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How to Recognize SMART IEP Goals | Individualized Education Program

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Find out how to tell if your child’s annual IEP goals are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-based. Here’s how to recognize SMART IEP goals.

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At a glance

A strengths-based IEP uses student abilities to help work on weaknesses.

IEP goals are built around what the student can do and how the team can use those abilities.

Helping students identify and leverage their strengths, interests, and preferences can lead to more self-awareness and self-advocacy.

But more and more schools are shifting the focus from deficits to a strengths-based approach. This kind of IEP gives much more weight to a student's strengths, interests, and preferences. The team not only identifies strengths but leverages them to help address weaknesses.

Here's what you need to know to help develop a strengths-based IEP for your child.

What strengths-based IEPs are

A strengths-based IEP looks at abilities as well as weaknesses. It looks at what students can do, what the team wants them to do next, and how strengths might be used to set goals to help address a particular need.

How strengths-based IEPs work

There's no one way to develop a strengths-based IEP. But here are some common elements and approaches.

Use a strengths finder before the IEP meeting. These kinds of student self-assessments can help IEP teams develop a strengths-based IEP. A strengths test not only tells the IEP team about kids' abilities. It also tells the kids about their own abilities. And these insights can be a guiding force throughout the IEP meeting.

Give students a leadership role in IEP meetings. Having students actively participate in parts of the IEP meeting can help in many ways. For example, students can lead the part of the meeting where they share what they discovered about themselves when taking the strengths test.

Student involvement in IEP meetings can deepen the discussion about strengths. It can also give kids a sense of ownership when they get to help make decisions about their IEP.

Reframe the way the IEP team talks about strengths. Too often, IEP teams discuss a student's strengths by saying things like "What I like about Elana is...." And these kinds of comments can be hard to connect to the rest of the IEP in actionable ways.

But IEP teams can reframe the strengths discussion so it focuses on abilities: "What does Elana do well?"

For example, if Elana struggles in math, what does she do well in that subject? Can she work independently? Does she prefer to work in groups? Is she able to use a calculator? Strengths-based IEPs aim to start with a strength for each of the skill sets discussed in this section.

Weave strengths into IEP goals. This is the heart of a strengths-based IEP. IEP goals are built around what the student can do and how the team can use that ability to work on an area of weakness.

It's important for IEP goals to be SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and T ime-bound). Incorporating your child's strengths into SMART goals can make the goals even stronger. It helps kids see how to make progress by leveraging what they're good at.

Here are a few examples of how a strengths-based IEP goal could differ from a SMART goal that isn't strengths-based:

The common goals and the strengths-based goals set the same expectation for student progress. But only the strengths-based goals use the student's abilities and interests to help chart a path to progress.

The potential of strengths-based IEPs

Strengths-based IEPs aren't widely used yet. But as more schools make strides in student-led IEPs and other areas, they may inspire more districts to rewrite their IEP templates. Adjusting these templates can help ensure that strengths are discussed throughout the IEP meeting, not just in the first section.

In the meantime, you don't have to wait for your child's school to change its IEP template. There's a lot you can do right now.

Key takeaways

Strengths tests and self-assessments can help deepen the discussion about strengths.

Strengths-based IEP goals use a student's abilities, interests, and preferences to help chart a path to progress.

Involving students in IEP meetings can help the team think about ways to develop strengths and work on weaknesses.

About the author

About the author

Julie Rawe is the special projects editor at Understood.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Brian Stack, MEd is the principal of Sanborn Regional High School in Kingston, New Hampshire.

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Strengths-based IEPs: What you need to know

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What is a strengths-based IEP? Find out how this type of IEP focuses on student strengths to set IEP goals, and see examples of strengths-based goals.