LaRue, R H , Manente, C J , Dashow, E , Sloman, K N (2016) Functional Skills

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229© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 
N.N. Singh (ed.), Handbook of Evidence-Based Practices in Intellectual and Developmental 
Disabilities, Evidence-Based Practices in Behavioral Health, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-26583-4_9
 Functional Skills 
 Robert H. LaRue , Christopher J. Manente , 
 Erica Dashow , and Kimberly N. Sloman 
 R. H. LaRue (*) • C. J. Manente • E. Dashow 
 K. N. Sloman 
 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 
Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center , 
 151 Ryders Lane , New Brunswick , NJ 08901 , USA 
 e-mail: larue@rci.rutgers.edu 
 9
 Introduction 
 The acquisition and maintenance of functional 
skills are among the most important educational 
targets for individuals with intellectual and devel-
opmental disabilities. Functional skills are those 
skills we possess that allow us to take care of our-
selves and function independently in our natural 
environment. For most of us, these skills are 
readily acquired through typical life experiences. 
For individuals with cognitive impairments, these 
skills may require specifi c teaching strategies. 
The acquisition of functional skills results in sev-
eral favorable outcomes, including increased 
opportunities for community integration and bet-
ter overall quality of life (Ayres, Lowrey, 
Douglas, & Sievers, 2011 ). In addition, func-
tional skills allow individuals with disabilities to 
have more opportunities to access reinforcers and 
make choices in their daily lives, which has 
shown to have positive effects on work comple-
tion and inappropriate behavior (e.g., Shogren, 
Fagella-Luby, Bae, & Wehmeyer, 2004 ; Watanabe 
& Sturmey, 2003 ). 
 The goal of any educational program should 
be to prepare individuals to function as indepen-
dently in their environment as their abilities will 
allow. Experts have noted that individuals with 
intellectual and developmental disabilities 
encounter a myriad of challenges as they transi-
tion out of school placements, including increased 
unemployment and placement in more restrictive 
programs (Ayres et al., 2011 ; Courtade, Spooner, 
Browder, & Jimenez, 2012 ). Consequently, these 
researchers have argued that functional skills 
should be incorporated into students’ individual-
ized educational programming and practiced on a 
daily basis. Ideally, each educational goal should 
be linked to a terminal skill that will be useful to 
the individual in the natural setting (Bannerman, 
Sheldon, Sherman, & Harchik, 1990 ; Favell, 
Favell, Riddle, & Risley, 1984 ). This should be 
accomplished through systematic assessment 
and planning which allows parents and practi-
tioners to produce the best outcomes for this 
population. 
 What Are Functional Skills? 
 Functional skills refer to a broad range of abili-
ties that are needed to navigate the demands of 
everyday life. Functional skills are often referred 
to by a variety of names, such as self-help skills, 
life skills, or skills of daily living. Functional 
skills, simply put, are those skills that are 
mailto:larue@rci.rutgers.edu
230
 practical and helpful in fostering independence. 
According to Brown et al. ( 1979 ) functional 
skills are “… the variety of skills that are fre-
quently demanded in natural domestic, voca-
tional, and community environments. Functional 
skills are not limited to performances, which 
affect the actual survival or physical well-being 
of an individual; they also include the variety of 
skills which infl uence a student’s ability to per-
form as independently and productively as pos-
sible in home, school, and community. 
Nonfunctional skills, by contrast, are those that 
have an extremely low probability of being 
required in daily activities.” (p. 83). 
 All too often, practitioners implement aca-
demic goals that have no functional outcome. For 
example, an instructor may teach an adolescent 
to put plastic shapes into a shape sorter while 
they are unable to place coins in a vending 
machine. Students may be taught to identify the 
pictures of lesser-known U.S. Presidents (e.g., 
James K. Polk) or list the characteristics of sedi-
mentary rock as a part of their academic pro-
gramming. These kinds of goals can be a concern 
in that they do not translate in any meaningful 
way to an individual’s daily life. From this per-
spective, instructional time that is devoted to 
teaching nonfunctional skills is a waste of valu-
able educational resources. The failure to acquire 
functional skills across domains results in more 
restrictive placements as a result of the need for 
additional support and resources. 
 Many of us take the ability to perform func-
tional skills for granted, such as feeding one-
self, toileting oneself, and the ability to interact 
successfully with the world. While these skills 
are established during the normal developmen-
tal process, most individuals with intellectual 
and developmental disabilities, require specifi c 
and sometimes intensive instruction to acquire 
these skills. The spectrum of functional skills is 
quite diverse. Functional skills encompass mul-
tiple domains of performance, such as self-care, 
domestic, recreational, community safety, pre-
vocational/vocational, social and behavior 
management skills. 
 Types of Functional Skills 
 Self-Care Skills . Self-care skills are among the 
most important and basic kinds of functional 
skills in that they contribute to the maintenance 
of well-being and are necessary to sustain 
one’s health. Self-care skills include the ability 
to bathe oneself, self-grooming (e.g., teeth 
brushing, shaving, hair brushing, putting on 
deodorant), washing (e.g., hand and face wash-
ing, showering), self-toileting, and getting 
dressed (e.g., choosing clothes, tying shoes, 
dressing independently). 
 Domestic Skills . Domestic skills encompass 
skills related to household affairs. These skills 
involve maintaining one’s home as well as pro-
viding necessary daily sustenance. Domestic 
skills may include food preparation and safety 
(e.g., using a microwave or an oven to cook food), 
meal planning, sweeping/vacuuming the fl oor, 
doing dishes (e.g., loading a dishwasher), making 
a bed, and doing laundry (e.g., washing, drying, 
folding, and sorting clothing), 
 Community Skills . Community skills include 
those abilities that are required to navigate and 
access resources within one’s specifi c locality. 
Important community skill targets may include 
the ability to cross a street safely (e.g., using a 
crosswalk, observing “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs), 
the ability to recognize stores (e.g., grocery store, 
pharmacy, laundromat), the use of public transit 
(e.g., using the bus or train), or purchasing items 
in a store (e.g., paying for items, counting 
change). 
 Vocational Skills . A common goal for many 
individuals with intellectual and developmental 
disabilities and their families is the procurement 
of employment. Vocational skills include those 
skills that involve the production aspects of jobs, 
such as the ability to bus tables at a restaurant or 
fi ling paperwork at a doctor’s offi ce. Vocational 
targets often depend on a number of factors, such 
as opportunities in the community, individual 
skill level, and parent/student preference. Such 
instruction may begin with prevocational skills to 
teach the prerequisite skills (e.g., sorting tasks, 
R.H. LaRue et al.
231
discrimination tasks) that are components of 
more complex skills (e.g., delivering inter-offi ce 
mail). 
 Recreational Skills . Recreational skills typi-
cally involve an individual’s engagement with 
activities or items that they fi nd interesting, 
rewarding, relaxing, or enjoyable. For most indi-
viduals, recreational activities are acquired with-
out specifi c training as a part of typical 
development. The ability to exercise (e.g.,run-
ning), playing games/sports (e.g., bowling, soc-
cer, playing “Tag”), or engaging in leisure 
activities (e.g., playing video games, reading a 
book) are learned by most without teaching. 
Alternatively, individuals with intellectual and 
developmental disabilities may require formal 
teaching strategies in order to encourage the 
development of repertoires of appropriate leisure- 
time activities. 
 Social Skills . An individual’s ability to partici-
pate in their community is, to a large extent, 
dependent upon their ability to interact with oth-
ers. Social skills are those skills that facilitate 
interaction and communication with others. 
Under normal circumstances, social rules and 
relations are developed without specifi c teaching. 
However, for individuals with intellectual and 
developmental disabilities, specifi c teaching 
strategies may be necessary to develop appropri-
ate social behavior, such as respecting personal 
space, perspective-taking, conversation skills, 
turn taking, sharing with others, asking for or 
offering to help, giving an appropriate greeting, 
and giving/accepting compliments . 
 Behavior Management Skills . The ability to be 
integrated into the community is often directly 
dependent on the absence of maladaptive behav-
ior. Individuals exhibiting problem behavior often 
have signifi cant limitations in their ability to par-
ticipate in functional activities. Effective, func-
tion-based behavioral intervention is imperative 
for improving outcomes in individuals with intel-
lectual and developmental disabilities. Behavioral 
intervention should involve a systematic plan that 
includes antecedent strategies to prevent the 
occurrence of problem behavior, the reinforce-
 Table 9.1 Types of functional skills 
 Functional skill type Examples 
 Self-care skills Self-bathing/showering oneself 
 Teeth brushing 
 Hair brushing 
 Wash/dry hands 
 Self-toileting 
 Dressing independently 
 Self-feeding 
 Domestic skills Using a microwave 
 Cutting fruits/vegetables 
 Washing, drying, folding, and 
sorting clothing 
 Vacuuming 
 Sweeping 
 Doing dishes 
 Making the bed 
 Community skills Street crossing 
 Store recognition 
 Using public transit 
 Making purchases 
 Counting money/change 
 Pre-vocational skills Sorting 
 Alphabetizing 
 Reading 
 Simple assembly (components 
of a larger task) 
 Vocational skills Product assembly 
 Filing 
 Mail delivery 
 Cleaning (e.g., mopping, 
washing windows) 
 Recreational skills Exercise 
 Bowling 
 Playing video games 
 Reading a book 
 Social skills Respecting personal space 
 Perspective-taking 
 Conversation skills 
 Turn taking 
 Sharing 
 Asking for or offering to help 
 Greeting others 
 Giving/accepting compliments 
 Behavior 
management skills 
 Choice making 
 Communicating preferences 
 Functional communication 
 Self-management 
9 Functional Skills
232
ment of appropriate alternative behavior, and 
strategies for responding to problem behavior 
(e.g., extinction). In terms of functional behavior 
management skills, individuals should be taught 
to make choices and state their preferences, func-
tional communication skills (e.g., appropriate 
ways to ask for a break, attention, preferred items 
and activities), in addition to various strategies for 
managing their own behavior (i.e., self-manage-
ment techniques). 
 It is important to note that the list of functional 
skills provided in this chapter is not all encom-
passing (see Table 9.1 ). In fact, functional skills 
span a wide variety of domains, are specifi c to an 
individual’s natural environment, and are more 
than just what an individual needs to survive. 
These skills are essential to achieving indepen-
dence and can signifi cantly affect quality of life 
for both an individual and their caregivers. More 
specifi cally, if an individual is unable to perform 
these skills on their own, they will require more 
restrictive environments with fewer opportunities 
for choice and produce greater strain for 
caregivers.
 Functional Skills Across 
the Life Span 
 Many practitioners make the mistake of a ssuming 
that functional skills only become a priority 
immediately prior to aging out of educational 
programs. Instruction designed to encourage the 
development of functional skills for young chil-
dren with intellectual and developmental disabil-
ities often involves a primary focus on language 
skills and social behavior with little time spent 
targeting other functional life skills. In many 
cases, school curriculum requirements result in 
teachers focusing on academic tasks that have 
little functional value (e.g., learning the life cycle 
of insects). In fact, in some cases, practitioners 
maintain this focus at the exclusion of other 
important functional tasks. This can result in ado-
lescents who make limited gains in some non-
functional domains but lack the ability to 
adequately care for themselves (e.g., the individ-
ual can discriminate colors in a discrete trial for-
mat but is unable to tie their shoes or make a 
sandwich). 
 While there is no universally correct stance as 
to when it is most appropriate to shift curricular 
focus for students with disabilities to the acquisi-
tion of functional skills, the severity of an indi-
vidual’s intellectual disability may require that 
educators target these skills early in the educa-
tional process. Brown et al. ( 1979 ) argue that a 
decision to focus on the development of func-
tional skills should be guided by an examination 
of the settings, which encompass a learner’s “nat-
ural environments.” In this approach, the focus on 
functional skills as a primary objective is not 
linked to chronological or mental age, but to the 
degree to which a particular objective is meaning-
ful within the least restrictive environments that a 
learner is likely to inhabit. That is, caregivers and 
educators should work toward building functional 
skills as they are needed in their daily environ-
ment, rather than arbitrarily based on their age. 
 When children are young, focus is usually 
placed on language acquisition as well as con-
ceptual learning tasks, such as sorting, sequenc-
ing, or grouping items. As children grow older, 
targeted functional skills should change to adapt 
to the living circumstances of the individual with 
a focus on those skills that will make them more 
independent. As a general rule, it may be helpful 
to shift from conceptual learning or from teach-
ing a developmental language sequence to more 
practical skills that are immediately useful and 
can assist the individual to become less depen-
dent on others as the individual ages. Functional 
skills should be taught as early as possible, start-
ing with simple skills. For example, children can 
be taught to pick up toys, wash their hands, and 
put dirty clothes in a hamper. As they grow older, 
they may be taught to fold and put away clothes, 
bathe themselves, or assist with housekeeping. 
The teaching of functional skills is a process that 
should continue throughout the life span, and will 
allow the individual increased independence as 
well as the opportunity to play a more active role 
in the home and community. 
 Unfortunately, many of the barriers encoun-
tered by students are those imposed by parents 
and caregivers. In the interest of saving time or 
R.H. LaRue et al.
233
protecting them from failure, parents and teachers 
often neglect to create opportunities for students 
to do things independently. While these may 
seem like logical options in the short term, they 
can have signifi cant side effects. Slow progress 
and the increased likelihood of prompt depen-
dence (relying on prompts from others to com-
plete tasks) are consequences of not providing 
opportunities to complete tasks independently. 
 Functional skills training is best approached 
as a lifelong process. The development of func-
tional skills is important forindividuals of all 
ages. There will always be skills that can lead to 
increased independence, better social skills, and 
less dependence on others. The selection of 
appropriate functional skills to be targeted for 
instruction is a complex process which should be 
determined by considering an individual’s cogni-
tive ability, environment, and lifestyle rather than 
his/her chronological age. These factors high-
light the importance of systematic assessment to 
select appropriate functional goals . 
 Functional Skills Assessments 
 In order to evaluate an individual’s current level 
of functioning and identify skills to target for 
intervention, it is important for practitioners/
caregivers to conduct assessments of an indi-
vidual’s capacity to perform various functional 
skills. Specifi cally, functional skill assessments 
may be valuable in the identifi cation of meaning-
ful instructional targets, in determining the level 
and type of support that an individual may need 
in a residential setting, or in the identifi cation of 
appropriate vocational placements. These evalu-
ations are typically conducted via indirect 
assessment involving the completion of an inter-
view or survey by the individuals themselves or 
their primary caregivers. Alternatively, func-
tional skills assessments can be conducted via 
direct methods involving planned observation of 
an individual’s behavior in a natural setting or 
via the completion of a performance-based eval-
uation involving the exposure of the individual 
to a battery of contrived tasks related to general 
functional ability. 
 While there are numerous assessments of 
functional skills for individuals across various 
populations in existence (for a thorough review 
see Moore, Palmer, Patterson, & Jeste, 2007 ), 
there are only a handful of assessments that are 
recognized as being appropriate for use specifi -
cally with individuals that have intellectual and 
developmental disabilities. The assessments that 
are most widely used for evaluating the existence 
of functional skills among individuals from this 
population are the Vineland Adaptive Behavior 
Scales II (Sparrow, Cicchetti, & Balla, 2008 ) and 
the Scales of Independent Behavior-Revised 
(Bruininks, Woodcock, Weatherman, & Hill, 
 1996 ). In addition to these more established eval-
uations, the Assessment of Functional Living 
Skills (Partington & Mueller, 2012 ) is a recent 
addition to existing assessments designed for the 
evaluation of functional skills among individuals 
with autism and developmental disabilities. 
 While observational methods of assessment 
are regarded as the most accurate means of deter-
mining an individual’s true ability with regard to 
functional skill, these methods are also the most 
time consuming. Consequently, when conducting 
assessments related to functional ability, caregiv-
ers and professionals often attempt to strike a bal-
ance between acquiring an accurate representation 
of a learner’s abilities and completing an assess-
ment in the most effi cient way possible via the 
use of indirect methods of assessment such as 
surveys or interviews. The aforementioned com-
mercially available assessments of functional 
ability are similar in that they provide an exten-
sive list of functional skills in order to provide the 
caregiver with the ability to either approximate 
the learner’s ability based on their previous 
observations or by staff accounts of the learner’s 
ability, or conduct some form of direct assess-
ment to determine the current level of function-
ing. However, there are distinctive characteristics 
of each assessment that may make them more or 
less appropriate for use with a particular learner. 
 The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales 
( ABS ), which was fi rst published in 1984 
(Sparrow, Balla, & Cicchetti, 1984 ), and the 
revised edition of the assessment the Vineland 
Adaptive Behavior Scales II (Vineland II) which 
9 Functional Skills
234
was released in 2005 and expanded in 2008 
(Sparrow, Cicchetti, & Balla, 2005 /2008), are 
regarded as the most widely used adaptive behav-
ior tests in the world. There have been thousands 
of research studies involving all forms of intel-
lectual disability conducted using the ABS and 
the Vineland II since its initial publication in 
1984 (Sparrow, 2011 ). The Vineland II has four 
forms, two of which (Survey and Expanded 
report forms) are completed via structured inter-
views with parents or caregivers and two that 
involve the completion of a rating form by a 
teacher or parent/caregiver (Parent/caregiver and 
Teacher report forms). The Survey, Parent/care-
giver, and Expanded report forms of the Vineland 
II are deemed appropriate for learners from birth 
through 90 years of age and beyond, while the 
Teacher report form of the Vineland II is appro-
priate for learners from 3 to 21 years of age. 
 The Vineland II assesses performance across 
four domains of adaptive behavior including 
communication, daily living skills, socialization, 
and motor skills. In addition, the Vineland II 
includes an optional Maladaptive Behavior Index 
to assess the degree to which problem behavior is 
likely to interfere with adaptive functioning. 
Each of the four primary domains of adaptive 
behavior are further categorized by multiple sub-
domains. For example, the communication 
domain is broken down into the subdomains: 
receptive, expressive, and written forms of com-
munication. The daily living skills domain is 
separated into the subdomains personal, domes-
tic, and community skills. The socialization 
domain is organized by the subdomains interper-
sonal, play and leisure time, and coping skills. 
The motor domain is separated into tasks that 
either require gross motor or fi ne motor perfor-
mance. Lastly, the subdomains of the optional 
primary domain for maladaptive behavior is 
organized by behavior that is described as inter-
nalizing, externalizing, or other. 
 The Assessment of Functional Living Skills 
(AFLS) was developed as an extension of the 
widely used Assessment of Basic Language and 
Learning Skills (ABLLS-R) as a means of 
 focusing primarily on the evaluation of learners’ 
abilities within the realm of functional perfor-
mance (Partington & Mueller, 2012 ). The AFLS 
is a tool for caregivers that meets the needs of 
learners from 2 years of age and extending 
throughout the life span for which a guiding 
assessment, tracking grid, and curriculum is 
needed. The creators of the AFLS defi ne the term 
“caregiver” as an individual who knows, cares 
for, supports, and works with a learner. Caregivers 
include parents, teachers, paraprofessionals, 
behavior analysts, group home staff, community 
or government-agency personnel, and a variety of 
other professionals. The AFLS consists of six 
assessment modules designed to evaluate an indi-
vidual’s performance of functional skills across 
the domains of Basic Living Skills, Home Skills, 
Community Participation Skills, School Skills, 
Vocational Skills, and Independent Living Skills . 
 Specifi cally, the skills that are targeted in the 
 Basic Living Skills module of the AFLS include 
those skills related to self-management, basic 
communication, dressing, toileting, grooming, 
bathing, health, safety and fi rst aid, and nighttime 
routines. The Home Skills module targets skills 
related to living at home with a caregiver includ-
ing the consumption of meals, doing dishes, 
laundry, chores and general housekeeping, 
household mechanics, kitchen-related tasks, 
cooking, and leisure activities. The Community 
Skills module targets an individual’s ability 
across the categories of basic mobility, commu-
nity knowledge, shopping, eating in public, 
money, using a phone, telling time, and social 
awareness and manners. The School Skills mod-
ule targets those skills related to academics, 
school routines, navigating the school environ-
ment, and social skills. The VocationalSkills 
module includes job seeking skills, compliance, 
rule following, vocational interests, confl ict reso-
lution, job readiness skills, working with others, 
hygiene, transportation, job training skills, social 
skills, clerical skills, attendance, punctuality, 
organization, and fi nancial issues. The 
 Independent Living Skills module targets 
 household organization, household maintenance, 
household cleaning, community travel, 
 transportation, advanced kitchen skills, meal 
R.H. LaRue et al.
235
planning, cooking, advanced self-care, advanced 
health, social awareness, social skills, social 
interactions, relationships, sexuality, fi nancial 
planning, banking, self-management, emotional 
regulation, and living with others. 
 The information to complete the AFLS is 
typically obtained from three sources, including 
caregiver report, direct observation of the 
learner in a natural setting, and through con-
trived performance- based measures. To com-
plete the AFLS via indirect assessment, 
information is gathered from individuals who 
are well- acquainted with the individual’s skill 
level. The AFLS assessment guide specifi cally 
notes the importance of using reporters who 
know the learner’s true skill level rather than 
those who may guess about skill levels. This is 
critically important as the utility of the assess-
ment results is largely dependent upon the accu-
racy of the person reporting on skill levels in the 
different content areas. If the learner’s true skill 
level is not known, it should be obtained via 
observation of the completion of tasks in a natu-
ral setting or through the formal presentation of 
the tasks . 
 The Scales of Independent Behavior (SIB-R) 
is described as a comprehensive measure of func-
tional independence and adaptive functioning in 
school, home, employment, and community set-
tings for use with individuals from infancy to age 
80 years and older (Bruininks et al., 1996 ). The 
information to complete the SIB-R is obtained 
either via a structured interview with a family 
member or other caregiver that is well acquainted 
with an individual’s ability related to the perfor-
mance of functional skills or alternatively the 
family member or caregiver can complete a series 
of checklists directly in the SIB-R response 
booklet. The administration of the SIB-R can be 
customized to meet the needs of the practitioner 
giving the assessment or the individual being 
assessed in that there are four separate forms that 
can be given independent of one another or com-
bined in various confi gurations. The SIB-R forms 
include the Full Scale, the Short Form, the Early 
Development Form, and the Problem Behavior 
Scale . 
 The SIB-R Full Scale is designed to be a broad 
measure of adaptive ability across four categories 
of functioning including motor function, social 
interaction and communication, personal living, 
and community living. Each of the four catego-
ries is further divided into 2–5 subscales with 
each subscale comprised of approximately 20 
specifi c skills/tasks to be assessed for a total of 
259 assessable items. The SIB-R Full Scale is 
designed to be administered in less than an hour. 
The SIB-R Short Form is designed to be a brief 
overall screening tool containing a total of 40 
assessable items from across all 14 of the sub-
scales of the SIB-R Full Scale that can be com-
pleted in 15–20 min. The SIB-R Early 
Development Form is designed to focus on the 
functional skills that are relevant to the develop-
ment of learners from infancy to 6 years of age. 
The Early Development Form consists of 40 
assessable items from the developmental areas of 
the SIB-R Full Scale that are suitable for the 
assessment of preschool aged children or older 
learners with severe developmental delays. 
 The Problem Behavior Scale is designed to be 
used alone or in conjunction with any of the other 
three forms of the SIB-R. The Problem Behavior 
Scale is designed to assess the severity of mal-
adaptive behavior across eight categories includ-
ing behavior that is hurtful to self, unusual or 
repetitive, involving withdrawal or inattention, 
socially offensive, uncooperative, hurtful to oth-
ers, destructive to property, or disruptive to oth-
ers. One aspect of the SIB-R that many 
practitioners fi nd useful is the ability to devise a 
“Support Score” which combines an individual’s 
score from The Problem Behavior Scale and their 
raw score from the other SIB-R scales to deter-
mine the level of caregiver support that an indi-
vidual is likely to need. 
 Another distinctive feature of the SIB-R is that 
it has a direct relationship to the Woodcock- 
Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery (WJ-R) in 
that scores from the SIB-R can be used in combi-
nation with those from the WJ-R to devise a 
 comprehensive assessment of an individual’s 
ability across the dimensions of adaptive behav-
ior, problem behavior, cognitive ability, language 
9 Functional Skills
236
profi ciency, and achievement. Additionally, each 
of the forms of the SIB-R provides a procedure 
for comparing an individual’s current level of 
functioning with respect to their adaptive behav-
ior to his or her cognitive ability as measured by 
the WJ-R. This aspect of the SIB-R makes it a 
useful tool for diagnostic purposes with individu-
als with intellectual disability . 
 Summary. The ABS/Vineland II, AFLS, and 
SIB-R are all valuable instruments for the identi-
fi cation of strengths and weaknesses related to 
functional skills (see Table 9.2 ). They can be a 
useful guide for parents and practitioners when 
selecting curricular targets. These measures pro-
vide an objective way to guide programming and 
can be used to determine socially signifi cant 
short and long-term goals
 Although a wealth of knowledge can be gath-
ered through indirect means, it is also important 
to include direct measures of performance in the 
assessment process as indirect assessments may 
not always yield results that are indicative of a 
learner’s true ability. Direct measures may 
include presenting tasks (or components of 
tasks) to the individual in natural context or in a 
more contrived setting and evaluating his/her 
 performance (i.e., how independent they are). 
For example, during the assessment process, a 
reporter might state that the individual being 
evaluated is capable of brushing their teeth inde-
pendently. The evaluator may then observe the 
individual completing the skill directly and doc-
ument which steps they are capable of complet-
ing independently (e.g., Are they brushing all 
surfaces? Are they brushing long enough?). 
Another scenario could be a practitioner seeking 
possible job placements for a student. While 
assessments may suggest some of the job skills 
the individual possesses (e.g., they are capable 
or sorting), they may not provide a reliable mea-
sure of their preference for jobs or if they have 
the skill to perform a skill fl uently enough to 
meet the needs of an employer. Direct measures, 
such as job sampling, could allow practitioners 
to determine job preference and job aptitude 
under controlled conditions. While using direct 
measures can be more labor-intensive and time-
consuming, they can help to confi rm or deny the 
fi ndings from assessments conducted in an inter-
view format and can lead to a more precise mea-
sure of functioning. Direct measurement can 
strengthen the assessment results and help par-
ents and practitioners to prioritize skill defi cits in 
need of intervention. 
 Table 9.2 Primary features of assessment instruments 
 Instrument Age range Assessment method Duration Domains 
 ABS II Parent = birth and up Rating scalesVocational 
 Independent living 
 SIB-R Infant and up Rating scalesdeter-
mine the current level of support needed, and 
provide feedback on the individual’s progress 
during the training process. 
 Functional programming leads to a number of 
tangible benefi ts including increased indepen-
dence, more opportunities for community inte-
gration, the broadening of interests and leisure 
activities, more opportunities to establish mean-
ingful social relationships, and the opportunity to 
make choices for oneself. 
 The importance of appropriate goal selection 
for individuals with intellectual and developmen-
tal disabilities cannot be underestimated. 
Functional skills assessments allow us to select 
these goals appropriately. We should always be 
focused on the acquisition of skills that are imme-
diately useful, practical, helpful, and benefi cial. 
As parents and practitioners, we should question 
the need for each goal being addressed. Is this 
skill important? Is this skill a component of a 
larger, important skill? Is this goal going to make 
a meaningful difference in 10 years? Will this 
skill make the individual more independent at 
some point in the future? If the answer to any of 
these questions is “no,” then we need to seriously 
consider why the goals are being targeted. All too 
often, goals are selected for the wrong reasons 
R.H. LaRue et al.
239
(e.g., because other students in a classroom are 
working on similar goals), which can lead to 
wasted time and frustration on the part of the 
individual. As a general rule, if a program is not 
promoting independence, parents and practitio-
ners should be doing something else. Everything 
that we target as educators should prepare indi-
viduals with intellectual and developmental dis-
abilities for the post-school environment that they 
will be living in. 
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9 Functional Skills
	9: Functional Skills
	 Introduction
	 What Are Functional Skills?
	 Types of Functional Skills
	 Functional Skills Across the Life Span
	 Functional Skills Assessments
	 Benefits of Functional Skill Development
	 Conclusion
	References