551632
research-article2014
CDQXXX10.1177/1525740114551632Communication Disorders QuarterlyRowland et al.
Article
Beyond Legal: Crafting High-Quality
IEPs for Children With Complex
Communication Needs
Communication Disorders Quarterly
1­–10
© Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1525740114551632
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Charity Mary Rowland, PhD1, Emily Dayle Quinn, MS, CCC-SLP1,
and Sandra A. M. Steiner, CCC-SLP, MA1
Abstract
The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a legal document developed for each student with a disability. The IEP
outlines the student’s learning needs and associated educational goals, as well as the program placement and services
required to support the attainment of these goals in the least restrictive environment. Most IEPs include all legally required
elements; however, there is a gulf between meeting legal requirements and writing a high-quality IEP that results in
educational benefit for the individual student. We collected a large number of IEP documents focused on interventions for
children with complex communication needs (CCN) who may use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).
These documents suggested the need for a tool to describe the subtle and specific qualities that characterize high-quality
IEPs for children with CCN. We describe a 28-item IEP quality guide created to serve as a clinical resource for educators
and therapists who develop educational goals.
Keywords
elementary school age, middle school age, high school age, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC),
Individualized Education Program (IEP), legal/policy issues, applied research, speech-language pathologists (SLPs)
Introduction
The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a legal
document developed for each student with a disability with
the mandate to outline the student’s learning needs, goals to
address those needs, and program, placement, and services
which will support the student in attainment of the goals in
the least restrictive environment (LRE). The U.S.
Department of Education (Office of Special Education and
Rehabilitation Services, U.S. Department of Education,
2000) asserts that “The IEP is the cornerstone of a quality
education for each child with a disability” (p. 1). An IEP, as
defined by 34 C.F.R. Part 300, must include (a) the present
level of function and its effect on the student’s progress in
the general education curriculum; (b) measurable annual
goals with short-term objectives; (c) a description of how
and when the student’s progress toward meeting annual
goals will be measured; (d) a statement of the special education and related services and accommodations to be provided; (e) the extent, if any, to which the student will not
participate in regular classroom activities; (f) a statement of
any accommodations for alternative assessment and why
the student needs them; and (g) the start date, frequency,
location, and duration of services (Assistance to States for
the Education of Children with Disabilities, 2013).
Through two current research projects we have collected
a large sample of IEPs developed for students with complex
communication needs (CCN). Students with CCN have significant difficulties producing natural speech that is adequate to express their daily communication needs
(Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013). Often, students with CCN
require the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). AAC includes using systems (e.g., picture
symbols, speech-generating devices) or techniques (e.g.,
manual sign language, partner-assisted scanning) to supplement or replace natural speech. Students with CCN are
diverse in diagnosis, age, cognitive skills, and language
skills. They may have acquired disabilities, such as a traumatic brain injury, or developmental disabilities, such as
cerebral palsy, autism, muscular dystrophy, or Down
syndrome.
Although most of the IEPs that we collected included all
the legally required elements, they varied widely in terms of
1
Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, USA
Corresponding Author:
Charity Mary Rowland, Oregon Health & Science University, Institute
on Development & Disability, 707 SW Gaines St., Portland, OR 972393098, USA.
Email: [email protected]
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Communication Disorders Quarterly 
their quality. Unable to find a tool that adequately captured
the qualitative differences that we noted between IEPs, we
developed a new clinical guide to fill this need. The purpose
of this clinical exchange is to (a) review the challenges of
preparing IEP goals for students with CCN, (b) describe
available resources designed to assist IEP development, and
(c) describe the new clinical tool that we have developed to
guide the creation of high-quality IEPs for these students.
Challenges to Crafting High-Quality
Communication-Related IEP Goals
There are many reasons that writing appropriate educational
goals for children with CCN may present significant challenges. Lack of resources, lack of training, lack of experience with children with CCN, conflicting opinions of
appropriate intervention, and the use of one-size-fits-all
goal banks all may contribute to the development of inappropriate IEP goals (Drasgow, Yell, & Robinson, 2001;
Etscheidt, 2012; Yell & Stecker, 2003). It was not until the
late 1990s and early 2000s that students with CCN began
participating in the general education curriculum, and practices of inclusion for these children were adopted widely
(Jorgensen, McSheehan, & Sonnenmeier, 2010). Despite
this new awareness, the low incidence rate of many of the
disorders associated with CCN makes it likely that most
teachers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) will
never encounter children with these conditions. Indeed,
many teachers and SLPs have no experience at all with children who have CCN, especially individuals with rare
disorders.
Developing IEP goals for children with CCN is especially challenging because these children are likely to need
AAC to enhance or replace spoken language. Many practitioners feel ill prepared to work with children who use
AAC. A white paper produced by the Assistive Technology
Industry Association (2012) that reported the results of a
survey of 549 SLPs who serve the target population revealed
a striking lack of confidence with regard to AAC in general.
Although these professionals were interested in and excited
about AAC, 74% felt that they were inadequately prepared
in this area, and more than 33% felt that their colleagues
who prescribe AAC do not have the necessary knowledge to
provide AAC services. Compounding the problem, no
doubt, is a lack of experience on the part of faculty in the
speech communication departments that train the students
who ultimately work in the field of communication disorders. In a survey of speech-language departments in U.S.
universities, 20% of respondents reported that their teaching staff had minimal expertise in AAC, and 34% reported
no expertise in AAC among their faculty (Ratcliff, Koul, &
Lloyd, 2008). A few authors have investigated the quality of
IEP goals related specifically to children with communication difficulties. For example, Schmitt, Justice, Logan,
Schatschneider, and Bartlett (2011) examined the alignment
between students’ performance deficits, as identified
through assessment data, and the focus of their IEP goals.
They found that the IEP goals of many students did not
address the symptoms of their language disorder, except
when the language difficulties involved vocabulary.
Need for Clinical Tool Revealed by
Current Research Efforts
The need for a clinical resource to address the quality of IEP
goals for children with CCN became evident to us through
our ongoing research briefly described below. Two of our
research projects addressed the needs of children with CCN
and used the identical criteria for participation. Participants
were special educators and SLPs who currently served a
student with CCN. In both studies, the participants were
randomly assigned to a control group or an experimental
group. Control participants submitted the target student’s
current IEP; while experimental participants submitted the
current IEP, then learned to use a specific instrument to prepare for the next IEP process and subsequently submitted
the new IEP. In the first project, the instrument that participants learned to use was the Communication Matrix
(Rowland, 2004); in the second project, the instrument that
participants learned to use was the Communication Supports
Inventory–Children & Youth (CSI-CY; Rowland, FriedOken, & Steiner, 2014). We examined the communicationrelated goals/objectives, present levels of functioning
statements, and services/accommodations/modifications
sections of the 160 IEPs collected through these two
projects.
The IEPs revealed wide variability along a number of
parameters. The number of communication-related goals
and objectives per IEP ranged from 1 to 26. The range of
communication behaviors addressed in a single IEP also
varied widely, with some addressing only one behavior over
several goals and others addressing multiple modes of communication. In addition, some IEPs included detailed
descriptions of learning activities, scaffolds, and communication modalities, whereas others were quite sparse in their
descriptions. Beyond the more superficial differences we
found among these IEPs, we observed wide variability in
the apparent quality of the goals/objectives and, indeed, in
the IEPs as a whole. Legal compliance with IEP requirements was the norm. However, although many of the IEP
goals/objectives seemed appropriate, others did not.
Overall, the quality of these IEPs varied significantly.
Legal Compliance Versus Quality
A number of authors have proposed that mere compliance
with legal requirements does not necessarily generate IEP
goals/objectives that are educationally beneficial to an
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Rowland et al.
individual child (Etscheidt, 2012; Pretti-Frontczak &
Bricker, 2000; Yell & Stecker, 2003). Pretti-Frontczak and
Bricker (2000) offered a scenario in which IEPs are poorly
written—merely to comply with the law—and then filed
away until the next annual review. Yell and Stecker (2003)
described a “cookie-cutter” approach to writing IEPs that
constitutes a “procedural compliance exercise with little or
no relevance to the teaching and learning process” (p. 74).
Boavida, Aguiar, McWilliam, and Pimentel (2010) discovered many low-quality goals that would “not likely provide
individualized and effective interventions for children” (p.
241) among the IEP goals written for 83 preschoolers.
Resources for Developing and
Evaluating IEPs
Given the wide variety in the format and quality of the IEPs
that we examined, we questioned as follows: (a) Do special
educators and SLPs follow planning frameworks when
developing communication-related IEPs for children with
CCN? and (b) Do special educators and SLPs share common practices (i.e., general strategies or specific resources)
when developing IEPs for children with CCN? For that reason, we decided to query a subset of 55 of our project participants to learn about the methods they used to prepare
IEPs. We sent them a link to an anonymized online survey
asking what planning frameworks, general strategies, or
specific resources they used to develop communicationrelated IEP goals for their students. Participants listed 26
different resources, most of which were assessment instruments or curricula. The only resources listed by more than
one participant were the Student, Environment, Tasks, and
Tools (SETT) framework (Zabala, 2005), cited by five participants; the Picture Exchange Communication System
(Frost & Bondy, 2002), cited by four participants; and the
Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for
Infants and Young Children (Bricker & Pretti-Frontczak,
1996), cited by two participants. Some participants cited
using behavioral observations, discussions with colleagues,
and clinical judgment to guide IEP development. Others
suggested that they simply viewed the student’s previous
IEP or reviewed the IEP of another student with a similar
disability/diagnosis for guidance. Although our research
participants as a group did not embrace any particular
resources to help them develop IEP goals, a number of useful materials are available. These are summarized in Table 1
and described below.
Some resources have been developed to provide general
support for IEP development. Several state-level educational agencies have established rubrics to aid educational
teams in writing high-quality IEPs. Notable among these is
the Kansas In-Service Training System (KITS), a program
of the Kansas University Center on Developmental
Disabilities. The KITS program posts a number of helpful
resources and forms for practitioners, including a rubric for
evaluating goal quality and lists of components that should
be included in goals, objectives, and present levels of functioning statements. As another example, the State of
California has developed a handbook of goals and objectives related to California’s content standards (Association
of California School Administrators, 2004). The Quality
Indicators for Assistive Technology Services website provides the “Guiding Document on Including Assistive
Technology in the IEP” (Quality Indicators for Assistive
Technology Services, 2012). Bowser and Reed (2012)
developed the AT [Assistive Technology] in the IEP
Checklist and the IEP Goal Planning Template.
Some useful resources are not tied directly to IEP development, but address functional aspects of communication
and AAC that have clear implications for the content of
communication-related goals. The SETT Framework
(Zabala, 2005) is a form that teams use to organize information needed to guide educational decisions for individuals
with disabilities related to assistive technology; it includes
sections on the student, the environment, tasks, and tools.
Calculator and Black (2010) developed a 91-item Inventory
of Best Practices in the Provision of AAC Services to
Students With Severe Disabilities. Many of these items
touch upon issues related to developing appropriate educational goals. The International Classification of Functioning,
Disability and Health-Children & Youth (World Health
Organization, 2007), or ICF-CY, is a compendium of more
than 1,700 items that cover all realms of function. The
ICF-CY has been embraced by educational agencies in
many countries and is slowly gaining traction in the United
States. It emphasizes function and environmental factors in
the service of activity and participation across all major life
domains, including communication. The CSI-CY (Rowland,
Fried-Oken & Steiner, 2014; Rowland et al., 2012) consolidates items related to communication from the ICF-CY into
a 126-item inventory that addresses participation, typical
and alternative communication skills, functional capacity,
and environmental factors related to communication for
AAC users. It is designed to help educators identify appropriate areas for intervention related to communication in
preparation for developing IEP goals.
A few researchers have developed means to evaluate IEP
quality directly. Ruble, McGrew, Dalrymple, and Jung
(2010) developed the IEP Evaluation Tool that tracks the
inclusion of components related to the Individuals With
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requirements and the
National Research Council recommendations for children
with autism. The Revised IEP/IFSP Goals and Objectives
Rating Instrument (R-GORI), which evaluates the functionality, generality, instructional context, and measurability of
IEP goals, has been adapted from Notari-Syverson and
Schuster (1995) by a number of programs. The Team Guide
to the R-GORI developed by Kent State University is a
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Communication Disorders Quarterly 
Table 1. Resources for Developing and Evaluating IEPs.
Instrument
1. Early Childhood PLAAFP Statements
and Measurable Annual Goals Quality
Rating Form
Authors or source
Kansas In-Service Training System,
Kansas University Center on
Developmental Disabilities
2. Essential Elements of (a) PLAAFP,
(b) Measurable Annual Goals, (c) ShortTerm Objectives and Benchmarks
Handbook of Goals and Objectives
Association of California School
Related to Essential State of California
Administrators
Content Standards
SETT Framework
Zabala (2005)
Guiding Document Including Assistive
Technology in the IEP
Quality Indicators for Assistive
Technology Services website
1. AT in the IEP Checklist
Bowser and Reed (2012)
2. IEP Goal Planning Template
Inventory of Best Practices in the
Provision of AAC Services to Students
with Severe Disabilities
Communication Supports Inventory–
Children and Youth (CSI-CY)
Calculator and Black (2010)
Rowland, Fried-Oken, and Steiner
(2014)
IEP Evaluation Tool
Ruble, McGrew, Dalrymple, and Jung
(2010)
Revised IEP/IFSP Goals and Objectives
Rating Instrument (R-GORI) Team
Guide
Goal Functionality Scale III
Kent State University Early Childhood
Intervention Program (adapted from
Notari-Syverson & Schuster, 1995)
McWilliam (2009)
Early Childhood Technical Assistance
Center: Rating Sheet for IEP Goals
SMART criteria
Lucas, Gillaspy, Peters, and Hurth
(2012)
Wright and Wright (2006)
Highlights
1. 6 items related to quality of present
levels of function statement and eight
items related to functionality and
measurability of goals
2. Definitions and key characteristics for (a)
PLAAFP, (b) IEP goals, and (c) short-term
objectives/benchmarks
Provides guidelines for writing IEP goals/
objectives related to the essential State of
California content standards and provides
examples for Reading, Writing, and
Mathematics.
Form for entering information related to the
student, the environment and tasks related
to assistive technology.
Addresses five indicators for addressing AT
in IEPs, including key questions for IEP
teams related to each indicator
1. 35 items addressing present levels, annual
goals, objectives/benchmarks, special
factors, supplementary aids/services, staff,
supports, state/local assessment, and
transition
2. Form for developing AT-related IEP goals
91 items describing best practices for AAC
users, many of which reference features
characteristic of high-quality IEP goals
126-item inventory for AAC users covering
participation at school/home, categories of
communication limitations (with separate
strands for typical vs. AAC modes), and
environmental barriers and facilitators for
communication.
17 items documenting the presence of
8 IDEA requirements (applied to each
objective) and 9 National Research
Council quality indicators (applied to
overall IEP)
9 items (including 20 sub items) addressing
functionality, generality, instructional
context, and measurability of IEP goals
7 items applied to each goal addressing
functionality, measurability, specificity
6 items related to participation-based, highquality IEP goals
5 general criteria for evaluating IEP goals
Note. PLAAFP = present level of academic achievement and functional performance; SETT = Student, Environment, Tasks, and Tools; IEP =
Individualized Education Program; AT = Assistive Technology; IDEA = Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.
particularly helpful presentation of this instrument that
includes discussion of each criterion. The Goal Functionality
Scale III (McWilliam, 2009) includes seven items to evaluate participation in routines, specific observable behaviors,
necessity of skills, meaningful criteria, generalization criteria, and timeframes. This instrument has been used to evaluate educational goals in Portugal (Boavida et al., 2010) as
well as in the United States (Jung & McWilliam, 2005). The
Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center provides a
quality indicators rating scale (Lucas, Gillaspy, Peters, &
Hurth, 2012) that provides six criteria to describe goals as
high quality and participation based. The Wrightslaw webpage (www.wrightslaw.com) provides information primarily focused on education law and policy, including some
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Rowland et al.
checklists and documents designed to assist teams during
the IEP process. Among these are the “SMART” (Specific,
Measurable, Uses Action Words, Realistic/Relevant and
Time-Limited) criteria that are widely used to judge the
quality of IEP goals. The SMART criteria are described
fully in Wright and Wright (2006).
All of the resources cited above have value in terms of
IEP development, although none provides exactly the critique of educational goals that we sought. Given the lack of
an existing instrument that fully met our needs, coupled
with the lack of consensus among project participants in
terms of resources to guide IEP development, we decided to
develop a new tool. The new tool would be designed to go
beyond the legally binding requirements of an IEP to provide a comprehensive list of the qualities that contribute to
excellent communication goals, especially for children with
CCN.
Description of the Design to Learn IEP
Development Guide
Structure of the New Tool
After perusal of the collected IEPs, we realized that some of
the qualities that we wanted to describe were quite subjective (such as the degree to which the goal provides a reasonable challenge for the student), whereas some were more
objective (such as whether the goal specifies criteria for
performance data). We decided to start with the SMART
criteria (Wright & Wright, 2006) and augment these criteria
to more fully describe the essence of high-quality IEPs for
children with CCN.
The Design to Learn IEP Development Guide includes
28 items organized into 7 sections. An initial set of items
was developed based on a long list of specific strengths
and weaknesses identified in our sample IEPs that were
organized according to the five SMART criteria. An iterative process was then followed to systematically edit and
revise the tool. Our development process involved using
the tool as an outcome measure to evaluate IEP quality, as
well as repeated consultation with experts in communication disorders and AAC to validate content. The seven sections of the tool may be viewed as expansions of the five
SMART criteria, with which we began. Table 2 shows the
relationship between the five SMART criteria and the
seven sections of the new tool. The first six sections
include questions about the qualities of the goals/objectives, whereas the seventh section addresses qualities
related to the IEP document as a whole. The items are presented as questions that a practitioner (or parent) could ask
about a proposed IEP. We purposefully used language that
would be accessible to all possible users—experienced
and new professionals, as well as parents. The tone, style,
and word choice reflect this decision. As we developed
the instrument, we realized that all of the items
Table 2. Relationship Between Sections of Design to Learn IEP
Development Guide and SMART Criteria.
Section of Design to Learn IEP Development
Guide
A. Are the goals focused and precise? (4 items)
B. Will the goals be measured appropriately?
(4 items) C. Do the goals target active participation? (3
items)
D. Are the goals student centered? (4 items)
E. Are the goals functional? (3 items)
F. Are the goals educationally appropriate? (3
items)
G. Is the entire IEP of high quality? (7 items)
SMART criteria
addressed in
section
Specific
Measurable
Time-Limited
Uses Action
Words
Realistic/Relevant
Realistic/Relevant
Realistic/Relevant
—
Note. IEP = Individualized Education Program.
were applicable to any learning domain and not just to
communication. Although we discuss them here strictly
within the context of communication intervention, the
items are worded in generic terms so that they may be used
by professionals from any discipline. Below we describe
each section of the tool and offer examples drawn from the
IEPs collected through our research. In some instances,
we have made minor word changes to ensure that the sample objectives are not identifiable.
Section A. Are the goals focused and precise? A child’s needs
should be operationally defined (Pretti-Frontczak & Bricker,
2000). When objectives do not describe the targeted behavior precisely or when they address more than one type of
behavior, they may be difficult to implement. For example,
“Student will show expressive and receptive use of speechgenerating device” addresses two broad and quite different
components of communication (expressive vs. receptive)
that may be difficult to target or monitor in the same learning
program. Furthermore, it provides no specifics about how
the student will actually communicate. In comparison, “Student will look at communication partner and tap arm to gain
attention when partner sits close by, but withholds attention
in classroom activities and in cafeteria” is focused and provides details about the expected behavior, the contexts in
which it will be targeted, and how the teacher will support
the behavior. In other words, for the latter example, you can
picture what will happen as this goal is targeted. Section A
includes the following questions:
1. Does each goal have one clear focus, as opposed to
several different ones?
2. Can you picture exactly what the student will do
(what behaviors the student will use) to achieve
each goal?
3. Can you picture in what places and activities the
learning will occur?
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Communication Disorders Quarterly 
4. Can you picture the cues that the teacher will provide to support learning each goal?
Section B. Will the goals be measured appropriately? Bateman
and Herr (2006) point out that the use of measurable objectives is both best educational practice and safe legal practice. A number of legal challenges to IEPs have revolved
around inadequate progress monitoring methods, including
the use of inappropriate measurement tools and low frequency of monitoring (Etscheidt, 2006). Measurement
mechanisms are both the easiest components to include in a
goal and, in our experience, the least likely to be meaningful. The greatest challenges seem to involve the unit of measurement and the criteria used to judge performance. “80%
accuracy on 4 out of 5 trials” is the most common combination of measurement unit and criterion found in our sample
IEPs, often seemingly applied indiscriminately to every
goal/objective on an IEP. Accuracy is pertinent to behaviors
that can be graded along a metric of more and less correct
(such as a 10-item quiz that may be scored according to %
correct answers), but often the term accuracy is applied to
behavior that cannot be scored meaningfully in this regard.
As an example, consider the following “receptive communication” goal: “Will maintain the ability to ‘come here’
when prompted by a teacher from 91% accuracy to 98%
accuracy.” It is hard to imagine how one would measure the
accuracy of “coming here,” much less how it would improve
by 7%. Often the most important aspect of the targeted
behavior is not accuracy, but independence, duration, frequency, latency, and so on. Once an appropriate measurement unit is chosen, the performance criteria should reflect
an expectation of significant progress (as opposed to trivial
progress or progress that does not relate to the chosen measure). Consider the goal that involves selecting the correct
symbol out of an array of two symbols and proposes a criterion of 50% correct: That would be chance performance,
surely not a meaningful accomplishment. Section B includes
the following questions:
5. Does each goal include a way of measuring performance that is appropriate and that reflects the most
important aspect of the behavior targeted?
6. Does the criterion for achieving each goal make
sense and represent meaningful progress?
7. Will progress be monitored frequently enough so
that the learning environment can be adjusted
promptly in response to the student’s successes or
difficulties?
8. Is it clear whose responsibility it is to collect progress data?
Section C. Do the goals target active participation? This section reflects an assumption that the ultimate goal of classroom learning is to promote participation in society as a
whole or the ability to function adequately in the “real
world.” The World Health Organization, in the ICF-CY
(World Health Organization, 2007), recommends a participation-based definition of overall functioning. Special education as a field advocates for teaching in contexts that
include natural routines that address skills essential for participation in everyday life (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013;
Jorgensen et al., 2010; Yell & Stecker, 2003). At the very
minimum, participation is focused on the least restrictive
educational environment, which the IEP is obligated to
address. The items in this section address the degree to
which goals/objectives have an impact on the student’s
active participation beyond the classroom or the individual
therapy setting. In some goals, the student is only passively
involved. An example of a passive goal is “When presented
with picture schedule or hand-in-hand signing, will tolerate
it.” An example of a goal that would likely promote active
participation in society, even outside of the classroom,
would be “Will use picture symbols to request needed materials from peers to help set up small group activities including science, art and snack.” Section C includes the following
questions:
9. Do the goals encourage the student’s full and active
participation in activities with peers?
10. Do the goals foster interactions and relationships
that will support participation in the community and
family?
11. Will the new skills increase the student’s capacity to
function more independently in the “real world”?
Section D. Are the goals student centered? This section
addresses the importance of tailoring education to the individual student. The more complex the needs of the student,
the less likely it is that a “one size fits all” approach will be
effective. Even when educators engage students using the
principles of universal design, students with CCN continue
to require individualized accommodations to participate in
classroom activities (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013). Intervention approaches must be designed to accommodate the
specific sensory, intellectual, and physical capabilities of
the student. Learning is improved when the IEP includes
objectives that focus on individual strengths, interests, and
emerging skills (Pretti-Frontczak & Bricker, 2000). Students who require extensive intervention, and who have to
work harder than most students to learn, will benefit tremendously from highly individualized instruction that takes
advantage of intrinsically motivating activities and materials. Ideally, students will participate in goal selection to
develop self-determination skills (Martin et al., 2006; Pawley & Tennant, 2008) and to increase motivation. Goals
should represent a significant (but not overwhelming)
degree of challenge for the student. Sometimes goals for
students with the most severe/multiple disabilities are so
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Rowland et al.
easily met that accomplishing them within the grading
period does not represent significant learning (Shinn &
Shinn, 2000). In such cases, the student may plateau at a
level that is below what could be achieved with more ambitious expectations. Finally, it is important to provide cues
that accommodate the student’s intellectual, physical, and
sensory capacities. For instance, if the student cannot hear
or understand speech, some other means of relaying information must be provided. As the items in this section cannot
be evaluated without in-depth knowledge of a particular
student’s abilities, needs, educational history, and preferences, we do not provide examples here. Section D includes
the following questions:
12. Will the learning occur during preferred activities
that motivate the student?
13.Does the student have the physical, sensory and
intellectual abilities required to learn the targeted
skills?
14. Do these goals offer a reasonable challenge for this
particular student?
15. Do these goals describe cues that match the student’s needs?
Section E. Are the goals functional? The items in this section
address the functionality of the goal, asking whether the targeted behavior has real purpose, whether it applies to settings outside of the classroom, and whether it can be
fostered by nonprofessionals. Light (1989) summarized
four primary purposes for communication: (a) communication of needs and wants, (b) information transfer, (c) social
closeness, and (d) social etiquette. Beukelman and Mirenda
(2013) recently acknowledged a fifth purpose: to communicate with oneself or to conduct an internal dialog. We hope
that any communication goal addresses at least one of these
communicative functions. An example of a functional goal
is “Will use speech-generating device to choose books and
to direct peers to turn book pages.” We can easily imagine
how these skills would be useful at home or in an afterschool community program. We can also imagine that family or community members could encourage the student to
use these skills outside of school. A goal that does not represent clearly functional behavior is “Will repeat names of
five body parts.” Section E includes the following
questions:
16. Do the behaviors to be learned serve a useful purpose for this student (for instance, saying a word to
ask for something, rather than merely repeating the
sound)?
17. Are the targeted behaviors likely to carry over to
other settings and materials outside of the learning
context?
18. Can the targeted goals be implemented by nonprofessionals under natural conditions outside of
school?
Section F. Are the goals educationally appropriate? Educational
goals should represent a logical next step based on the student’s current level of functioning; they should also represent skills that are useful enough in the classroom that they
may be addressed at least daily. In addition, the goal should
have a clear relationship to the local educational standards
(Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013) that, increasingly, relate to
the common core state standards (National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief
State School Officers, 2010). An example of an educationally appropriate goal is “Student will initiate comments or
questions directed to adults or peers, a minimum of 4 words
per comment, 5 or more comments per day, 3 days per week,
for 3 consecutive weeks.” The related grade-level standard
cited in this IEP is “Oral and Listening: 1. Use language
appropriate for purpose and audience. Evidence outcomes:
Demonstrate use of vocabulary in oral language to express
ideas and events.” Alternate assessments tied to the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association
Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School
Officers, 2010) are currently under development through
projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Once
these become available, all students will be able to participate in assessment that is tied directly to these standards,
making it easier to picture how this connection can be made
for students with complex needs. Section F includes the following questions:
19. Do the targeted skills represent logical next steps
based on the student’s current skills?
20. Is it possible to address the goals at least daily?
21. Will the targeted skills help the student make progress toward the attainment of relevant educational
standards?
Section G. Is the entire IEP of high quality? In this section, we
contemplate aspects of the entire IEP beyond the individual
goals and objectives. The IDEA (2004) includes provision
for students with disabilities and their families to participate
as members of the education team and actively assist in
developing an IEP. Some authors have advocated for using
person-centered planning methods to design IEPs that
respect the qualities of individual families including race,
ethnicity, disability, gender, class, language, and sexual orientation (Keyes & Owens-Johnson, 2003). We ask about
the degree to which the IEP is respectful of students and
their families, in terms of language, culture, and desires and
whether the IEP is expressed in language that is easy to
comprehend. An example of jargon-filled language that
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Communication Disorders Quarterly 
might be difficult for a family to understand is “Will decode
VE and VC words in modified core curriculum materials
aligned to grade-level state standards.” In this section, we
also ask whether the entire slate of goals/objectives reflects
a breadth that will make a significant difference in the student’s life. For instance, do five communication goals target
several communicative intents? Or do all five goals target
only a single behavior and intent? We ask whether some
goals are merely carryovers from previously unmet IEP
goals. The assumption is that a goal from the previous IEP
that has not been met may not be an appropriate goal to
begin with; something about it needs to be changed so that
the student will achieve success. The last three items in this
section address the quality of the accommodations and
modifications proposed to support learning and the information provided about the student’s present level of functioning. Section G includes the following questions:
22. Does the IEP as a whole reflect the desires of the
student and family, as well as their cultural norms?
23. Is the IEP free of educational jargon so that it is easy
for nonprofessionals to understand?
24. Taken together, do the goals have an appropriate
breadth; will they make a real difference in the student’s life?
25. Are goals that were not met last year changed or discarded (rather than being automatically carried forward from year to year)?
26. Are the proposed accommodations and modifications (e.g., specialized staff, materials, environmental conditions, interaction guidelines) appropriate to
achieve the goals?
27. Does the present levels of function statement provide
specific information/details about the student’s
skills to create a useful picture of the student?
28. Does the present levels of function statement emphasize the student’s strengths?
Discussion
The Design to Learn IEP Development Guide presents 28
questions designed to help professionals strengthen communication-related IEP goals and objectives for students
with CCN. The 28 questions expand upon the SMART criteria (Wright & Wright, 2006), drilling down to quite specific reflections of each criterion. The tool embraces the
conviction that active participation in society is the ultimate
goal of education. Our hope is that this tool will help educators and clinicians to individualize instruction based on a
student’s unique needs.
Limitations
Some limitations with the new tool are evident at this stage.
The items were written in generic terms that are, at least at
face value, applicable to goals addressing any educational
domain. At this point, however, we have no data on their
usefulness for evaluating goals that are unrelated to communication. Use of the tool has been limited to the population whose needs it was designed to address—children
with CCNs related to significant disabilities—for whom it
is challenging to decide upon appropriate goals and objectives. We hope that others who use this tool in the future
may explore its usefulness for evaluating IEP goals
addressing other domains and for other populations. The
new tool is by its very nature subjective and highly reliant
on personal and deep knowledge of the student, family, and
educational program. Professional opinions as to the fit
between specific goals and the students for whom they are
written would be influenced by the experiences and convictions of individual professionals. The subjectivity of
many of the items makes the tool a poor candidate for traditional scale analyses. Finally, this tool stops short of suggesting specific goal content that would translate directly
into IEP language. The tremendous variability among children with CCN makes such an endeavor far beyond the
scope of this tool. Instead, we offer questions to ensure that
the goals reflect the most salient features of high-quality
goals.
Potential Uses
This guide may prove useful for a variety of stakeholders,
including university instructors, practitioners (teachers and
SLPs), supervisors, and parents. The guide might also play
a role in supporting reflective practice. Instructors in teacher
training and speech communication programs might present
the tool as a useful heuristic to help students from various
disciplines learn how to develop high-quality IEP goals.
The tool could be used in instructional exercises involving
the development of hypothetical goals, combined with an
evaluation of their quality. Practicing classroom teachers
and school-based SLPs might improve IEPs by consulting
the tool during the initial IEP preparation period, using the
tool to remind themselves of positive qualities that could be
incorporated into the goals that they write. Practitioners
also could engage in exercises involving the discussion of
existing IEPs to generate suggestions for improving them.
Service coordinators might develop systematic ways to use
the tool to provide feedback for continuing education and
in-service training. Parents also might benefit from using
the tool as an exercise during IEP meetings and parent–
teacher conferences. After analyzing 109 IEP meetings
using time sampling procedures, Martin et al. (2006) documented that family members spoke only 15% of the time.
Family contributions to the IEP meeting might increase
with a scaffold such as this tool to help parents focus their
critique and guide their discussion. For instance, it might be
helpful for parents to ask themselves just the seven central
questions that head each of the sections of the new tool as
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9
Rowland et al.
they attempt to formulate their thoughts about the content of
an IEP.
Reflective practice, the act of critical self-reflection, is
becoming commonplace in educational settings. Teaching
with self-awareness and self-reflection is essential to transforming practice and adopting new strategies (Larrivee,
2000). Jung and McWilliam (2005) suggest that the use of
qualitative rating tools may promote self-reflection. Use of
this new tool throughout the school year as part of an ongoing commitment to reflective practice might lead to multiple outcomes, such as improved team collaboration, greater
supports for students to learn academic content, increased
focus on the student’s real world participation, and modifications to service delivery (such as targeting push-in vs.
pull-out services).
Conclusion
The guidelines embodied in this new tool remind the IEP
developer to consider whether the proposed goals are
focused/precise, measurable, and student centered; foster
active participation; are functional and educationally appropriate; and consider whether the entire IEP is of high quality. This clinical tool may serve as a bridge between meeting
legal requirements and generating high-quality goals that
students, professionals, and families can understand, leaving no child behind in an irrelevant, inappropriate educational plan. The Design to Learn IEP Development Guide is
available as a free download from http://designtolearn.com/
content/educational-resources.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
work was supported by U.S. Department of Education, Grants
H327A11001 and R324A090028.
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