Do your child’s IEP Goal and Objective Statements adequately define what your child will achieve?

Children with disabilities have a variety of issues which may interfere with their learning. IEP Goal and Objective statements should be written to address *any* area which affects a child’s ability to participate in the general education curriculum. The IEP goal and objective statements should focus on improving a child’s learning and skills through specialized instruction.

IDEA §300.7(a)(1) defines a child with a disability as:

“A child .. having mental retardation, a hearing impairment including deafness, a speech or language impairment, a visual impairment including blindness, serious emotional disturbance, an orthopedic impairment, autism, traumatic brain injury, an other health impairment, a specific learning disability, deaf-blindness, or multiple disabilities, and who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services.”

IDEA §300.7(a)(2)(ii)(c) includes disability definitions for Autism, Deaf-blindness concomitant hearing and visual impairments, Deafness, Emotional disturbance, Hearing impairment, Mental retardation, Multiple disabilities means concomitant impairments, Orthopedic impairment, Other health impairment, Specific learning disability, Speech or language impairment, Traumatic brain injury, and Visual impairment.

A child may have a Specific Learning Disability if he has a severe discrepancy between achievement and ability in Oral expression, Listening comprehension, Written expression, Basic reading skill, Reading comprehension, Mathematics calculation, and/or Mathematics reasoning. §300.541(a)(2)

An IEP Goal is written to address any educationally-based need that adversely affects educational performance and which needs improvement to enable learning of the general curriculum. IEP Goal and measurable objective statements are critical for determining if a child is making progress in their program. They are the primary means for determining if a child’s needs are being appropriately met.