Career roadmap
How to become an Occupational Therapy Assistant
What you would actually do
The tasks that make up the work of an Occupational Therapy Assistant, weighted by how central each one is to the job.
- Teach medical procedures or medical equipment use to patients.
- Encourage patients during therapeutic activities.
- Prepare medical reports or documents.
- Communicate patient status to other health practitioners.
- Monitor patient progress or responses to treatments.
- Record vital statistics or other health information.
- Maintain medical records.
- Attend educational events to update medical knowledge.
The skills that actually carry the job
Scored on how much the work depends on each one — not a wishlist, a measurement.
- Active Listening3.9/5
- Speaking3.9/5
- Social Perceptiveness3.9/5
- Service Orientation3.9/5
- Reading Comprehension3.6/5
- Time Management3.5/5
- Critical Thinking3.4/5
- Monitoring3.4/5
- Writing3.3/5
- Active Learning3.3/5
Would this suit you?
Every occupation leans on a particular mix of interests. Here is the mix measured for an Occupational Therapy Assistant — and our free 2-minute Career Match scores you on the same six.
- Social6.3/7
Helping, teaching, caring for and working directly with people
- Conventional3.8/7
Ordering, checking, following a precise procedure accurately
- Realistic3.6/7
Hands-on, practical, working with tools, machines or the body
- Investigative3.5/7
Investigating, diagnosing, reasoning through problems with evidence
- Artistic2.1/7
Creating, expressing, working without a fixed procedure
- Enterprising1.1/7
Persuading, leading, selling, taking commercial risk
Interest profiles from the O*NET 29.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. Used under CC BY 4.0.
