Building Life Skills: Where and How to Start

Why Life Skills Matter

When we think about preparing students for adulthood, we often focus on academics—getting good grades, mastering subjects, and earning diplomas. Sometimes we also focus on readiness for employment—having ideas about future jobs, volunteer work, maybe even having a seasonal or part-time job. While academics and employment readiness are important, they are not the only skills that determine a student’s success in life. In fact, for many young people, particularly those with disabilities, life skills are just as—if not more—critical in ensuring a smooth transition into adulthood. After all, if we can’t wake up on time, dress appropriately for the occasion and weather, or access transportation to get where we need to be, then it will be virtually impossible to pursue learning or work activities after high school. As a fellow transition specialist, Terri McLaughlin, has often said, “If you can’t get there, you can’t have it!”

This is where life skills come into play. Life skills—sometimes called independent living skills, activities of daily living, or adaptive functioning—encompass the everyday abilities that allow individuals to take care of themselves, manage responsibilities, live independently, and navigate the community successfully. In today’s world, school-aged children and teens are often overscheduled, leaving little time—or interest—for learning basic household and community skills. For students with disabilities, building these skills may additionally require explicit instruction, repeated practice, and opportunities to generalize what they’ve learned across different environments (with and without support). Without basic life skills, even the brightest students and hardest workers may struggle when it comes to transitioning to college or training, employment, independent living, and even social relationships.

Unfortunately, life skills development is often overlooked or underemphasized in education. Classes focusing on building life skills such as home economics have largely disappeared from mainstream education. Schools may assume that these skills are being taught at home, while families may assume they are being addressed at school. In reality, building life skills requires both attention and a team effort between families and students themselves. For students with disabilities, educators and medical providers may also need to be part of this collaboration.

Key Life Skill Domains

There are many ways to categorize life skills, but they all serve the same purpose—helping young people gain the independence and competence needed to navigate postsecondary adulthood. When thinking about how to assess and teach these skills, I find it helpful to group them into three overarching domains: Self-Care, Domestic, and Community Skills. While individual needs and assessment tools vary, most life skills fit within the following broad categories:

Self-Care Skills - These skills help individuals take care of their health, well-being, and personal needs. They are foundational for managing daily routines.

• Personal Hygiene & Grooming – Bathing, brushing teeth, caring for hair and shaving, dressing appropriately for weather and occasion
• Nutrition & Food Management – Understanding the components of a healthy diet, maintaining balanced eating habits, eating regularly, and practicing food safety
• Health & Wellness – Managing medical needs, taking medication, understanding physical, emotional, and sexual health
• Self-Advocacy & Decision-Making – Knowing personal strengths and needs, communicating with doctors, teachers, and employers, understanding rights and accommodations
• Self-Regulation & Self-Management – Keeping a schedule, setting alarms, planning ahead, coping with stress

Domestic Skills - These skills allow individuals to manage and maintain a safe and functional living environment.

• Laundry & Clothing Care – Washing, drying, and caring for clothes, discarding or repurposing clothing that is worn out or no longer fits, purchasing clothing as needed
• Cleaning & Home Organization – Maintaining personal and shared spaces, using basic cleaning tools and products, understanding basic household maintenance
• Meal Preparation & Kitchen Safety – Meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, using kitchen appliances safely, following recipes
• Housing & Home Management – Finding housing, understanding leases and rental agreements, managing household expenses
• Emergency & Safety Skills – Locking doors, responding to emergencies, contacting emergency services, fire and carbon monoxide safety

Community Skills - These skills help individuals function independently in their communities, access resources, and build meaningful relationships.

• Communication & Interpersonal Skills – Engaging in conversations, understanding social cues, advocating for oneself, resolving conflicts in public settings
• Technology & Digital Literacy – Using smartphones and computers safely, managing passwords, navigating online services, social media use, understanding digital privacy
• Money Management & Consumer Awareness – Budgeting, banking, saving, understanding “needs” and “wants,” making informed purchases, managing transactions
• Transportation & Navigation – Driving or using alternative transportation methods, walking, arranging rides, travelling safely, reading maps
• Community Usage – Using banks, post offices, libraries, retail, and restaurants, knowing where to find employment supports, staying safe in public spaces
• Leisure Skills & Civic Engagement – Finding hobbies, participating in community events, volunteering, voting

How Can We Assess Life Skills Easily?

When it comes to evaluating life skills and adaptive functioning, there are many informal and formal tools to choose from. An important consideration is to ensure that any assessment includes data regarding what a student actually does, rather than simply what raters estimate they can do or what they know how to do but never carry out. Paying attention to the frequency and consistency of independent living behaviors, as well as the level of support required for students to perform those behaviors, is critical for understanding a student’s life skill development. Life skills often need to be automatic and generalized for students to maintain them after high school.

When schools, psychologists, or other medical professionals evaluate life skills, they often use formal tools, which are great for capturing whether a student’s life skills are “age-appropriate.” Some examples of formal tools include the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales – Third Edition (Vineland-3), the Scales of Independent Behavior-Revised (SIB-R) and the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System, Third Edition (ABAS-3)—three adaptive functioning questionnaires that can be filled out by caregivers, school personnel, or the students themselves. These assessments provide norm-referenced scores for understanding a student’s functioning across many items or areas.

However, if a parent, educator, or other related professional is working with a student who wants to build their life skills, it is often more useful to start with an informal checklist or inventory. These are great for students to complete themselves or for people who know them well to complete. When students are young or have not yet focused on developing life skills, these checklists may identify many undeveloped skills. I always like to start coaching, or focus an IEP goal, with whatever the student identifies as most important or a skill they want to learn in the near future.

Her are a few great free resources available:

• Casey Life Skills Toolkit – A set of free tools, available in English and Spanish, in both short-form and standard versions, that assess the independent skills youth need to achieve their long-term goals. [Link: https://www.casey.org/casey-life-skills/]
• Life Skills Inventory – A simple checklist that can be used to evaluate a student’s skills in 15 areas and track progress over time. [Link: https://www.elmbrookschools.org/uploaded/Documents/District_Documents/Transition_Resources/Life_Skills_Inventory.pdf]
• PEATC Life Skills Checklist – A checklist designed to help students, their families, and school teams track independent living skills. [Link: https://peatc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Independent-Living-Life-Skills-Checklist-Booklet-ENGLISH-Interactive.pdf
• Adolescent Autonomy Checklist – Modified Version (from Autism Housing Pathways, but useful for many individuals) – A checklist to help individuals who may need continued support in adulthood track skills mastered, skills to work on, skills they plan to start, and areas where they will need continued support. [Link: ?https://autismhousingpathways.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/02-Modified-Adolescent-Autonomy-Checklist.pdf

Start Small: Do Something New Today

The process of teaching life skills can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. The key is to prioritize and start small. Pick one or two areas to focus on and begin incorporating them into daily routines. Maybe today, that means setting an alarm to wake up in the morning. Tomorrow, it might mean handing cash to a cashier for a small purchase at a convenience store. Over time, these small steps add up to significant gains in independence.

Parents, educators, and students themselves all have a role to play in fostering life skills development. Whether through explicit teaching, providing opportunities for practice, or modeling these skills in real-life situations, every effort counts. A student might start by folding just socks before working up to sorting and folding all their laundry, or by finding all of the ingredients to make a sandwich before assembling it on their own. They might practice looking up directions on a mapping app, even if someone else is driving. These little moments of practice build confidence and competence.

The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progress. So, what’s one life skill you can help a student build today?