Writing Goals & Objectives

Writing Goals & Objectives for the IEP

Wow – even thinking about this topic makes my head spin. Everyone agrees that the goals need to be well written, based on clearly defined needs, and they need to be measurable, yet I find most of the IEP’s I read over to be nowhere near this. I can generally see the good intentions behind the goals, but unfortunately that is not enough to create a solid IEP let alone to help guide the team to where they need to go as they educate this special education student.

The general “rule of thumb” is to look at each goal as if you were reading an IEP for a brand new student who has just been admitted to your school. Based upon what you read and NOT on what you believe you’ve discussed etc. would you be able to confidently teach this child? Try to give yourself that distance in order to objectively study the IEP goals – it’s not easy, is it? And that’s another reason why people hire me. I’m an outsider and I can use that valuable perspective to evaluate the entire IEP. If any goals are unclear then they need to be rewritten.

And simply written goals are actually better for the IEP. Keep the language simple and straightforward.

Don’t write goals to measure “happiness” – instead focus on the observable behaviors and how to change them. You cannot measure someone’s level of happiness so don’t write a goal for it! But you can observe and take data on behaviors and how they change once a certain strategy is implemented.

I will be adding an article to my website to give more hands on advice on this topic. For now, focus on making sure that you are actually able to measure the result (not just have opinions given) and that there are sufficient social/emotional/behavioral goals. I usually aim for a ratio of 3:1 (goals specifically for autistic traits:academic goals). Yes, that is indeed how important I believe it is to have the social areas addressed. And I encourage everyone else to focus more on this often overlooked area of the IEP.