How do I write IEP goals for language?

This is a question asked all the time among groups for SLPs. With the massive laundry lists of language skills we often think we need to address, it can be a daunting task.

That’s why earlier this year, I published a 5-post series about how to write goals for one of the biggest culprits behind “processing problems”: syntax.

The thing is, writing IEP goals for language doesn’t have to be a nightmare. You can actually write IEP language goals quickly if you can do the following:

1. Identify the most important skills to target.
2. Put those skills in to a basic observable statement that explains what behavior you want to see.

For syntax, one way to do that is to consider the most challenging sentence types for individuals with language disorders; which I explain in the video below. In other words, for the first step, you’d simply identify that your student needs to work on syntax, and determine that you should focus your therapy on targeting those challenging sentence types.

But now that we’ve made that decision, we have to figure out how to put it in to a goal statement. The first thing that I do in order to get focused is to write a “base goal”, which is basically a really general statement of what observable behavior my student would need to do in order to show me that they have mastered the skills causing them issues.

In the video below, I walk through your first steps to doing that when writing IEP goals for language therapy focused on building syntax.

You can see the original article in the “Syntax Goals for Speech Therapy” series here. If you want to continue learning about the difficult sentence types and how to write IEP goals specific to each one, you can check out the rest of the articles in the series here:

Syntax Goals for Speech Therapy Part 2: Passive Voice

Syntax Goals for Speech Therapy Part 3: Adverbial Clauses and Temporal/Causal Conjunctions

Syntax Goals for Speech Therapy Part 4: Center-Embedded Relative Clauses

Syntax Goals for Speech Therapy Part 5: Sentences with Three or More Clauses

Finally, if you want to take your learning to the next level and learn how to target syntax skills to boost higher-level comprehension, download the free Ultimate Guide to Sentence Structure.

Inside you’ll learn exactly how to focus your language therapy. Including:

• The hidden culprit behind unexplained “processing problems” that’s often overlooked.
• The deceptively simple way to write language goals; so you’re not spending hours on paperwork (goal bank included).
• The 4 sentence types often behind comprehension and expression issues and why they’re so difficult.
• An easy-to-implement “low-prep” strategy proven to boost sentence structure, comprehension, and written language (conjunctions flashcards included).