Tuesday's Tip: Smarter Goal R- Relevant

GOALS MUST BE RELEVANT TO CURRICULUMS: General/Core, Modified, Expanded, & Functional

• Goals must be relevant to Curriculms

• General Education - Core Curriculum - Subject centered

  • Use of State Standards or Common Core Standards2

• Modified Core Curriculum - Subject centered

  • Based on ability and priorities

  • Use of transitional IEP development

• Expanded (Functional) Core Curriculum - Problem centered

• Includes General or Modified Core Curriculum

• Based on special skills needed due to a disability, i.e.:

  • Deafness

    • Sign language

    • Lip-reading

• Blindness

  • Mobility training

  • Braille

• Autism

  • Hidden/covert curriculum

  • Social cognition/judgment curriculum

• Intellectual Disability

  • ADLs

  • Functional communication

• Physical disability

  • Power mobility training

• Behavioral

  • Pattern recognition, emotional regulation,

  • Skills that move from mimetic, parallel, automatic, rule, or habit-based to conscious, deliberate, and ToM analysis based.

• To advance appropriately toward attaining the annual goals2.

[34 CFR §300.320(a)(4)(i)]

• To be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum

[34 CFR §300.320(a)(4)(ii)]

• To participate in extracurricular and other nonacademic activities.

[34 CFR §300.320(a)(4)(ii)]

• To be educated and participate with other children with disabilities and non-disabled children in extracurricular and other nonacademic activities.

[34 CFR §300.320(a)(4)(iii)]

• Transition IEP for employment, post-secondary, or independent living when the child turns 16, or younger3, and updated annually thereafter. Don't forget that this includes leisure and recreation goals or the ability to independently: complete a job application, read the driver training manual, pass the driving test, read a map, complete ADLs, date safely, access their community, read a bus schedule, balance a checkbook, safely access the Internet to do research, ...)

• It must include:

• Appropriate measurable post-secondary goals based upon age appropriate transition assessments related to training, education, employment, and where appropriate, independent living skills [34 CFR §300.320(b)(1)]

• The transition services (including courses of study) needed to assist the child in reaching those goals [34 CFR §300.320(b)(2)

This is the 5th of 8 blogs addressing the use of Smarter Goals in order to attain better functional outcomes for our children. Make sure you