Tag Archives: IEP goals

If schools could have IEPs…

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It has come to be my belief that IEPs are used far too infrequently. We have limited ourselves by only applying IEP’s to children. There are so many other places in life where they might be appropriate. I would like to suggest that some schools might benefit from having an IEP that sets in place goals that assist them in helping special needs children. I’m not suggesting that all schools need such a document, solely the ones who present some significant processing disorder that inhibits their ability to correctly and adequately teach the special education children that are a part of their community.

While the more angry and embittered in advocacy circles might argue that such schools could be qualified under the emotional disturbance category; I believe the correct qualifying condition would be to place such schools under the visually impaired category. The federal definition of “Visual impairment including blindness means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.” 34 CFR 300.7 (c)(13). If a student is found to have an impairment, the Individualized Education Program (IEP) team must also determine whether the student has a need for special education.

It is fairly clear that while many schools have a vision that includes proper educational services for special education, other schools seem to have a disability that prevents them from seeing that these children, given proper support, can receive an excellent education and go on to lead productive lives. Given this, as a society, we need to address these issues by providing these vision impaired schools a proper IEP.

Following are some suggestions for goals. The list is not inclusive, and I encourage readers to suggest additional goals. Since an IEP is a living document, as such proper goals are determined, we can revisit our IEP and add them.

ARTICULATION GOALS

Long Term Goal for Articulation/Intelligibility: Given a structured or unstructured educational setting, School will increase meaningful communication interactions by articulating a clear vision of inclusion for special education student within its educational setting to 100 % over 4 consecutive trials as measured by parent/advocate observation, other informal assessments and data collection.

Short term: School will use appropriate phrasing (pitch, volume, rate, stress) during IEP inclusion meetings or conversation in all trials.

FLUENCY GOALS

Long Term Goal for Fluency Awareness/Self-monitoring: Given a structured or unstructured classroom setting, School will increase awareness of own speech production by describing characteristics of fluent and dysfluent speech by school personnel with 100% accuracy over 175 consecutive trials.

Short term objectives/benchmarks: Evaluate speech of self and others as it regards the rights of special education students.

MATHEMATICS GOALS

Long Term Mathematics Goal: School will develop number sense sufficient to understand that funding special education is not encroachment,; it is dispensing dollars to help student have access to the curriculum that is offered.

Short Term Goal: As observed by parent/advocate, School will provide sufficient resources to fund an educational program meeting the needs of special education children.

SOCIAL SKILLS/PRAGMATICS GOALS

Long Term Goal for Social Skills: School will demonstrate appropriate use of conversational manners.

Short term objectives / benchmarks:

1. School will demonstrate understanding and use of appropriate tone of voice and volume with 90% accuracy given situational cues.

2. School will formulate single or multiple sentences on a given special education topic with appropriate and clear meaning and increasing accuracy.

ORGANIZATION SKILL GOALS

Long Term Goal for Organization: School: School will demonstrate ability to complete work by delivering the items agreed to in IEP’s.

Short Term Goal: Through observation by parent/advocate, all areas of IEP’s will be fully delivered without exception.

TECHNOLOGY GOALS:

Long Term Technology Goals: School will proactively ensure that all special education students have access to the technology necessary to benefit from their educational experience.

Short Term Goal: As observed by parent/advocate, School will provide modern technology and software that is designed to meet student instructional needs in 100% of cases.

TRANSITION GOALS

Long Term Goals for Transition: School will transition from an adversarial role in dealing with parents to one in which parents are equal partners at the table with a wide range of experience in helping their children.

Short Term Goals/Benchmarks: School will receive training to better understand the role parents within the IEP process. As measured by parents/advocates, School will demonstrate increased cooperation in IEP meetings during 5 out of 5 meetings.

Once again, I encourage readers to suggest their own goals. I hope to garner enough to create a second blog posting with the entries.

Some suggestions for IEP goals when your child is bullied

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I am currently in the process of writing an ebook on bullying. This explains the sudden focus of my blog almost exclusively on bullying issues. This modified portion of my book focuses on IEP goals parents should consider if their child is experiencing bullying at school. As we all know by now, special needs children are bullied 2 to 3 times more frequently than their typical peers. As I have mentioned in previous articles, one of the first steps that the parent of a special needs child should take is to request an IEP meeting.

The following are some IEP goal areas and interventions that can directly or indirectly help address student bullying and should be considered at that meeting.

  • Teach to whom the child should report: A child who is experiencing bullying should be provided with a contact person at the school to whom they are to report any further bullying. A goal should be included that the child can identify the person to whom they are to report bullying. Simply possessing the knowledge that there is someone on campus charged with protecting them if bullying occurs can really increase your child’s feeling of personal safety and empowerment on campus.
  • Communicate the difference between tattling and reporting: A goal can be implemented that teaches your child the difference between tattling (bad) and reporting (good). Tattling is telling on someone for the sole person of getting someone in trouble. Reporting is the disclosure of information for the purpose of preventing danger to yourself or someone else. Students should understand that when they are bullied, telling an adult is not tattling but is reporting and necessary.
  • Help other children understand: A goal for the school or class can be implemented that teaches children about a particular disability or need for assistive technology. Children who understand why children are “different” are more likely to be understanding of that difference.
  • Increase self-knowledge: It is important for children to understand their own disability. Self-awareness can increase self-esteem as children learn to appreciate what makes them different and recognizing the work they are doing to be successful. In addition, understanding their own disability will also increase their awareness of how their disability can work for or against them in the social situations they encounter.
  • Teach your child to say “No”: Saying “No!” and meaning it is an important lesson for all children. Children need to be taught how to assertively advocate for themselves when someone is trying to hurt them.
  • Encourage friendship skills: Children who are bullied are more likely to be loners. The kids on the playground who are always off playing by themselves. By teaching your child the values of friendship, and the rules of friendship, they are more likely to develop positive friendships at school and be less likely to become the targets of bullies.
  • Be a part of a social skills group: In social skills groups, children receive invaluable feedback from their peers about their social skills. This occurs in a positive way, rather than the usually harsh ways that kids teach other kids that their behavior is not in line with the norm. Further, as they learn these skills, the friendships discussed above are more likely to develop.
  • Increase pragmatic skills: Pragmatics is about the unspoken rules of social language. Learning to take turns in speaking, paying attention the listener’s body language, speaking differently to different people are all examples of pragmatics. A poor understanding of pragmatics can be a cause of bullying.
  • Allow early exit from class: Where children change classes during the day, a way to reduce the risk of bullying is to allow your child to leave a couple of minutes early so that they can get to their next class without having to interact with all the general education population.
  • Have an aide shadow your child: In more severe situations a parent can request an aide shadow the student when they are out of the classroom. It may even be appropriate to request a one-on-one aide so that the child is never on campus and unsupervised.
  • Consider a change of placement: Finally, a change of placement may even be in order. With regard to this specific issue, the court decisions in this area conflict. For a particularly thoughtful and well-written decision in which it was held a child was denied FAPE (a free and appropriate public education), read “Federal Judge Holds Bullied Special Education Student Denied FAPE.”

Also, I welcome additional suggestions. Please email me at gregorybranch@edrightsadvocate.com.

If your child is experiencing bullying at school, please contact my office for a consultation. You may use the email address above or call me at (714) 856-1166.

www.edrightsadvocate.com