Abstract
Date Presented 03/22/24
OTPs focus on facilitating parent’s relationship with their children during EI services. This evidence supports communication and physical assistance utilized by the OTP and caregiver with the child during a therapeutic activity in EI.
Primary Author and Speaker: Rosalie Shnorhokian
Additional Authors and Speakers: Mary Beth Kadlec, Sophia L Perkins
This exploration of how OTPs and caregivers provide communicative and physical support to children in EI helps to further recognize the role adults play in facilitating a child’s ability to perform and participate in an activity. OTPs have a unique opportunity to select interventions for children based on the child’s performance in daily life roles and how the environment impacts their performance (Novak & Honan, 2019). To date, no studies have explicitly examined the OTPs’ and caregivers’ perspective about their communication with the child during OT sessions (Crom et al., 2020). The research design of this study was a non-experimental two-part quantitative design using video data collected during OT sessions at the IMPACT Practice Center at MGH IHP with two OTPs from Harbor Area EI. The Occupational Performance Coding System (OPCS) was applied to 3 selected activities from the OT treatment sessions. The OPCS was revised throughout the research coding process to include coding modifiers for specific behaviors, and the videos were coded in 10 second intervals. Findings of this study show the OPCS was effective in quantifying types of communication and physical assistance provided by the clinician and caregiver that support child’s completion of activities during EI. The interrater reliability for clinician, caregiver, and child variables with percent agreement and kappa respectively 73.31% and .70, 83.55% and .81, 87.87% and .86. This poster provides evidence supporting effective communication in the pediatric setting between the OTP and child and the caregiver and child and how it impacts the child’s participation. Continuous development of the OPCS to include child codes that capture additional types of communication utilized in the sessions is essential. The OPCS can ultimately provide an accessible and user-friendly tool for clinicians to videotape and analyze their own performance while engaging with the child in treatment sessions (Kadlec, 2021).
References
Crom, A., Paap, D., Wijma, A., Dijkstra, P. U., & Pool, G. (2020). Between the lines: A qualitative phenomenological analysis of the therapeutic alliance in pediatric physical therapy. Physical & Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 40(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01942638.2019.1610138
Kadlec, M. B., Ehrlich, D., & Shaanan, M. (2021). The development of the Occupational Performance Coding System (OPCS) applied to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), their caregivers and occupational therapist [Unpublished manuscript].
Novak, I., & Honan, I. (2019). Effectiveness of paediatric occupational therapy for children with disabilities: A systematic review. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 66(3), 258–273. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1630.12573
