Journal reflective writing

Journal: Teachers' perception of the role and effectiveness of occupational therapist in school

This study is about teachers' expectations from occupational therapists working with exceptional children in two Ontario public school boards.

There were four major findings for occupational therapists.

1. all teachers valued the work of occupational therapists in schools
2. teachers expressed confusion over the roles of occupational therapist
3. teachers disagreed with occupational therapists about some of their roles
4. teachers believed occupational therapists need to develop a greater awareness of the needs of the educational system.

The teachers who worked with occupational therapist identified several strengths of occupational therapy sevices.

• It enhances a student's ability to learn and develop
• It eliminate problems that interfere with a child's ability to profit from instruction
• Occupational therapists able to work on a team with teachers, parents, other school professionals and community agencies
• Occupational therapist could provide medical, physical and developmental information in educationally relevant terms
• Occupational therapist able to translate assessment information into relevant programming.
• Occupational therapist do not use too much medical 'jargon' and have a broad perspective on children and child development

The study shown the teachers who worked with occupational therapist had a positive perception on them. But there is also some teachers confused about the role of occupational therapist. So besides promoting OT among the parents, we also have to include in the teachers. This is because teachers are going to collaborate with the OT to help the children with special needs.

Considering about the culture and context, we might found there is difficulty to promote OT among the parents and teachers. Malaysian is not well exposed to occupational therapy and maybe it is hard for them to accept OT to aid in their education. 

Besides that, as an OT who is going to work in special education, we also need to understand the education system in Malaysia. We should have sufficient knowledge and understanding of educational priorities, theories, and service delivery system. This is to make sure that we as an OT can understand and clear how the education system work so that we can know what intervention we can implement and how to carry it out.