poor reporting about the topics.  For example, many news outlets focus on the ' evil school district vs. the child in the wheelchair with Wonder the GoldenDoodle ' meme instead of focusing on the decidedly less appealing ' what is the importance of due process ' angle.As OTs become more savvy with policy analysis they will avoid the bias-trap of media reporting and try to approach a more ' rational comprehensive ' method of consid...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 25, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Disability rights OT practice school-based practice Source Type: blogs

You can't keep a good event down...
...but you might delay things just a little while because of winter weather!Today a gathering was scheduled in Clifton Springs for a celebration of the occupational therapy founding.  The mayor was also scheduled to issue a proclamation but the celebration had to be postponed due to inclement weather.  The event will be rescheduled.+++The March 8. 1917 Clifton Springs Press had an announcement about the upcoming First Consolation House Conference, but it also had an interesting article about George Barton.  The subheadlines and text of the article are notable because they provide direct evidence of exac...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 15, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Barton history Source Type: blogs

A request for honesty about modern day practice in long term care facilities
Follow-up toEthical occupational therapy practice in nursing home careStudying historical phenomenon is helpful for framing modern problems - and so I would like to draw attention to an article that appeared in Modern Hospital in September 1922.The author of the article, Christine Newman, was Head Aide of the Howell State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis in Howell, Michigan.  The facility isdescribedas " a self-sufficient entity that aimed to meet the patients ' and employees ' every need with a working farm, apple orchard, convenience store, post office, water and heating plants and kitchen staff. "This model of ' self su...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 2, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: health insurance history OT practice Source Type: blogs

The Lenten message of Emmanuel practitioners that influenced the occupational therapy profession
I have previously documented (in presentation and in blog) the role of the Emmanuel Movement with regard to its overall impact on ' treatment ' of mental health conditions at the turn of the century in general and itsimpact on George Barton in particular.  I have also documented some lingering impact of concerns with spirituality and how the topic has beenreflected in some occupational therapy documents over time.  As we are on the eve of the Lenten season, and as we are properly situated in history to reflect on the crucible of values that contributed to the founding of the occupational therapy profession, this ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 28, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Barton history Source Type: blogs

An unusual connection between American opera and George Edward Barton
There is a God whose laws unchangingNo one may hope to disobey.Man ' s own desires forced upon the ordained way.He for a moment triumphs,He has his will,He pays the penalty.    (Barton, 1905)The Pipe of Desire is a one act play published in 1905 by George Edward Barton, and set to operatic score by Frederick Converse.  It might be just a curious fact that architect George Barton attempted the role of librettist except for the historic implications of this effort.We know that as a young man Barton was raised in a family " steeped in the arts and letters " (de Lancey, 1958).  From the same source we ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 26, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Barton history Source Type: blogs

Occupational therapy history: A lopsided tale told by the'designated survivors '
Some overtly prejudicial information has been published about George Barton.  In an officially sanctioned history of the occupational therapy profession, Quiroga (1995) wrote that " Barton was undoubtedly an unusual if not eccentric character, who had difficulty knowing his own identity. "  She also stated that " some of Barton ' s writings may have created more foes than allies to the cause " and that " George Edward Barton was an occupational therapy zealot " with a " near-crusade mentality " who " was undoubtedly a difficult person with whom to work in the organizational phase of the national association " who...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 15, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Barton history Source Type: blogs

The use of online journaling as a qualitative methods datasource
Conclusion       The Internet will continue to have a significant impact on the occupation of writing in the future. Hypertext allows people to write in a non-sequential post-structuralist format, such as was advocated for by Derrida; hypertext also meets the demands of multivocality, intertextuality and de-centeredness (Landow, 1992). Individual self-determinism in narrative construction is important to consider in context of the ethical reading and interacting of such online datasets (Buitelaar, 2014).        The occupation of writing ha...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 14, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice OT stories Source Type: blogs

Why occupational therapists need to stop romanticizing about Hull House
The settlement house movement originated in England in the late 1800s and was a mechanism for supporting poor people through social and cultural integration.  The model was translated to the United States by the efforts of social reformers like Jane Addams who founded Hull House in Chicago (later supported by the efforts of future occupational therapist Eleanor Clarke Slagle) and Robert Woods who pioneered the South End House Movement in Boston (supported by the design efforts of future occupational therapist George Barton). These efforts were notable for their philanthropic origins; that is, they were primarily ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 2, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Tags: history OT practice philosophy policy school-based practice Source Type: blogs

The problem with a Mad Libs approach to advocacy
 People commonly receive notifications from membership associations or advocacy groups asking for support of a cause. Typically, all that the recipient of such a request needs to do is fill in their name and address. A letter will be auto-generated to some political representative and it is generally the hope of the advocacy group that enough people will behave like lemmings and will answer the call to send in the letters.I call this ‘Mad Libs’ advocacy because people are expected to look at the blank line in the ‘From:’ category and willingly offer their name and information, much like you had to provide noun...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 1, 2017 Category: Occupational Health Source Type: blogs