Özge Buket Cesim

By Hatice Abaoğlu, Özge Buket Cesim, Sinem Kars and Zeynep Çelik

Occupational therapy is a health profession that uses the purposeful activities to achieve multiple and complex rehabilitation aims. The main goals of the occupational therapy are to support the reintegration of individuals in daily living skills as well as to increase their independence and autonomy. Interventions of occupational therapists have primarily focused on self-care, productivity, and leisure time activities. Since the life skills includes a wide range of abilities that enable a person to perform personal care and more complicated tasks such as traveling, shopping, community participation etc., occupational therapists provide life skills training programs to meet the needs of the clients. This chapter aims to contribute to the current understanding and practices of life skills from an occupational therapy perspective. The chapter starts with a brief discussion of the importance of life skills in occupational therapy. After this introduction, the first part takes a look at the definition of life skills and identifies core components of life skills. The second part describes assessment and interventions of life skills. The third one gives an overview about school life skills programs for children and adolescents. Finally, the last part explains some life skills programs in people with disadvantages.

Part of the book: Occupational Therapy

By Gokcen Akyurek, Sinem Kars, Zeynep Celik, Ceren Koc and Özge Buket Cesim

In this chapter, occupational therapists from leading specialists exploring ways they can collaborate with assistive technology (AT) users to help them get the most out of these devices. By gratefully acknowledging the advances in technology of the last century, people with disabilities can live independent lives, contribute to their communities, attend regular schools, and work in a career. This technological development means medically switching to a social model of technology presentation, where users are as much focused on social reintegration as their physical abilities. This change means that field workers will not be able to focus on delivering technology on their own but will have to go one step further and partner with consumers and communities to ensure that the aids are used in the best possible way.

Part of the book: Occupational Therapy