ABSTRACT
In the past ten years, The New York City Department of Education (DOE) instituted a change in how physical therapists may practice in public and charter schools. According to the PT/OT DOE Practice Guide (2011), physical therapists (PTs) may not practice as clinicians remediating impairments but limit their professional scope to assisting children with disabilities to access their educational curriculum and participate alongside their peers. The DOE explains this participation-related services model as a legal fulfilment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA mandates “a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment for students who are eligible for special education services from the ages of 3 to 21 years.” The NYC DOE interprets the language of “least restrictive” as requiring therapists to train disabled students in six areas of school function keeping therapy to the minimum required so as not to separate children from their peers. This chapter investigates contradictions of applying a more socially progressive model informed by the social model of disability to PT school-based practice. I discuss how this school-based PT model narrows the PT field without rooting this model in the expertise disabled people have of their own bodies, demonstrating the need for the integration of disability studies in PT professionalization in the United States.
