IEP Components – From Present Levels to Progress Measures By Catherine C. George Ph.D. & Sharon A Lynch, Ph.D.

This issue of NASET’s IEP Component Series was written by Catherine C. George, Ph.D. and Sharon A. Lynch, Ph.D.  The 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act included substantial changes related to Individual Education Programs. These changes require school personnel to provide students with disabilities greater access to the general curriculum. Multidisciplinary teams must implement these changes when developing and measuring a student’s IEP. This article highlights some of these changes and offers practical recommendations to assist educators in the IEP development process. Specifically, the present article provides a working guidance document for developing a quality statement of a student’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance that leads to individualized benchmarks and goals. Additionally, the authors provide several recommendations regarding methods which can be used to measure student progress on a variety of benchmarks and goals.