Learning Life Skills

Erin Luchterhand
Shepherds College

There are some skills and abilities that most of us take for granted.  The ability to identify and correctly use a ½ cup in the kitchen; knowing how to sort your laundry; seeing that the dishes need to be washed and doing them.  These are simple skills that many of us naturally pick up over the years.  But for the person with an intellectual or developmental disability, these are skills that need to be intentionally larned and practiced.  The fun part?  As the teacher, I get to celebrate each milestone as it’s reached!

​But as a teacher, recognizing that these skills will impact their entire lives, their independence, and their ability to self-care, falls on me.  Teaching these skills cannot be one-time lessons.  Instead, learning these skills in an applicable way is a process.  In my mind, the process goes a bit like this:

1. Determine what skill needs to be learned, and to what ability level.
2. Identify the student’s current ability level.
3. Break down the skill into manageable steps.  Determine the step you need to start at with the student.  (This is dependent on current skill-set and ability.)
4. Once you’ve determined the skill, students ability, and where to begin… decide how to teach this to the student.

Let me give you an example.  Jennifer is a 20 year-old woman with Down Syndrome.  She needs to learn how to do her laundry.  She already knows how to sort her clothes and put them in the washing machine, but she struggles with all of the dials on the washing machine and measuring the soap.  Since she begins to struggle once the clothes are in the washing machine that is where I start.  I can create teaching materials that will help Jennifer learn what each dial does.  I’ll take a picture of each dial, enlarge it, and begin practicing on a large picture in the classroom.  Once she has mastered one dial, we will practice the entire process of washing her laundry, up until that step.  Then we repeat the process with the next dial, and so on.  When it gets to the point where she will need to place the soap in the washer, we will practice, repetitively, with the measuring cup and water in a sink.  Over and over again.  As she becomes independent in this skill, we include it in her process.  Teaching Jennifer how to do her laundry is more than simply saying “here, let’s do it together” and end up doing it for her.  Instead, if you teach each specific step in a way that works with her learning style, Jennifer will learn to do her own laundry and remain independent in this area.

In upcoming blogs, we will take a look at ideas and ways to teach specific daily living skills in a REAL (Relational, Experiential, Applicable, Learner-Based) way.  Some of the skills we will look at are laundry, basic kitchen measurement, money skills and budgeting.  As we look at these skills, there is one teaching tool that I cannot stress enough: repetition.  No matter what you teach, repetition, time and practice are invaluable.  Students will not learn the skill after one lesson.  They need to learn the concept and then practice and learn it with their hands.  The more students practice a task, the more proficient they become. 

​My goal as a teacher: to help my students learn, retain, and apply to their lives.  That’s what I love about teaching Daily Living Skills – you can directly see the impact your teaching has on a student’s life.  It is a practical class that can directly and immediately impact and benefit your students – what a blessing in a teacher’s life!