Independent living skills or activities of daily living (ADLs) are those things we normally do in daily living including any daily activity we perform for self-care such as feeding ourselves, bathing, dressing, grooming, work, homemaking, domestic and leisure. The ability or inability to perform ADLs can be used as a very practical measure of ability/disability in many disorders.
Basic ADLs are the self-care skills that are fundamental for your everyday life functioning.
These activities would include:
- Dressing
- Feeding
- Bathing/Showering
- Personal Hygiene
- Toileting
- Home maintenance
- Transportation/Mobility
- Money management
- Personal safety and health care
- Community participation
- Communication and interpersonal relationships
- Leisure and recreation
Independent Living tasks allow us to take care of ourselves. It empowers us to participate independently in society. This may be a factor in medical decision making for ourselves and others. These skills may serve as a guidance as to the level of support or assistance an individual needs. We can also see what additional skills or training needs to be done.
These activities can be an awesome addition to your special education classroom! This is a skill that is perfect for all ages and ability levels. There is no pre-requisite to promoting independence in your classroom.
Want to know more about fine motor work tasks and learning? Read this post!
What is an independent living work task?
Activities of daily living tasks are activities that promote independence in the child’s life. This type of task can be used to increase their own awareness or ways of doing things by themselves.
ADLs are essential to teach our learners how to work independently, how to increase work endurance, and attention to the tasks they need to survive. There is typically a clear start and ending point. You can work on generalization by making a lot of different versions of these tasks. You can also bring these tasks to different environments. From school to home skills and beyond to a job or training center.
Looking for better ways to set up independent work, look no further!
Why would you use independent living activities?
Independent living activities are great for students to increase their own independence in daily living skills. I use these types of skills with learners to increase their confidence in themselves and work endurance. This is also a great way to bring in daily living such as tying shoes, washing dishes and watering plants. We want independent living skills to teach chores, self-management and responsibility.
These are great tasks to introduce independent work. Work tasks have a definite start and stop and can help students understand the foundational skills needed for independent work. Want to know more about independent work? Read this blog post!
Where can I find independent living activities?
You’re in luck! I have a set of tasks in my TpT Store! Easy prep set of work boxes that you can print, prep and find materials in your classroom or local dollar store to set up and implement this school year!
Independent work tasks are important in every special education classroom! These task boxes can be used as teaching tools and building independence through student work.
This resource includes detailed instructions for teacher setup, Amazon list of possible materials, digital data tracking form, student visuals, teacher visuals and directions for use for 30 work tasks. These activities are for fine motor tasks that require a matching aspect.
Best part! You can either use the pre-created student visuals with images taken for you to show each step of the task OR you can create your own student visuals!
This resource requires the addition of some basic materials such as bins, office supplies, small containers. A detailed Amazon supply list is included to make it easy to determine what you will need to create all of these centers!
Looking for more ways to bring life skills into your classroom, read this post!