Daily living skills in children with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability: A comparative study from Turkey.
Autism itself, not just low IQ, depresses daily living skills, so you must teach DLS directly and early.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kilincaslan et al. (2019) compared daily living skills in Turkish children with autism plus intellectual disability (ASD+ID) and children with ID only. All kids had the same IQ range, so the groups started even on cognitive scores.
Parents filled out the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. The team also looked at age, speech level, family income, and autism severity to see what predicted daily living skills.
What they found
Children with ASD+ID scored much lower on daily living skills than IQ-matched peers with ID alone. Even when IQ was held constant, autism symptoms, less speech, younger age, and lower income all predicted weaker DLS scores.
In short, autism itself drags down everyday self-care beyond what low IQ explains.
How this fits with other research
Richman et al. (2001) and Hogg et al. (1995) saw the same IQ-adaptive gap in U.S. samples, so the Turkish data replicate a long-standing pattern across cultures.
Clarke et al. (2025) extend the story into adulthood. They show that personal DLS mastered in childhood predict adult success mainly for autistic individuals with IQ<70, matching Ayse’s finding that these skills are uniquely at risk in ASD+ID.
Tillmann et al. (2019) add that social-communication symptoms, not sensory or repetitive behaviors, drive the adaptive shortfall. This supports Ayse’s conclusion that core autism traits, not just low IQ, depress daily living skills.
Why it matters
If you write intervention plans for autistic clients who also have ID, treat daily living skills as a stand-alone goal, not a side effect of cognitive or language gains. Embed step-by-step DLS targets—dressing, tooth-brushing, simple meal prep—into every program, regardless of IQ level, and track them as closely as you track manding or reduction of problem behavior.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Better daily living skills (DLS) are associated with increased independence and positive functional outcomes in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). METHOD: The present study aimed to investigate daily living skills (DLS) and the associated factors in 51 children with ASD and intellectual disability (ASD group) and 51 age- and gender-matched controls with intellectual disability (ID group). The severity of the autistic symptoms was measured with the clinician-rated Childhood Autism Rating Scale and the parent-reported Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) in all children. The mothers also completed the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory and the Basic DLS Questionnaire. RESULTS: The ASD group scored lower than the comparison group in the total DLS score, personal hygiene, dressing, safety and interpersonal skills, despite being comparable in the parent-reported quality of life. Regression analysis of the whole sample demonstrated that the child's age, intellectual level, speech level, autism symptom severity and the monthly household income were independent correlates of the total DLS. Exploratory analyses for each group revealed differential effects of these variables: in the ASD group; a higher speech level and monthly income, while in the ID group; an older age, a higher intellectual level and monthly income and a lower ABC score emerged as significant predictors of higher DLS. CONCLUSIONS: Deficient DLS in Turkish children with ASD, given their IQ, suggest that lower level of adaptive skills is inherent in ASD, rather than culture-specific to US and Western Europe.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2019 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2018.12.005