How to Teach Life Skills to Persons With Down Syndrome

Life skills are important for anyone to learn--we all need to be taught how to get by when it comes to life. Teaching a person with Down syndrome is just like teaching anybody else, just with a little more assistance. We're all people, disorder or not. I worked with adults with Down syndrome for a year, and they're the most lovable people you'll ever meet! You'll have a blast teaching life skills to them.

Instructions

1. Be patient and teach slowly. People with Down syndrome learn a little slower than your average individual, as you'll often be working with mild to moderate mental retardation too. So you’ll want to go slow. Too much information at once will confuse him, so start with the basics of what he needs to know and work on a few items each day. If you want, write out a lesson plan and give him a copy, so he knows in advance what you'll be working on daily (you could cover cooking basics one week, with harder tasks building up each day, for instance).

2. Repeat often. The best way to get your Down syndrome student to remember is to repeat items over and over. If you’ve covered, say how to greet customers at her job one day, be sure to refresh that same lesson the next day. Keep refreshing until she can repeat the lesson back to you, or show you visually by performing the task that she’s got it down. People with Down syndrome usually don't like surprises, so make sure you stick to the lesson plan too.

3. Use verbal cues and visual aids. Unless the person you’re working with is solely a visual or auditory learner, it’s good to use both. Teach verbally, and make posters that he can look at throughout the day to be reminded. This will help the lessons enter long term memory. You can make a few posters covering each topic (cooking, job hunting, communication, money), or just one with important skills to remember, like: cross the street at the crosswalk, don’t talk to strangers and smile a lot!

4. Use models. Since life skills are often abstract concepts hard to grasp for a person with Down syndrome, it’s good to use a model (especially when teaching proper behavior). Show your student the skill you'd like her to learn, such as taking money out of the bank, and then have her try it herself. It will be easier for her to get a behavior down if she can see someone else doing it (humans and most animals are natural mimickers).

5. Work on self-esteem! This one is very important. Being different in any way is hard, so encourage as much as you can for him to feel good about himself. Often, people with Down syndrome are very sensitive, and they care a lot. Remind him of all the things he’s good at and all the excellent qualities he has to offer. For example, I worked with a guy who was a great dancer. I encouraged him to dance all the time because it made him feel good, and he got positive feedback from others about his dancing too!

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• National Association for Down Syndrome