Allison Sullivan

Name and Contact

Biography

  • Allison Sullivan, DOT, OTR/L is the recipient of the 2017 Catherine Trombly Award for Excellence in Research and Education from the Massachusetts Association of Occupational Therapy and the 2018 Faculty Excellence award from American International College. She is Lead Faculty for AIC’s Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate program, where she mentors doctoral capstone projects and teaches courses for the PP-OTD in scholarship of teaching and learning in occupational therapy and occupational therapy theory, as well as providing instruction for the entry-level MSOT program in courses on group dynamics, the development of psychosocial occupations and the mental health process in OT. Her research interests include pedagogy in occupational therapy education, cognitive disabilities, and trauma-informed care. Dr. Sullivan’s most recent study, “Impact of a Virtual Role-play Simulation in Teaching Motivational Interviewing Communication Strategies to Occupational Therapy Students for Readiness in Conducting Screening and Brief Interventions” is published in May 2021 issue of The Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice. As an occupational therapist and educator, Dr. Sullivan has dedicated her career toward improving the lives of individuals with cognitive disabilities and health conditions that interfere with participation and quality of life across the lifespan, working in day habilitation services, school-based occupational therapy, and residential settings in a career spanning three decades. She is the chair of the MAOT Western Massachusetts Mental Health Special Interest Group, and sits on the boards of the Martin Luther King Jr Family Services of Springfield, Allen Cognitive Network, and The Lighthouse, a psychosocial clubhouse in Springfield. Dr. Sullivan also serves on the Human Rights Committee for Viability, Inc., an organization which provides day habilitation services and programs across the US. She is a certified group exercise and yoga instructor (RYT), and the co-founder and leader of #OTalk2US, a Twitter chat for occupational therapists with tens of millions of views of tweets carrying this tag.


Selected Bibliography

  • Sweich, P., Sullivan, A., & Helfrich, C. (2020, August). Self-feeding in the adult population: Back to the basics. OT Practice 25(8), CE1-10.

  • Sullivan , A., Albright, G., & Khalid, N. (2021). Impact of a Virtual Role-play Simulation in Teaching Motivational Interviewing Communication Strategies to Occupational Therapy Students for Readiness in Conducting Screening and Brief Interventions. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v21i2.4117

  • Sullivan, A. and Mendonca, R. (2017, November). Impact of a fieldwork experience on attitudes toward people with intellectual disabilities. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 71(6).

Conference Presentations with Peer-reviewed, Published Abstracts

  • Sullivan, A. & Barlow, K. (2018, May). A proposal for a therapeutic intervention for ARFID. In Connected by Diversity Positioned for Impact: WFOT Congress 2018 Conference Programme. World Federation of Occupational Therapists, Cape Town, South Africa.

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