Last Updated on July 15, 2024 by Editorial Team
IEP holds great significance as goals are set for every child according to their need and level of disability. While mostly these goals revolve around various subjects, to inculcate concepts; there can also be IEP organizational goals to help children with the skill of organizing.
While there is no denying that this skill is vastly used as an adult, the foundation of organizing things, like notebooks, notes, tasks, and even their personal belongings is helpful right from school days; hence, IEP organization goals are crucial in building and developing the required organizational skill.
That being said, curation of IEP organization goals requires careful consideration, of the current requirements of the child, and what they need to learn. Hence, this post will help you navigate through the significance of IEP organization goals, and will give you some sample goals for the child.
IEP goals and their significance
An IEP, Individualized Education Plan, is provided for individuals with identified disabilities and aims to provide services and accommodations to aid their education with the mindful input from both, the educational institutions’ end and the parent’s end, and in some cases, designated advocates as well. An IEP might even work for students who haven’t been formally diagnosed but require special education services and programs.
Coming to the role of IEP goals, we can definitely say that it works as a cornerstone for a student with special needs and aids in their development by configuring services with their needs.
- Provides a tool of accountability for the institution as well as the caretakers of the child with special needs.
- Provides instructions and identifies how the school resources need to be configured with the child’s special needs.
- Ensures a well-coordinated and strategic approach to cater to the student’s needs.
- Allows the student to be a part of the general curriculum as well as seek growth through the right support.
- Eventually prepares the student for adult life as well.
IEP goals, as mentioned above, are instrumental in bridging the gap between the needs of a child and the resources they are being provided, thus their specificity matters the most when seeking absolute results.
For example; if a student facing difficulty in the subject of math, and only finds it difficult to deal with when it comes to geometry, then it’s imperative that the IEP goals are oriented around geometry specifically.
Similarly, an individual with cognitive disabilities will require diverse and exclusive goals for the student to function at their best potential.
List of sample IEP organizational goals
Since organization goals are a crucial part of IEP, here is a list of sample IEP organization goals that can be used in various aspects of a child’s life. Helping children become better with organizing skills, These sample goals can be used to check their organizational competence and expertise. This also becomes crucial since based on these, their goals can be further changed and altered so that they get better in this sphere as well.
- The student should be able to create a system for organizing items in his or her cupboard or locker.
- The student should be able to use colored highlighters segregated according to the different subjects. (For ex: Blue for math, yellow for English)
- When given 8-10 products or items, the student should be able to manage to carefully and neatly organize each of the items.
- The student should be able to organize their books and notebooks according to the binder checks.
- The child should be able to self-edit their work related to correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar.
- Using strategies, and adult support, the student should be able to organize and outline before proceeding with writing projects.
- If a complex task is given, the student should easily be able to organize the tasks and segregate them on paper.
- The student should spend time and check for notes and materials; at the same time, should be able to arrange them properly.
- The student should be able to set the school bag according to the timetable.
- The student should be able to classify the sequence of events on the basis of the beginning, middle, and end tasks.
Factors to consider while curating IEP organizational goals
1. Plop
The IEP organizational goals should be based on a child’s PLOP, that is their present level of performance. This factor makes sure that the goals are being set according to the current functioning of the child and with consideration to his/her weaknesses and how the goals can aid in improving them.
2. Learning Expectation
It is important to have clear and achievable learning expectations before curating IEP goals for a child with special needs, along with the consideration of the teaching strategies and modalities to be used to reach those expectations for an individual child, and the assessment methods to be used to measure the progress.
3. General Curriculum
While the purpose of IEP is to provide special education services to children with special needs along with required accommodations, it is important to make sure that the goals being set during the IEP address the general curriculum as well. These goals should neither make education exclusive, nor unnecessarily advantageous, but inclusive and equal for all.
4. Frequency of Progress Report
The IEP goals shall be responsible for improving and sustaining the learning capacity of the child with special needs. Thus these goals being oriented around their personalized capabilities should have timelines that offer frequent progress reports to the parents of special needs children, as often as the parents of non-disabled individuals are notified.
5. Development Process
Lastly, the IEP goals should be holistic enough to acknowledge the developmental progress of a child with special needs. Apart from focusing on the present levels of their academic understanding, these goals should be able to consider the student’s annual goals, services, regular program modifications, and placement as well.
Conclusion
Having mentioned the few IEP organizational goals that are basic to a child’s developmental progress, we need to understand that while these programs are brought into practice to provide an equal environment for children with special needs, it’s imperative for the caretakers to understand that frequent evaluations are also necessary to bring about the necessary changes with time and support the teachers in bringing the policies to full effect for the betterment of the child.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,