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ASOT OTD Capstone Project Student Handbook

This manual will provide students, facutly, administration, and partnering agencies with a description of the process and procedures of the ASOT OTD Capstone Project.

OT 900 Occupational Therapy Capstone

Upon successful completion of all course work, to include fieldwork and meeting competency standards, the OTD student progresses onto Trimester 9 to formally engage in OT 900: Occupational Therapy Capstone.

OT  900

Occupational Therapy Capstone

Course Description

This course engages students in advanced clinical/critical reasoning and competence measures in a pre-identified, specialized area of practice. The student is given an opportunity to demonstrate integrated advanced knowledge, skill and competence in a specialty area of occupational therapy practice. Through the fourteen-week course, students will identify the relevant issues impacting the role of occupational therapy in the designated specialty area. They will complete readings in relevant literature, engage in communication exchanges with a professional leader in their identified area, and conclude their capstone project with a product reflecting the extent of their learning. Students will be assigned a faculty capstone advisor and participate in mandatory online modules embedded throughout the course to help guide the student during their capstone experience.

10 credit hours

Course Objectives

1.      Implement a scholarly study that is aligned with current research priorities and advances knowledge translation, professional practice, service delivery, or professional issues.

2.      Compare, contrast, evaluate, and integrate models of practice, including multidisciplinary knowledge and apply them to specific problems of individuals and populations.

3.      Communicate effectively and educate others via written, oral, and nonverbal means, with clients, family members, significant others, team members, and the community at large.

4.      Evaluate the relevance of current socio-political, economic, international, geographic, demographic, and health disparity issues and trends, including population-based approaches as they affect occupational therapy practice.

5.      Propose, design, and engage in initiatives that move the profession of occupational therapy forward as an integral discipline in health care, human services, and education.

6.      Design, demonstrate, apply and evaluate teaching-learning processes using educational methods to design academic learning activities and clinical training for individuals, communities, and populations.

7.      Demonstrate the ability to engage in professional behaviors and responsibilities that promote the provision of compassionate client centered occupational therapy services.

8.      Create programming that demonstrates competence in occupationally based reasoning skills for the provision of occupational therapy services in varied practice contexts.

9.      Integrate principles of management, administration, and supervision into a personal framework for directing and developing occupational therapy services, personnel, and programs.

10.  Demonstrate skill in program development by proposing marketable and justifiable occupational therapy program initiatives that meet contemporary needs both within existing organizations and through new, entrepreneurial services and programs.

11.  Build skill in seeking out information to compile evidence in support of occupational therapy practice, advocacy, education and research.

12.  Assume leadership for recognizing problems, investigating options for resolution, seeking out collaboration, implementing solutions, and evaluating outcomes.

13.  Engage in a productive mentoring relationship with a content expert in the area of capstone experience including clinical practice, research, administration, leadership policy development, advocacy, education, or theory development.

The entire ASOT OTD curriculum prepares the OTD student for OT 900 Occupational Therapy Capstone.  The curriculum design and courses provide the OTD student with a broad and comprehensive understanding of the core concepts of the profession.  For the doctoral-level student, emphasis is placed on development and application of in-depth knowledge and application in one or more of the following areas: clinical practice skills, research skills, administration, leadership, program and policy development, advocacy, education, or theory development.