Assistive technology training practices across allied health professions

Research Objectives: To explore teaching practices and perceived student learning outcomes of educators delivering assistive technology education in allied health programs.

Design: Cross-sectional study

Setting: English online survey

Participants: Educators from occupational therapy (OT) and OT-assistant programs, physical therapy (PT) and PT-assistant programs, speech language pathology (SLP) and SLP-assistant programs (n=104).

Interventions: Not applicable

Main Outcome Measures: Responses to survey questions regarding educators’ background, curriculum content, teaching methods, learning outcomes, and barriers to the instruction of assistive technology (AT).

Results: The results of this survey were organized by allied health program. Participants were from OT-related programs (n=45/104, 43.27%), PT-related programs (n=29/104, 27.88%), SLP-related programs (n=24/104, 23.08%), other programs (1/104, 0.96%), or taught in multiple (n=5/104, 4.81%). Most educators in PT-related programs reported that their program did not offer a dedicated AT course (n= 26/29, 89.66%). Over three-quarters (n=20/24, 83.33%) of educators from SLP-related programs and approximately half (n=25/45, 55.56%) of educators from OT-related programs reported offering a dedicated AT course. When analyzing across professions, higher number of reported classroom hours dedicated to AT instruction was associated with greater number of dedicated AT course (ρ= 0.523, p<.001). “Hands-on experience with AT equipment” was reported as one of the top three methods to attain student satisfaction (n=86/98, 87.76%), the highest degree of knowledge (n= 73/98, 74.49%), clinical reasoning (n=56/98, 57.14%) , and hands-on skills (85/98, 86.73%). Most educators reported that cost of AT devices (n=66/98, 67.35%) was a barrier to effectively incorporating a hands-on learning experience with AT. Cost of supplies (n=33/98, 33.67%) and limited clinical opportunities to use AT (n=16/98, 16.33%) were the most agreed upon barriers that educators would prioritize to change.

Conclusions: The survey findings underscore the need to prioritize offering hands-on experiences with AT devices for students. However, cost of the devices was reported to be a barrier impeding effective implementation of hands-on experiences.

Author(s) Disclosures: None