Performances of Occupational Therapy in the museum context: awareness of the diversity

• Main Authors: Desirée Nobre Salasar, Larissa Dall’Agnol da Silva, Francisca Ferreira Michelon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de São Carlos 2016-01-01
• Series: Cadernos de Terapia Ocupacional
• Subjects: Culture; Vision Disorders; Social Inclusion.
• Online Access: http://www.cadernosdeterapiaocupacional.ufscar.br/index.php/cadernos/article/view/1304/706

The paper discusses the Occupational Therapist actions in a museum. Therefore, we approach issues that characterize the areas of museum environment presenting it as a possible workplace for the professionals, and will discuss which activities can be performed by professional occupational therapy in a museum, its relevance, and the achievement gap when performed by the occupational therapist and other professionals. Thus, the study’s main objective is to present a new occupational therapy work field for the highlighting the importance of public awareness activities and how these can influence the museum visitor experiences. We report two distinct activities with visually impaired awareness theme, conducted between February and March 2015, at the Batalha Community Museum in Portugal. We report the activities and analyze the results, seeking to qualitatively assess the public participation, and its response to the impact that such activities may bear in the cultural inclusion of visually impaired people.