Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) refer to the essential tasks we perform every day to take care of ourselves, like dressing, eating, bathing, grooming, and toileting. In OT, we work on helping children develop the skills they need to complete these activities as independently as possible. This might include improving fine motor skills for tasks like buttoning, zipping, and brushing teeth; enhancing coordination to use utensils; or practicing routines for dressing and hygiene. Therapists often break down tasks into manageable steps, using techniques like modeling, visual aids, or hand-over-hand guidance. For children who face sensory processing challenges, ADL work may also involve finding tools and strategies to make sensory experiences (like water during bath time) more comfortable. Our goal is to empower children to gain confidence and independence in these daily tasks, so they feel successful at home, school, and in the community.

Activities to Complete at Home:

1. Button Practice: Use a “button board” or an old shirt to practice buttoning skills.
2. Zipper Practice: Have your child practice zipping jackets or bags to build coordination.
3. Clothes Sorting: Let your child help sort laundry by fabric type to expose them to touching different textures.
4. Shoe Tying: Practice tying laces on a shoe placed on a table before trying it on your foot.  Using two different colored laces is also a good way to learn.
5. Brushing Teeth: Set up a mirror at eye level and a step-by-step guide to encourage independence.
6. Cooking Projects: Get your child involved in cooking to expose them to new foods.
7. Pouring Practice: Let your child pour water or juice from a small pitcher to develop hand control.
8. Hand Washing Routine: Practice handwashing with a step-by-step visual chart.
9. Peeling and Chopping Fruit: Under supervision, let your child peel a banana or use a child-safe knife to cut soft foods.
10. Picking Out Clothes: Have your child look up the weather and figure out what they should wear on their own. They may need support at first, but with practice this can build independence with dressing!
11. Using Utensils: Practice using a fork and spoon during meals, encouraging good grip and control. Serve foods that require use of these utensils, like spaghetti or soup, to help encourage utensil use for kids who are working on this
12. Practicing Dressing Sequences: Break down dressing tasks into smaller steps, such as putting on a shirt or socks. It is also easier to take garments off than to put them on, so you might start there when a child is learning how to dress themselves.
13. Toothpaste Squeezing: Have your child squeeze toothpaste onto the brush, working on fine motor strength.
14. Dressing Relay Race: Engage your child in a dressing relay race where they have to put on one clothing item from each category (pants, shirt, mittens, jacket, hat, shoes, socks, etc.).  This can help kids working on increasing their independence with dressing, or kids who are sensitive to different textures get used to new types of garments.
15. Fabric Exploration: Go to a fabric store and engage your child in touching the different materials.  Use describing words like smooth, bumpy, soft, fuzzy, etc. to help them learn to describe clothing textures, and expand on being able to touch different materials which will help with dressing.
16. Practicing Fasteners on Dolls: Use dolls or toys with zippers, buttons, and snaps for fine motor skill practice.
17. Clothing Paper Dolls: For kids who have trouble picking out outfits in the morning and getting dressed, make paper dolls of your child with different outfits they can “put on” the night before to make the morning easier.
18. Snack Preparation: Involve them in making simple snacks, like spreading peanut butter on crackers. Encourage kids to obtain their own snacks rather than get it for them.
19. Try New Restaurants: For kids who are picky eaters, try going to new restaurants or even just looking at new menus online to see what they might eat to explore more foods.
20. Bedding: Try using stretchy compression sheets or a weighted blanket for deep pressure input to help with falling and staying asleep. Be sure to follow safety guidelines for the amount of weight to use (10% of the child’s bodyweight plus one lb. for safe use).