Waisman Activities of Daily Living Scale (W-ADL)
Select Language (google translate):
Type of Measure: Parent- or caregiver-report survey of activities of daily living. Contains 17 items, each item is rated as 0=”does not do”, 1=”does with help”, or 2=”does independently / on own”. Takes approximately 5 minutes
Target Population: Adolescents and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (including autism, Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and intellectual disability of unknown etiology).
Measurement properties and previous use: The measurement properties of the W-ADL were systematically evaluated (paper) in long-running longitudinal studies of adolescents and adults with Autism, Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and intellectual disability of unknown etiology. The evaluation found that the W-ADL met or exceeded a-priori thresholds for content validity, internal consistency, criterion validity, construct validity, reproducibility, responsiveness, floor/ceiling effects, and interpretability.
A poster/handout of the main findings of the paper is also available. Another paper examining longitudinal change in W-ADL scores for individuals with autism and Down syndrome can be found here.
Language: English, but each item is only a few words. Please contact the authors if you are interested in contributing a translated version of the W-ADL.
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (others are free to use, copy, and modify the W-ADL. Any modifications must credit the original and be made available under the same license.
Link to measure: Waisman Lifespan Family Research Program:
Corrections or updates? Let us know!