An IEP is the most important means through which children with learning disabilities must be provided for in order to enable them to succeed in school. Designing a powerful IEP requires an effort of parents, teachers, and experts in the field to get what is in the best interest of the child. 

Let’s take a look at how to create an IEP, how to set the goals that can be achieved and how to collaborate with the school and other professionals.

Steps to Developing an Effective IEP

Creating an IEP is a structured process that involves several key steps to ensure it addresses the child’s specific needs.

Assessment and Evaluation

Evaluating the child’s ability and the challenge that he/she is facing is the first step of having an IEP. This is usually done through assessment and rating of the child through aptitude tests, observation, and information from teachers, parents, and specialists. The objective is to have an extensive understanding of the child in terms of abilities, difficulties and where he or she has a need for assistance.

Gathering a Collaborative Team

IEP as stated above is a collaborative process and therefore a good IEP. Normally, the IEP team involves the child’s parents, teachers, school leaders, and where necessary, the child’s therapist such as a speech therapist, school occupational therapist, an educational psychologist and other professionals of that nature. In each team, every member contributes his/her perspective of understanding the child’s needs and ways of facilitating learning.

Identifying Educational Needs

After the assessment has been conducted, the IEP team determines the child’s individual educational needs. This means that the intervention may include academic skills including reading, writing, mathematics alongside other skills that do not involve learning such as social skills, communication and motor skills. The purpose is to identify the domain, in which the child may have a learning disability or would need assistance of some kind.

Setting Goals and Objectives

After that there is a need to define reasonable and achievable objectives for the child’s education. These goals should be specific, measurable and ought to be achieved with in a given period of time. For instance, it is better to avoid such goals as ‘develop reading skills’ while a better example of a goal would be ‘achieve the third grade reading level by the end of the year.’ Goals should be set in consideration with the child’s development and should be challenging yet achievable.

Choosing Accommodations and Modifications

It is also important to include in the IEP any necessary accommodations as well as modifications required towards achievement of the laid down objectives and goals for the child. Examples of modifications might entail being allowed extra time when taking tests, receiving modified tasks or being allowed to use some forms of technology. As for changes that could be made, they can range from changing the curriculum to be in harmony with the child’s learning ability. These supports are needed to bring the child to par with his peers since he is going to need them to be able to have access to the curriculum.

Developing a Plan for Progress Monitoring

Among them is how the child’s learning will be evaluated after the IEP and how his or her performance will be reviewed periodically throughout the year. This is the process of establishing milestones or small achievable targets that would be used to track the progress towards the bigger targets. Although an IEP is a finished product at the end of the process, it should not be forgotten that regular progress reports/IEP meetings are important in order to see if the plan is effective and, if not, to modify it.

Reviewing

This is one of the last steps of developing an IEP in which students, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders have to analyse and discuss the progress made, the outcomes and results of instructions, and other plans and activities in the process of maximising students’ learning and achievement.

Setting Realistic and Measurable Goals

One major aspect of the IEP process involves goal setting and the goals have to be realistic and achievable and also quantifiable. Here’s how to set effective IEP goals:Here’s how to set effective IEP goals:

Use the SMART Criteria

IEP goals should be SMART: Also referred to as SMART which is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. For instance, goals stated in the administrative language such as ‘Improve math skills’ are typically too vague. An example of a SMART goal would be; ‘’To enhance the child’s solving ability of addition and subtraction equations by working towards a 80% performance by the end of the semester.’’

Base Goals on Current Performance

Goals should align with the child’s current performance, which is done during the assessment process so as to arrive at performance expectations. This enables sufficient control of the activities and hence the achievement of the goals within the set time.

Include Short-Term Objectives

Big goals are usually difficult to measure, and thus techniques such as chunking can always be used to subdivide goals into smaller measurable targets that can be monitored easily. For instance, if the overall goal is, ‘Increase reading comprehension’, a short-term goal could be; ‘To correctly pick the main idea in a given paragraph via a 90% pass rate in the next three months’.

Focus on Functional and Academic Skills

It is also essential to stress that, besides such academic skills, the IEP has to address functional goals that consider the child’s development, especially in the sphere of communication, interactions, and personal management.

Working with the School and Specialists

An IEP requires the cooperation of the parents, the school and specialists so as to yield the best outcome. Here’s how to foster effective collaboration:Here’s how to foster effective collaboration:

Maintain Open Communication

Hall stated that, in order for parent-teacher collaboration to work effectively, there has to be communication on a regular basis. To ensure that there is regular communication, provide the child’s care team with the schedule as to when they need to check on the child’s progress and if there are any difficulties and changes that may need to be made to the IEP. Too often the parents are reluctant to ask questions and voice their concerns so they should be encouraged to do so.

Involve Specialists Early

Early intervention involves the relevant professionals like a speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, or a consultant in behaviour. This is very important in understanding the child’s needs as well as the kind of intervention required.

Be an Advocate

The parents need to be proactive and protect the interests of the child during formulation of the IEP. This includes checking that the implementation of the IEP as planned is being done, and the child accesses all the accommodations or services as stated in the IEP.

Developing an IEP is a multiphase process which means that the development of the plan is strategic and it involves communication with the team members. When these steps are followed, and the parent and the child are in touch with the school and the specialists, it is made possible for the child to obtain all the necessary help required in order to succeed in his or hheris academic accomplishments and emotional well-being.