Across my 5 years working and studying at Dominican University, I have been involved in several efforts to advance the role of occupational therapy services to support the Dominican student population. While in the graduate program, I have served as an accessibility liaison, test-taking support resource, and worked as an OTS consultant to develop an occupation-based program for students. In each capacity, I have used an occupational lens, and employed my skillset as an OTS.
These efforts that I have been a part of will have impacted the individuals I served, but are continuing to grow beyond my own hands as I have moved on to fieldwork and becoming a licensed OT. The steps I took were among the first, but in my absence, there are bigger steps including OTS-supported individual efforts, scholarly research, and programs leading towards a permanent home on campus offering OT services to DU students.
I served as the very first accessibility liaison under the office of Accessibility and Disability Services (ADS) at Dominican. In this role, I employed my OTS knowledge and developing expertise to facilitate access between two individual blind and low-vison students in a core requirement class that was far from accessibly designed. The position, which I largely structured independently based on the needs I witnessed in real time, was to close the gap between the inaccessible course material being presented in class, labs, homework, and exams and the students who were unable to equitably engage in their own required learning.
My work included:
Attending biweekly class with the students and aurally describing all visual material presented
Extrapolating important visual diagrams from the homework, lectures, and labs, and exams and converting each into both a tactile model with diverse textures and often braille labels, as well as high-contrast vector images that were visually distinct and able to be enlarged without losing clarity or detail
Converting text-based resources (such as handouts, homework, study guides, lab guides, etc) into digital documents with editable text fields, clear and bold fonts able to be read when enlarged, and text formatting accessible to screen-reading software
Facilitating use of existing tactile models in combination with guidance and aural descriptions as a lab activity
***ask JL for 2 images of tactile materials I made*** and add alt text
x
x
I was referred to this position by both by OT faculty and by an Integrative Coach and Accessibility counselor in the Student Success Center. In this position, I met one-on-one with students referred to the SSC for test-taking and studying support. I created an in-depth worksheet to guide one-on-one sessions with students, filled out jointly with content discussed during the session, that the student could use a take-home resource. This resource, informed by evidence-based testing and studying strategies, served as a hands-on tool for students to
identify strengths and barriers to the occupation of testing
explore different adaptations or supports
discuss specific psychosocial, physiological, and sensory needs and strategies
set goals for themselves, substantiated by essential steps to reach their goals
Please click the button to learn more about the occupation-based program
that I helped develop in partnership with the Dominican SSC.