LIFE SKILLS

Life skills tie together all elements of the Coryell curriculum and prepare our students to transition to meaningful, productive and independent adult lives.  By integrating community, domestic, functional academic, recreation & leisure and vocational skills, we equip our students to handle the real activities of daily living.  Life skills require students to apply their knowledge and experience across a variety of situations and environments, and to begin to use critical thinking and reasoning to extend their skills across longer spans of time. For young adults with autism, this may mean learning new skills or honing previously-acquired skills until they are applied fluently and consistently whenever necessary.  It also means learning to recruit the necessary supports, whether through social interaction or by making use of available resources.  As skill repertoires are strengthened and social/emotional maturity develops, learning becomes a lifelong process of useful and successful engagement with the world.

Life skills our students are learning include:

• Short-term and long-term planning
• Clear communication across people & places
• Self-advocacy & acceptance of or personal differences
• Health & safety at home, at work and in the community
• Self-regulation at all times; awareness of public expectations
• Accurate sense of right & wrong, as well as legal & illegal
• Coping, especially  tolerance of disappointment, delay & denied access
• Pride in personal achievement and the achievements of others
• Social skills across people & places, especially personal space, respect & reciprocity
• Problem-solving, Information-seeking & asking for help
• Owning and using modern technologies
• Understanding and responding to natural causes and contingencies