AAC Users: Measuring Genuine Communication from Susan Berkowitz

IEP objectives are often written in a way that states that the students will do something for a specified number of trials or opportunities (with a specified degree of accuracy, for a specified period of time).

The problem, however, with writing objectives in this way for our AAC users is that we sometimes presuppose what the student is going to want to say, or that (s)he is going to want to use a certain message a specified number of times in a day or make a specific request or comment a specific number of times in a day.

When our IEP goals are written based on preconceived notions of what the child will want to say in a given opportunity we lose sight of the fact that our real objective for the student is genuine communication through his generating messages based on what he wants to say.

This handout gives a few ideas of ways to write IEP objectives for AAC users, based on the work of Gayle Porter, SLP. Try thinking about the objectives you write in a different way.

And, keep on talking.