OTJR: Occupational Therapy Journal of Research

Cognitive Orientation to (daily) Occupational Performance (CO-OP) is an intervention that facilitates motor skill acquisition in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Preliminary research has recently begun to investigate the significance of the cognitive strategies fundamental to the CO-OP approach. This study aimed to elucidate the specific strategies used by children with DCD while addressing handwriting goals. In this descriptive study, four boys aged 6 to 11 years who had DCD were videotaped while engaging in 10 hour-long CO-OP treatment sessions over 5 consecutive weeks. Subsequently, 180 minutes of handwriting videotapes were randomly selected for systematic behavioral observation. Discussion, not practice, was the predominant tool employed to improve performance. Significantly, the children most often used strategies that increased their awareness and understanding of task requirements. This supports the theory that DCD represents the physical or motor manifestation of a learning problem.

Age-related vision loss is a condition affecting the quality of life of an ever-increasing number of older adults. The purposes of this study were to describe the impact of age-related vision loss, identify the factors that influence adaptation, and describe the perceived problem areas in the daily lives of older adults. Twenty-two older adults with vision loss participated in four focus groups. Analysis of transcripts revealed that the main themes were the impact of vision loss, factors that aid adaptation, and participation in meaningful activities. Findings from the focus group study revealed the importance of considering participants' physical loss of vision in the context of their psychological, occupational, and social worlds. This study pointed to the importance of occupation in adaptation to age-related vision loss and yielded many recommendations that could be integrated into models of low vision rehabilitation. Future research is now required to evaluate the implementation of these recommendations and further develop evidence-based practice in this field.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether students with mild disabilities differed from typically developing students in their ability to perform schoolwork tasks. The participants, selected from the School Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (School AMPS) database, comprised 175 students in each group. Their data were subjected to many-faceted Rasch analyses and then analyzed for statistically significant differences in mean school motor and school process abilities between groups. The relative and actual item difficulty calibration values were then compared to identify meaningful differences between groups. The results revealed a statistically significant mean difference in school motor and school process ability between groups (large effect sizes), essentially stable relative skill item hierarchies between groups, and actual hierarchies that differed such that some school motor and almost all school process skill items (occupational performance skills) were more difficult to perform for the mild disabilities group. The results of this study also provided evidence of validity for the use of the School AMPS measures to assist in identifying lower than expected schoolwork performance of students with mild disabilities.

The Test of Playfulness (ToP) is a unique observational rating scale assessment used to systematically observe and quantify a child's approach to activities (also called playfulness). This study investigated the effect of the length of observation on ToP scores. Twenty typically developing preschool-aged children were videotaped during two 30-minute sessions that were separated by 2 to 3 weeks. Three trained raters then scored the first 15 minutes, the last 15 minutes, and the entire 30 minutes of each recording. The mean scores for each observation length were significantly different (p < .05), but the longer observation did not provide additional unique information. Further, the test—retest reliability of the 30 minute scores (intraclass correlation = .03, p = .44) was less than that of either the first or last 15 minute scores (intraclass correlation = .67, p < .01; intraclass correlation = .41, p = .03, respectively). These findings are discussed in light of the existing literature and recommendations are made for use of the ToP in practice and research.

This technical report describes a publicly available database for researchers examining occupation, socioeconomic status, and health on a large, nationally representative population. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a useful tool to investigate complex processes from a multidisciplinary perspective. The PSID is a longitudinal database that allows researchers to examine economic and social phenomena, including time-use. Secondary analysis of data from the PSID can support research and teaching.