Mobility Management

Taking the SMS Exam

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SMS Exam

What to Expect on Exam Day

Gone are the days of flying into a conference or tradeshow, attending the whole event, then sitting for your RESNA exam the following day. ATP and SMS exams are now computer based, with scheduling and test locations that should be much more convenient for exam candidates.

RESNA exams are administered by Prometric (prometric.com), which has testing facilities throughout the country. You can find ones near you by going to the Web site’s homepage, choosing the “test sponsor” (aka, RESNA), and then choosing the exam you want to take (since Prometric says not all of its testing sites offer all exams).

Prometric also has a section on what to expect on the day of your exam, such as the check-in and security processes — e.g., bring your government-issued ID, and be ready to empty your pockets and store your personal belongings in a locker while you’re taking the test.

Of course, the first steps are to get your application filled out and submitted to RESNA. Check the application to see when you should plan to take the exam, based on when you turn in your application.

Don’t Be Afraid to Fail It

Perhaps the wisest bit of advice from test-takers sounds a little counter-intuitive: To give yourself the best chance to pass the SMS exam, don’t be afraid to fail it.

“Check your ego at the door,” Kiger says. “The older people get, they get really embarrassed if they don’t pass it and embarrassed about what they don’t know. The biggest thing is don’t be afraid to tell people you’re going to take it. Don’t be afraid to ask who’s going to take it.”

That’s because knowing who else around you is preparing for the test could be a huge help to you.

When preparing for the ATP exam, Kiger says, “Four of us took it together from my [former] hospital, and it was great because we had group study sessions once a week. The OT was able to bring a perspective, I was able to bring a perspective. It was nice to have all the different perspectives.”

Listening to those different perspectives can be important for ATPs who tend to specialize within seating & mobility rather than seeing clients of widely varying ages, diagnoses and anticipated progressions of needs. One possible example: An ATP who is an office’s “go-to guy” for clients with ALS and correspondingly spends most of his week at various ALS clinics.

“If you’re a supplier who only calls on adults, feel free to ask your co-worker, ‘Say, can I ride along with you one day when you go to do pediatrics?’” Kiger suggests. “The SMS covers all different diagnoses of all ages, so you really need to call on your friends and your peers who maybe have a leg up on you in one area.”

Finally, Kiger says, once you’ve committed to preparing for the exam, an upbeat and positive attitude can give you a boost.

“Seek out your peers and encourage each other,” Kiger says of colleagues who may also be preparing to sit for the exam. “Make it a goal and support each other in it.”

“I would tell CRT professionals who want to take the exam to trust your instincts and have the confidence to know that you are a qualified CRT professional that knows this subject matter,” Phillips says. “And don’t be afraid to fail. If you don’t pass it the first time, take it again, and most likely you’ll be better prepared for success the next time.”

“As an ‘early adopter,’ I have been afforded the opportunity to speak with many of my colleagues who are making the decision to pursue the exam,” Piriano says, “and [I] encourage them to go for it.”

Lois Brown: SMS Exam Inspires a New Approach

As the current director of clinical operations & education at National Seating & Mobility — and as an industry education specialist before that — Lois Brown, MPT, ATP/SMS, has perhaps a somewhat different view of RESNA’s Seating & Mobility Specialist (SMS) certification.

For instance, to prepare for the SMS exam, which she took in 2011, Brown says she spent “a few hours reviewing the suggested documents on RESNA’s site,” but then adds, “I intentionally did not prepare, as I wanted to assess the exam’s ability to establish a certain level of knowledge of our everyday clinicians and ATPs without ‘book knowledge.’ I did look over [R. Lee Kirby’s] Wheelchair Skills Test, but I could have studied that more.”

In contrast, Brown said she studied for four months before taking the ATP exam in 2001 and read “Fundamentals in Assistive Technology from RESNA and a manual from a prep course.”

Her impressions of the exam: “I think that clinical decisionmaking is difficult when it is not in a clinical lab setting, but that the patient scenarios were a good attempt to consider an appropriate intervention. The pictures of switches and X-rays were difficult to see; the quality made it difficult to be sure of the correct answer.”

While the SMS exam’s goal is to measure the skills and knowledge levels of a seating & mobility expert, Brown says she herself had a valuable take-away that now impacts how she seeks to teach others about seating & mobility.

“The test format changed the way I approached clinical education of wheelchair prescription: more video, pictures to drive the education of clinical problem solving, engaging the learner,” she says.

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