Writing effective IEP goals is harder than it sounds. Parents use progress on these goals to measure their child’s special education placement and services, meaning it is a huge part of how we know whether they are working or need fixing. Here are some thoughts and guidelines on crafting effective IEP goals:
Focus on skills deficits
Goals must focus on areas where the student has skills deficits. If the student cannot write, what writing (or pre-writing skills) are appropriate? If the student cannot read, what steps are needed to teach pre-reading skills?
Be aggressive, but not too aggressive
Goals should be aggressive and address what can be reasonably expected for one year’s progress. Expecting a student to go from being non-verbal to full sentences in a year is a bit too aggressive in almost all cases. Expecting that, in one year, a student will sign “More” or point to an icon to ask for “More” one time is setting the goal too low if the student is already able to sign “More” with support.
Use language everyone understands
Goals need to be written in language that everyone on the IEP team understands, not in a way that requires a long, detailed explanation from the person writing the goal. We have seen goals that we do not understand. Perhaps a goal is clear to the person writing it, but what happens if that person is not around to explain the goal to a new service provider?
Provide well-written baselines
Goals need well-written baselines. How can we tell how much progress a student has made if we don’t have a clear idea of where the student started? If we are looking for Jane to improve her attending skills, we need to know how long she can attend now and under what circumstances.
Make goals measurable (and include how they’re going to be measured)
Goals must be measurable. We have seen “Johnny will increase his participation” as an annual goal. What does that mean? How are we going to measure it?
Goals should also include how they will be measured. We sometimes see IEP drafts with goals “as measured by teacher observation.” Other IEP drafts do not mention how the goal will be measured at all. When combined with a vague goal such as “Jacob will play with his peers,” getting good data on the student’s progress could be a challenge. Without good data, parents cannot make appropriate IEP decisions for their child.
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