DAILY LIVING

Daily living skills, also called activities of daily living, are generally learned during a child’s very early years. They include these basics:

  • Eating
  • Mobility/walking
  • Dressing/undressing (including clothing choices)
  • Personal hygiene (including showering and/or bathing and oral/dental care)
  • Maintaining continence
  • Toileting

These skills apply across all environments from home to school to work to their communities. Learning these skills allows a child to build confidence in their abilities to live more independently as they mature into adulthood.

An additional list of Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (iADL) for older children and adults often includes these additional activities:

  • Transportation
  • Meal preparation
  • Shopping
  • Housekeeping
  • Managing personal finances
  • Medication management (if needed)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Perkins School for the Blind: This webpage has an excellent list of resources for parents about dialing living skills: Go to: http://www.perkinselearning.org/scout/daily-living-skills-young-children-blind-multiple-disabilities-deafblind

Wonderbaby.org (supported by Perkins) also offers additional information on teaching blind children everyday organizational and living skills. Go to: http://www.wonderbaby.org/articles/activities-daily-living

Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired: This website has a number of links that may be helpful in understanding daily living skills more thoroughly. Go to: http://www.tsbvi.edu/recc/domainSelect?domain=8

Michigan Low Incidence Outreach (located in the Michigan Department of Education) has a checklist of Independent Living Skills to be mastered according to the by school age group as well as additional resources for parents of blind and visually impaired children. Go to: https://mdelio.org/blind-visually-impaired/expanded-core-curriculum/independent-living-skills

DISCLAIMER

Please note that this website is provided as a resource for information and education, and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice and consultation. The links to other sources are not recommendations of BCF nor are these links all-inclusive, but rather representative of websites that offer information. The Blind Children’s Fund always recommends that you use information only from knowledgeable and well-recognized sources since there are many scam-types of programs now proliferating the Internet. Always consult your child’s health care provider(s) and educators for additional reliable and accurate information.