Thoughts About Writing IEP goals For Student's Who Use Switches

• Avoid writing goals with a specific number of switch activations. Depending on the day/activity, a student could be purposeful in activating the switch but only want the consequence 2x (ex. Cracker) and therefore, not activate the switch. 

• When referring to switch activation, we look for consistent & predictable switch use. 

Consistent & Predictable is defined as:

Consistent= the student is consistent in activating the switch when they want the consequence and consistent in not activating the switch when they don’t want the consequence. 0% activation could be mastery if the student doesn’t want the consequence.

Predictable=the student does what you think they will do

Opportunities are defined as separate events with multiple ‘trials’ embedded; for example -multiple days with multiple trials/multiple sessions with multiple trials

Goals with support 

If student consistently needs a cognitive support to remember what they are supposed to do (due todifficulty initiating a motor pattern) and you know they want the consequence, write the cognitive support into the goal. Ex: With atactile cue to the shoulder, the student will then independently...

If a student consistently needs a 20 second processing time write that into the goal

Team approach