Children who experience difficulties with learning: mother and child perceptions of social competence.

There is an emphasis on the social competence of children who have difficulties with learning as a significant percentage also experience reduced social skills. Social competence in the classroom is becoming increasingly important as the school curriculum incorporates group work and socially directed activities for purposes of learning. A goal of occupational therapy for children with learning difficulties and their parents is that they 'fit' into their social group and form friendships. While teachers are able to identify social skills that are required for life at school, less is known about how children perceive their interactions. This study aimed to explore social interaction during occupational performance at school and at home from the perception of children with learning difficulties and their mothers. Participants included 10, 8- to 12-year-old children who had difficulties with learning and their 10 mothers. Children were interviewed using semi-structured focus groups. Mothers participated in semi-structured interviews. Four main themes emerged from this study, including the importance of social skills, effects of poor social skills, difficulties with planning and problem solving in social situations and impact of social competence on a child's occupational performance. The study revealed that social participation is perceived to be an integral part of the child's ability to participate in occupational performance, and that children have definite perspectives on the importance of social competence. Children in this study indicated that their social skills were adequate when in an one-to-one situation but not in a group.

Assessment of productivity performance in men with HIV Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND).

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this paper is to review what is known about return to productivity roles for people who have HIV/AIDS and HIV Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND), to highlight gaps in knowledge and practice for assisting people with HAND to engage in productivity roles, to describe an occupational therapy assessment system that overcomes some of the limitations of current research and practice, and to demonstrate the clinical utility of this instrument for use with clients who have HAND. PARTICIPANTS: The participant in this study is a man with HIV Associated Dementia (HAD), one sub-type of HAND. METHODS: The real-world impact of HAD on productivity role participation was assessed using the Perceive, Recall, Plan and Perform (PRPP) System of Task Analysis, an ecological assessment method. Productivity tasks assessed were those associated with this man's desire to become a volunteer grocery shopper. The assessment took place under naturalistic conditions in a grocery store. RESULTS: The participant demonstrated 28.6% mastery of the grocery shopping task. Performance was impacted on primarily by errors of accuracy and timing. Reasons for these errors centered on the participant's difficulties in applying cognitive strategies to perceive, recall, plan and perform the task. CONCLUSIONS: The PRPP System of Task Analysis shows promise in being able to identify errors in task mastery and the underlying cognitive strategy application errors that impact on mastery in people with HAND.

Self-care at school: perceptions of 6-year-old children.

Occupational therapists who work with young children routinely evaluate self-care and consider it an important domain of practice. Little is known about what children perceive is important self-care or what they experience as self-care within a school context. Without knowledge about children's perspectives of self-care, occupational therapists cannot know whether or not they are targeting areas that are central to children's needs. The purpose of this naturalistic study was to explore 6-year-old children's perceptions of self-care in their school day. Participant observation and group interviewing were used to elicit descriptive information from 24 Grade One children, attending an elementary school located in Sydney, Australia. A fishing game, drawing activity, and excerpts from a videotape of their day at school were used as stimuli to explore how the children described and attributed meaning to their self-care occupations. Findings showed that children described self-care at school two ways. First, they named specific self-care tasks that mirrored adult views of self-care and represented culturally shared views of the concept of self-care across ages. Second, children described highly individual views about self-care that were derived from their own experience of doing self-care at school. These views seemed to be based on their personal perceptions of salient factors in operation at the time of self-care performance such as social and physical contexts, perceived skill, and expectations of others. The findings suggest that occupational therapy assessment and intervention for self-care include sensitivity to experiential differences between adult views of self-care and those of children. This sensitivity should include an attempt to understand children's experiences of self-care in specific contexts such as school.

Cognitive and behavioural assessment of people with traumatic brain injury in the work place: occupational therapists' perceptions.

Cognitive and behavioural impairments, in the absence of severe physical disability, are commonly related to poor return to work outcomes for people with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Along with other health professionals, occupational therapists make judgements about cognitive and behavioural dimensions of work capacity of clients with TBI during the return to work process. Unlike many physical functional capacity evaluations, there is no standard method that therapists use to assess the ability of people with TBI to perform cognitive operations required for work. Little is known about what information occupational therapists use in their assessment of cognitive and behavioural aspects of client performance within the work place. This study employed qualitative research methods to determine what information is utilised by 20 therapists who assess the work capacity of people with TBI in the workplace. Results indicated that the process of making judgements about cognitive and behavioural competence within the work place is a multifaceted process. Therapists triangulate client information from multiple sources and types of data to produce an accurate view of client work capacity. Central to this process is the relationship between the client, the job and the work environment.

When is it work? Perceptions of six-year-old children.

A naturalistic study was undertaken to explore six-year-old children's perceptions of work in their school day. Twenty-four Year One children enrolled in an infants' school, located in Southern Sydney were involved. Participant observation and focus group interviewing were used to elicit descriptive information. A fishing game, drawing activity and excerpts from a videotape of their day at school were used as stimuli to capture how children categorised and attributed meaning to their own work performance. The findings revealed that these children had well-developed ideas about what is work. They employed a highly individual classification process to determine which occupations were work versus play, self-care and rest, resulting in differences of opinion among the children. This process was based on four factors: the physical and social environment, the type of task being performed, personal meaning attributed to the task and the child's perceived level of control.

The role of work in the lives of retired men following stroke.

A study was conducted with the purpose of describing self-perceived occupational role performance and to explore the possibility that role is a concept that is understood and utilised in the planning and performance of meaningful occupations. The participants were thirteen men who had experienced a stroke and undergone rehabilitation. The naturalistic methodology employed included a single extensive interview to establish and describe self-perceived roles and occupational role performance, followed by role sorting and role rating tasks. Data from the tasks were used to verify transcript analysis data. The findings of this study as they relate to the concept of work are described. Work as perceived by the study participants was found to continue beyond retirement and the advent of disability. Work roles, work occupations and workful elements of occupational performance were identified. For some participants a sense of being productive was highly significant to their feelings of well-being and social fit. A number of strategies were employed by participants to enable them to continue to do work. It is suggested that work should be considered in rehabilitation even beyond retirement.