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REVOLUTIONARY COMMON SENSE LIBRARY
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GOALS:
Meaningful and Relevant
or Garbage?
Revolutionary Common Sense by Kathie Snow
www.disabilityisnatural.com
We’re fanatics about goals! In Disability World, a person who receives government-funded services or benefits is also on the receiving end of goals for his life (whether he wants them or not). The laws governing services mandate the writing of goals—goals about physical abilities, behavior, academics, self-care, employment, and just about everything under the sun! Goals are written for little tiny babies (and their families), young children, school-aged children, and adults of all ages. The “I”—in IFSPs (Individualized Family Service Plans), IEPs (Individualized Education Programs), IHPs (Individualized Habilitation Programs), and other Plans and Programs —means the goals are to be individualized (not based on a label). And the individual (and/or the parents) whose life is being Planned or Programmed is supposed to be involved in the PP process (that’s what I like to call it).
In the Real World, having goals is a good thing. If the goal is a college
education, a teenager’s high school courses will get him there. If the goal is a
Hawaiian vacation, the family sets aside money for the trip. In the Real World,
people create personal goals that are meaningful and relevant to them. The
same is not always true (hardly ever, it seems) in Disability World. There,
goals are often meaningless and irrelevant to the individual who is supposed
to achieve them. They’re Garbage Goals, written by—and only important
to—others.
Such goals may represent attempts to “normalize” a person with
a disability. They may reflect the personal standards of those who write the
goals: “I do things this way, therefore, so must everyone else.” Or
they may have been regurgitated by a computer—yes, in today’s advanced
world of computer software, an educator can type in a child’s diagnosis,
and the computer will spit out goals based on the label! (That’s
individualized?)
But wait, there’s more! I once presented to a group of special ed preschool
teachers, who reported that they write the goals for all the children with
disabilities in their classrooms, without ever meeting the child
and without ever talking with the parents! This should not have been shocking—I’m
aware that many educators (illegally) write an IEP without the input of the
student or the parents. What was shocking was that these educators so freely
admitted it! Did they know parents were supposed to be involved in writing
their children’s IEPs? Yes. (I asked!) So why didn’t they ensure
parents were involved? Because (they said) parents (1) didn’t know how
to write goals, (2) didn’t come to the meetings, and/or (3) parents didn’t
care. (I challenged them on all points, but that’s another story.)
I asked how they could write individualized goals without knowing the
child and parents, and here was the second shocker: they reviewed the
assessments done on a particular child (“Ryan,” a 3-year-old, for example),
and compared those to the developmental scale for a “typical 3-year-old.” They
then wrote goals which were intended to turn Ryan into a “typical child.” It
didn’t matter to them whether these goals represented skills
or milestones that were important to Ryan or his parents!
What happens when a child or adult doesn’t meet the goals that have been
written for her? We may believe the person has failed, is incompetent, has
chosen to be “non-compliant,” and/or find some other way to blame
the person. We should, however, closely examine the goals we
helped write. We should also honestly assess if we played a role in creating a situation
that led to a person’s “failure,” for we frequently set people
up for failure when the goals are not meaningful and relevant. Please memorize
those words: Meaningful and Relevant, post them for everyone to see during
a PP meeting, and let them guide your every action.
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When I present at conferences, many parents show me their children’s
IEP documents. With few exceptions, the goals are deplorable: “Melissa
will read at a 6th-grade level.” To whom is this meaningful and relevant?
To Melissa, her parents, her teachers, or the school board who’s worried
about statewide tests? If the goal is not meaningful and relevant to Melissa,
it will not be achieved! A more meaningful and relevant goal might be, “Melissa
will read and write a report on a ‘Harry Potter’ book.”
Some goals are so vague they’re almost laughable, except there’s
nothing funny about the power that goals may have over a person’s daily
life at school or work: “Matthew will improve his behavior.” What
does this mean? Improve how? To what degree? And to whose standard? What if
Mr. Smith “approves” of Matthew’s behavior, but Mrs. Jones
doesn’t?
“Joseph will [do whatever] 3 out of 4 times, with 90 percent accuracy,” is
another questionable goal. I don’t know how writing goals
in this style came about, but it’s a favorite of some
educators and some physical and occupational therapists. Is
this a meaningful and relevant goal to Joseph? Does this reflect
real life in any way, shape, or form? And if the goal involves
a physical skill, how does one measure 90 percent accuracy?
(A better method for writing effective goals is described in
the “Activity-Based Goals” article.)
Service providers have shared some of the goals written for
the adults they work with in group homes. “Marianne will wash, dry, and put away the
dishes within twenty minutes of eating.” This goal isn’t really
about achieving a goal or learning a new skill; it’s about compliance
and doing something the way someone else thinks it should be done! I once asked
a group of sixty adult service providers if, in their own lives, they routinely
did the things which they wrote as goals for others. They sheepishly wagged
their heads and mumbled, “No.” How can we, in good conscience,
demand that others do things we don’t do ourselves?
The most important step in writing meaningful and relevant
goals is listening to the person. We can ask questions like, “What do you want to do,” “What’s
really important to you,” and “How do you want to do it?”
A third-grader can be told about all the great things he’ll be exposed
to in the third-grade curriculum. If he’s not at “grade-level,” we
can—with his input—write meaningful and relevant goals to help
increase his understanding of a subject (geography, for example). If “William” likes
puzzles, this might be an appropriate goal: “Using a geography puzzle,
William will identify the names and locations of the 50 United States.”
A teenager’s dreams of life after high school—college, vocational/technical
school, or a real job—should drive his goals. Meaningful and relevant
goals can help dreams come true.
The dreams of many adults include having a real job,
going to college, moving from the group home to their
own place, and/or all of the above. Unfortunately, some
people are never deemed “competent” to have a real job or “able” to
live in their own place because they don’t meet the “standards
of readiness,” in the form of goals, imposed by others.
What does it really take for a person to live on
her own? Think about when you left your parents’ home to strike out on your own. Did you know how
to do everything your parents routinely did? Like cooking, paying bills, balancing
the checkbook, and...the list is endless. No, you probably didn’t. I
remember calling my mother long-distance, way back when, asking what to do
with the five-pound roast I wanted to cook! We learn by doing, by our mistakes,
by asking others, and in many other ways. Why is a different standard imposed
on people with disabilities?
So in thinking about adults in today’s world, let’s be realistic! “Cooking” can
involve nothing more than taking something out of the freezer and sticking
it in the microwave (isn’t this what most of us do today?). If a person
can’t balance a checkbook, he can get help from the friendly banker (or
a friend or neighbor), or a simple spread sheet on the computer can do the
work for him. Let’s be honest: most people without disabilities have
varying levels of competency in the daily routines of adult life. We get help
from others, do the best we can, and live imperfect, good lives! Why can’t
the same be true for people with disabilities?
If an adult service provider came into my home
and measured whether I met some of the goals routinely
assigned to people with disabilities, I probably wouldn’t
meet those standards—and the provider probably wouldn’t either.
So let’s get real when it comes to writing goals!
Will the goals for an adult lead to the fulfillment
of the person’s hopes
and dreams, or do they only represent functional activities or compliance to
rules? Do the goals for a school-aged child support friendships, inclusion,
and academic success, or do they result in isolation and segregation? Do the
goals for a young child and her family focus on a family’s real needs
for togetherness and being a happy family, or do they put pressure on the child
and/or family to achieve some standard of “normalcy”?
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Are goals meaningful and relevant to the
person? Are they written in words that make
sense to the person? (No more gobbledy-gook!)
Are the goals achievable and realistic, from
the individual’s (or family’s) point of view?
Ultimately, it comes down to this: if we’re focused on the person’s
disability and his so-called deficits
and problems, we’ll write goals
that are important to us and/or goals
to “normalize” the person
to an “able-bodied” standard.
Not only will these goals probably be
meaningless and irrelevant to the individual,
but they may also be demeaning and may
set the person up for failure. If, however,
we focus on the Real Person, a person
who has his or her own set of hopes and
dreams and abilities and strengths, who
deserves the opportunity to lead a real
and authentic life, we’ll
focus on goals that have meaning and
relevance to that individual. And we
won’t
write any more Garbage Goals.
In the final analysis, be guided by this:
would you want others to write a Plan or
Program for your life? The answer is probably
a resounding, “No!” Try
to imagine what it must feel like to be the focus of a PP meeting—try
to climb inside another’s heart and soul—and then be careful about
goals, please be ever so careful.
©2003-06 Kathie Snow, www.disabilityisnatural.com. Permission is granted for non-commercial use of this article: you may print this web page and photocopy it to share with others. Click here to download the PDF handout version of the article. As a courtesy, please tell me (kathie@disabilityisnatural.com) how/when you use it. Do not violate copyright laws: request permission before reprinting or republishing in newsletters, on websites, or in other media. Clip art from Adobe In-Design.
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Our words reflect the way we think, so let's get rid of descriptors like "handicapped, physically disabled, mentally retarded, learning disabled" and other words that focus on the condition instead of the person. People First Language promotes dignity and respect for all!
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