Summary: A Career As An Occupational Therapist Assistant

One of the reasons I want to become an Occupational Therapist Assistant is to help people who have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Albert Einstein once said “Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” People with Asperger’s syndrome are often misjudged because of their “disabilities.”
Symptoms of Aspergers:
There are several different symptoms that are shown when a person has Asperger’s Syndrome. Not all people with Asperger’s Syndrome have all of the symptoms, but they do have some. However, having one, some, or most of the symptoms does not guarantee a person has Asperger’s Syndrome. A child with Apserger’s syndrome tends to have difficulties

Occupational therapy can help a person with Asperger’s thrive physically, emotionally, and socially. As previously stated, if these symptoms were to be left alone, these children and adults would be subjected to bullying, ridiculed, and social isolation due to them being naïve and having concrete views of the world resulting in being vulnerable. Through occupational therapy intervention, this cycle can be interrupted by helping the patient adjust their sensory system. This means, “gaining the physical abilities needed to succeed, acquire valuable social, prevocational, and play skills, and improve their overall ability to function.” Through this intervention, one can not only learn to succeed in the classroom but when the time comes, uphold employment. (Murray-Slutsky, 2004). Occupational therapy intervention focuses on a few main areas such as improving the patient’s attention, learning and flexibility; improving physical function; and improving social, play and prevocational skills. When one speaks of improving the patient’s attention, this can mean they improve the patient’s ability to recognize, adapt, control, and process their response when around sensory and environments they are uncomfortable with (Murray-Slutsky, 2004). This is also known as sensory overload and can happen in a variety of places. For example, Jane has Asperger’s and one of her side effects is sensory overload. Jane and her mother walk into Dilliard’s. The entrance they walk in happens to be in the makeup and perfume department. When Jane smells all the different perfumes at one time, this overloads her processing system and she begins to shut down. However, Jane has been working with an occupational therapist and they have been using different strategies to help Jane stay calm during this process. Her staying calm allows her to attention to increase and she is able to shop with her mom. If Jane was not