Rate My Professor Cynthia Abbott-Gaffney

Cynthia Abbott-Gaffney, OTD, MA, OTR/L, FAOTA, serves as an associate professor of instruction in the occupational therapy program within the Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at Temple University’s Barnett College of Public Health. With more than 23 years of clinical experience, she has worked extensively in traumatic and acquired brain injury rehabilitation, pediatric community and school-based interventions, and program management. Her career includes leadership roles such as Program Manager for the Community Re-Entry Team at MossRehab’s Drucker Brain Injury Center, where she supervised therapists and developed services for brain injury survivors across the lifespan, from young adults to geriatrics. She also managed NJ Brain Injury Services, overseeing ambulatory programs including community re-entry, clubhouse structured day programs, and community residences; responsibilities encompassed staff development, admissions, billing, policy development, and marketing. Abbott-Gaffney earned her Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) from Boston University with a doctoral project on telehealth adoption in school-based practice, Master of Arts in Occupational Therapy from New York University, and Bachelor of Science in Recreational Therapy from Montclair State University. She holds occupational therapy licenses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida, and is a Certified Brain Injury Specialist Trainer from the Brain Injury Association of America’s Academy.

Her research interests focus on telehealth for occupational therapy service delivery in underserved areas to offset practitioner shortages, assistive technology integration, and enhancing collaboration and efficacy in OT interventions. Key publications include “Toward successful future use of telehealth in occupational therapy practice: What the COVID-19 rapid shift revealed” (2022, Work, 54 citations); “The Impact of a Two-Visit Occupational Therapy Home Modification Model on Low-Income Older Adults” (2023, Open Journal of Occupational Therapy); and “Telehealth in occupational therapy practice: Variations in Medicaid reimbursement in 7 states” (2018). She serves on the editorial review board of the Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, has presented at professional conferences on brain injury recovery and pediatric interventions, and teaches graduate courses at Temple including Theoretical Perspectives in Occupational Therapy, Assistive Technology Practice, research methodologies, and doctoral capstones. Awards include MossRehab Excellence Awards for Grace Under Fire and Business Builder, Haddonfield Educational Trust Grant (2017), and Fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation (2024).