Dr. Dawn Solomon

B.S., State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Health Sciences University; M.S., Mount Mary University; PP-OTD, Drexel University

Bio:

Pediatric occupational therapist, clinical practice owner, and assistant professor specializing in vision rehabilitation, sensory integration, and interprofessional collaboration between occupational therapy and optometry, with a strong commitment to advocacy, research, education, and mentorship of pediatric occupational therapy practice.

Dr. Solomon (she, her, hers) is an occupational therapist with over 28 years of clinical experience. Her clinical expertise spans working with adults with acquired head injuries and pediatrics. She is the Founder and Executive Director of an interdisciplinary pediatric private practice in Southern Wake County, NC, since 2009. She holds advanced certification in vision rehabilitation and focuses her scholarship on interprofessional collaboration between occupational therapy and optometry.

Beyond her clinical work, Dr. Solomon is an active advocate and community partner within North Carolina’s occupational therapy landscape. She serves on the North Carolina Occupational Therapy Association (NCOTA) board as a Legal and Political Co-Chair, advancing legislative and regulatory advocacy on behalf of the profession. She also sits on the Health, Exercise and Sports Science (HESS) board at Meredith College, supporting the development of pre-occupational therapy for students and academic programming. Through Shining Stars Therapy, she has built longstanding clinical placement partnerships with OT, PT, and ST programs across many states, extending her mentorship beyond fieldwork supervision into broader institutional collaboration.

Her doctoral capstone research, “Examining the Relationship between Copying Skills and Saccadic Eye Movements among Children: A Correlational Study,” investigated the connection between oculomotor function and handwriting performance in elementary-aged children. The study was presented as a poster at the AOTA National Conference and is pending publication in the Open Journal of Occupational Therapy. This work reflects her broader commitment to advancing occupational therapy’s role in vision rehabilitation, from supporting individuals with acquired brain injuries to addressing developmental concerns related to visual efficiency and visual motor integration. This underscores the importance of interprofessional collaboration between occupational therapy and optometry in improving access to and outcomes in vision care across the lifespan.