Associate of Applied Science - Occupational Therapy Assistant

Occupational Therapy is a health profession that provides services to children and adults of all ages whose lives have been disrupted by physical injury or illness, developmental problems, the aging process and/or psychosocial dysfunction. Occupational Therapy Assistants use occupation and purposeful activity with clients/patients to help them reach their maximum level of independence.

Specific tasks may include daily living skill training, fabrication of adaptive equipment, leading individual and group treatment activities, adapting home environments, ADA architectural accessibility standards, enabling computer access for the disabled, cognitive retraining, improving development of gross/fine motor skills and activities that enhance quality of life. Graduates will receive an Associate of Applied Science degree after successful completion of academic and fieldwork experiences.

The Occupational Therapy Assistant program is a Community-Engaged Learning program. Community-Engaged Learning requirements are embedded in coursework. Students are required to spend 150 hours or more involved in Community-Engaged Learning, which may be outside of scheduled course times. Students may be required to attend conferences and out-of-state activities. The expenses of these requirements are additional student costs. Expenses can be offset by enrollment in AmeriCorps, if available. Students with a “B” average or higher will graduate as civically engaged scholars.