The Essential Eight Skills [and the Necessary Nine)
Many children and adults with moderate-to-severe disabilities and limited skill repertoires experience deficits in the Essential Eight Skills:
Making Requests [mands]
Waiting after making requests
Accepting Removals — Transitions, Sharing, and Taking Turns
Completing Required Tasks — Completing Previous Acquired Tasks when asked to do so
Accepting “No”
Following Directions related to Health and Safety
Completing Daily Living Skills related to Health and Safety
Tolerating Skills related to Health and Safety
These skills are also known as ‘the must-have skills’ and are some of the first skills addressed in Essential for Living.
Recently, in our Teaching Manual http://essentialforliving.com/product/efl-teaching-manual, we acknowledged that leisure skills should have been considered ‘must-have skills’ and added to the ‘Essential Eight’, making this group of skills the ‘Necessary Nine‘.