Connecting IEP Goals To Educational Impact
Hi! Carolyn Dolby, host of School of Speech, here. Let’s keep the conversation going!
We’ve all inherited IEPs. You scroll down to the goals, and there it is:
“Given visual and verbal prompts, the student will blah, blah, blah with 80% accuracy across three consecutive sessions.”
Okay. It’s measurable. There’s a percentage. There are prompts. There might even be a beautifully written baseline. But I still have one question. Why? What difference will mastering this skill make for this student when they leave the speech room and head back to lunch, recess, specials, the classroom, or home?
I think we can get so focused on writing the perfect SMART goal that we forget to ask the most important question: Does this goal actually matter?
As school-based SLPs, we are really good at finding things to work on. Speech sounds. Vocabulary. Syntax. Narratives. Social communication. Fluency. AAC. You name it. But just because we can write a goal for something doesn’t necessarily mean we should. Before we get to percentages, prompts, trials, or accuracy, maybe we need to start with a bigger question: How is this communication need impacting this student’s education?
What is happening in the student’s actual school day? Are they having difficulty demonstrating what they know? Participating in classroom discussions? Communicating with teachers or peers? Building relationships? Advocating for themselves? Becoming more independent?
That’s where the goal starts.
Beyond 80% Accuracy: Writing Goals That Make Sense
School of Speech Podcast | Guest: Rebecca Moore
My conversation with Rebecca Moore was basically made for this discussion. We talked about moving beyond default accuracy statements and writing goals that tell us what the student is working toward, how we’ll recognize progress, and why the skill matters in real-life communication.
In other words, don’t start with the 80%. Start with what matters.
One framework that helps me think about this is the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health—the ICF. Stay with me. I promise I’m not turning this into an alphabet-soup lecture. As SLPs, we’re naturally good at identifying what is happening at the level of body structure and function. But the ICF asks us to zoom out and also consider activity and participation, along with the environmental and personal factors surrounding the student. What is the student having difficulty doing? Where are they having difficulty participating?
Two students can have what looks like the same communication impairment on paper and experience very different impacts at school.
Listen to Beyond 80% Accuracy: Writing Goals That Make Sense
Embracing Verbal Diversity: Navigating Stuttering Service Delivery in the Schools
School of Speech Podcast | Guest: Nina Reeves
Nina Reeves introduced the ICF as a framework for assessment, goal writing, and intervention. While our conversation centered on stuttering, the bigger lesson applies across our caseloads: We can’t understand impact by looking at impairment alone.
I don’t want an educational impact statement that simply says: Student demonstrates a moderate receptive-expressive language disorder that negatively impacts educational performance.
Okay…but how? Tell me what that looks like at school.
For example:
Anne has difficulty organizing and expressing complex ideas. In the classroom, this impacts their ability to explain their thinking, participate in discussions, retell events in sequence, and demonstrate knowledge through spoken and written responses.
Communication need → activity/participation → educational impact → specialized support → meaningful goal
The impact statement shouldn’t just be another box we complete before getting to the goals. The impact statement should be the bridge to the goals.
Listen to Embracing Verbal Diversity: Navigating Stuttering Service Delivery in the Schools
Successful Stuttering Therapy in the Schools
School of Speech Podcast | Guests: Holly Klein, Joe Klein
Holly and Joe Klein joined me for a conversation about functional school-based goals and involving students in designing their own IEP goals. The student should probably be in the conversation about what we’re trying to change.
Maybe we ask: What feels easy for you when you’re communicating at school? What feels hard? Are there times when you know what you want to say, but it’s hard to get your message across?
Is there something about communicating at school that you wish was easier?
What would you like to be able to do more independently?
And maybe my favorite: If speech therapy really helped you this year, what would be different for you?
Sometimes their answers will be exactly what we expected. Sometimes they won’t. Either way, we need to know. So, before you write that next goal…. Start with the student.
- What is the educational impact?
- What does this student want or need to be different?
- Why does this require the specialized expertise of an SLP?
- Will achieving this goal make a meaningful difference outside my speech room?
- How will I know when we’re done?
Because the best IEP goals shouldn’t just tell us what we’re going to work on. They should tell us why we’re working on it, where we’re going, and how we’ll recognize when we’ve arrived.
And that, I think, is the real goal.
Listen to Successful Stuttering Therapy in the Schools
Until next time, keep learning boldly, collaborating intentionally, and leading with purpose.
— Carolyn
