Exploring educational boundaries: occupational therapy and the multiple-entry-route system, 1970-1982

Since the mid-1960s, occupational therapy has maintained a multiple-entry-route educational system that provides professional preparation leading to certification for a variety of candidates. This paper focuses on the 1970s and recounts a time marked by exploration of an assortment of entry-level routes that embraced the concept of laddering and included proficiency testing and career mobility programs. The paper reviews the educational debates that occurred while occupational therapy tested the limits of innovative educational mechanisms. Although the American Occupational Therapy Association debated new options for professional preparation and temporarily instituted one additional educational avenue in those years, by 1982 its educational system returned to its mid-1960s design.