
UAB Arts in Medicine and the Department of Occupational Therapy in the UAB School of Health Professions are excited to offer Magic Camp, a fun, interactive program that uses the art of magic to support therapeutic goals for children with disabilities.
Research shows that learning and performing magic tricks can offer meaningful therapeutic benefits for children and adults with disabilities. This engaging approach has been found to enhance motivation and support improvements in physical, psychological, perceptual, and social functioning.
As a therapeutic tool, magic is gaining recognition for its ability to foster confidence, creativity, and connection, while helping participants achieve rehabilitation goals in a fun and empowering way.
Magic Camp is free and open to children ages 9–18 with disabilities. Campers will learn tricks from the HOCUS FOCUS program developed by international illusionist and educator Kevin Spencer, a leading authority on the use of magic in physical and psychosocial rehabilitation.
Camp sessions are led by UAB occupational therapy graduate students who have been specially trained in this evidence-based protocol.
This summer, we are offering three camps:
- Two virtual camps held via Zoom
- One in-person camp on the UAB campus
Each camp concludes with a performance in which campers can showcase their new skills for friends and family.
2025 Camp Schedule
Virtual Camp 1
- Dates: May 26–June 27 (No sessions the week of June 9–13)
- Time: Monday, Wednesday & Friday afternoons
Virtual Camp 2
- Dates: July 7–August 1
- Time: Monday, Wednesday & Friday afternoons
In-Person Camp
- Dates: July 11–August 8
- Time: Fridays, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
- Location: UAB Campus
The lessons, the camp, and the final magic show are unforgettable highlights in our occupational therapy students’ educational journey, and we would love to share them with you and your family.
Interested in Joining Us?
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More on the UAB OT Magic Camp

Collaboration with UAB Arts in Medicine
The UAB Magic Camp is part of a collaboration between UAB's Department of Occupational Therapy, Children's of Alabama, Hocus Focus™ and UAB Arts in Medicine (AIM). AIM focuses on the needs of the whole person–mind, body and spirit–and it includes both interactive and passive arts experiences, such as bedside and workshop activities and performances and visual art installations in public spaces.

Magic Camp "Tricks" Kids Into Doing Therapy
Illusionist Kevin Spencer will tell you - tricks have more magic than you may think.
Spencer, an award-winning performing artist who toured the world for more than 25 years, created Hocus Focus™ to support the learning of students, with varying degrees of challenges and abilities, through the art of magic. He brings his magic to UAB OT Magic Camp every year through UAB's artist-in-residence fellowship program.

OT Students Gain Direction With Misdirection
Each year during his residency at UAB, illusionist Kevin Spencer works with UAB OT students and gives them their own bag of tricks – complete with magical props like ropes and wands – and then he shows them how to perform some basic magic.
However, the real trick is that the students are learning more than magic. They are learning to direct their clients’ rehabilitation in three key areas: dexterity, motivation and socialization.

Close Up Profile: Inside Magic Camp
A few years back, Gavin Jenkins, Ph.D., chair of the UAB Department of Occupational Therapy, was asked to consider bringing illusionist Kevin Spencer to UAB to teach therapeutic magic to first-year UAB OT students. He remembers that "at the time I was extremely skeptical - I thought 'this is not occupational therapy'."
But after watching Spencer and his students work together, his attitude toward Spencer's magic act quickly changed. In this video, Jenkins talks about how his mind was changed and why the UAB Magic Camp was developed.

Magic Revealed: The Power of OT
Early in his career, Spencer was nearly killed in a car crash. He says when he woke up he was in neurological intensive care. He had a closed brain injury and a lower spinal cord injury. It took him nearly a year in intensive therapy just to regain the skills he lost as a result of the crash.
In speaking to our first-year UAB OT students, he talks personally and passionately about the power of the OT profession and how grateful he is for their work. From first-hand experience, he tells the students: "You will hold in your hands - the power to change peoples' lives."

Magic Revealed: Ropes Trick
For the UAB OT students to teach their future clients magic, they must first learn the tricks behind the act.
In this video, Spencer teaches the students a "Ropes Trick" where he takes three ropes of different lengths (short, medium, long) and he magically makes them all the same length. And then magically returns them to their original lengths!

Magic Revealed: Wand Trick
As we've mentioned, Kevin Spencer is an illusionist and artist who has performed magic in front of tens of thousands of people on stages in 34 countries on six continents.
Even so, his excitment in working on a "small stage" with our first-year UAB OT students never wanes. His enjoyment is evident in round two of his magic lessons as he walks students through the floating wand trick.

Behind the Scenes: UAB OT Classroom
Spencer believes that sometimes people in therapeutic health professions forget arts can play a significant role in recovery. His program, Healing of Magic™, is a carefully designed, systematic approach in promoting and protecting human health.
Every year, Spencer, who is considered the leading authority on the therapeutic benefits of magic, entertains and educates first-year students in our Master of Science in Occupational Therapy program. His workshop is part of a four-day teaching residency at UAB.