Sample IEP Goals

I greatly enjoy designing meaningful instruction for my students.  As students in special education, their IEP goals are the cornerstone of their instruction.  To design meaningful instruction for these students, they must have goals that are tailored specifically to them  Below you will find some goals and SDIs that I would put in a student's IEP if the student matched the description below (this is a fictional student). All of his goals would be under the Life Skills Domains.  


Student Description:

Samuel is a Kindergarten student. He loves music, toys that make noise, his nurse, and other adults.  Samuel is so sweet, hard working, and has an incredible support system (family, nurse, friends, etc).  Even though school is new to Samuel, he is adjusting to the routine so well and is becoming more and more enthusiastic about school.  Samuel does a great job of touching the Smartboard, making choices using picture cards, and paying attention when adults are speaking.  He has a severe intellectual disability as well as various medical conditions.  Samuel is currently non-ambulatory, but enjoys rolling around on a floor mat and participating in daily activities from an activity chair with a tray.  He is working on tolerating standing in a prone stander (incorporated in classroom with guidance from physical therapy).  Though he is nonverbal, Samuel communicates his needs and wants through gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations.  He is currently being introduced to communication through the use of a four-button voice output device. He is enthusiastic about making choices using picture cards, but he is very new to academics.  When asked academic questions, he was not able to identify his colors, shapes, or label animals.  He does not yet demonstrate one-to- one correspondence. He answers comprehension questions to about 50% accuracy given a text at his instructional level. 


Goals:

Interpersonal Communication:

Given an opportunity to share information, preferences, or label objects, Samuel will use his voice output device to respond in 80 percent of scenarios using fading physical and verbal prompting by __(date)____.

 

Personal Maintenance:

Given an opportunity to assist in activities of daily living, Samuel will follow one-step directions using a fading multimodal approach of physical and verbal prompting in 80 percent of trials by __(date)____.

 

Domestic Maintenance:

Given naturally occurring opportunities to practice activities of daily living, Samuel will comply with hand over hand instruction to assist in activities of daily living in 80 % of opportunities with verbal prompting and physical support by __(date)____.

 

Recreation and Leisure:

Given designated recreation and leisure activities and access to a switch device, Samuel will activate the device to participate using either hand in the activity in 80% of opportunities with verbal prompts by __(date)____.

 

Functional Academics (Comprehension):

Given a text at his instructional level (early childhood literature), Samuel will answer WH questions using concrete materials (picture cards or objects) in a field of up to 3 to 80 percent accuracy using fading verbal and physical prompting by __(date)____.

 

Functional Academics (Math):

Given a group of shapes and/or colors (in the form of picture cards or concrete materials), Samuel will identify the correct shape/color when prompted in a field of up to 4 to 80 percent accuracy using fading physical and verbal prompting by __(date)____.


Common SDIs:

Here are some of the SDIs that Samuel receives in school across all environments: