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Activities of Daily Living
Occupational Therapists often help children learn how to manage their “ADLs” or activities of daily living, in order to be able to manage the things they need to do to take care of themselves at school and navigate around their school environment. This includes helping them acquire the skills to be able to do things like:
- Go to the bathroom and manage their clothing fasteners or wash their hands.
- Get themselves lunch in the cafeteria and manage their containers and utensils for feeding themselves.
- Take things in and out of their bookbags.
- Take their coats and jackets on and off.
- Take their shoes on and off for a gym class activity.
- Opening door knobs to get into rooms
Most of these activities require the bilateral, coordinated use of their hands in a way that is difficult for some children. To help students who struggle with these types of issues, an Occupational Therapist may:
- Teach a child another way of doing things
- Give them a piece of equipment to help them be able to do the activity more independently
- Adapt an article of clothing or part of an activity to foster independence
Some common adaptations that Occupational Therapists may suggest include:
- Velcro shoes or elastic shoe laces
- Special cups, dishes or containers for lunches
- Different size zippers, buttons or snaps
- Putting a large loop or keychain on the end of a zipper to give a child something larger to pull with.
One daily activity that is frequently difficult for children to accomplish is shoe-tying, since this requires fairly good hand coordination and perceptual skills. If a child struggles with shoe-tying, he may need lots of practice and carryover at home. It often helps to start teaching the idea of shoe-tying by using two pipe cleaners, since they are easier to control and more tactile. A child can use them to feel how the pipe cleaners cross, make loops, and pull through. When transitioning to shoe-laces, it also helps to use two different colored laces so and child can more clearly see which loop is doing which action.
A common adaptive method of learning to tie shoes is to use the “bunny ears” method.
A very good picture of this to show a child is at Ian’s Shoelace Site on the internet, at:
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/twoloopknot.htm
Here is a website that features songs and poems to use to help a child remember how to tie his shoes:
http://www.teachers.net/lessons/posts/1952.html
A book to use as an excellent resource for children to understand the steps of shoe tying and practice it is: Barron’s Red Lace, Yellow Lace: Learn to Tie Your Shoe! by Mike Casey.
Children also often have trouble learning to fasten and unfasten buttons. If it is hard for a child to learn to push a button through a hole, a transitional step is to have them put small thin circular objects through a slot. Some things they can do are:
- Put the discs into the slots of a “Connect Four” game.
- Cut a very thin rectangular slit into the top of a plastic container such as one used for margarine, cool whip, etc. Have a child put poker chips through the slot into the container.
- Cut a slit into the top of a small film canister or a margarine container. Have him put pennies through the slot.
- When teaching to use actual buttons, select a shirt with very large buttons and loose holes. Lay it on a table in front of a child and have him practice trying to put the button through the hole, then how to hold the hole open to slip the button tack out.
