Stakeholder #3

My third stakeholder are the therapists that would be helping these children if they got the chance. While there is usually a team of therapists that assist these students like speech and physical therapists, I will be focusing on the role of occupational therapists in schools, because that is what I would like to do.

Occupational therapists help people learn the skills necessary for daily living or for the patient’s special interests. This means they often help people regain mobility in their arms after spinal cord injuries, or elderly people who cannot move as well as they used to. However, there is much more to this job. They are often placed in school settings to assist children. Occupational therapists often work with students and teachers to implement alternative activities so that the student can fully participate. When an occupational therapist helps a student, they observe and analyze how he/she is working on an assignment, and identifies what the problem is with that specific assignment. Once identified, the therapist must come up with an effective solution that will allow the student to learn the material, but in a different way. They work directly with the student, as well as their teacher and other administrative staff members. Oftentimes, they also work with parents, not only to assure them that their child is being taken care of, but also to get to know the child from a different perspective. No one knows a child better than the parent. However, when therapists are placed in schools, they can only help children that qualify for special education programs. Also, occupational therapists cannot be implemented in all schools, even though they are critical to some student’s success.

According to AOTA's guide to Occupational Therapy in School Settings, occupational therapists can "observe a student engaging in an activity and provide strategies to facilitate the student's full participation." KidsHealth.org made a list of only some of the types of kids that occupational therapist can help. Some of them included students with, "birth injuries or birth defects . . . cancer . . .autism . . . mental health or behavioral problems," and many many more. But how do they help these children? According to AOTA's website, there are a whole range of activities that occupational therapist's can assist student's with, including "paying attention in class; concentrating on the task at hand, holding a pencil, musical instrument, or book in the easiest way; or just behaving appropriately in class."

This source is quite literally facts. However, the first source is an advertisement, so it is a little biased. The first and third claim is from the American Occupational Therapy Association, so they are obviously going to advocate as much as possible for the implementation of OTs in schools. However, there was a lot of fact from that website too. So I believe that these sources are credible.

These claims are similar to those of the parents and children, because they want to help disabled children. However, these claims have a slightly more scientific and detached point of view. They want to help these children, but they are far less emotional than the previous stakeholder's.

Jill Knight, "Occupational Therapist Jamie Wineland works on upper body coordination with John Moorefield" 10-18-15 via newsobserver.com