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Benefits of Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Training (SMART) in Occupational Therapy Graduate Students

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Asha K. Vas, Lori Cook, Wanyi Wang and Alisha Schaefer

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OVERVIEW

At its core, occupational therapy (OT) is a discipline of applied problem-solving — therapists must constantly adapt their clinical reasoning to meet the unique, ever-changing needs of their patients. OT academic curricula offer critical thinking strategies to facilitate flexible thinking and innovation to optimize clinical outcomes, yet formal, evidence-based programs specifically designed to build those higher-order thinking skills in OT students remain limited. This study asks whether SMART™ (Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Training) — a program proven effective in clinical populations ranging from stroke survivors to individuals with traumatic brain injury — can also sharpen the reasoning skills of the next generation of practitioners while they are still in graduate school. The goal is not just academic performance, but cultivating the kind of deep, flexible, gist-based thinking that defines expert clinical decision-making in real-world practice.The results make a compelling case for embedding SMART directly into OT education. Findings demonstrate improvements in abstract thinking and innovation, with gains also found on non-trained domains of memory and a reduction in stress-related scores. Notably, students applied the strategies in real-life contexts, including school, home management, and social life — suggesting the training reaches well beyond the classroom.

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Lori Cook in a blue blouse with blue lights, portrait. Director of Clinical Research, BrainHealth Research; Head of Research, The BrainHealth Project; Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Lori Cook, PhD, CCC-SLP

Director of Clinical Research Head of Research, The BrainHealth Project Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences

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