Your child is autistic and requires special education. He will need an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) when he goes to public school. IEP is the most important thing in your child pursue of better life as it will determine what he will learn, how much, by whom and where. We will share with you on how to write the goals and objectives for IEP so that you as a parent to ensure your child gets the best education the school could offer.
IEP is a legally binded document that is designed to list specific educational goal for your child. Since it will be used by the people who will directly and indirectly involves in education your child, it should be written in simple and easy to understand term. However, prior to writing the goals and objectives, you need to identify your child's current level of performance. Knowing how your child is currently performing in school will help you to develop the goals to address the areas where your child has an identified educational need. Based on your child current level of performance, you should also be able to derive a realistic and achievable goals for the IEP so that you child will have a successful school year.
Firstly, the goals should be stated specifically of its requirement in the IEP. The most important thing in writing goals for IEP is that it must be measurable. You should avoid using unmeasurable terms such as "difficulty," "weak," or "limited," in specifying the goals. Instead specify the goals using measurable term such as a grade or age level performance or using a rate or a percentage as an indicator. For instance, a measurable goal is "By year end, my child will be able to read on a fourth grade level based on classroom work."
Once the goals have been identified, next is to write the objectives which will break down the goal down to simple easy to implemented steps. This includes the services and supports the school will provide for your child. If your child needs a particular device or services such as an intervention or program modification, it must be written specifically in the objectives. As per sample above, the objectives could be, "My child will be able to read on fourth grade level based on classroom work with teacher assistance by Oct 1st and without teacher assistance by end of the year."
The key to writing goals and objectives for IEP is identifying what you want the school to teach your child based on his current level of performance. Help the school to figure out where and how to teach it so your child will be successful. Once he learns one thing, repeat the similar process and the next. The success will come one step at a time. You are your child best advocate. Your insights are very valuable in setting goals and objectives for IEP, and making sure it is done to your child best interests.
