Goals and Objectives

We need to understand the "current state" of the student's proficiency in all areas of functioning (e.g., math, literacy, social-emotional learning). Example reference points include the most recent evaluation report; progress on previous IEP goals; recent assessments, grades, attendance data, and discipline data; and input from teachers/family members/service providers. The Data Hub can also provide useful data points and information.

We compare this with the "desired state" — i.e., the performance of typically developing peers at the student's age/grade level. Example reference points include grade-level targets or grade-level standards (e.g., in academics or social-emotional learning).

This comparison helps us identify the "gaps" that need to be closed through specialized instruction and support. Our objective with specialized instruction is not to broadly cover grade-level standards (which is still the job of core instruction); instead, the purpose of specialized instruction is to narrow in on the array of skills where the student has a significant gap in proficiency/performance with typically developing peers.

What We Teach vs. What We Measure

In the calendar year of an IEP, we will always teach the student far more skills than we can reasonably measure via progress monitoring. We won't write IEP goals for hundreds of skills.

Instead, we consider the array of skills we're going to teach and narrow down which skill(s) will be effective "barometers" that — as they rise, fall, or stay flat — will be indicative of the student's overall progress in that area of learning. ⚠️ We are not "prioritizing" skills, that is inaccurate. More accurate language is found in this example PWN statement: 

"The team considered adding a goal in the area of following instructions but decided against that option because John’s progress in the goal area of staying on task will be indicative of his skill growth in multiple identified social-emotional areas of need, including following instructions. John will continue to receive specialized instruction in a variety of interrelated skills in this area."

When you're discussing adding/removing goals during the IEP meeting, we recommend that you use similar language to communicate to families about the relationship between goals/measurement and instruction.

Is there a learning outcome?

Note that, in some need areas, goals are not written. For example, transportation may be a need area, but a goal is not written. Physical modifications may be necessary for participation in certain activities and environments, but a goal is not written. Goals should be written for areas of need that will have a specific learning outcome (e.g., reading skills development, self-care independence, etc.) and, while these are areas of need, there are no specific learning outcomes intended for the student.

What aspect of the student's performance will we measure?

Academic progress monitoring typically measures rate and/or accuracy:

• Rate - Given a window of time, how many problems can the student complete successfully, words can they read successfully, word sequences can they write successfully, etc.?

• Accuracy - What is the student's ratio of successful versus unsuccessful responses?

Non-academic progress monitoring typically measures one of the following:

• Rate/accuracy - Given a window of time or a certain number of opportunities, how much of the time (rate) or in how many opportunities (accuracy) was the student successful? The determination of success/non-success is binary. They either were or they weren't successful (e.g., being on-task or off-task).

• Quality - How successful was the student in performing the skill? Instead of a binary determination of success/non-success, the degree of success in performing a skill is evaluated. 

• Independence - A prompt hierarchy is defined (e.g., from independent performance all the way to hand-over-hand physical prompting) and either the whole skill (e.g., greeting someone) or separate components of the skill (e.g., toothbrushing) are rated based on the level of prompting needed to illicit a successful response.

• Duration - How long does the student engage in a specific desirable activity or stay in a desired environment? Similar to rate, this is a binary determination.

• Latency - After a student receives a cue, how long does it take for them to respond?

What will we use to measure the student's performance?

The categories of tools that we use are: 

• General Outcome Measurement (GOM) probes — Made from items that are representative of the entire curriculum.

• Skill-Based Mastery Measurement probes — Evaluating a student’s proficiency in a single target skill.

• Rating Scales — A multiple-choice scale used to rate performance. The levels of the scale are described with brief ~1-2 word labels (e.g., 0 = Never, 1 = Sometimes, 2 = Often, 3 = Almost Always).

• Point Sheets — A type of multi-item rating scale that is typically linked to an incentive system.

• Rubrics — A type of rating scale that includes a detailed description of performance at each rating level rather than a brief label.

• Checklists — A type of rating scale that includes multiple items, and a ‘YES-or-NO’ binary determination is made for each item.

• Direct Observation — Momentary time sampling, duration, latency, etc.

NOTE: Permanent products (e.g., rate of homework completion) are generally not recommended for IEP goal progress monitoring and are only recommended as a secondary source to confirm intervention effectiveness.

Who will collect the data?

A special education teacher or paraprofessional trained in administration of GOMs? A student's classroom teacher(s)? A service provider who is working with the student (e.g., an SLP)?

How often will we collect data? 

The frequency of progress monitoring should be reasonably calculated to be:

• Infrequent enough to capture new data when we can reasonably expect a change in performance. For example, we cannot reasonably expect a student's skill proficiency to meaningfully change daily. If data is collected daily (e.g., a daily point sheet), the average or median of that data is typically graphed less frequently (e.g., weekly) to capture trends.

• Frequent enough to allow the team to respond to inadequate progress. For example, if we collect data 1x/month, it will take far too long — at least a quarter of an annual IEP — to determine a trend of inadequate progress and make changes to our intervention.

Our plan must be sustainable — it won't be useful and meaningful and actually drive our instructional decisions if we cannot rely on the data being accessible. SpEd departments plan and coordinate in order to make this a reality. For example, teachers agree collectively to:

• Enter data on a certain day of the week (so that the staff assigned to data entry can quickly pull up and enter data on a group of students)

• Identify a 'Monitoring User' that is assigned to data entry (e.g., a paraprofessional with data entry duties built into their schedule)