Thomas Morgenthaler
PhD Candidate - ESR 7
Thomas grew up in Austria and has an educational background in early childhood pedagogy and occupational therapy. He worked as a pre-school teacher and paediatric occupational therapist. Clinically he worked in different paediatric therapy settings focusing on family-centred practice, child-centred practice and school-based occupational therapy. He obtained his BSc in Occupational Therapy from the University of Applied Science Wiener Neustadt, Austria in 2013. In 2020 he graduated from the European Master of Science in Occupational Therapy. In his master thesis research project, he investigated through mixed method methodology the environmental adjustment needs of children with special educational needs integrated in the Austrian mainstream school system from the child and teacher perspective. Furthermore, he is involved in cross-sectional and cultural adaptation of participation related measurements in German speaking countries (e.g. Young Child Participation and Environment Measure).
Since 2017 he is the co-project lead in the Austrian school-based occupational therapy project group, supported by the Austrian Association of Occupational therapy (Ergotherapie Austria). He is also involved in the newly formed Austrian Association of Occupational Science (AOS) and since January 2021 he is elected board member in this association. The goals of AOS are to promote and establish an interdisciplinary discourse about occupational science and the development of occupational science as a discipline in Austrian context.
