What is a functional task box?
A functional task box is a simple but powerful tool that can transform the way we work with special education students. It supports them as they build vocational skills and develop independence.
Each task box has tasks and activities that are carefully and intentionally selected to be appropriate to the specific needs and abilities of your students.
These boxes are a gateway to a world of independence, skill development, and growth.
Whether you are using them in a classroom, home, or therapy setting, functional task boxes are a crucial element to any functional skills program.
But First…
In this article, we will look at five benefits of using functional task boxes with your exceptional learners.
Before we dive into the five ways that your learners can benefit from functional task boxes, let’s talk a bit about the what.
A functional task box is a teaching tool used in special education classrooms and/or home settings. They are frequently part of an ABA program as well.
Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is a type of therapy often used for individuals with Autism and other Developmental Disorders. One of the main goals of an ABA program is to promote and develop independence. This is why functional task boxes can be such a valuable resource.
A functional task box is, for all intents and purposes, a container filled with specific tasks. These tasks are designed to teach a specific functional skill to the learner in an engaging and meaningful way.
The tasks mimic real-life functional tasks with practical skills that students work on. The intention is to generalize the life skill in a work or home setting.
In short, this means that students learn basic life skills through the activities in the box. These are then applied to their daily lives in the home or in a work setting.
What activities do I put in a functional task box?
There are so many different activities that you can include in a functional task box. The key here is to find and implement tasks that are specific to the goals, level, and needs of each individual student.
As and example we can look at a student who is about to graduate from a secondary school program. This student will be going to work as their post secondary goal. For this student, you would consider what place of employment they are likely to be in, and structure the tasks to that specific job.
I have had a student who has gone to work at a grocery store after they graduated. Their task box activities centred around things like stocking shelves, reading labels, understanding the different aisles and layout of the grocery store, and sorting foods into categories based on the aisles in the grocery store.
This is just one small area that we focused on using task boxes. Each of these skills, however, were directly relevant to the student and their specific situation.
Other examples of task box activities might be sorting objects by colour, size, or shape, assembling items, or matching pairs. By working through these tasks students can learn valuable skills. They learn to focus, follow instructions, and complete tasks independently, all of which are essential life skills.
One benefit of seeing how students progress through the task box activities is long term planning. In terms of developing strengths and demonstrating challenges, seeing how students progress gives us valuable information. It can allow a parent or educator to plan a specific program around the very specific needs of each student.
5 benefits of using functional task boxes.
Now that you have some basics about functional task boxes, let’s talk about five benefits to using them with your exceptional learner.
1. Skill Development
In addition to developing workplace vocational skills, functional task boxes help learners develop a variety of other skills. Students can work on fine motor skills as they use tools within the box to perform various tasks.
Boxes can also centre around functional literacy and numeracy tasks. This can allow students to develop and practice skills using various sorting, matching, and sequencing activities.
Tasks should be designed in such a way that they are engaging, interactive, multi-sensory, and promote active learning.
There really is no limit to which skills you can focus on through functional task boxes. In my experience, it is more challenging to narrow down which ones you want to use!
2. Promote Independence
One of the main goals I have for my students is to promote independence in as many areas as possible. This can include independence with daily routines, employment skills, household chores, and navigating the community.
The key is to determine an appropriate goal based on a student’s specific profile. Select tasks that can then allow them to develop and generalize these skills as they work toward independence.
Using functional task boxes can help achieve a specific goal. It helps learners to complete tasks on their own, which fosters self-reliance, independence, and confidence.
3. Behaviour Management
Students with exceptionalities often benefit from predictable and familiar tasks. This can help to reduce anxiety and behaviour that is triggered by anxiety.
When you provide tasks that are structured and predictable, we can help to reduce anxiety and improve focus. When we are introducing a new task, it is important to structure the task using a familiar sequence and set up. This helps students to know what to expect from the activity, which can lead to improved behaviour and reduced triggers.
While this is not the only way that we can manage behaviour, creating a predictable and familiar daily routine is one way that can lead to an improvement in behaviour and a reduction in anxiety.
4. Data Collection
One of the keys to any functional program is to tailor it specifically to the strengths and challenges of each individual student. The challenge in this sometimes becomes how to determine exactly what a student needs.
Data collection is crucial to developing an individualized program for exceptional learners. Using functional task boxes can provide a tangible way to measure each learner’s skill development and progress over time.
In much the same way that we track behaviour data using an ABC chart, we can track each learner’s progress with specific functional task box activities. This allows us to determine where students need more instruction. Additionally, we can see where they need more of a challenge if they progress quickly with a specific skill.
Using task boxes, the goal is to collect and analyze task box data over time. This allows the parent or educator to adjust each learner’s individual plan as they progress toward their goals.
5. Generalization of Skills
One of the main goals of any program for exceptional learners is to achieve generalization of skills. This essentially means that students are able to take what they have learned in a very controlled and specific task and be able to use that skill in a variety of situations.
For example, let’s say you are using a functional task box to teach a learner to recognize and sort colours. Your task is to have them sort different coloured objects into corresponding coloured baskets.
If we were to consider this skill in a real life scenario, we could ask the learner to help sort laundry by colour at home. When they are able to do this, we can say that they are generalizing their ability to recognize and sort colours.
In a nutshell, generalization of skills is when you take a skill that you have taught in a very structured and specific environment (the colour sorting functional task box) then transfer and apply it in a different, real life context (sorting laundry by colour).
Now What?
Now that you have five ways that functional task boxes can benefit your exceptional learner, let’s look at an example of how we can put it into practice.
Let’s say we have a 21 year old student diagnosed with autism who is about to graduate from secondary school. This student’s goal after graduation is to work in a local community library. Part of their job will be to shelve books alphabetically by author’s last name.
When I am first planning for a new goal, I start with the end goal and work my way backward. I do this in steps that I know the student needs to master in order to get to that goal. In this case, a student needs to be able to sort last names alphabetically. This will require them to be able to complete several steps. They should recognize where the last name is, find the first letter of the last name, know how to use that letter to correspond to a shelf containing the letter of that last name.
While there are other skills involved, such as finding the genre of the book, etc., let’s start with just the last name and alphabetizing aspect of this skill. If we go back one more step, students must be able to recognize and match letters.
One step further back from here is for the student to match upper case to lower case letters. This should include letters that are written in different fonts and sizes. Here you will notice the different skills involved in this one particular work task skill.
So what should you do?
To begin to address this skill, I would use a functional task box to scaffold learning of this skill. I would begin with matching letter to letter, as well as different fonts to allow for generalization of skills. Matching letter to letter should be broken down with upper case, lower case, and mixed.
This could look like having various cards with letters on them. Students would then match them, starting with just a few letters and moving up to the whole alphabet. Here is an example of a task box activity that works on this skill:
Work on generalization…
The next step would be to have students alphabetize cards using one name only. This functional task box example scaffolds this process by starting with the first letter highlighted as a prompt for students to know which letter to use, and then working toward a set of cards that does not have a highlight.
Here is an example of this skill:
The last step would be to have students alphabetize cards using a first and last name. You will notice two scaffolded steps as seen here:
The highlighted step allows for visual prompting of students instead of relying on verbal prompts, and the last step is a non-highlighted first and last name allowing students to practice locating the first letter of the last name and filing the card accordingly.
Functional task boxes often have prompt cards that teachers use to support students as they gain independence from their educators by using visual prompts only instead of verbal prompts.
These cards show the sequence of steps that students need to complete as they work through the functional task in the box.
An example of prompt cards for the filing functional task box could look like:
If you are interested in this specific functional task box activity for filing, check it out in my teachers pay teachers store!
If you would like more information and/or ideas for functional task boxes and how to use them with your learner, stay tuned to my blog as I will be continuing to post more strategies, tips, and ideas.
You can also sign up for my emails here, you will get a free colour match task box set sent right to your inbox when you do!
Putting it all together.
Functional task boxes are a game-changer in the realm of special education as students are learning the skills needed to complete work and home tasks independently. They lead a learner toward generalization of skills, learning of specific tasks, and fostering a sense of accomplishment and self confidence.
Whether you’re a teacher designing activities for students or a parent managing household chores and job skills for your child, these boxes can be your ally.
Remember, the key is to customize them to your learner’s needs and update them as those needs evolve. So, embrace the functional task box strategy today and experience the difference it can make in the daily life of your learners.
I would love to hear from you with questions, suggestions for future topics, or just to tell me how you are using functional task boxes!