Technical Standards

Every applicant who seeks admission to the School of Occupational Therapy or is a continuing student is expected to possess those intellectual, ethical, physical, and emotional capabilities required to undertake the full curriculum and achieve the levels of competence required by the faculty. Once enrolled in the program each occupational therapy student must be able to quickly and accurately integrate all information received, maintain a safe environment for self and others, perform as a member of a team, maintain confidentiality according to professional and institutional standards, and demonstrate the ability to learn, integrate, analyze, and synthesize information and data.

The School of Occupational Therapy will make every effort to provide reasonable accommodations for physically challenged students based upon evaluation by a recognized practitioner in the area of disability. However, in doing so, the program must maintain the integrity of its curriculum and preserve those elements deemed essential to the acquisition of knowledge and demonstration of technical and decision-making skills required for the practice of occupational therapy. Students entering the program with, or acquiring deficits of these standards while enrolled, will be evaluated by a team of faculty to determine if accommodation is feasible. Accommodations to meet technical requirements will be at the student’s expense.

The School of Occupational Therapy, in consideration of the technical requirements of the practice of occupational therapy, requires that each student must meet the following elements: 

1. Observation: Occupational therapy students must have sufficient vision to be able to observe demonstrations, experiments, and laboratory exercises. They must be able to observe a patient accurately at distances and for close details. Students must have sufficient visual skills to scan the area for environmental safety factors.
2. Communication: Occupational therapy students must be able to write, speak, hear, and observe in order to elicit information, examine, educate, and provide interventions, describe changes in mood, activity, and posture, and perceive non-verbal communication. Communication includes not only speech, but also reading and writing. Students must be able to communicate effectively and efficiently in oral and written formats.
3. Motor Function and Strength: Occupational therapy students must have sufficient motor function and strength to execute movements reasonably required to provide interventions with patients/clients in a therapeutically effective and safe manner. Examples of interventions reasonably required for the occupational therapy student include: cardiopulmonary resuscitation, lifting and transferring of clients/patients, provision of balance stability and guarding of falls during transfers and functional activities; administration of manual therapy techniques, setting up and moving equipment. Such actions require coordination of both gross and fine muscular movements, equilibrium, and functional use of proprioceptive, vestibular, and tactile senses.
4. Sensory: Occupational therapy students require enhanced sensory skills in coordination, proprioception, vestibular, tactile, and hearing senses in order to complete the examination, evaluation, and application of interventions to clients/patients in a therapeutically effective and safe manner. Occupational therapy students must be able to palpate both superficially and deeply for tasks such as discrimination of tactile sensations and facilitation of body movements. Hearing skills must be sufficient to discriminate sounds in the environment for safety, communication with people, and utilize therapeutic equipment.
5. Mobility: Occupational therapy students must exhibit mobility in body movements and locomotion required to provide interventions to clients/patients and participate in emergency care if needed. Examples of mobility include: crawling, rolling, standing, walking, sitting.
6. Vision: Occupational therapy students must possess sufficient vision to perform physical assessments of clients/patients, utilize required therapeutic equipment, and read documents such as medical records, textbooks, and computer screens. Visual integration must be consistent for the student to assess asymmetry, range of motion, and tissue color and texture changes, and monitor clients/patients during activity. It is essential for the student to have adequate visual capabilities for the integration of evaluation techniques and treatment of the client/patient.
7. Intellectual, Conceptual, Integrative, and Quantitative Abilities: Occupational therapy students must be able to demonstrate ability in measurement, calculating, reasoning, comparison and contrasts, application, critical analysis, synthesis, judgment, and problem solving. Students must integrate a variety of material with increasing complexity presented throughout the curriculum including presentations, class discussions, client/patient interviews and evaluations, and readings from textbooks, journals, and medical records. Students must be able to identify and respond accurately to factual information as well as subtle cues of mood, temperament, and gestures provided by others. The ability to comprehend three-dimensional relationships and understanding spatial relationships of structures is important. Students must be able to assess threats to safety and apply research methods to practice.
8. Behavioral and Social Abilities: Occupational therapy students must have appropriate social skills for forming and maintaining of mature and culturally sensitive relationships with a variety of people including faculty, peers, fieldwork educators, clients/patients and their families/significant others. Students must possess the emotional/psychological health required for full utilization of their intellectual abilities, exercise good judgment, prioritize and complete responsibilities in a timely manner. Students must be able to tolerate physically and mentally taxing workloads, adapt to changing environments, display flexibility, and learn to function in the face of uncertainties inherent in professional education and the fieldwork environments while treating clients/patients. Compassion, integrity, concern for others, interpersonal skills, interest, and motivation are personal qualities assessed during the admissions and occupational therapy educational processes. Students must possess the ability to and work effectively as a group/team member.
9. Participation in Skills Laboratories: Occupational therapy students must be active participants in all laboratory sessions. Students are required to participate as patients, therapist, and observers with a variety of people representing different physical attributes, gender, age, abilities and disabilities, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and ethnic backgrounds to simulate the diversity expected in the practice setting.
10. Health: Exposure to Hepatitis B and other contagious diseases is possible in the fieldwork experiences; immunizations are required as indicated in the Touro University Nevada Catalog and School of Occupational Therapy Student Handbook; students with pre-existing conditions which may impair their functioning ability are strongly advised to wear an appropriate medical alert bracelet and notify faculty and fieldwork educators.

Students with concerns about their ability to meet these technical standards should discuss them first with their academic faculty advisor. If a student requires accommodation of or exemption from educational activities the Director of the School of Occupational Therapy must be notified in writing. Students requiring exemption from any of the activities included in these technical standards on a temporary basis of greater than 90 days may be requested to resign from the occupational therapy program.