Teens with ASD: Life Skills

January 28th, 2011

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The future depends on what we do in the present. – Mahatma Gandhi

I asked parents of older teens and adults (link below) what advice they had for parents of tweens and one resounding concern kept coming back – “academics are nice but if your kid can’t function in the real world, he’s in trouble, so teach them life skills.”

Here is the critical piece though – YOU must teach life skills to your child. Yes, the school or a therapist can help, but unless you are consistent with your child 24/7 about learning and using these skills consistently everywhere you go, then they won’t stick. Always remember that life skills must be functional and stick to be useful.

Why are life skills so important?

Safety – People who cannot care for themselves are more open to abuse and neglect by caretakers.
Self-esteem – Self-esteem comes from achievement and ability. If your child can do things to help themselves, they are empowered and happier. Self-reliance makes people the “master of their destiny’ because they don’t always have to wait around for others to do for them and they can choose to do things their way.
Health – Kids who can feed, clean, clothe themselves and take care of their own basic needs will live a healthier life.
Independence – Not having to depend on someone for everything will open the child’s world up to more independence and they will have more living and work options to choose from, rather than being locked up in a maximum care facility. The more skills they have, the more options they have for housing and work. For example, if your child isn’t toilet trained and can’t do basic self-care, there will only be one type of housing he can go into. There is no guarantee that placement would be good, but you’d be left with no other options.
Self-advocacy – when children can care for themselves and perform decision making tasks, they can have a larger say in their own lives and making informed choices to be successful in creating and accomplishing their own dreams. Being empowered to set your course for the future is something all people strive for, regardless of disability.
Self-Regulation – Learning to manage stress, anxiety and feelings is a very important life skill and will help your child be able to cope with the rigors of daily life.

What are Life Skills?

Basic living skills are laundry, cooking, cleaning, getting dressed, shaving, personal hygiene, shopping, ordering at a restaurant, paying bills, working, taking vitamins or pills, making healthy choices, exercise, advocating for themselves, navigating their community, and making and keeping friends. Some life skills overlap with social skills of course and both are necessary to live a safe, fulfilling life.

How can you know what your child needs to learn? Assessments like the ABLLS and VB-MAPP can be used to find out where your child’s strengths and weaknesses lie and show you what skills need to be taught to fill in the gaps.

How to Teach Life Skills

There are many books and a few websites available but there are also curriculum and therapists or teachers who already teach these skills. You can use teachers or therapists to teach the skill but if you do, you need to also learn what they are teaching and how they are teaching it, so you can follow through at home.

How do you teach a child to do basic life skills tasks? Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Every task has steps to it, and just like any ABA or Discrete Trial drill, you just need to break down the task into tiny bits and teach each bit separate and then together. Some kids do better with photos of each step, some with written word. We used both – photos with the written description under the picture.

Breaking down a task

Example: How many steps are there in folding a towel anyway? A lot.

Pick up towel
Lay on table
Smooth towel flat
Grab two corners on top
Pick up corners
Fold corners to bottom edge
Smooth out towel
Grab two corners on top
Pick up corners
Fold corners to bottom edge
Smooth out towel
Move towel to basket/side/closet

You need to take a photo of every step and put them in a document like Word and under each picture, type whatever words your child will understand to explain the picture.

Whether you use visual guides or not, depending on your child’s functioning level you will need to do all of these steps hand-over-hand, again and again, with your child until he or she gets it and then keep practicing so they don’t lose the skill. Remember, the goal is NOT perfection, but function. If he gets all the steps done, that’s your first goal. Neatness, hopefully, comes later. Eventually you can fade the prompts, the child may even memorize the schedule and be able to do the task without it, but if they don’t that’s OK too – you’re still increasing their independence.

In order for my son to be successful at such a low interest task as laundry, I had to make sure there was laundry to be folded every single day. Eventually I just left the same batch – one of each of a towel, washcloth, pants, shorts, long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, tank top (that one messed with him!) and 3 pairs of different colored socks. It took a few months for my son to really master this task and it’s by no means a favorite for him but he can do it. I routinely give him a basket of laundry to fold just to keep the skill fresh for him even though it’s his sister’s chore to do it normally. Yes, this approach takes a lot of YOUR time, every day but if you want your child to be able to do things for him or herself, this is the only way.

Using Video Modeling to Teach

YouTube.com offers many free video modeling clips, but you can also make your own (link to Janice’s paper).

Among the many choices for premade software is the extensive, inexpensive DTT’s Activity Trainer – Video Modeling Software for Autism (who also produces DTTrainer, which is a great program using the discrete trial method). My son used both of these programs with great results.