What Are the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL)?

Activities of daily living are oriented toward taking care of one’s own body and Instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) require more complex interactions with one’s environment.  

Examples of ADLs include: personal hygiene, meal preparation

• maintaining proper personal hygiene:
  • bathing/showering
  • deodorant
  • brushing hair
  • brushing teeth
  • washing face
  • shaving
  • wash hands/Nail care
  • dressing (picking out clothes that are seasonally accurate, putting them on independently)
• meal preparation
  • kitchen safety
  • follow a recipe
  • measure
  • use a stove
  • use a microwave
  • bake
  • boil
  • cut
  • flip
  • peel
  • stir
  • wash/dry dishes

Examples of IADLs include: household management, leisure skills

• Cleaning/Chores:
  • tidying up
  • removing trash/recycling
  • load/unload dishwasher
  • vacuum
  • sweep
  • sorting laundry
  • doing laundry
  • folding clothes
  • put clothes away
• *Leisure Activities
  • video games
  • TV
  • listen to music
  • dance
  • draw/color/paint
  • arts & crafts
  • card games
  • board games
  • legos
  • puzzles
  • ride bikes
  • swim
  • walk

* Everyone has different interests, abilities to work through in establishing leisure skills, which means there is no one-size-fits-all answer for how to build a meaningful list of leisure activities. However, building on and expanding from high preference, high availability activities and teaching strategies to establish independence in leisure activities provides a strong foundation from which to start.