Top 12 Occupational Therapy Assistant Skills to Put on Your Resume
Occupational therapy assistants keep care moving. They turn treatment plans into daily wins, help people practice the skills that let life feel doable again, and bring steadiness to often chaotic moments. On a resume, blend hands-on techniques with people-first strengths so hiring teams can see how you support rehab goals and lift the tone of the clinic around you.
Occupational Therapy Assistant Skills
- Patient Care
- Rehabilitation
- ADL Support
- Documentation
- Therapeutic Exercise
- Sensory Integration
- Motor Skills
- Cognitive Rehabilitation
- Microsoft Office
- Electronic Health Records (EHR)
- Interpersonal Communication
- HIPAA Compliance
1. Patient Care
Patient care for an OTA means carrying out therapist-designed plans, observing closely, and shaping each session so a client can regain or maintain the skills that keep daily life moving—safely, meaningfully, and with dignity.
Why It's Important
Good patient care builds trust, improves follow-through, and speeds functional gains. Personalized attention plus clear communication creates momentum, which is the engine of rehabilitation.
How to Improve Patient Care Skills
Stronger care grows from habits and intention:
Personalize the plan: Align tasks with the client’s priorities, routines, and culture. Ownership fuels engagement.
Keep learning: Refresh skills through continuing education and mentorship. New techniques, better outcomes.
Lean on evidence: Choose interventions backed by research, then measure response and iterate.
Communicate relentlessly: With clients, families, and the team. Clarify goals, reflect progress, adjust early.
Use smart tools: Assistive tech and telehealth, when appropriate, can extend access and consistency.
Focus on relevance, clarity, and follow-up. Small upgrades compound quickly.
How to Display Patient Care Skills on Your Resume
2. Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation involves guided practice, graded exercise, and activity-based methods that rebuild function after illness, injury, or changes in ability—always tied to what the person needs to do in real life.
Why It's Important
Rehab restores capacity and confidence. It reconnects people to roles and routines. For an OTA, it’s the hands-on craft of translating goals into sessions that make progress visible.
How to Improve Rehabilitation Skills
Deepen your toolbox: Add new manual techniques, task-specific training methods, and adaptive strategies.
Stay client-centered: Co-create goals and choose activities that matter to the person, not just the program.
Work as a unit: Coordinate with OTs, PTs, SLPs, nursing, and caregivers for seamless carryover.
Blend tech wisely: Try apps, low-cost sensors, and simple home setups that encourage practice between visits.
Iterate fast: Solicit feedback, track data, and adjust intensity or approach before progress stalls.
How to Display Rehabilitation Skills on Your Resume
3. ADL Support
ADL support covers the everyday: dressing, bathing, toileting, grooming, eating. OTAs teach techniques, adapt tools and environments, and scaffold routines so independence grows step by step.
Why It's Important
When ADLs improve, life opens up. Energy goes to work, school, or play—rather than being swallowed by basic tasks. It’s the core of participation and self-worth.
How to Improve ADL Support Skills
Assess with purpose: Observe performance in context. Identify barriers, motivators, and quick wins.
Set grounded goals: Make them functional, time-bound, and meaningful to the client’s day.
Teach adaptive methods: One-handed techniques, energy conservation, safe transfers, sequencing strategies.
Shape the space: Recommend home and workplace tweaks—lighting, layout, grab bars, seating, reachable storage.
Build routines: Consistent schedules and checklists reduce cognitive load and boost success.
Coach and cheer: Clear feedback, brief practice bursts, frequent reinforcement.
Keep current: Track new adaptive devices and low-cost alternatives clients can actually obtain.
How to Display ADL Support Skills on Your Resume
4. Documentation
Documentation is the written map of care—evaluations, daily notes, progress updates, outcomes. Clear, timely records protect patients, support the team, and keep services billable and compliant.
Why It's Important
Without solid documentation, continuity breaks and reimbursement gets dicey. With it, everyone knows the plan, the progress, and the next move.
How to Improve Documentation Skills
Be specific: Objective measures, assist levels, cues used, response to treatment, carryover plans.
Structure well: Consistent headings, succinct sentences, and clinically relevant details only.
Write while it’s fresh: Chart promptly to avoid gaps and guesswork.
Know the rules: Follow payer, facility, and professional standards for content and timelines.
Use your system: Templates, smart phrases, and checklists speed entry without losing nuance.
Professional associations and facility policies outline expectations—review them often and align your notes accordingly.
How to Display Documentation Skills on Your Resume
5. Therapeutic Exercise
Therapeutic exercise targets mobility, stability, strength, endurance, and motor control so daily tasks become smoother and safer. It’s not gym time—it’s function-focused, customized, and measured.
Why It's Important
Right exercise, right dose, right progression. Pain drops, efficiency rises, confidence returns, and independence expands.
How to Improve Therapeutic Exercise Skills
Anchor to goals: Tie every movement to a task the client wants to reclaim.
Use evidence: Select dosing based on research and adjust using real-world response.
Advance skills: Pursue trainings in motor learning, falls prevention, or specific diagnoses you see often.
Team up: Coordinate with OTs and PTs on progression, precautions, and home programs.
Make it engaging: Visual feedback, timers, simple trackers, or gamified reps can lift adherence.
Adapt quickly: Monitor fatigue, pain, vitals, and form. Modify before setbacks land.
How to Display Therapeutic Exercise Skills on Your Resume
6. Sensory Integration
Sensory integration approaches help people modulate and organize input—touch, movement, body awareness—so behavior and motor responses fit the moment. Often used with children, yet relevant across ages when sensory processing affects function.
Why It's Important
When sensory systems sync, regulation improves. Attention steadies. Learning and participation climb.
How to Improve Sensory Integration Skills
Build a sensory diet: Short, targeted activities woven through the day that match a person’s sensory profile.
Tune the environment: Reduce overwhelm or add needed input—sound, light, seating, movement breaks.
Therapeutic play: Swings, obstacle courses, textured media, heavy work—joyful, purposeful, graded.
Support with tools: Weighted options, fidgets, chewelry, noise control—selected thoughtfully, monitored for effect.
Teach the team: Caregivers and teachers need simple strategies and language for carryover.
Training matters—follow your OT’s guidance, document responses, and adjust with care.
How to Display Sensory Integration Skills on Your Resume
7. Motor Skills
Motor skills—fine and gross—blend strength, coordination, timing, and planning. They’re the mechanics behind handwriting, buttoning, reaching, lifting, balance, and more.
Why It's Important
Better motor control unlocks daily tasks. Fewer falls, neater self-care, smoother work performance.
How to Improve Motor Skills Skills
Strength and stability: Target proximal control and grip with bands, putty, closed-chain tasks.
Fine motor practice: Fasteners, coins, beads, tweezers, cutting drills—tiny reps, big gains.
Gross motor challenges: Step training, dynamic balance, gait tasks, functional reach, light aerobic work.
Hand–eye timing: Catch/throw, pegboards, coordinated tapping, graded puzzles.
ADL reps: Make real tasks slightly harder—thicker pens, smaller buttons, variable surfaces.
Sensory supports: Pair movement with tactile or proprioceptive input to sharpen control.
Progress the challenge, not the risk. Measure, adapt, repeat.
How to Display Motor Skills Skills on Your Resume
8. Cognitive Rehabilitation
Cognitive rehab targets attention, memory, processing speed, problem-solving, and executive functions with structured practice tied to real-life tasks.
Why It's Important
Sharper cognition means safer decisions, better follow-through, and smoother routines at home, work, or school.
How to Improve Cognitive Rehabilitation Skills
Start with assessment: Identify strengths, gaps, and triggers so activities fit the person.
Co-create goals: Practical, relevant, and trackable—think medication management, budgeting, route finding.
Use proven methods: Strategy training, spaced retrieval, errorless learning, task-specific practice.
Leverage simple tech: Timers, reminders, checklists, visual schedules, and basic apps that clients will actually use.
Teach supports: Loop in family or caregivers with scripts, cues, and environmental prompts.
Collaborate: Align with the OT and broader team to reinforce the same strategies across settings.
How to Display Cognitive Rehabilitation Skills on Your Resume
9. Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office underpins the admin side of care—notes, reports, schedules, data tracking, and simple education materials.
Why It's Important
Clean documents, quick schedules, and organized data mean more time with patients and fewer avoidable errors.
How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills
Build templates: Progress note shells, HEP handouts, in-service slides—ready to go, consistent.
Master shortcuts: Keyboard commands and styles that speed formatting and navigation.
OneNote for cases: Structured notebooks for goals, session ideas, and education snippets.
Excel for tracking: Simple tables, filters, and formulas to monitor attendance, outcomes, and schedules.
Automate basics: Rules and reminders for appointments, follow-ups, and task lists.
Use Outlook well: Calendar discipline, clear subject lines, and folders that mirror your caseload.
Accessibility: Alt text, readable fonts, and high-contrast layouts for inclusive materials.
Keep up: New features roll out often—periodically review what’s new and useful.
How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume
10. Electronic Health Records (EHR)
EHRs are real-time digital charts that hold histories, plans, vitals, notes, orders, and results. For OTAs, they’re the place to document, review goals, and coordinate care without friction.
Why It's Important
Accurate, timely entries improve safety, teamwork, and billing. Data at your fingertips means faster decisions and fewer misses.
How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills
Streamline templates: Use OTA-appropriate fields and smart phrases that capture functional detail.
Support interoperability: Know how to find outside records and share what matters with the team.
Engage patients: Encourage portal use for schedules, education, and home program updates.
Train regularly: Short refreshers on new features, shortcuts, and compliance expectations.
Invite feedback: Surface workflow pain points so the system evolves with clinical needs.
How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills on Your Resume
11. Interpersonal Communication
Interpersonal communication is the give-and-take with clients, families, and colleagues—listening deeply, speaking plainly, and matching tone to the moment.
Why It's Important
Trust builds faster. Plans make sense. Tensions cool. That’s how rehab stays on track.
How to Improve Interpersonal Communication Skills
- Active listening: Reflect, summarize, and check understanding before moving on.
- Clarity: Use simple, concrete language and avoid jargon unless you explain it.
- Empathy: Acknowledge feelings and lived experience—then shape the plan around them.
- Constructive feedback: Specific, timely, and tied to goals, not personalities.
- Resolve conflict: Stay curious, seek common ground, and restate shared goals.
- Cultural responsiveness: Adapt communication to language, beliefs, and preferences.
How to Display Interpersonal Communication Skills on Your Resume
12. HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA compliance means protecting patient information—paper, digital, and spoken—through correct handling, controlled access, and secure communication.
Why It's Important
Privacy builds trust and keeps care ethical. It also avoids costly breaches and penalties.
How to Improve HIPAA Compliance Skills
Know the standards: Review privacy, security, and minimum-necessary rules used in your setting.
Lock it down: Strong passwords, clean screens, secure storage, and verified recipients only.
Use secure channels: Encrypted messaging and approved platforms for PHI—no shortcuts.
Train routinely: Annual refreshers plus quick updates when policies change.
Follow procedures: Report incidents immediately and document corrective steps.
Mind the space: Keep voices low, doors closed, and paper trails short.
How to Display HIPAA Compliance Skills on Your Resume
