What does a Occupational Therapy Aide
actually do all day?
top skill Service Orientationcore tasks 6median pay $39,160AI exposure 7/100
Occupational Therapy Aides is deadline-driven, on your feet, people-heavy work.
What this job actually does all day
The representative tasks O*NET analysts recorded for this role — not a glossy job ad, the real work.
- Encourage patients and attend to their physical needs to facilitate the attainment of therapeutic goals.
- Report to supervisors or therapists, verbally or in writing, on patients' progress, attitudes, attendance, and accomplishments.
- Observe patients' attendance, progress, attitudes, and accomplishments and record and maintain information in client records.
- Prepare and maintain work area, materials, and equipment and maintain inventory of treatment and educational supplies.
- Transport patients to and from the occupational therapy work area.
- Instruct patients and families in work, social, and living skills, the care and use of adaptive equipment, and other skills to facilitate home and work adjustment to disability.
Skills & environment
Bars are O*NET importance/intensity ratings, scaled 0–100 so you can compare at a glance.
The skills it demands most
What the environment feels like
Deadline pressure: constant deadline pressureConflict & friction: moderateNeed to be exact: precision is criticalTime spent sitting: mostly on your feet / movingContact with people: constantly dealing with people
Go deeper on this role
How this is built. Tasks, skills, and work-environment ratings come from the
U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET occupational analysis — job analysts survey real workers, so this is the
closest thing to "what the job is actually like" in public data. Skill scores are O*NET Importance
ratings (0–5) and environment measures are Context ratings (0–5), both rescaled to 0–100 here for
easy reading. This task-and-skill detail comes straight from the O*NET database — it's
pulled straight from the survey, not invented. Figures describe the typical role, not any one person's job.
