Diane Kellegrew, Ph.D., OTR/L

I am passionately interested in assisting occupational therapists in expanding the vision of our services to include the integration of physical and psychosocial elements in school-based and early intervention settings. I provide pre-service education to aid occupational therapy students in perceiving themselves as leaders who will educate others about both the array of services occupational therapists provide and the way they weave services into the everyday routines of families and classrooms. I believe a holistic interpretation of practice can help occupational therapy move into the realm of prevention. In particular, because occupational therapists are uniquely trained to see the child's environment as pivotal and to incorporate the environment into therapy, they have a strong role to play in prevention of future delays for children with disabilities.
As graduates of USC's program, my students have the tools they need to show others how occupational service is built on research and remains cost effective in today's competitive health care industry. To teach research methods, I select community sites that can benefit from occupational therapy services. For example, one semester all students interned at the Glendale Unified School District, which would like to move in the direction of having occupational therapy services in-house. Students used this site to learn how to perform needs surveys, conduct an evidence-based practice inquiry, and design an outcome evaluation of a program. I believe centering the university in the community best prepares USC students to become leaders and advocates. Graduates of our program understand the key issues in providing cutting edge practice and have the tools and means to become independent learners and practitioners of the highest caliber.

Biography
Diane Kellegrew received her occupational therapy training from San Jose State University and practiced for 18 years before obtaining her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology 1994 from the University of California Santa Barbara. As a specialist in child development and disabilities and an occupational therapist, she has headed large rehabilitation centers and consulted for the State of California on children's issues. In 1998, California State Governor Pete Wilson appointed her to the California Interagency Coordinating Committee, a federally mandated committee that provides oversight of all state agencies involved in early intervention services for children with disabilities and their families. Awarded a Solnit Fellowship for 2000-2002 by the Zero to Three Foundation, she examines early intervention service delivery, including the incorporation of research as part of the clinical decision making process. She actively participates in state policy making through the California Department of Education Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy Workgroup. Over the past five years she has co-chaired diverse Department of Developmental Services committees to develop competencies for early intervention practice across all disciplines. Her published papers concerning family and mothers' routines around children with disabilities as well as practices in full-inclusion classrooms appear in American Journal o f Occupational Therapy, Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics and Journal of Maternal and Child Health, among others. She was recently awarded a Personnel Preparation Grant from the United States Department of Education, which provided specialized training and scholarship funds for 45 USCOT students to work in school settings.

Research
USC School-Based Occupational Therapy Training Project