Issues

With its dedication to rigorous research and meaningful translation, the American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AJOT) remains a crucial resource for occupational therapy professionals striving to make evidence-based decisions. AJOT has maintained its top-ranking status in the field of occupational therapy based on an increase in its two-year impact factor. Looking ahead to 2024, the journal faces both challenges and opportunities stemming from trends in academic publishing.

For the 2023 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture, Dr. Mary Lawlor discusses how some events that may seem inconsequential, just moments in passing, may carry the weight of what really matters and provide opportunities to identify and explore new grounds for healing, connectedness, and understanding in occupational therapy practice.

This study identified two factors associated with better occupational therapy outcomes after a distal radius fracture (DRF): early initiation of therapy and a higher number of occupational therapy sessions.

This study’s rigorous tests of motor skills interventions support ways to manage motor difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An occupational therapy intervention based on motor learning theory could benefit preschool children with ASD, especially in terms of manual coordination ability and overall gross and fine motor skills.

This study identifies differences in sensory processing between patients with a primary diagnosis of depression and those with a primary diagnosis of substance use disorder. Providing appropriate sensory experiences may allow patients to function at an optimal level by improving their ability to self-regulate emotions and behaviors.

This study reports novel information taken from comparisons of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with eating problems and those with ASD without eating problems with typically developing groups of children.

This study presents two knowledge translation programs that target both occupational therapists and managers in the educational system. The programs promote a shift in school-based occupational therapy services toward a focus on participation and environment.

Parkinson’s disease can adversely affect visual function, which may limit engagement and participation in everyday activities. Evaluating visual function in people with Parkinson’s disease is recommended, and occupational therapists could play a key role in screening and providing patient education.

Parent-provided, daily, early intensive bimanual stimulation (BB–Bim) at home is feasible when parents are coached weekly by an occupational therapist. BB–Bim seems to improve functional interactions between the hands among infants at high risk of unilateral cerebral palsy.

This is the first study to assess adolescents’ mindset in the context of their participation in everyday activities. The findings demonstrate the significant contribution of mindsets and can be incorporated into occupational therapy interventions aimed at promoting adolescents’ optimal participation.

This study provides information to occupational therapy clinicians about how persons with multiple sclerosis coped in both positive and negative ways during the COVID-19 pandemic, which will help clinicians to provide better services to this population in the face of stressful events.

The study findings suggest that an occupation-based habit formation intervention is feasible and shows promise for improving self-management behaviors for people with Type 2 diabetes.

This article highlights the evidence for and efficacy of occupational therapy service delivery in intensive care units.

This study expands leadership inquiry in occupational therapy to include the perspectives of women of color and to better understand the patterns of social identity categories in leadership achievement.

This study confirmed the efficacy, fidelity, acceptability, and feasibility of delivering via telehealth seated play, standard of care interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder.

This article documents the reliability and internal consistency of the first-ever self-report instrument for assessing satisfaction with performance of everyday occupations for people with disabilities using internet-connected assistive devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and apps.

MyGoals is an acceptable, appropriate, feasible, credible, and promising system that occupational therapists can use to improve goal setting, management, and achievement for adults with chronic conditions in community-based rehabilitation.

This is the first systematic review of assessments of cortical or cerebral visual impairment (CVI) feasible for use by occupational therapy practitioners.

This brief report highlights the severity of participation restrictions among people with chronic stroke. Moreover, this report shows that people with stroke feel a lack of inclusion in the community and that participation is associated with mental and physical health.

This column discusses how although select occupational therapy programs in the United States may individually be considering shifting to, or have shifted to, a competency-based education framework, there is no national movement to explore adopting the model for occupational therapy or a consensus on defined outcomes for the profession.

In this The Issue Is column, the authors assert that occupational therapy academic programs have a unique role to play in advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion by creating caring communities.