Adaptive Skills
Preschool & Kindergarten
Preschool & Kindergarten
Adaptive skills are the skills needed to be an independent and happy member of a community. Most of these skills are not explicitly taught in school, but are learned through experiences at home and in the community. For many of the students we all work with, more formal experiences and education is needed for them to learn the skills. Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) are activities that we do in our normal daily routines/lives including self care. These can include activities such as:
Cooking and eating
Dressing
Bathing/Showering
Personal Hygiene
Toileting
Factors that Impact Acquisition of Skills:
Motor skill challenges
Sensory issues
Attentional deficits
Absence of prerequisite skills
Lack of experience
Interfering behaviors
Lack of motivation and/or understanding of social motivation
Parents/Caregiver underestimating abilities
Parents/Caregiver being overprotective
Parents/Caregiver doing everything because it’s easier or faster
Life skills happen at all ages
Methods to Help Teach ADL & IADL:
Forward Chaining - The child completes the steps in sequential order one at a time until they have mastered the skill.
Total Task Chaining - The child is taught the sequence of steps every time the task is worked on.
Backward Chaining - The caregiver completes all the steps except for the last one; the child completes the last step. Once the child has mastered the last step they move to the second to last step and so on.
Chunking - The caregiver breaks up large amounts of information into small units. This strategy helps the child commit information to their long-term memory. (Simply breaking down large tasks into small manageable tasks).
Prompt Strategies:
Physical Prompts - Physically guiding the child through the steps.
Modeling - The caregiver models the steps.
Gesture Prompts - The caregiver gives point or other gesture cues to the child while completing the steps.
Verbal - The caregiver provides verbal cues to the child as they complete the steps.
Visuals - Using visuals whether pictures and/or words can be a helpful tool in helping a child master routines.
Sometimes a combination of these is needed.
*Always remember to use the least restrictive prompts needed and remove them as soon as possible.
How do we know the supports are working?
Please select 1-3 supports and implement them for 3 weeks while tracking the student's response. This data will help adjust supports and during the evaluation process if that is a necessary step.
Please explore the "At Home" section of the website for helpful ideas that can be shared with families.