Living Skills

Disclaimer: This information sheet is for education purposes only. Please consult with your doctor or other health professional to make sure this information is right for your child.

Living skills include activities such as travel skills, cooking, social skills and managing finances.

Many children are not yet independent in living skills, however it is an important area to address for young people with an acquired brain injury. Children that sustain a brain injury early in life may experience difficulties acquiring independence in living skills as they grow.

The Occupational Therapist and the Cognitive Therapist are the main professionals involved in working with the child/young person on living skills. Nursing staff are also involved when the child/young person is in hospital, and families remain actively involved throughout.

What is the treatment?

An assessment of the child/young person's abilities in the particular task will be necessary to determine what the difficulties are (for example, is the problem mainly an organisational/planning issue or are there physical issues limiting independence).

This will then help to guide the intervention strategy.

Daily routines are important for the child/young person with an acquired brain injury. After a brain injury the child/young person may have difficulty initiating activities, planning how to go about them, and remembering what needs to be done, solving problems that arise and maintaining concentration. Routines can assist children/young people with remembering what needs to be done and in what order.

Intervention strategies may include:

• Repeated practice of activity
• Cue cards & prompt sheets
• Group programs - these are particularly useful for addressing social skills
• Specialised, adaptive equipment may be required to assist independence in some tasks (for example, cooking aids Dycem matting, spike cutting boards, built up handles for cutlery, tap turners).

As a general rule, practice of living skills is best done in the environment in which the child/young person will normally be required to do that activity. This is because often skills are not generalised. For example, a travel training program should incorporate sessions during the usual time of day that the young person will be travelling so that the impact of factors such as noise / distractions can be considered.

Rehabilitation Department The Children's Hospital at Westmead Cnr Hawkesbury Rd & Hainsworth St, Westmead Locked Bag 4001, Westmead, 2145 Tel: (02) 9845 2132 - Fax: (02) 9845 0685 http://www.chw.edu.au/rehabilitation/