4 Resources to Work on Hygiene Vocabulary with Adolescents and Young Adults

Helping teach students and clients how to properly take care of their body is one of the most important life skills we can help them learn. Teaching how to practice good personal hygiene helps lay a solid foundation for our students and clients to keep their bodies healthy and clean, as well as prevent the spread of germs to others. As a parent, I can understand the need to teach good hygiene habits early, in order to set children up for success so they can eventually lead self-directed, healthy, and meaningful lives. 

Discussing ways to practice good hygiene habits is within our scope of practice in order to help the students and clients we serve best meet the communication demands related to following a good hygiene routine. From verbalizing the sequence of events related to a specific hygiene task, to identifying which hygiene items are needed within specific tasks, we can help these adolescent and young adult students and clients work towards increased independence to learn the essential skill of taking care of their bodies. Here are my top 4 resources I use in my therapy sessions to work on increasing independence with personal hygiene: 

1.  Life Skills Personal Hygiene Activities Boom Cards™

You all know my love for Boom Cards™ because these activities are interactive and can be used on iPads, phones, tablets, and displayed over Smart Boards, or they can be printed out for those that want printable task cards. My Life Skills Personal Hygiene Activities Boom Cards™ is one of my favorite ways to work on personal hygiene through 3 different activities, including identifying which hygiene item is used for named tasks, answering yes/no questions related to personal hygiene, and through open ended confrontation naming tasks. For my more advanced students and clients, I use the open-ended response box to have them create logical sentence about each hygiene item to describe, answer questions, identify the function, describe the sequence, and discuss the importance of the hygiene item. You can access that deck by clicking on the image below. 

2. Life Skills Task Cards for Basic Hygiene in Activities of Daily Living

There is something so satisfying about laminated task cards and the feeling of circling the correct answer with dry erase markers. My Life Skills Task Cards for Basic Hygiene in Activities of Daily Living provides adolescents and young adult with a question regarding the use of specific personal hygiene items and students and clients are asked to identify which personal hygiene item would be the most appropriate to use. These task cards are a permanent staple resource in my adolescent and young adult therapy bag, and they are incredibly easy to whip out during therapy sessions, which cuts back on prep time and makes my life a lot easier! There are 32 total cards included, and they come in colored picture, as well as in black and white picture for those of us who want to save money on ink. You can access these task cards by clicking on the image below. 

3. Good Hygiene Adapted Book

Who can’t resist the sensory component of peeling off and sticking on pictures with Velcro backing? One of my favorite ways to work on personal hygiene is with the use of adapted books, where students and clients can work on hygiene vocabulary by matching pictures. This book comes as a part of my Around the Home Vocabulary Adapted Book series, which you can purchase by clicking on the image below. 

You can also download the Using Good Hygiene Adapted Book for FREE in the FREEBIE LIBRARY by signing up for the weekly newsletter by clicking on the image below. 

4. Daily Health and Hygiene Skills Workbook

Workbooks will never go out of style, and for those of us that love these evergreen workbooks that are great for storing in our therapy cabinets, and can easily be printed out and handed out to teachers to promote carryover, left with clients after therapy sessions, or sent home with student as homework assignments, this Daily Health and Hygiene Skills Workbook is the perfect addition to a hygiene curriculum! In it, this workbook discusses daily heath and hygiene skills by lessons on health and nutrition, meal planning, exercise and fitness routines, personal hygiene, grooming, and dental care. The workbook includes reading passages, graphic organizers, and real-world activities, which you all know is absolutely critical with these adolescents and young adults that we serve. You can check it out by clicking on the image below. 

What other resources do you love to address hygiene with adolescent and young adults as they move throughout their daily activities? I would love to hear from you in the comments below. 

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