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How Repeated Correction Shapes Occupational Identity and Participation
- Joure Rustemeyer
- 14 hours ago
- 13 min read
-N.B. Images are generated by AI. -The article is fully written by Jouré, a (human) neurodiversity specialist, educator, coach and cognitive facilitator.-
Children with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences, developmental coordination disorder, language disorders and executive functioning difficulties often receive corrective feedback across every environment they move through in a day. No single correction does much damage on its own. But the cumulative effect - of hundreds or thousands of near-identical interactions across years - adds up to a fundamentally different developmental experience than the one most children have...
"Sit still."
"Pay attention."
"Stop interrupting."
"Try harder."
"Focus."
"Be more organised."
Individually, these phrases sound unremarkable - the ordinary background noise of childhood. Most adults would barely register saying any one of them. But for many of the neurodivergent children on our caseloads, these phrases aren't occasional. They are relentless; the soundtrack that runs underneath school, home, extracurricular activities and sometimes therapy itself.
When it is repeated across every environment, correction becomes identity.
This matters for Occupational Therapists (OTs), because participation is not only shaped by the fit between person, occupation and environment - the model most of us trained on. It is also shaped by occupational identity (Christiansen, 1999; Taylor, 2017): the beliefs a person builds, over time, about who they are, what they are capable of and whether they belong within the occupations they are trying to do.
This paper argues that repeated correction may contribute to the development of occupational identity (Christiansen, 1999; Taylor, 2017) - and that occupational identity, in turn, may influence participation across the lifespan.
