Daily Living Needs & Assets - A useful beneficial tool from AISee Collaborative

The AISee Daily Living Skills Assessment is a comprehensive tool designed to identify an individual's practical assets and areas of need across more than 50 subcategories. By evaluating core domains, it provides a strengths-based roadmap that empowers neurodivergent people, families, and support staff to achieve informed, better outcomes.

What is the AISee Daily Living Skills Assessment?

The AISee Daily Living Skills Assessment is more than just a checklist; it is a practical framework designed to capture a holistic view of an individual’s functional practical abilities. At its core, the assessment focuses on the intersection of personal capability and environmental demands. Unlike traditional models that often focus solely on deficits, AISee’s approach is rooted in the philosophy of Identifying both the challenges an individual faces and the inherent assets they bring to their daily life.

Originally developed by our directors in 2002, this framework has undergone decades of refinement.  It was born out of a necessity, for both family and professional reasons, to bridge an assessment gap, widely used by in society today. While a diagnosis provides a label or labels, this assessment provides information for supportive practical action. It allows parent-carers, support staff and others to see exactly where a person stands in their journey toward independence. By breaking down complex life tasks into more than 50 distinct subcategories, the assessment removes the guesswork from support planning. It is in the process of being further developed into a functional skills assessment to incorporate a scoring mechanism and a risk factor, with the objective making it fully digitalised.

Through our historic work and our work at AISee Collaborative Limited, we have seen how this structured approach lowers barriers. It facilitates a "meeting of minds" between the neurodivergent individual and those in their support network. When everyone has a clear, shared understanding of the practical requirements for daily life, the path toward Empowering the individual becomes significantly clearer and more achievable.

How do the key categories and subcategories work?

The power of the AISee Daily Living Skills Assessment lies in its granular detail. By dividing daily life into eight primary categories, we ensure that no aspect of human living skills experience is overlooked. These categories are further divided into more than 50 subcategories, allowing for a highly specific analysis of daily living skill sets. This granularity is essential because neurodivergent individuals often have "spiky profiles"—significant strengths in one area alongside unexpected challenges in another.

Contributing to the Domains of Evaluation

1. Personal Care and Hygiene: Covers essential self-care tasks from grooming to managing health needs.
2. Domestic Living Skills: Evaluates the ability to maintain a living environment, including cooking and cleaning.
3. Community Access: Focuses on navigation, transport, and the ability to interact with local services.
4. Social Interaction and Communication: Looks at how an individual processes information and builds relationships.
5. Safety and Risk Management: Assesses the awareness of hazards in both physical and digital spaces.
6. Learning and Vocational Readiness: Identifies the skills needed for moving forward supporting education and future potential.
7. Financial Literacy and Administration: Measures the ability to manage money, understand bills, and handle paperwork.
8. Leisure and Emotional Wellbeing: Recognises the importance of downtime, hobbies, and emotional self-regulation.

By assessing these areas, we can move toward Solutionising the specific roadblocks that prevent a person from thriving. For example, a student might have high academic potential but struggle with the executive function required for 'Community Access' or 'Financial Literacy.' Identifying these discrepancies early allows for targeted intervention that prevents burnout and promotes long-term opportunity.

This framework also serves as a common language for Educating those involved in a person's care. When a Support for Learning Assistant (SLA) or a family member looks at the subcategories, they aren't just seeing a problem; they are seeing a specific skill that can be taught, adapted, or supported through practical adaptive improvements some of which may incorporate for example assistive technology, through, though not limited to the AISee/Abilia Partnership.

Why identifying practical assets matters more than just labels

In the world of neurodiversity, the focus is frequently placed on what a person cannot do. The AISee Daily Living Skills Assessment shifts this paradigm by placing equal weight on identifying practical assets. Assets are the building blocks of independence. They are the existing skills, interests, and cognitive styles that can be leveraged to overcome areas of need.

For many families and parent-carers, the assessment and or diagnostic process can feel like a list of limitations. This one of our assessments, whilst not a diagnosis, changes that narrative, by adding value to an individual's journey, both pre- and post diagnosis.  When we identify that an individual has a high proficiency in digital literacy for example, we can use that asset to solve a challenge in Communication or Financial Literacy. This strengths-based approach is central to the mission of our directors,  Bill Colley and Thom Kirkwood , who have dedicated their careers to better outcomes for the neurodivergent community.

Benefits for Families and Support Staff

• Reduction in Carer Stress: By knowing exactly where support is needed, families can stop trying to cover everything and focus on what matters most.
• Clearer Communication with Professionals: Assessment reports provide objective data that can be shared with schools or social work departments.
• Targeted Funding and Resources: Data-driven assessments make a stronger case for specific support time equipment or other support intervention.
• Empowerment of the Individual: Involving the neurodivergent person in their own assessment fosters self-awareness and self-advocacy.
• Consistency Across Settings: Ensures that home, school, and community support are all aligned toward the same goals.

For support for learning assistants and school staff, this assessment is an invaluable tool for creating individualised plan. It moves towards positive collaborative partnerships, beyond the classroom and looks at how the student functions in the world, ensuring that Collaborating between school and home is based on a shared reality of the student's life skills, supporting consistency shared ownership and home/school approaches, inline with Getting it Right for Every Child.

Strategic benefits of structured neurodiversity support

The AISee framework is rooted in a history of practical application. Since its inception in 2002, the assessment has been used to transform the lives of countless individuals by providing a clear structure to the often-chaotic experience of navigating neurodivergent life. In the modern landscape of 2026, the need for such structured support has only grown as our understanding of neurodiversity evolves, hence the upcoming upgrade.

One of the most significant strategic benefits is the ability to track progress over time. Because the subcategories are so specific, even small gains in independence can be measured and celebrated. This is vital for maintaining morale for both the individual and their support team. It provides a tangible sense of moving forward, which is often unintentionally missing in more generalised support models.

How to use assessment results for better outcomes?

Once the AISee Daily Living Skills Assessment is complete, the focus shifts to implementation. The data gathered serves as the foundation for a bespoke support plan. We recommend a three-step approach to using these results:

1. Prioritise: Look at the areas of need and identify which ones are currently having the biggest impact on quality of life or safety.
2. Match Assets to Needs: Determine which of the identified assets can be used to bridge the gaps in the areas of need, many practitioners refer to this as the 'transferable skillset'.
3. Review and Adapt: Re-assess periodically to ensure the support remains relevant as the individual grows and their environment changes.

By following this process, families and professionals can ensure that their efforts are not just well-intended, but well-informed. This is the heart of what we do at AISee—advocating for solutions that lead to genuine, lasting improvements in the lives of those we serve.

Summary of Key Takeaways

• Comprehensive Scope: 8 core categories and over 50 subcategories ensure a comprehensive view of daily life.
• Strengths-Based: Prioritises identifying assets to help navigate and support areas of need.
• Decades of Expertise: Built on a framework developed in 2002 by experienced neurodivergent-led people.
• Collaborative Tool: Acts as a bridge between families, schools, and support staff for consistent care.
• Evidence-Based: Provides objective data for reports, funding applications, and supports individualised planning

To learn more about how our assessment can support your family or organisation, please visit our Identifying page or Contact us today to speak with one of our advocates.