IEP Goals for Students with Autism

By Rosemarie Griffin

IEP meetings can be such powerful moments to advocate for our students’ needs. IEP goals for students with autism drive individualized instruction, making them beyond important. Helping students with autism reach those goals is such a rewarding experience, but the behind the scenes planning for those IEP meetings is the true challenge! When there are so many speech and language skills that can be IEP goals, the whole process can become overwhelming!  

Luckily, you don’t have to look any further! You have come to the right place! Can we say freebie? This special education resource, FREE IEP Goal Bank for Autism, incorporates  expressive and receptive language skills, play skills and imitation skills! The freebie can easily be downloaded to help you feel prepared for each individual student every time that annual review rolls around! Simply sign up with your email below! Then read on for some more easy to implement ideas to continue working with those speech and language goals!

IEP Autism Goal Bank by ABA Speech

Collaboration is Key

The SLP (Speech and Language Pathologist) doesn’t have to do this alone! Once you have used the freebie, IEP Goal Bank for Autism, to identify some of the speech and language skills for individual students, share the goals with their other teachers! Build your teaching squad and tackle the skills together! Our students absolutely need opportunities throughout the day to work on their communication skills. Receptive and expressive language skills are imperative throughout the day and it is so important that the SLP is not the only one working on them! By sharing specific goals, special education teachers can easily incorporate them into their lessons too! 

VB-MAPP

Still looking for more ways to build IEP goals for our students with autism? Check out the, VB-MAPP (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program) created by Dr. Mark Sundberg. This is my go to assessment! Not only will this assessment discover more than traditional assessments, it includes, requesting, labeling, following directions, matching, filling in the blank for familiar phrases, verbal imitation skills, group behavior. The assessment will allow you to tailor your speech and language IEP goals easily to each student in your group! These are such functional skills and functional goals!  Then don’t forget to share the results with the other special education teachers and parents, for them to work on also

Setting IEP goals and objectives for students with autism can be time consuming and challenging. Remember the FREE IEP Goal Bank for Autism is chock full of functional goals to help your students work on expressive and receptive language skills, play skills and imitation skills. Depending on how verbal your students are, these goals can be considered for preschool and kindergarten aged children, and may even be appropriate for some in middle school.

Even more, share this great freebie with all of the Special education teachers and parents of autistic children you know, so they may feel better prepared for their next IEP meeting also!  

Just enter your email address below and your free IEP Autism Goal Bank will be delivered right to your email! 

P.S. If you want to learn more about helping students with autism find their voice, check out my freebie mini autism course with a quickstart guide!

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Here's a free resource–

IEP Goal Bank

Writing IEPs for autistic learners can feel daunting.


From this free download, you'll get real-life examples of specific, measurable goals for expressive language, receptive language, play skills, and imitation.

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