Top 12 Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today's competitive job market, certified occupational therapy assistants need to showcase a distinct mix of clinical, interpersonal, and technical skills to rise above the noise. The twelve skills below highlight capabilities that matter in daily practice and improve your odds of landing interviews and offers.
Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant Skills
- Patient Assessment
- Rehabilitation Techniques
- ADL Training
- Therapeutic Exercise
- Sensory Integration
- Pediatric Therapy
- Geriatric Care
- Documentation Proficiency
- HIPAA Compliance
- Electronic Health Records (EHR)
- Assistive Devices
- Motor Skills Development
1. Patient Assessment
Patient assessment for a COTA is the systematic collection and interpretation of information about a person’s strengths, challenges, and daily life needs. It lays the groundwork for tailored interventions that help people function with greater confidence and independence.
Why It's Important
Assessment informs everything that follows. It reveals functional abilities, pinpoints barriers, and clarifies priorities so treatment plans actually match the person and their goals. Better fit, better outcomes.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Refine what you see, what you ask, and how you synthesize it.
Sharpen observation: Track small shifts in movement, attention, affect, and endurance. Subtle changes often tell the real story.
Communicate with purpose: Use clear, empathetic questions; confirm understanding; reflect back goals in the patient’s own words.
Stay current: Review evidence, refresh knowledge on assessments, and learn new screening options relevant to your setting.
Use standardized tools: Select measures that fit the population and diagnosis. Combine objective scores with clinical reasoning.
Collaborate across disciplines: Compare notes with OTs, PTs, SLPs, nursing, and social work to round out the picture.
Reflect and refine: Audit your notes, review outcomes, and adjust your process. Brief journaling can surface patterns worth changing.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
2. Rehabilitation Techniques
Rehabilitation techniques are the therapeutic methods and activities that build function, restore capacity, and support participation in daily roles. For COTAs, this means practical, goal-driven interventions that meet people where they are.
Why It's Important
Because technique translates to change. The right approach can reduce pain, boost stamina, and reclaim everyday skills that make life work.
How to Improve Rehabilitation Techniques Skills
Keep your toolkit nimble and evidence-informed.
Pursue continuing education: Short courses, labs, and mentorships keep methods fresh and relevant.
Lean on evidence: Consult high-quality reviews and guidelines; choose interventions with demonstrated effectiveness.
Add tech thoughtfully: Consider virtual reality, wearables, and therapy apps when they truly enhance engagement and outcomes.
Work as a team: Blend input from PT, SLP, psychology, and nursing for comprehensive plans.
Center the person: Co-create goals; adjust methods to preferences, routines, and cultural context.
Iterate based on feedback: Check in often, track progress, and pivot quickly when progress stalls.
How to Display Rehabilitation Techniques Skills on Your Resume
3. ADL Training
ADL training (Activities of Daily Living) helps people perform routine tasks—bathing, dressing, eating, grooming, toileting—safely and independently, using strategies, adaptations, and practice that stick.
Why It's Important
These are the tasks that shape daily life. Progress here translates to dignity, safety, and reduced caregiver burden.
How to Improve ADL Training Skills
Make it personal, practical, and measurable.
Assess and set clear goals: Establish baselines, identify barriers, and define outcomes that matter to the person.
Analyze the task: Break activities into steps; modify tools, environment, or sequence to cut friction.
Use appropriate assistive tech: Low-tech and high-tech options can unlock independence when matched well.
Apply evidence-based methods: Choose interventions supported by research for your diagnosis and setting.
Teach and coach families: Simple, repeatable strategies at home accelerate gains.
Collaborate across care: Align with nursing, PT, and case management so training is reinforced consistently.
Review and adapt: Reassess frequently and revise goals to keep progress moving.
How to Display ADL Training Skills on Your Resume
4. Therapeutic Exercise
Therapeutic exercise is targeted activity to improve strength, mobility, endurance, coordination, and pain tolerance—always tailored, always purposeful.
Why It's Important
Better movement unlocks function. Stronger, more mobile clients handle work, self-care, and community roles with less effort and risk.
How to Improve Therapeutic Exercise Skills
Precision beats volume.
Advance your training: Seek hands-on labs, certifications, and supervised practice to master progressions and form.
Use evidence and outcomes: Track objective changes; select progressions supported by research.
Team up with PT and OT: Coordinate dosage, pacing, and precautions to avoid overlap and overuse.
Keep it patient-centered: Align with goals that matter—return to gardening, playing with grandkids, work re-entry.
Close the loop: Solicit feedback on difficulty and soreness; tune intensity and frequency swiftly.
Apply technology when useful: Timers, metronomes, biofeedback, and VR can boost engagement and adherence.
How to Display Therapeutic Exercise Skills on Your Resume
5. Sensory Integration
Sensory Integration approaches help people process and organize sensory input—tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive, visual, auditory—so they can engage more successfully in daily life. Especially relevant for sensory processing differences, neurodivergence, and developmental conditions.
Why It's Important
When sensory systems are better regulated, attention, motor planning, and participation improve. Daily routines run smoother.
How to Improve Sensory Integration Skills
Structure, creativity, and safety go hand in hand.
Develop “sensory diets”: Plan routines that deliver the right type, intensity, and frequency of input across the day.
Use graded challenges: Swinging, deep pressure, tactile play—progress carefully with clear goals and fidelity to method.
Make it play-based: Obstacle courses, games, and imaginative tasks increase buy-in and generalization.
Coach caregivers and teachers: Share strategies that translate to classrooms and home routines.
Keep learning: Follow current research and best practices, especially around safety and outcome measurement.
How to Display Sensory Integration Skills on Your Resume
6. Pediatric Therapy
Pediatric therapy supports children in play, learning, social participation, and self-care. Under OT supervision, COTAs deliver interventions tuned to developmental stages and family priorities.
Why It's Important
Early, targeted support helps kids hit milestones, participate at school and home, and build confidence that carries forward.
How to Improve Pediatric Therapy Skills
Meet the child in their world, not the other way around.
Invest in pediatric CE: Update skills in motor development, sensory processing, feeding, and handwriting.
Lead with play: Gamify tasks to drive repetition without boredom.
Partner with families: Co-create home programs that fit schedules and routines; celebrate small wins.
Incorporate appropriate tech: Visual schedules, simple apps, and adaptive tools can motivate and track progress.
Individualize relentlessly: Align activities with interests, attention span, and sensory profile.
How to Display Pediatric Therapy Skills on Your Resume
7. Geriatric Care
Geriatric care for COTAs focuses on safety, mobility, cognition, and independence. Interventions blend activity adaptation, fall prevention, energy conservation, and caregiver training.
Why It's Important
Older adults thrive when routines are safe and meaningful. Thoughtful care reduces hospitalizations and supports aging in place.
How to Improve Geriatric Care Skills
Respect history, preferences, and pace.
Keep learning about aging: Frailty, polypharmacy, cognition, vision, and hearing all shape intervention choices.
Prioritize person-centered plans: Align goals with what matters most—home management, community access, social connection.
Work as an integrated team: Coordinate with nursing, PT, pharmacy, and social work to address risks comprehensively.
Use assistive tech smartly: Simple devices and home modifications often deliver big safety gains.
Engage families: Educate, simplify routines, and offer practical caregiver strategies.
How to Display Geriatric Care Skills on Your Resume
8. Documentation Proficiency
Documentation proficiency means recording care accurately, clearly, and on time—evaluations, interventions, progress, and outcomes—in line with legal, ethical, and payer requirements.
Why It's Important
Good notes tell the clinical story, support continuity, justify services, and protect you and your patients.
How to Improve Documentation Proficiency Skills
Clarity and consistency win.
Know the standards: Understand what your setting, state practice acts, and payers require.
Write with precision: Use active voice, measurable outcomes, and functional impact statements.
Use EHR tools well: Templates, smart phrases, and checklists speed work without losing nuance.
Audit yourself: Review for completeness, timeliness, and alignment with goals billed.
Seek feedback and mentorship: Small tweaks to phrasing and structure can raise the quality bar fast.
Continue your education: Short courses in clinical writing and payer rules pay off quickly.
How to Display Documentation Proficiency Skills on Your Resume
9. HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA compliance requires safeguarding protected health information—what’s shared, how it’s stored, and who can access it—across paper and digital systems.
Why It's Important
Privacy is nonnegotiable. Compliance protects patients, maintains trust, and meets federal and organizational mandates.
How to Improve HIPAA Compliance Skills
Make secure habits automatic.
Know the rules: Understand the Privacy and Security Rules and how they apply to your daily tasks.
Protect data: Use strong passwords, encryption where available, and secure storage. Lock screens. Shred when required.
Limit access: Follow the minimum necessary principle. Verify identity before sharing information.
Train regularly: Refresh on policies, phishing awareness, and breach procedures at least annually.
Honor patient rights: Support access requests, amendments, and accounting of disclosures promptly.
Report incidents fast: Follow your organization’s breach notification protocol without delay.
How to Display HIPAA Compliance Skills on Your Resume
10. Electronic Health Records (EHR)
EHRs are digital charts that centralize diagnoses, medications, orders, notes, and outcomes. For COTAs, they streamline documentation, coordination, and communication.
Why It's Important
Accurate, timely entries support safe care, reduce duplication, and connect teams. Better data, better decisions.
How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills
Make the system work for you—and your patients.
Get training tailored to OT workflows: Learn shortcuts, templates, and features specific to your setting.
Customize templates: Use smart phrases and checklists that reflect common diagnoses and payer needs.
Support interoperability: Share and retrieve information cleanly across systems; understand how your EHR exchanges data.
Engage patients: Encourage portal use for education, home programs, and messaging when available.
Collect feedback: Report pain points and suggest improvements; small changes can save hours over time.
How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills on Your Resume
11. Assistive Devices
Assistive devices—from reachers and built-up utensils to mobility aids and smart home tools—reduce effort, improve safety, and expand independence.
Why It's Important
The right device, properly matched and trained, can transform daily routines and reduce caregiver strain.
How to Improve Assistive Devices Skills
Focus on fit, function, and follow-through.
Personalize: Match devices to goals, environments, and hands-on trials. One size rarely fits all.
Incorporate technology wisely: Consider simple upgrades first; add smart features only when they truly help.
Train thoroughly: Teach use, maintenance, troubleshooting, and safe progression for both users and caregivers.
Re-evaluate regularly: Needs change. Check fit and effectiveness; adjust or replace when warranted.
How to Display Assistive Devices Skills on Your Resume
12. Motor Skills Development
Motor skills development involves refining fine motor control (buttoning, handwriting) and gross motor abilities (transfers, balance, gait) so daily tasks become smoother and safer.
Why It's Important
Movement capacity anchors function. Stronger coordination and control ripple into every occupation from self-care to work.
How to Improve Motor Skills Development Skills
Target, repeat, and scale.
Build fine motor precision: Use activities like manipulating small objects, resistive putty, and in-hand translation tasks.
Develop gross motor control: Train balance, sequencing, and bilateral coordination through purposeful movement.
Blend sensory input: Add proprioceptive and vestibular elements when they support motor planning.
Practice consistently: Short, frequent bouts beat long, infrequent sessions for skill acquisition.
Learn and collaborate: Compare strategies with your OT, PT, and teachers or coaches involved in care.
How to Display Motor Skills Development Skills on Your Resume
