Collaborating with general education teachers

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004) (Pub. L. 108-446) affords every student the right to a free and appropriate education. Districts across the United States are widely implementing a multi-tiered systems of support approach to ensure students’ academic success as well as address their behavioral and social-emotional needs. Under this framework, students are regularly monitored, and data is used to determine primary (serves most students), secondary (serves some students), and tertiary (serves individuals) interventions (Castillo et al., 2018). Occupational therapy practitioners are uniquely qualified to support students at each of these levels. The Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process (OTPF-4; American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2020) lists education as an ADL, and defines formal educational participation as “participating in academic (e.g., math, reading, degree coursework), nonacademic (e.g., recess, lunchroom, hallway), extracurricular (e.g., sports, band, cheerleading, dances), technological (e.g., online assignment completion, distance learning), and vocational (including prevocational) educational activities” (p. 46). Occupational therapy practitioners often focus on accommodations to improve access as a means to improve participation and performance in academics and social relationships. General education teachers are pivotal to the carryover of skills and implementation of these accommodations because they spend the most time with students.