A Few Sample Goals and Objectives from Dave Sherman's Book Autism: Asserting Your Child's Rights to a Special Education coming out Fall of 2006

Sample Goal no. 1 Receptive Language

Present Level of Performance:Billy, a 4 year old, knows only around 40 words. Most of the words are nouns. Billy, only knows 5 verbs - go, come, stop, run, and walk. He knows only 2 adjectives - big and little. The remaining words that Billy understands are nouns such as Daddy, Mommy, dog, bed, etc.

Annual Goal and Objective: Billy will expend his vocabulary and learn new nouns, verbs and adjectives and will learn to join words. By the end of the school year, Billy will increase his vocabulary to 300 words and will be able to understand two words in sequence such as big dog, blue chair, go car, boy jump. Billy will be tested using pictures and will respond correctly 8 out of 10 times.

Sample Goal no. 2 Social Reciprocity - Turn Taking

Present Level of Performance: Roger, a 6 year old, is functioning at a 3 year old level socially. One of his unique needs is to learn turn taking. At present, he wanders off when standing in line, cannot attend to rolling a ball back and forth with another student for more than 2 - 3 times, and speaks out of turn during circle time.

Annual Goal and Objective: Roger will learn turn taking through adult instruction and peer interaction. Roger will demonstrate appropriate turn taking in 7 out of 10 times with peers and 9 out of 10 times with adults (with no more than 2 prompts.) Staff will collect data twice a month as to Roger's progress.

Sample Goal no. 3 - Social Skills - Facial Expressions

Present Level of Performance: Beth is a 12-year-old student with Asperger's Syndrome. Although she is maintaining satisfactory grades in her core curriculum, she has difficulty making friends, and working in groups. Beth has difficulty recognizing facial expressions, and recognizing when someone is happy or angry with her.

Annual Goal and Objective: Beth will learn to recognize facial expressions. In 8 out of 10 trials Beth will be able to identify the correct emotion displayed by facial expressions of a teacher. The student will be given direct instruction using photographs of facial expressions and will be asked to display various facial expressions herself. Student will correctly identify facial expressions in 80 out of 100 trials using photographs.

Sample Goal: - no. 4 Greeting

Present Level of Performance: Beth is eight years old. She has not learned to greet people. She does not make eye contact.

Annual Goal and Objective: Beth will learn to make eye contact and greet people as she enters a room. Beth will learn to greet someone 7 out of 10 times when she enters a room with prompting and 2 out of 10 times without a prompt. In 5 out of 10 times she will make eye contact according to data collected bi-weekly by staff.

Sample Goal - no. 5 Transitioning between Activities

Present Level of Performance: Carolyn is an 8 year old who has difficulty transitioning when a activity comes to an end. She has low expressive and receptive language skills for her age. She often becomes upset and refuses to move on the next project.

Goal and Objective: Carolyn will learn to transition smoothly from project to project. Around 5 minutes before a project ends, Carolyn will be told that it is almost time for the project to end and will be shown a "about to stop card." Around two minutes to go, Carolyn will be reminded that it is time to finish up and be shown a "stop card." In addition to the cards, Carolyn will be given notices orally. Data will be collected as to her responses bi-weekly.

By the end of the school year, Carolyn will be able to transition smoothly in 9 out of 10 times taken at three different trials.