Despite society moving towards a more inclusive existence, people with disabilities’ participation in the Health and Human Service (HHS) professions remains limited (Waliany, 2016). 

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Marginalization within the HHS sector involves three main components: disabling discourses (societal level), discriminatory design (institutional level), and oppressive interactions (interpersonal level) (Bulk et al., 2017). 

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The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) developed Vision 2025 to guide and address gaps in the profession. Vision 2025 was just updated as of November 1, 2018 to include the words ‘inclusive profession.’ It now states, “as an inclusive profession, occupational therapy maximizes health, well-being, and quality of life for all people, populations, and communities through effective solutions that facilitate participation in everyday living” (AOTA, 2018, para. 2).

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Bill Wong (Hosseini, 2014)

• In the summer of 2010, Bill was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome while in graduate school. In this interview he discusses the barriers he has overcome as well as his successes as a student and a OT professional with Autism.