Writing Measurable and Academically Relevant IEP Goals With 80% Accuracy Over Three Consecutive Trials

Abstract

Although one would hope that the magic of goal writing is somehow bestowed upon each speech-language pathologist during their graduate training, or at a minimum upon graduation, pre-service speech-language pathologists, as well as practicing speech-language pathologists, report that goal writing is challenging. This difficulty experienced while writing goals may result in SLPs and other special education providers searching the internet or IEPs of other students with similar needs to find a pre-written goal to use. Unfortunately, an over-reliance on web-based or software-based goal banks is problematic, as these resources still contain poorly written goals that are not measurable and vague and may ultimately decrease the individualization of the goal and treatment to a student's specific needs. Because goals are the “road map” for a student's speech-language intervention, it is not surprising that researchers have hypothesized, and more recently observed, that poorly written IEPs goals are negatively related to growth and progress in the curriculum. The purpose of this article is to remind SLPs of the importance of writing goals that are relevant to the findings of assessments, aligned to state academic standards, contain specific and measurable outcomes, and encourage growth in the skills needed to have academic success.