When autistic children enter high school, many parents begin to worry about their child’s future. How is my child going to make a living? What will he do for work? What if something happens to me? How will he take care of himself if I’m no longer around? Up to that point, quite a few parents haven’t thought about the need to teach their child important life skills. Maybe because they didn’t know he would want to be independent one day or maybe because it was easier and faster to do everything themselves.
Whatever the reason, it will be extremely difficult to teach a teenager everything he needs to know and do to make that desired independence happen (and even more difficult when an adult) if you don’t start working with him early. A child is never too young to begin teaching, but most begin around the age of three or four.
What are Life Skills? Why are Life Skills Important?
Life skills are those little things you do each and every day that most of us take for granted. Generally, we do them without thinking, like:
- brushing your teeth
- taking a shower
- getting dressed
- getting to work on time
- listening to your boss
- getting along with coworkers
- doing your laundry
For most of us, learning everyday skills was easy. We watched others, figured out what they were doing and why, then imitated them to the best of our ability. Learning life skills is essential for an autistic child to feel good about himself, but they are also necessary to arm him with the necessary tools to get and keep a job. However, children with autism don’t learn through self-observation and reasoning. Developmentally-challenged children need to be taught.
Working with Autistic Children by Setting up Life Skills Programs at Home
Teaching children life skills is a parent’s responsibility. However, working with autistic children should never become a power struggle between parent and child. When I worked in a small group home setting with autistic and developmentally-challenged adults several years ago, we set up life skills programs for our residents. These programs were individually designed to meet the specific needs of the residents.
New residents were always placed on very basic programs like:
- bathing
- dressing themselves
- making their lunch for work the next day
- doing their laundry
While I specifically worked with adults back then, the same type of program can be set up to work equally well with a child. These basic programs avoided power struggles because they were observation programs only. The idea was to watch how our residents did on basic skills, then record what we observed, giving them a rating of 1 to 10, with 10 being a perfect score for that activity.
How to Help Autistic Children through Adapting Developmental Programs
Learning isn’t easy for autistic children, but before they can be taught new skills, parents must have a solid understanding of what their child can or cannot do. A great way of discerning problem areas is to first make up a list of all of the life skills you can think of; leaving room for additional skills that will come to light as you go through the initial observation period.
Next, write down each of the skills you’ve thought of at the top of a separate piece of paper. Beneath each listed skill, record the various steps required to complete the task. For example, if you’ve listed dressing themselves, they will need to know:
- where their clothes or shoes are kept
- how to get their clothes or shoes out of the closet or dresser
- how to put them on
- how to button or zip up their clothes
- how to tie their shoes
- understand what types of clothing is appropriate to wear
- how to color coordinate their outfit
At this point, don’t worry about overwhelming the child. The idea isn’t to get him to do all of those things; your job is only to discover what the child is capable of. If you already know he can’t do something like set the table, make up a page for that anyway, but fill it with notes during the week about what the child can do in that area. Maybe he can put napkins or silverware on the table.
Learning Life Skills Takes Time
We often deprive our kids of the opportunity to learn important life skills when we do things for them instead of teaching them how to do things. While it’s easier and faster to do many things ourselves, the cost for ignoring our responsibility can be particularly high when it comes to helping autistic children learn. It is far better to lower your expectations, than it is to risk bruising your child's self esteem.
Developmental programs can be adapted to teach children with autism by beginning with the task of observation. Later on, once the data is collected and the child’s abilities better understood by evaluating sensory issues, these programs can be used to form an individualized plan, tailored to fit the child’s exact needs.
Sources:
- Myers, Jennifer McIlwee and Grandin, Temple, How to Teach Life Skills to Kids with Autism or Asperger’s, Future Horizons, October 2010.
- Notbohm, Ellen and Zysk, Veronica, 1001 Great Ideas for Teaching & Raising Children with Autism or Asperger’s, Future Horizons, February 2010.
- Sohn, Alan and Grayson, Cathy, Parenting your Asperger’s Child: Individualized Solutions for Teaching your Child Practical Skills, Perigee Trade, February 2005.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be used for diagnosis or to guide treatment without the opinion of a health professional. Any reader who is concerned about his or her health should contact a doctor for advice.
Vickie Ewell - Vickie has worked with autistic individuals for 9 years. She has celiac disease and specializes in gfcf living.
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