Writing meaningful, standards-aligned goals for students who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is essential for ensuring equitable access to education, language development, and social participation. While this task can be complex, it is foundational to the inclusive education of learners with significant communication needs. This session will support educators, speech-language pathologists, and related service providers in writing individualized education program goals that are functional, measurable, and anchored in local or national academic standards.
Too often, educational goals for students who use AAC focus narrowly on requesting or navigating a device, rather than supporting the full breadth of communicative competence, academic engagement, and social-emotional development. This presentation will challenge participants to raise expectations, move beyond compliance, and develop goals that reflect the belief that all students—regardless of disability or communication modality—can learn, contribute, and participate meaningfully in age-respectful academic and social settings.
Rooted in the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), this session emphasizes that standards-based instruction and educational goals must be accessible to all students, including those with complex communication needs. Participants will explore how to deconstruct grade-level standards and use them as a foundation for creating individualized goals that are relevant, functional, and developmentally appropriate. The focus will be on aligning goals with broader curricular and communication outcomes while maintaining a person-centered, strengths-based approach.
Participants will be guided through a process of identifying critical academic and communication demands embedded within standard curricula and designing goals that scaffold access to these areas. Emphasis will be placed on:
* Supporting core and fringe vocabulary development,
* Embedding goals into inclusive classroom routines,
* Addressing multiple domains of language and literacy,
* And ensuring goals reflect authentic, real-world communication contexts.
The session will cover key topics such as:
* Using standards to anchor high-expectation goal writing: Participants will learn how to map IEP goals to grade-level standards from any curriculum framework while ensuring the goals remain attainable and relevant to the individual.
* Deconstructing standards into measurable components: Attendees will practice identifying the underlying language, cognitive, and communication demands of academic standards, and learn to convert them into developmentally appropriate objectives for AAC users.
* Writing functional, observable, and measurable goals: The presentation will include templates and examples for writing IEP goals that are clearly defined, trackable over time, and directly linked to daily instruction and routines.
* Embedding AAC supports in the general curriculum: Participants will explore how to design goals that build communicative competence (including pragmatic, linguistic, and strategic skills) while supporting participation in inclusive academic and social environments.
Throughout the session, real-world examples and case studies across age ranges and educational settings will demonstrate how to individualize and operationalize standards in the goal-writing process. Sample goals will show how communication supports (e.g., aided language input, communication partner training, robust vocabulary) can be embedded into academic activities like shared reading, science inquiry, or math problem-solving.
Attendees will also discuss strategies for promoting collaboration across interdisciplinary teams, ensuring that all educators and support staff contribute to goal development and implementation. The importance of including family input and respecting the student’s voice, preferences, and cultural context will be emphasized throughout.
In addition to academic alignment, the session will highlight how well-written educational goals can serve as advocacy tools—justifying needed services, demonstrating high expectations, and reinforcing inclusive practices. The ultimate goal is to empower participants to write individualized education plans that are more than paperwork—they are blueprints for meaningful instruction, communication access, and educational equity.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
* Identify and apply relevant academic standards to inform high-quality goal development for AAC users.
* Write individualized educational goals that are functional, measurable, and communicatively relevant across contexts.
* Embed AAC supports and strategies into standards-based instruction to promote language, literacy, and participation.
* Collaborate effectively with team members to ensure educational goals reflect student needs, voices, and high expectations.
This session is ideal for professionals working in inclusive classrooms, special education, and support services who are ready to elevate their goal-writing practices and advocate for the full participation of students who use AAC in both academic and social domains.
