Child

The developmental frame of reference (FOR) suggests that development is sequential, and behaviors are primarily influenced by the extent to which an individual has mastered and integrated the previous stages. This FOR views people as dynamic, developing, and people’s lives go through stages of growth and decline, which require necessitate adaptation by the individual. People develop at different rate, but each stage of development can only proceed normally if the preceding stages have been completed successfully.

The behavioral frame of reference (FOR) emphasizes on the use of behavioral modification to shape behaviors, which purports to increase the tendency of adaptive behaviors or to decrease the probability of maladaptive learned behaviors. The key concepts in this FOR include:

The cognitive-behavioral frame of reference (FOR) emphasizes five aspects of life experience: thoughts, behaviors, emotion/mood, physiological responses, and the environment. These aspects are interrelated, meaning that changes in one factor can lead to improvement or deterioration in other(s). Each is influenced by the social and physical environments. One key theoretical component in this FOR is the hierarchical levels of cognition. Automatic thoughts is the most accessible, which are uninvited and immediate thoughts. Beliefs are conditional beliefs we hold about ourselves.

The Model of Co-Occupation suggests that co-occupation is characterized by shared physicality, emotionality, and intentionality in an occupation with another person(s). Co-occupation is an occupation involving other person(s), which is interactive and responsive. Some examples are that students work together on a project or a mother puts her infant to the bed. Solitary occupations do not involve another person(s); some examples are ADL activities or playing solitaire.

Psychospiritual integration frame of reference (FOR) emphasizes the nature of spirituality, the expression of spirituality in every occupation behavior, the nature of spiritual occupation, and the influence of spirituality and spiritual occupations on health and well-being. This FOR defines that spirituality is constructed of an integral harmony of six qualitatively distinct dimensions and each dimension is considered as an ever-expanding continuum with increasing depth and vastness. The six dimensions are:

The occupational adaptation frame of reference (FOR) focuses on the adaptation process when a person encounters occupational challenges. Three basic elements of this FOR are the person (including sensorimotor, cognitive, psychosocial system), the occupational environment (including work, play and leisure, and self-maintenance) and the interaction between these two elements. Each of the elements is consistently influenced by a constant, respectively.

The Life Balance Model (LBM) focuses on satisfying pattern of healthful, meaningful, and sustainable activities within context of an individual’s current life circumstances. The model purports that the composition of everyday activity should enable people to address these need-based dimensions, they are (1) meeting basic instrumental needs necessary for sustained biological health and physical safety, (2) having rewarding and self-affirming relationships with others, (3) feeling engaged, challenged, and competent, and (4) creating meaning and a positive personal identity.

The Accountability-Well-being-Ethics (AWE) framework incorporates the humanist and contextualist perspectives to create a balanced foundation of client-centered profession. The conceptual cores include sociocultural, well-being, social/occupational justice, promoting capabilities, accountability, qualitative stories, contingency, hope, solidarity, person directed, coach/partner, and facilitating empowerment, in contrast to different concepts of biomedical health care. This framework is structured for use in education, research, and clinical practice for occupational therapy globally.

The Occupation-Centred Assessment with Children (OCAC) framework is a top-down, family-centered, ad ecological assessment approach that provides a holistic view of children and their occupational performance within their naturalistic contexts. OCAC focuses on occupational performance issues most relevant and important to a child and his/her family. These may include leisure/play, productivity/school, self-care/activities of daily living, as well as time use, roles, habits, identity, and activity patterns.

The Model of Playfulness suggests that playfulness can be determined within any transaction of the evaluation of three elements, each of which can be represented as a continuum. The three elements are (1) source of motivation (from intrinsic to extrinsic), (2) perception of control (from internal to external), and (3) the suspension of reality (from free to not free). Intrinsic motivation, such as mastery or pure sensation of movement, is the aspect(s) of activity itself that provides motivation for the individual to involve in an activity.