A Pilot Sexual Device Adaptation Project for Occupational Therapy Students: A Skills-Based Approach to Teaching Sexual Activity as an ADL Through Assistive Technology

Despite being categorized as an activity of daily living since the first edition of the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework, no Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) standards exist to provide guidance on teaching occupational therapy students about sexual activity as an activity of daily living (ADL). When discussed, sexual activity is usually taught via didactic lecture, but is a subject that would benefit from a skills-based approach to teaching. This pilot pedagogical exercise in a two-credit assistive technology class taught occupational therapy students to address the ADL of sexual activity with clients by having students adapt a sexual toy using basic soldering techniques and adaptive switches for a mock client. By providing a hands-on adaptive project for students, students practiced applying occupational analysis to the adaptation of assistive technology, which can generalize to other assistive technologies (such as those for adaptive gaming) and occupations, while also providing students with experience discussing sexual activity as an ADL in practice. This project is an option for occupational therapy programs looking to integrate more education on sexual activity into their current curricula, while also satisfying the requirements of assistive technology ACOTE standards.