Teaching life skills to adults with intellectual disabilities can be challenging because every student will have a slightly different set of needs. Adults with mild intellectual disability may need less intensive support, but this can make it harder to identify areas in which they are struggling.
What do we mean by “mild” intellectual disability?
An intellectual disability is a condition that affects how someone thinks, understands and interacts with the world around them. How it impacts someone’s intelligence and the way they adapt to their surroundings can vary widely. It is often found alongside other conditions such as autism and ADHD.
Intellectual disability may be defined as mild, moderate, severe or profound. Someone with mild intellectual disability will usually have an IQ of between 50 and 69, but will also experience deficits in other areas, such as communication and social skills. The exact ways these manifest will vary between individuals, but they will usually be slower to obtain milestones than peers without an intellectual disability. They may be able to live relatively independently as adults, but they will probably need more support.
How can a developmental disabilities program support someone with mild intellectual disability?
Any program supporting an adult with a mild intellectual disability should start by working with the individual to identify their current support needs, their strengths, and their goals for the future. Students may want to pursue employment or further education or they may simply want to learn how to manage independent living or a household. Experienced coaches and support staff can help develop a realistic plan for how to achieve these goals.
Life skills programs may be offered on a full-time or part-time basis, depending on the needs of participants. Part of the program will focus on the skills of independent living, such as budgeting, meal planning (including an understanding of nutrition), shopping, cooking, cleaning and other regular household tasks. This could include using something like the Real Economy program to provide direct experience of handling and spending real money.
Social skills and self-regulation are other important life skills. Students can learn about etiquette and expectations for different real-world situations, such as at the shops, on public transport or at work. They need to practice forming and maintaining relationships with a diverse range of people and regulating their own responses and behavior. It is also valuable to teach students how to be self-advocates, to express their own needs and to ask for reasonable accommodations in different environments, even when they do not have their usual support networks.
Academic studies may not be a priority in this kind of program, but foundational skills in language, literacy and numeracy, as well as in using technology, are often essential for navigating the modern world, and should therefore be included.
In all cases, it is important to work with the student to decide which skills they need to improve but also to celebrate their strengths and achievements. Adults with milder intellectual disabilities may be better at concealing their needs, and try to struggle without asking for help. Needing less support is not the same as needing no support, and coaches should be available and willing to adapt to each student’s unique circumstances.
A developmental disabilities program for adults with intellectual disabilities should always tailor its support to the specific needs of its students. In cases where the intellectual disability is mild, this will generally involve helping them master the life skills they will need to live and work more independently.