Strategies to Increase Independence and Adaptive Functioning

During the assessment you may determine that your client has poor adaptive functioning. This can be a common concern for children and youth with ADHD or those that have mental health concerns. In addition, if you have diagnosed your client with an intellectual disability, or autism spectrum disorder it is likely your client will need extensive support in this area.

Although your client may show confidence in their ability to be independent, they may demonstrates low motivation to engage daily living activities.  If your client is older it will be important to encourage your client to identify long-term consequences, practical reasons, and external motivation for engaging in non-preferred household and self-care activities.

For example, while your client may not find it intrinsically motivating to clean the kitchen (i.e., they do not get satisfaction from having a clean kitchen in and of itself), they can rationalize that it is important to clean up their messes:
a) because he does not want to attract mice and fruit flies; and
b) in order to move out they need to demonstrate that they can maintain a certain level of cleanliness. 

Some other independence and adaptive skill strategies include:

■ In general, daily living skills should be developed through routines that are established within the home or workplace. Intervention focus will vary depending on whether your client has a performance deficit (i.e., does not perform the skill, or is not motivated to perform the skill) or a skill deficit (i.e., currently cannot do the skill) in a particular area. 

■ Consistency in expectations for routines related to cleaning up, taking care of belongings, and completing assigned chores and self-care routines can help develop these skills more quickly.

The expectation here should be increased self-initiation of routine tasks. The use of calendars, posted lists, and personal “to-do” lists can be extremely useful in learning to follow household and self-care routines.

It is important to note that individuals often differ in terms of what is an “appropriate” level of cleanliness or frequency of cleaning. It will be beneficial for your client to work with their parents to identify cleaning and self-care schedules that are both appropriate and preferable for them.

■ Decrease the averseness of cleaning tasks by increasing efficiencies (e.g., keep all-in-one cleaning wipes in every room for quick cleaning).

■ The increased mastery of daily living skills also requires the development of associated skills such as increased initiative, recognition that something should be done, the ability to follow routines, the ability to complete a multistep task, and self-monitoring.

Adolescent Related Resources:

  •  It may be beneficial for your client to identify a few (1-2) priority areas to work on improving, and gradually add new goals as he/she is successful. 
  • As your client increases his/her independence and involvement in the community, it will be important for them to increase their awareness of consequences for unsafe behaviour when out of the community.
  • Encourage your client to plan ahead and identify potential problems or situations and appropriate responses (e.g., what to do if the bus doesn’t arrive on time, or doesn’t arrive at all).
  • It may be beneficial for your client and his/her parents to explore funding options, such as Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH): https://www.alberta.ca/aish.aspx