As I was sitting here trying to discuss the differences between an OTA and an OTR to Drew, I myself was trying to figure out the main differences. I said, "the main difference is that the OT can interpret the results of an evaluation." So can you do assessments he asked. Well yes I guess that I can, if the OT can give me service competency, I can do some assessments. He asked, then why do they have OT's? OT's are our supervisors. They are our sounding boards. They tell us because they have little more education, if what we are doing is right or if we need to make changes to our treatments. They interpret our findings and diagnose the problems and then create a plan for which we work off of.
So, should we be doing assessments? Of course. If we have service competency, why not. We are helping out our OT's to get some things done, and they can interpret what we have assessed and plan the goals. I think it is a perfect process. We can't work without them and they can't work without us, easily that is. I love my job and I want to advocate for what we can do. I will try as hard as I can for our profession to allow us to do what we can. With service competency and experience, I believe that we can do assessments. Easy as that.
As I was looking over job responsibilities in job postings for COTA's, most of them described the responsibilities as "assisting the therapist in assessments", general statements, nothing too specific describing what "assisting" meant. I guess it is just up to the therapist and company that you work for what "assisting" means.
I have attached one of the job postings for others to review and interpret:
http://impaqrehab.com/Documents/COTA%20%20job%20Description%20.pdf
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