Some of you may know that a member of our team (and my big sister) has Down syndrome and while she has higher functioning Down syndrome there still are things that she may struggle with on an everyday basis compared to others. I work with Murry to help her learn how to do the simpler things that a “typical” 30 year old woman does.
One of the topics we have been focusing on recently is chores around the house. I have discovered that like many other people with developmental disabilities it is hard for Murry to recall how to do a task if there’s been a significant amount of time since she last did the task. One of the areas where we particularly have struggled with this has been doing laundry; she usually does her laundry one day a week and by the next week would have to be retaught portions of the task because she’d forget.
Because I know this is something that affects many people who have developmental disabilities or delays and because I believe that everyone deserves to feel as normal as they possibly can, I have been coming up with some guides to help Murry and people like her tackle everyday tasks a little easier.
So now it’s time to introduce my very first guide!
I firstly want to explain the guide. As I said above I initially made this as a helping hand for my sister so that she can do her laundry on her own without her having to ask for help each time or needing reminders. But I have also discovered that parents who are teaching their young children how to do chores and do laundry have found this guide equally beneficial.
The majority of people find it easier to learn, relate things, and understand when different colors and fonts are involved so I have organized the guide by varying fonts and colors. So as you can see from the photos that the word whites is written in a white font, colors in multi-color font, and so forth. The last page of the guide includes a few stickers/labels that can be used to identify what goes where. So we have a label for soap, softener, dryer sheets, and smaller color-coded labels that reflect the water temperature settings.
Murry has gotten great use out of this guide and I hope that you do too. If you would like use to use different colors or to put someone’s name on it (Murry’s Laundry Chart for example) I would be more than happy to do so and without any extra cost. To purchase the guide and to look at it a little more closely follow this link.
This is a downloadable PDF file so when you purchase and download it you won’t necessarily have stickers but if you go to any local dollar store or convenient store you can by a small pack of printable labels that should easily do the trick when you print them. You can also simply tape the labels onto their respective items.
Let us know what you think of the guide in the comments below and if you have any questions about it feel free to leave it in the comments or to contact us on Etsy!
Cherished Cottage 