"An appropriate program for a student with a disability begins with an IEP that reflects the results of the student’s individual evaluation and describes the needs of the student to be addressed through the provision of special education services, including a student’s strengths, interests and preferences and concerns of the parents.  

This section of a student’s IEP identifies the areas of unique needs related to the student’s disability and the current level of functioning, including the strengths of the student, related to those areas. This is the foundation on which the Committee builds to identify goals and services to address the student’s individual needs." 

The Four Need Areas that must be addressed in documenting a student's present level of performance and individual needs 

The report of the student’s present levels of performance and individual needs in these 4 areas must include how the disability affects involvement and progress in the general curriculum (i.e., the same curriculum as for nondisabled students), or  how the disability affects participation in age-appropriate activities.

In IEP Direct, each of these four areas ask for a summary statement of functioning, student strengths/preferences/interests and academic/functional/developmental needs.

Academic Achievement, Functional Performance and Learning Characteristics

• expected rate of progress in acquiring skills and information (e.g., the pace in which a student learns new information or skills, in consideration of factors such as those associated with the child's levels of cognitive skills, interests, age and history of rate of progress); and

• learning style (e.g., how the student learns best such as through visual or auditory modalities, hands-on approaches, cooperative learning, repetition).

In IEP Direct, there is a drop down menu in the first box giving an opportunity to select if comments are general information, study skills, reading, writing, mathematics, speech/language, daily living skills, career/vocational/transition, hearing, vision or other.  This is particularly useful for departmentalized teams where different professionals have subject specific information to report.

Social development

Physical development

Management Needs

Present Level Statements should answer these questions:

• What are the student’s unique needs that result from his or her disability?

• What is it that the student can and cannot do at this time, particularly as tied back to the NYS expectations for general education students?

• What are the student’s strengths in this area?

• How do these needs affect the student’s participation and progress in the general curriculum or, for a preschool student, participation in age-appropriate activities?

• What are the parents’ concerns for the education of their child?

• What instructional and/or behavioral supports or services have been effective or not effective in addressing the need area in the past year?

• What accommodations and/or program modifications or supplementary aids and services have been effective or not effective in addressing the need area in the past year?

• What instructional supports and services will likely be supported and used by the student?

When you complete the student’s present level of performance and individual need section of an IEP, you should be able to state:

The student’s unique needs that require the student’s educational program to be individualized:

We are individualizing this student’s education program because of his unique needs related to his disability in the areas of . . . . (e.g., reading, writing, organization, memory, vision, hearing, problem solving, attention, motor skills).

What the student can and cannot do in each area of identified need:

According to NYS Next Generation mathematics standards, as _____ enters high school, he should be working on_____.

In STAR Math testing on 11/29/22, ____ had a scaled score of 975 with a percentile rank of 5. This placed him at a Grade Equivalent of 4.1, an increase from 3.6GE a year earlier.

In the area of ___________, we know this student can currently _____________, but cannot ______________. (e.g., in the area of memory, he can remember a two-step sequence, but does not complete activities that involve multiple steps such as "get ready for school.) Draw a connection between the grade level expectations and what the student can do currently, even if they are miles apart.

The strengths of the student are upon which you can build:

He learns best through _____________________ (e.g., pairing auditory with written work; using music to trigger memory; redirection; modeling).

The areas of concern the parents have raised about their child's needs: (e.g., He becomes upset and cries at home when he has to do writing assignments; he is not showing at home any of the language skills teachers report he has achieved in school; he has tantrums whenever we bring him out into the community).

The environmental, human or material resources the student will need to enable him/her to benefit from education:(e.g., He will need structure and routine throughout his instructional day; close supervision during transitions;  assistance with note taking; adaptive furniture for motor support; instructional materials in large print formats; a positive reward system for appropriate behavior).

How the disability affects involvement and progress in the general curriculum, or for preschool students, how the disability affects participation in age appropriate activities

• Kari’s difficulty in organizing materials and information affects her ability to complete assignments independently and compose written essays.

• Luis has difficulty organizing information into larger units (e.g., main ideas or themes).  He understands parts of a text, but has difficulty determining the main ideas and writing summaries of information read.

All notes above are from: https://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/iepguidance/present.htm

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