OTA 1210 OT Prof Issues I

Jamie Wilkerson

Professional Issues 1

February 28, 2024

OTA Awareness Presentation Reflection

My group gave a presentation at the Granite Technical Institute located at 2500 S State Street in Salt Lake City on February 21, 2024. The audience of our presentation was the Intro to Occupational Therapy class taught by Gabe Byers. There were 15 junior and senior students present. The other members of my group were Mari Sorber, Ashley Wright, and Kade Whittle. Our presentation was approximately 20 minutes long.

Our presentation was a power point with information about what occupational therapy is, the different types of practice settings, the educational path required for an OT and an OTA and expected salaries for each profession. We then had them participate in some interactive activities. We brought vision impairment goggles from the college. The students paired up and set off to try different tasks, getting a drink, washing hands, going up or down stairs, with the goggles on. There was a lot of interaction during this activity. We discussed what they experienced and how they helped keep their vision impaired partner safe. We were able share with them some ways occupational therapy professionals can help people with vision impairments.  For our final activity we went to the gym and demonstrated large motor and proprioception activities. We split into teams and held animal walk relay races. They participated in crab walking, bear crawling and frog jumping. This was an excellent activity to talk about how occupational therapy uses the modality of fun, especially with kids. We talked about how there is a therapeutic reason we might do these activities with our clients.

I think our presentation went well and in the brief time we had we were able to give them some good information about OT in general, what a career in OT could be like, and provide some tactile learning opportunities.  Going into it, I had an assumption that they were not going to be actively involved. That proved to be wrong, and while they didn’t ask a lot of questions during the power point portion, they were very involved in the activities. They not only participated in the activities but contributed to the discussion after.

Some of the skills I gained from this assignment that will help me with my future practice are collaborating with a group to prepare a presentation and presenting on the topic of OT. I feel more confident in giving a basic explanation of occupational therapy.  I haven’t had a lot of experience presenting to teenagers, so this was a great learning experience.