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Key Concepts for Writing Educationally Relevant IEP Goals
Key Concepts for Writing Educationally Relevant IEP Goals
Students may have many behaviors that need intervention and it is important to prioritize behaviors since it may be impossible to target all behaviors at the same time. When prioritizing challenging behaviors for intervention:
Give the highest priority to behaviors that pose a danger to the student or others, damage property, or significantly interfere with the learning environment.
Behaviors that are irritating but not dangerous have a lower priority.
Consider how increasing or decreasing one behavior will affect other challenging behaviors.
Focus on prerequisites — for example, you cannot address behavior until the student attends regularly.
Define the behavior in objective, measurable, observable terms.
What will we see and/or hear that will tell us if the behavior is being exhibited? Feelings and emotions are not objective or observable.
From https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fair-Pairs-for-Behaviors-to-be-Reduced_tbl1_317989261
To assist in defining behaviors, consider using “Fair Pairs”, the “Dead Man’s Test”, and the “Stranger Test”
Fair Pairs: A replacement or alternative behavior is one that is incompatible with or competes with the inappropriate behavior. The replacement or alternative behavior that is selected should create a “fair pair” with the inappropriate behavior.
Dead Man’s Test: The question posed by this test is: Can a dead man do this? If the answer is yes, the target behavior is not a replacement behavior. For example, - - Student will not lie – a dead man can “not lie”. A better behavior would be “tells the truth” Student will not hit – a better example would be “respond by asking the other student to stop.”
Stranger Test: Could someone who does not know the student read the definition of the behavior and understand it? Could that person recognize the behavior if the student exhibited it? For example, “decrease inappropriate verbal behavior” will not pass the stranger test because different people might define “inappropriate” and/or “verbal behavior” differently.
For all goals, but especially for behavioral goals, it is important to ask:
What is it about the student’s disability that is getting in the way of his/her educational success?
Which behavior(s) are preventing the student from accessing the general education curriculum and environment?
What special education programming will bring the student to a more independent or inclusive level?
From Olson's DOING IT RIGHT: IEP goals and objectives to address behavior
How to construct a goal to address behavior
How to construct a goal to address behavior
Need more information?
Need more information?
Goal Bank from The School Psych Toolbox (Ctrl-F on the page will allow you to search for terms (i.e. 'directions' to see examples of where to start with related goals.)
(177 well organized and searchable pages! The Social Emotional link takes you to 16 sub-categories of exemplar goals to start from.)
(In this hour long webinar, learn how to set ambitious behavioral goals for students by using a valid, reliable progress monitoring measure, and how to write measurable and realistic goals focused on the replacement behavior.
(Here’s some guidance to help you write decent, workable behavior goals for the most common areas of need.)
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