Learning & Life Skills for Children with Intellectual Disability

Who this program is for

• Children with an intellectual disability or significant learning difficulties
• Parents who want to focus on practical, everyday independence
• Families wanting to reinforce and extend what school is teaching
• Children who learn best by doing rather than by listening or reading
• Anyone wanting a respectful plan that builds skill, safety and dignity

Your step-by-step roadmap

Move at your child’s pace, not the calendar’s — the “weeks” are just a gentle order, not a race. Feel free to repeat any stage for as long as it’s helping.

1. Stage 1 — Communicate to be understood

   Make sure your child has a reliable way to express needs and choices.
   • Give your child one dependable way to communicate — words, signs, pictures or a device — and use it every single day.
   • Model asking, refusing and choosing in real moments: “I want”, “no thank you”, “more please”.
   • Answer every attempt, so your child learns that communicating actually gets results.

   Try this: Build choices into ordinary moments — which snack, which shirt — so communicating pays off right away.

   Mark week done

2. Stage 2 — Self-care and daily living

   Teach the everyday self-help skills of dressing, washing, eating and tidying.
   • Break each routine into small steps and teach one step at a time, in the real place it happens.
   • Use the same order and the same simple words or pictures each time until it becomes a habit.
   • Let your child do as much as they can, and only step in for the parts they genuinely need.

   Try this: Teach the last step first — your child finishes the task and feels that win, then you add the earlier steps over time.

   Mark week done

3. Stage 3 — Staying safe

   Build practical safety skills for home and out in the world.
   • Practise the real safety routines: stopping at the road, hot-and-cold, and who is safe to talk to.
   • Rehearse what to do if they’re lost or hurt, and how to ask an adult for help.
   • Keep the rules simple, consistent and practised often, in the real places they matter.

   Try this: Rehearse safety in the actual spot — at the kerb, by the cooker — because those are the skills that transfer to real life.

   Mark week done

4. Stage 4 — Early literacy at their level

   Grow functional reading that helps your child in daily life.
   • Start with words and signs that mean something: their name, “toilet”, “exit”, “stop”, “danger”.
   • Read together every day, following your child’s interest and keeping it enjoyable and low-pressure.
   • Tie print to real life — food packets, shop signs, bus numbers — so reading clearly earns its keep.

   Try this: Teach the words your child sees every day first — reading that solves a real problem sticks far better than random lists.

   Mark week done

5. Stage 5 — Everyday numbers

   Build practical numeracy your child can use.
   • Count real things — steps, spoons, coins — and drop number words in through the day.
   • Practise money, time and quantity inside real tasks: paying, setting timers, “how many do we need?”.
   • Keep it concrete and hands-on rather than abstract, and come back to it often.

   Try this: Let your child hand over the coins at a real shop — practical maths in a real setting is worth a stack of worksheets.

   Mark week done

6. Stage 6 — Use it everywhere

   Help skills generalise across people, places and settings.
   • Practise each new skill in different rooms, on different days, and with different family members.
   • Ask the other adults in your child’s life to use the same words, signs and steps you do.
   • Take skills out into the community — the shop, the park, a relative’s home.

   Try this: A skill only really counts as learned when your child uses it somewhere new without a prompt — so keep widening where it’s practised.

   Mark week done

7. Stage 7 — Independence and dignity

   Grow responsibility, choice and a sense of “I can”.
   • Give your child real jobs and responsibilities suited to their level, and praise the effort they put in.
   • Offer genuine choices and honour them, so your child learns that their voice matters.
   • Step back a little more as skills grow, making room for safe, supported independence.

   Try this: Wait a few extra seconds before you help — that pause is the gap where your child does it themselves and feels proud.

   Mark week done

8. Stage 8 — Partner with school

   Join up home learning with your child’s school and team.
   • Ask your child’s teachers which skills they’re working on, so you can reinforce the very same ones at home.
   • Share what’s working at home, so school can use the same words, pictures and steps.
   • Keep a simple record of progress and concerns to look over together at meetings.

   Try this: Agree just one or two shared goals with school at a time — everyone pulling the same way helps skills take hold faster.

   Mark week done

Little tricks that make it work

• Choose skills your child will genuinely use — usefulness is your best guide to what to teach next.
• Teach in the real place the skill happens; hands-on practice beats explaining every time.
• Break every skill into small steps, and keep the words and the order the same each time.
• Practise across settings and people so skills travel beyond one room.
• Protect your child’s dignity — offer real choices, real jobs, and the time to try it themselves.