Writing goals can be a difficult task. Here are some more examples of good goals. In order to have a goal you need to have baseline information as well as an understanding of language development and the curriculum that is expected at the child’s grade level.
Some of the graduate students at URI helped to compose these SMART goals.
Articulation:
Lauren Benevides wrote this articulation goal.
| Baseline level of performance: Donald had 55% accuracy for initial /r/ in words and at the phrase level. Donald had 67% accuracy for medial in words and at the phrase level. Donald had 50% for final in words and at the phrase level. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Donald will increase articulation skills as evidenced by producing the vowel controlled /r/ sound “air” in the intital, medial, and final position at the word and phrase level with 90% accuracy. |
Eliza Stopa wrote this one.
| Baseline level of performance Child produced /l/ in the initial position at the word level with 70% accuracy. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will improve his articulation skills as evidenced by his ability to produce /l/ in the initial position at the word level with 90% accuracy across three consecutive sessions. |
Social Goals:
| Baseline level of performance When asked the question “How are you?” Child was unable to describe how she was feeling. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will improve her social pragmatic skills as evidenced by her ability to execute a greeting script with 80% accuracy using visual cues/support across three consecutive sessions. |
Emotion Regulation:
| Baseline level of performance: Child had difficulty transitioning into and out of the therapy room. He ran in the hallway and knocked on the door of the clinic room next door. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will improve his emotion regulation skills as evidenced by his ability to walk into and out of the therapy room independently using visual cues/support. |
| Baseline level of performance:Child required the assistance of her mother on 9/16/14, and a guardian on 9/19/14 to walk her into therapy. |
Goal:
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Labeling Emotions
| Baseline level of performance: After watching a Bernard the Bear Fishing Video, the student correctly identified the characters’ emotions four out of six times (67%). |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, the student will improve his pragmatic language skills as evidenced by his ability to infer the emotions of characters (nervous, confused, angry, scared) with 80% accuracy. |
| Baseline level of performance After being presented with facial expressions, Child correctly identified the corresponding emotions 70% of the time. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will improve her pragmatic language skills as evidenced by her ability to correctly match facial expressions with emotions (happy, sad, angry, surprised, nervous) with 90% accuracy across three consecutive sessions. |
Lauren Benevides wrote the below goal
| Baseline level of performance: Donald could only give one description for his rating of a character in a video on the Emotional Thermometer. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Donald will increase his social pragmatic skills as evidenced by giving at least 4 descriptors of characters in videos with the use of the Emotional Thermometer with 100% accuracy. |
Story Grammar
| Baseline level of performance Student correctly sequenced the beginning, middle and end of 3 step stories. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Student will improve his expressive language skills as evidenced by his ability to orally sequence four step stories given visual cues in four out of five trials. |
| Baseline level of performance:Child did not identify the characters during a joint reading of “Abe and Pat” on 9/26/14 |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will increase narrative development skills by identifying characters (verbally or pointing) during joint readings with 50% accuracy across three consecutive sessions. |
The below goal was written by Lauren Benevides
| Baseline level of performance: Child described the character, setting, and 2 events that occurred in the Text Talk book. The retell task showed that he is at the Reactive Stage. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will increase his narrative skills as evidenced by his ability to retell a story at the Action Sequence Stage using Braidy, the Story Braid for 3 consecutive stories. |
Receptive Language
Baseline level of performance:
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Goal:
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| Baseline level of performance Child answered 6 out of 10 (60%) of the comprehension questions correctly while listening to a Text Talk story. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will improve his listening comprehension skills as evidenced by his ability to listen to a Text Talk story and answer 80% of the comprehension questions correctly using visual cues/support. |
This goal was written by Paige Clarkin
| Baseline level of performance: Riley followed the directions of the clinician and returned to the schedule without prompting from the clinician. Riley had difficulty following the second and third steps on the play routine and needed verbal prompting and modeling from the clinician. Riley did not independently complete this task. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Riley will demonstrate the ability to follow directions with the support of visual cues as evidenced by independently following a three-step play routine using a visual schedule over three sessions . |
Vocabulary
The below goal was written by Lauren Benevides
| Baseline level of performance: The Child could give an real-life connection for 1 out of 3 vocabulary words after reading the Text Talk book. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester using literature based instruction of tier 2 vocabulary words, Child will increase his receptive and expressive vocabulary skills and explore word relationships and nuances in word meanings by identifying real-life connections between given words and their use for an accuracy of at least 90% as measured by weekly probes/assessments. |
Narrative Skills
The below goal was written by Lauren Benevides
| Baseline level of performance: Chil could sequence 1 out of 4 events on the First, Then, Next, Last Visual Organizer. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will increase his narrative skills as evidenced by accurately sequencing 3 consecutive events in to a visual organizer with 90% accuracy. |
Expressive Language
| Baseline level of performance Child had difficulty providing specific instructions during a barrier task activity. He used vague terms and often gestured/pointed rather than verbally provide information. With cueing from the clinician, he was able to provide minimal verbal directions with 25% accuracy. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will improve his verbal expression as evidenced by his ability to provide specific instructions to an unfamiliar listener during a barrier task activity with 80% accuracy using visual cues (i.e. preposition word visual) for support. |
| Baseline level of performance Child correctly sequenced the beginning, middle and end of 3 step stories. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Child will improve his expressive language skills as evidenced by his ability to orally sequence four step stories given visual cues in four out of five trials. |
Clarkin wrote this goal
| Baseline level of performance: During the baseline exercises child used the visual organizer to match the color egg with the color the clinician was holding. Riley stated “I have a ___egg’ for 1/6 colors (17%). She did however nonverbally match 6/6 colors to the eggs when prompted by the clinician. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, child will demonstrate an understanding of relational meanings in word combinations as evidenced by using early descriptive concepts (numbers, letters, colors) to verbally describe an object (modifier+object) with 90% accuracy over three consecutive sessions. |
Fluency
| Baseline level of performance: Student demonstrated 0% awareness to overall body tension. After completing breathing and progressive relaxation exercises CW continued to demonstrate tension held in his shoulders, arms, back, and larynx. Excessive tension in laryngeal muscles disrupted the coordination of respiration, phonation, and articulation (e.g., speaking upon inhalation). |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Student will identify and deactivate instances of unnecessary tension to improve the coordination of respiration, phonation, and articulation in spontaneous speech with 70% accuracy using visual cues. |
| Baseline level of performance: Student was 100% fluent while reading with no presence of secondary behaviors. However, during spontaneous speech CW was 24% disfluent. Within word disfluencies consisted of silent blocks, sound prolongations (e.g., ttthe), sound repetitions (e.g., b-b-but), and monosyllabic whole word repetitions (e.g., I-I-I). Intelligibility was affected by reduced loudness and secondary behaviors of excessive tension (e.g., larynx, shoulders, and face) that disrupted the coordination of respiration, phonation, and articulation. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Student will use fluency shaping strategies of easy onset, light articulatory contact, and slide out techniques during spontaneous speech with 80% accuracy with visual cues. |
| Baseline level of performance: Student demonstrated 40% accuracy when answering questions about the physiological and anatomical aspects of normal voice production and in the knowledge of the A’s, B’s and C’s of stuttering. |
| Goal: By the end of the semester, Student will demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of normal voice production and the A’s, B’s, and C’s of stuttering to improve behavioral awareness as evidenced by the independent identification of barriers in fluent speech with 100% accuracy |
I struggle to see how 2-3 short term objectives could be written under most of these language goals. I am looking for specific guidance on how to write Annual Goals that are general enough to encompass several receptive or expressive language objectives, without needing to include every stupid word I am going to be writing just below that Annual goal as the objectives! I am venting because I am very frustrated with the lack of good info I have been able to find on this subject. My Special Education director is sending back IEPs to be redone because my goals aren’t “SMART Goals,” but the only examples I am provided with are for math or reading! SLPs are being asked to ahere to rules that do not fit our scope of practice!
The goals that are in the blog are examples for graduate students that are writing goals for 12 weeks so they would not be something that you could use for IEPS.
I am happy to help you though if you want to respond again to this blog. What is the age of your students? Does your school use the common core standards? So for example, if you were writing a semantic goal you could write it like this.
By June Johnny will define a word using 5 out of 7 details ( category, function, composition, where it found, adjectives, parts, connection to self) when given visual supports scoring 80% on a criterion reference test per quarter.
Short-term objective: By November Johnny will be able to say the category that a given word is in 8/10 trials.
By January Johnny will be able to state the category and function of a given word in 8/10 trials.
By March Johnny will be able to state the category, function, composition and where an object is found of a given word in 8/10 trials.
By April Johnny will be able to state category, function, composition, where and object is found and sensory features/adjectives see, hear, touch, taste, the smell of a given word in 8/10 trials.
By June Johnny will define a word using 5 out of 7 details ( category, function, composition, where it found, adjectives, parts, connection to self) when given visual supports scoring 80% on a criterion reference test per quarter.
This was so useful. Really helped me with goal setting. Thanks a lot 😀
I am so glad!
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Great example goals.
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