Best Practice Occupational Therapy: In Community Service with Children and Families

Best Practice is a way of thinking about problems in imaginative ways and applying knowledge creatively to solve performance problems. Providing services in community based settings is vital to the best application of occupational therapy principles and beliefs.

Best Practice Occupational Therapy: In Community Service with Children and Families applies theoretical and evidence based knowledge to best practice with emphasis on children and families in community settings. It emphasizes best practice, and incorporates clinical reasoning and practice models into the material. Students are provided with methods for working through the problem solving processes as they learn the material.

The text introduces core principles and demonstrates how, along with OT knowledge, they can be applied to the best interests of children and families. Included throughout the book are worksheets, space for writing notes, and 10 detailed case studies illustrating the core principles and knowledge application in practice.

Winnie Dunn is Professor and Chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy Education at the University of Kansas. Dr. Dunn holds a bachelor's degree in occupational therapy and a master of science degree in special education-learning disabilities from the University of Missouri. She earned her doctorate in applied neuroscience from the University of Kansas.

She is a fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), has received the Award of Merit for outstanding service contributions to the profession, is a member of the Academy of Research of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation, and most recently was named the Eleanor Clark Slagle lecturer for her significant contributions to “conceptual and evidence-based neuroscience research and practice.” She has served on the Commission on Practice, the Early Intervention and School Based Practice Task Forces of AOTA, has been the chair of the Research Development Committee of the AOTF, and just completed a decade of service on the National Board for Certification of Occupational Therapy (NBCOT). As Chair of the Research Advisory Committee of NBCOT, she directed the National Study of Occupational Therapy Practice, which led to the current test blueprint for the certification exam in occupational therapy.

Dr. Dunn has spoken and written extensively about service provision practices for children and families. Through her research, she has demonstrated the effectiveness of consultation and the use of theory to guide contextually relevant practice. Her line of research about sensory processing in daily life has been very fruitful, producing the Sensory Profile assessments that identify distinct patterns of sensory processing in various groups of infants, toddlers, children, youth, adults, and older adults.