Read Between the Goals: What behavior analysts should look for in an IEP

Behavior analysts are increasingly asked to review and comment on Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), whether by families seeking support, by school teams requesting consultation, or by members of a student’s clinical team. Yet most behavior analysts receive little formal training in how the IEP document is built or how its components are meant to relate to one another. As a result, many hesitate to engage with IEP goals at all, or offer feedback that does not connect to the structure of the document the team is working from. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), an IEP must include a statement of the student’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance and measurable annual goals designed to meet the needs those present levels describe. These requirements line up closely with skills behavior analysts already use every day: defining behavior in observable terms, setting measurable criteria, and checking whether the data support a proposed target. This session shows behavior analysts how to apply those existing skills to IEP goal review. Participants will learn to trace each annual goal back to the student’s documented needs, find where goals are missing, misaligned, or unsupported by the available data, and evaluate whether goals target skills that are meaningful for the student. The session then focuses on turning those observations into clear, data-informed questions for the IEP team, so participants can contribute constructively and within their professional role. Concepts are illustrated with sample IEP goals reviewed goal by goal.