EFL – Essential For Living

Join the Speaker Initiative

Many non-verbal children are not provided with an alternative method of speaking and participate in instruction or behavior therapy 'solely as a listener'. Others are provided with an alternative method, such as picture exchange or an electronic tablet, that is not portable or requires multiple responses to make simple requests. These methods are often abandoned by the children, resulting in young adults with problem behavior 'when they want to make requests'. Essential for Living will help you select and confirm an alternative, method of speaking that meets the CAFE criteria -- Continuously Available, Frequently used, and Effortless -- and is much less likely to be abandoned later.

Learn More About the Speaker Initiative →

72 New Speakers

EFL: An Overview

Here is three-page Overview of Essential for Living, click here

a sample of the 3,000 skills in EFL

Essential for Living is composed of 3,000 functional skills. The first three domains contain 1,900 Speaking and Listening Skills. The remaining four domains contain 1,100 Daily Living, Leisure, Vocational, Functional Academic, Tolerating, and Component Skills.

The following is a sample of these skills: click here

The Scope & Sequence of EFL

Essential for Living includes seven skill domains and one domain on problem behavior, to find out more click here.

What to Expect and where and How to Get Started with EFL

To see ‘what you should expect’ and ‘where you should start’ with Essential For Living … click here

To see more detail on ‘how to get started’ … click here.

Ordering EFL

Click here to visit the Essential For Living store.

Core deficits of autism

Here is a document that describes how Essential for Living addresses the core deficits of autism click here.

The efl Intro & User Guide

To see the intro and user guide for Essential For Living click here.

Joining the Speaker Initiative

To find out more about what the Speaker Initiative is, and how you can join it, click here.

Selecting A Method of Speaking

Many children and adults with moderate-to-severe disabilities are not able to communicate effectively with ‘spoken words’ and require an alternative method of speaking (AMP), the AMS Comparison Tool, helps to quickly determine candidates for an alternative method of speaking. Learn more here.

The first five skills

Here is a form that we often use in putting together an initial behavior analysis program for an individual with a limited skill repertoire … click here

Collecting and displaying Data

Click here to access and print our self-graphing data sheets, which can be used to collect first opportunity of the day probe data or other types of summarized daily performance.

EFL Report Templates

For report templates that you can download and print out click here.

Alignment with the Common Core & The FL Access Points

To access excel templates that provide an alignment of the skills from 5 of the 7 skill domains, click here.