Date Presented 03/28/20
A 2005 special issue of the American Journal of OT was dedicated to the growing influence of disability studies on the profession. Authors from this journal reflected upon how shifting perspectives of disability might inform future research and intervention design. This study sought out these authors to explore their current perspectives on disability studies within the profession using thematic analysis to understand if or how suggestions and recommendations from the 2005 manuscript have been attended to.
Primary Author and Speaker: Laura VanPuymbrouck
Additional Authors and Speakers: Alisa Sheth, Jenna Heffron, Jacqueline Kish, Lisa Mahaffey
Contributing Authors: Danbi Lee
PURPOSE: In 2005 the American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AJOT) published an special issue dedicated to the academic field of disability studies (DS) acknowledging the profession’s attempt to distinguish its concepts and practices from traditional impairment-based models (Kielhofner, 2005). Leaders from the academic and research community authored manuscripts for this issue encouraging the profession to reflect upon concepts surrounding disability and how DS perspectives were contributing to shifts in attending to social factors that produce disability.
The profession has appeared to increasingly embrace tenets from DS into official AOTA documents as well as practice models. Concepts such as self-advocacy, shifting perspectives of independence, engagement and participation articulated in the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework are core concepts of the disability communities’ Independent Living Movement (Lee et al., 2019).
Vision 2025 contains principles encouraged by the authors of these AJOT manuscripts such as addressing inequitable policies, environmental inaccessibility, processes that exclude, and client collaboration to optimize participation (AOTA, 2017). Despite the presence of these concepts, there continues to be a documented lack of knowledge of how to translate DS concepts into clinical practice with evaluation and intervention design still primarily attending to bottom-up impairment-based approaches (Heffron et al., 2019). What perceptions do the authors of this issue have of the profession’s embrace of messages and challenges they posed 15 years ago?
DESIGN: The aim of this study was to explore perspectives of the authors of this special issue and examine their insights on what the profession has done well as well as suggestions for further work to achieve Vision 2025. All authors were purposively recruited through publicly available contact information and invited to participate via email by the researchers. The invitation contained the study background and purpose with a request to respond if interested in participating.
METHOD: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted using questions across two broad themes: 1) What is your perspective of the influences of DS on the profession over the last fifteen years? 2) Do you believe the profession has responded to the critiques and suggestions of the 2005 manuscripts and if so, in what ways? Interviews were recorded following participant consent and transcribed verbatim by the research team. Thematic analysis procedures were used to identify themes between participant interviews. The coding process involved multiple phases of inductively and deductively establishing meaningful themes and subthemes from descriptive codes aligned to the text. Disagreements in coding were discussed between researchers until agreement was achieved to the meaning and definition of a code.
RESULTS/IMPLICATIONS: Findings from 12 participants examine the emergent themes and subthemes of the authors’ perspectives of DS’ influence within the profession. These reveal participants’ view the profession has integrated concepts of DS into three distinct areas: education, scholarship, and practice. However, subthemes within each of these represent differing perspectives that include a sense of continued commitment (“we keep plugging away at it”) as well as frustration (“a long way to go”).
CONCLUSION: It is critical the profession asks questions of these scholars as their insights provide reflection on shifts in how disability is understood. This presentation will describe the study findings and implications for the profession in the areas of education, scholarship and practice attending to influences of DS over the past 15 years and impact on achieving Vision 2025.
References
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2017). Vision 2025. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 71, 7103420010. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2017.713002
Heffron, J., Lee, D., VanPuymbrouck, L., Sheth, A., Beck, J. (2019). “The bigger picture”: Occupational therapy practitioners’ perspectives on disability studies. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 73(3), https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2019.030163
Kielhofner, G. (2005). Rethinking disability and what to do about it: Disability studies and its implications for occupational therapy. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 59(5), 487-496, https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.59.5.487
Lee, D., Heffron, J., VanPuymbrouck, L, Sheth, A., Mahaffey, L., The, K., Beck, J., Harrison, E. OT beyond the clinic: Disability rights and resources toolkit for OT practitioners to support community integration for people with disabilities. American Occupational Therapy Association annual conference, New Orleans, LA. April, 2019.
