Naomi Josman

University of Haifa | haifa · Department of Occupational Therapy

Background: Childhood hearing loss is a common chronic condition that may have a broad impact on children’s communication and motor and cognitive development, resulting in functional challenges and decreased quality of life (QoL). Objectives: This pilot study aimed to compare executive functions (EFs) as expressed in daily life and QoL between deaf...

Date Presented 03/21/24 Assessing mood homeostasis (MH) and its associations with occupational balance, participation, and quality of life to guide the development of a novel intervention for people with major depressive disorder and promote effective health care. Primary Author and Speaker: Shani Volovic Shushan Contributing Authors: Adi Stern, Na...

Date Presented 03/22/24 Exploring the relationship between daily activity performance, assessed via a virtual shopping task, and participation in different life domains may assist in optimizing intervention in terms of enhanced participation and quality of life. Primary Author and Speaker: Nehal Safi Contributing Authors: Elias JahJah, Eyal Fruchte...

Introduction/Objectives Companion animals (CAs) may benefit human health, but few studies have examined their impact on stroke survivors. This study examines participation, quality of life (QoL), attachment, cognition, and executive function differences between stroke survivors living with and without CAs. Methods In this cross-sectional, communit...

Introduction/Objectives The COVID-19 pandemic has long-term implications for adult health and function, whether or not people were infected with the disease. Although cognitive disruptions are among the major symptoms of COVID-19, most research focused on managing medical symptoms, such as respiratory symptoms or pain. Thus, less is known about the...

The Daily Living Questionnaire (DLQ) constitutes one of a number of functional cognitive measures, commonly employed in a range of medical and rehabilitation settings. One of the drawbacks of the DLQ is its length which poses an obstacle to conducting efficient and widespread screening of the public and which incurs inaccuracies due to the length a...

Individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI) often have difficulty performing daily activities that require intact executive functions, such as grocery shopping. Performance-based evaluations are valuable but lack the subjects' viewpoints during task performance. This study aims to combine performance-based observation and cognitive science metho...

This preliminary study aims to demonstrate the reliability and validity of the adapted Do-Eat Basic activities of daily living (BADL) assessment for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants were 53 children ages 6–10 years: 17 diagnosed with high-severity ASD (HS-ASD) and 16 with low-severity ASD according to the DSM-5 and based o...

Background People with Parkinson’s disease (PwP) may experience gait impairment and freezing of gait (FOG), a major cause of falls. External cueing, including visual (e.g., spaced lines on the floor) and auditory (e.g., rhythmic metronome beats) stimuli, are considered effective in alleviating mobility deficits and FOG. Currently, there is a need f...

Background Literature explains participation limitations among people with schizophrenia through the context of metacognitive limitations, specifically in symptoms and in executive functions (EF). Research has shown mixed results regarding associations between symptoms and participation, reporting association with negative symptoms, positive sympto...

Background: Literature explains participation limitations among people with schizophrenia through the context of metacognitive limitations, specifically in symptoms and in executive functions (EF). Research has shown mixed results regarding associations between symptoms and participation, reporting association with negative symptoms, positive sympt...

Introduction Individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI) often present the knowledge about a task but in real-time do not perform it fully, or not as efficient as planned. This performance gap may be explained by difficulties with Executive Functions (EF). Objectives The aim of the presentation is to describe how people with and without SMI exp...

Personal computers, tablets, and smartphones may support older adults' engagement when people are required to stay home and opportunities to engage in meaningful activities are reduced during the COVID-19 period. This study aims to screen older adults’ technology-use characteristics across social, leisure, and education domains during the COVID-19...

Preliminary results of a systematic-review later publised titled: Evaluation of executive functions and everyday life for people with severe mental illness: A systematic review

The purpose of this poster is to provide insight into real-life behaviors and problem solving using performance-based observation and cognitive science methods in severe mental illness populations.

Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations. Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show poor independence in daily activities. The self-report Daily Routine and Autonomy Questionnaire (DRA) identifies adolescents' actual versus desired independence in daily routines and promotes...

Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations. A metacognitive model was developed based on functional cognition and the existing literature, with the aim of promoting independence in everyday functioning among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study examines an applicat...

Background Cognition affects poststroke recovery, but meta-analyses of cognition have not yet provided a comparison of observational and intervention evidence. Objective To describe the trajectory of poststroke cognition and the factors that moderate it across intervention and observational cohorts. Methods Six databases were searched up to Janua...

Introduction Individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI) often find it hard to perform daily activities such as grocery shopping, which require intact executive functions. The use of performance-based evaluations is valuable, but lacks the subjects’ point of view during task performance. Objectives The aim of the current presentation is to brin...

The CMT-2 assessment, a computerized version of the original Contextual Memory Test (CMT), evaluates memory and meta-memory skills. Assessing these skills among adolescents’ is important for the development of interventions improving daily function. The objectives of this study were to evaluate (1) test re-test reliability, (2) internal consistency...

Adolescents with neurodevelopmental difficulties struggle to perform daily activities, reflecting the significant impact of executive functions on their participation. This research examines an integrated conceptual model wherein supportive environmental factors in the community, school and home settings explain the children’s participation (involv...

This study examines parents’ perspectives of the participation patterns (frequency, involvement, and parental desire for change) in their adolescent children’s everyday functioning with and without executive function deficit profiles. Parents of 81 adolescents (10–14) years) with executive function deficits (n = 41) and a matched group of parents o...

•Assessment tools have progressed from measuring specific components, to more comprehensive assessments.•Performance-based tools, has the potential to include an EF index as part of the test scoring.•Most researchers either chose short versions of the assessment tools to address the subjects' attentional capacities.•Using more than one evaluation m...

Date Presented 03/26/20 Community participation promotes quality of life and transition to adulthood for adolescents with ASD. This study describes community participation and environmental barriers to and supports of adolescents with ASD compared to typically developing peers using the Participation and Environment Measure—Children and Youth. Resu...

Date Presented 03/26/20 The naturalistic driving observation is an appropriate method for assessing fitness-to-drive of elderly drivers. By utilizing this unique assessment, real-life driving performance is captured, enabling the reduction of test-related discomfort associated with the current gold standard test of driving ability, the standard on-...

Date Presented 03/27/20 This study carried out a performance-based task combined with an eye-tracker device for both a control group and a group of people coping with severe mental illnesses. This was done in order to better understand difficulties in task performance and to deepen OTs’ and cognitive scientists’ understanding of client factor and t...

Date Presented 03/27/20 A metacognitive model was developed based on functional cognition and the existing literature, with the aim of promoting independence in everyday functioning among individuals with ASD. This study examines an application of the proposed model among adolescents with ASD, in the context of conducting a shopping errand in the c...

Purpose: To characterize and analyze the performance of adolescents with executive function deficits through the Children's Cooking Task (CCT) as a performance-based complex ecological assessment. Methods: Participants were 41 adolescents (aged 10-14 years) with normal intellectual function and executive function deficit profiles based on the Be...

Introduction Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show poor independence in daily activities. Unlike existing instruments, the innovative self‐report Daily Routine and Autonomy questionnaire (DRA) addresses their level of and desire for independence in activities throughout a full daily routine. This study describes the DRA development,...

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder show low independence levels and difficulty performing complex daily activities. The many intervention approaches for these individuals include deconstructing complex activities into basic components, processing and practicing tasks, and developing compensation strategies. The aim of this study was to exami...

Introduction This study examines parents’ perceptions of environmental factors in home, school and community settings on daily functioning of adolescents with executive function deficits. The aim was to map environmental supports and barriers and identify factors that predict functioning. Method Parents of 81 adolescents (10–14 years) completed th...

Background Cognitive impairment affects up to 80 percent of the stroke population, however, both the available evidence about post-stroke cognition and the measures used to evaluate it longitudinally have not been well described. The aims of this systematic scoping review were: to identify and characterize studies evaluating cognition longitudinall...

Date Presented 04/04/19 Effective training is essential for minimizing the gap between family-centered care (FCC) theory and practice. In this presentation we will describe the outcomes of FCC professional training in terms of knowledge, skill, and confidence. The training demonstrated significant increases in participants’ FCC. Experiential learni...

Introduction Although participation is an important outcome of rehabilitation interventions and a critical indicator of quality of life, few studies have focused on the participation patterns of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder in their daily activities or the environmental factors that influence such participation. This study aims to desc...

Background. In recent years, Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women started studying in secular academic institutions outside their self-segregated community. The encounter with the secular-academic sphere can influence the way they relate to their world. Purpose. The aim of the present study was to explore the personal and social change processes tha...

Aims: The functional cognitive evaluation (FCE) was designed to evaluate the safety and functioning of community older adults with cognitive decline (CD). The FCE validity was examined and a clinical model was derived. Methods: Older adult with CD ages ≥ 65 years (N = 110) were evaluated in their homes with the FCE, which examines basic/instrumenta...

Background Family‐centred care (FCC) is considered the best practice in paediatric care but it is not always implemented sufficiently. Effective training programs which enhance healthcare providers’ knowledge and self‐efficacy have the potential to improve FCC implementation in their daily practice. The goal of the study was to evaluate the sensiti...

Background/aim Knowledge and understanding of deficits in executive functions has expanded in recent years and its relevance to occupational therapy has been established. The purpose of this review was to identify, analyse, synthesise and describe the updated occupational therapy scientific literature that addresses the subject of executive functio...

Date Presented 4/19/2018 Real-life tasks express the complexity of human performance, and ecologically valid assessments are considered the preferred method for evaluating both everyday life and executive functions. Do–Eat is a performance-based assessment tool developed to achieve both goals. Primary Author and Speaker: Naomi Josman Contributing A...

Poor cognitive outcomes among people with schizophrenia are associated with poor function in daily life. Cognitive interventions aimed at improving function lead to better cognitive outcomes, but the question of generalization to real-world functioning remains relevant. The ability to generalize or to apply learned skills in the clinic to everyday...

Participation is a central concept in health and well-being and healthcare, yet operationalizing this concept has been difficult. Its definition, uses in healthcare, and impacts on recovery require ongoing research. Our review question goes like this: from the longitudinal evidence investigating participation among stroke survivors, what are the pa...

Children and adolescents with neuro-developmental disabilities have difficulty executing handwriting. This article examines the relationships between handwriting features, executive functions, and daily functioning among adolescents with neuro-developmental disabilities. Participants included 81 adolescents aged 10-18 years. The research group, 41...

Background: Cognitive abilities are essential for children's development and independence. Various cognitive assessments, standardized in Western cultures, have yet to be investigated for their multicultural suitability. Aims: To explore the suitability of the Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA) for a Jordanian populati...

Virtual reality (VR) is an advanced and useful technology in the distraction from pain. The efficacy of VR for reducing pain is well established. Yet, the literature analyzing the unique attributes of VR which impact pain reduction is scarce. The present study evaluated the effect of two VR environments on experimental pain levels. Both VR environm...

Background: Performance of daily activities and participation in life events involves higher-level cognitive abilities. The purpose of this study was to develop a self-report scale for detecting everyday difficulties in activities/participation tied with higher-level cognitive deficiency and to examine its reliability and validity. Method: The Dail...

Overweight and obesity are epidemic in Western countries and the literature suggests a relationship between overweight and executive functions (EF). Shopping is a regular, everyday activity that is strongly related to executive functioning. To date, no assessment tool has been developed to evaluate EF in adults with overweight and obesity, with a f...

The present study aimed to identify predicting factors affecting experimental pain stimuli reduction by using 'EyeToy', which is an Immersive Virtual Reality System (IVRS). Sixty-two healthy subjects (31 M, 31 F) underwent a battery of pain tests to determine each participant's baseline sensitivity to nociceptive. The battery included thermal pain...

Background/AimThis article explores the development of a unique, culturally sensitive, designated academic occupational therapy programme for the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) minority in Israel. This normative university environment did not provide the opportunity for Haredi participation due to the lack of consideration of the strong commitment to a mo...

The objective was to assess effectiveness of apraxia treatments using a systematic review. In contrast to previous reviews, each study was rated as to its applicability to occupational therapy practice and its focus on occupational performance using the FAME rating system (defined by four categories: Feasibility, Appropriateness, Meaningfulness, Ef...

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often present with activities of daily living (ADL) performance deficits. This study aimed to compare the performance characteristics of children with ADHD to those of controls based on the Do-Eat assessment tool, and to establish the tool's validity. Participants were 23 children with A...

The present study aimed to compare the executive function (EF) of children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) to those of typically developing children and to investigate whether those abilities could predict the child's academic success in terms of academic skills and enablers. Twenty-nine children with NF1 and 27 age-and-gender-matched controls...

Purpose: To assess the cross-cultural clinical utility of the Visual Motor Integration (VMI) standardized U.S. norms for typically developing Palestinian, Israeli, and American kindergarten children. The cross-cultural comparisons tested the extent to which the VMI standardized U.S. norms for all three tests (a) are appropriate for use with the afo...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate cognitive functioning among elementary school children in Jordan. Methods: A total of 468 children aged 6-12 years were recruited to participate in this study. Cognitive functioning was assessed using the LOTCA battery (Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment; Itzkovich et al....

Our objectives are (1) to establish construct validity by comparing task performance with the Virtual Action Planning-Supermarket (VAP-S) by patients with stroke to healthy matched control subjects, (2) to establish concurrent validity by exploring relationships between VAP-S performance and Executive Functions (EFs) and ecological validity by expl...

The purpose of this study was to establish the validity of The Questionnaire for Assessing Students' Organizational Abilities (QASOA); a unique tool developed to examine organizational abilities in school children. Parents and teachers of 376 9-12 year-old boys completed the QASOA parent (QASOA-P) and teacher (QASOA-T) versions. Results from the fa...

Post-cerebrovascular accident (CVA) patients often display difficulties in executive functions (EF) that may impair their ability to perform daily activities. Thus, occupational therapists in post-stroke rehabilitation units employ a variety of types of assessments to evaluate functional cognitive performance, including interviews, observations, qu...

Background- Given the broad range of cognitive deficits presented in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), research into functional skills remains largely unexplored. Objectives- To expand our understanding of the functioning of children with NF1 in a classroom environment, with focus on academic participation. Materials & Method- Thirty c...

We reviewed 12 articles from 2012 that addressed development and testing of instruments for children and youths and American Journal of Occupational Therapy articles from 2009-2013 that addressed 11 activity and participation instruments to determine how well this group of instruments facilitates the generation of evidence sufficient to support pra...

Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) is a multisystem disorder, and cognitiveimpairment is its most common complication in childhood (Hyman, Gill, Shores,Steinberg, Joy, Gibikote, & North, 2003). Although patients with NF1 are at risk forsignificant clinical illnesses, most patients are only mildly affected and live healthy andproductive lives (North, 20...

Our objective was to examine the association of attention deficit and disorganization in boys with and without specific developmental disorder of motor function. Four groups of boys between the age of 7 and 12 years-(1) Disorganization + coordination disorder (n = 30); (2) Coordination disorder (n = 33); (3) Disorganization (n = 28); and (4) Contro...

Background- Given the broad range of cognitive deficits that are present in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), research into functional assessment of cognitive skills and executive functions (EF) remains largely unexplored. Objectives- To expand our understanding of the functioning of children with NF1 in a classroom environment. We focu...

Reliability and validity of the Executive Function Route-finding Task (EFRT) with people diagnosed as having mild cognitive impairment was examined. Twenty-three people with mild cognitive impairment with a mean age of 77.4 (± 7.5) years and 23 healthy controls with a mean age of 74.3 (± 4.9) years participated. The EFRT was administered along with...

OBJECTIVES. Our objectives were (1) to compare the differential effects of cultural and sociodemographic variables on the cognitive performance of Israeli and Palestinian children, (2) to examine validity of the Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA) for kindergarten children, and (3) to determine the feasibility of using the...

This study aimed (1) to compare visual memory and meta-memory abilities, including the use of strategies as context, of children with cochlear implant (CI) and children with normal hearing; (2) to examine the concurrent and construct validity of 'The Contextual Memory Test for Children' (CMT-CH). Twenty children with CI and 20 children with normal...

Objective: The present study investigates the effectiveness of a dynamic interactional (DI) approach combined with the traditional perceptual-motor (PM) approach, versus the PM approach alone, for intervention in children's handwriting difficulties. Methods: An explanatory case study design with a sample of four children was used. Effectiveness was...

Currently, the clinical assessment of cognitive-functional competence among elderly persons suspected of having or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is based on a variety of techniques, including: interviews, questionnaires, cognitive and neuropsycolological assessments and a functional assessment of basic activities of daily living (BADL). However,...

This article is based upon a lecture presented at the 16th Conference of the Israeli Society of Occupational Therapy. It presents an overview of the historical development of occupational therapy (OT) as a profession, and reflects upon paradigmatic changes that have transpired over the years; starting with the founding of OT, the adoption of the me...

The World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health adapted for children and young people (ICF-CY) is a framework for describing and classifying health and health-related states. The aim of the present study was to review literature on neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) using ICF-CY guidelines and to highl...

Cognitive performance is essential for children's functioning and may also predict school readiness. The suitability of Western standardized assessments for cognitive performance among children from different cultures needs to be elaborated. This study referred to the existence of differences in cognitive performance between and within children fro...

In this case study, virtual reality was used to augment imaginal exposure in a protocol based on prolonged exposure. A 29-year-old male patient developed posttraumatic stress disorder after surviving a deadly terrorist bulldozer attack on two civilian buses and several cars in Jerusalem; the traumas witnessed by the survivor included a decapitation...

The Do-Eat was developed to evaluate daily task performance abilities among children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). This study investigated the tool's reliability and validity. Participants were 59 children ages 5 to 6.5 years; 30 children diagnosed with DCD according to the DSM-IV-TR; and a control group of 29 children, who were m...

Organizational ability constitutes one executive function (EF) component essential for common everyday performance. The study aim was to explore the relationship between handwriting performance and organizational ability in school-aged children. Participants were 58 males, aged 7-8 years, 30 with dysgraphia and 28 with proficient handwriting. Group...

The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) is one of the most accepted tools, both in clinical practice and in research, for the diagnosis of Developmental Coordination Disorders (DCDs) in children. The present study aimed to: (1) establish the construct validity of M-ABC in Israel by comparing the motor performance of typically developed...

Persons with Schizophrenia experience difficulties with Executive Functioning (EF) that affect independence and participation in activities. Specifically, EF impacts performance in Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) that require flexible thinking and accommodation to complex environments. However, less is known how schizophrenia affects...