SOCIAL SKILLS

IEP GOAL BANK

FROM THE
AUTISM GROWN UP RESOURCE CENTER
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 IEP GOAL REMINDERS
AS YOU ARE WRITING GOALS…
Double check with your district & IEP team.
The ideas in this booklet are all suggestions pulled from best practices in IEP goal
writing.

Make sure to double check and refer to your district’s and IEP team’s needs before
making any significant changes.

Remember to individualize these goals!

By law, every IEP goal needs to be individualized to each student.

We have given you a template to make this process easier, but you will still need to
make sure that the goal is appropriate for your student and tailor it to their profile of
needs, strengths, and related goals.

We suggest adding a list of criteria or a checklist for activities. This can help those not
so observable goals become more observable, specific, quantifiable, and
individualized to where the student is now and where they may be in the next year.

Collect data prior to setting the IEP goal.

To make sure the goal is relevant to the student and where they are now, you will
need to collect baseline data. From there you can set the benchmarks for the goal for
some students and create a list of criteria for students to work through across the year.

When we set the time to collect data vs. think back to maybe get an idea of how
often we do something, we make discoveries.

For example, realizing that you’re actually giving 20+ verbal prompts for X student to
get started with an independent task. Make sure to collect data on how many
prompts you/others give!

Collecting data will also help you with establishing the present level of performance in
the IEP. Which will then help increase clarity and level of understanding from
parents/guardians as well as quality of the IEP – to be able to see currently where your
student is with this area.

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

 IEP GOAL WRITING
TIPS + TEMPLATE
Each of these goals can be written to be differentiated across students, across levels
of difficulty, across settings, across # of prompts, across types of prompts, etc.

TEMPLATE

By [DATE], given [SPECIFIC SUPPORT/ACCOMMODATION] and [# PROMPTS]

[TYPE OF PROMPTS], [STUDENT NAME] will [GOAL] with [% ACCURACY], in
[#/# TRIALS/SESSIONS].

*Note: Not all goals need to have all of these ingredients. It depends on the goal,
what you are measuring, and the student baseline.

IEP Goal Ingredients to be individualized:

Depends on the type of goal, supports needed by the student, and their
postsecondary goals during transition planning.

q Date
q Specific support/accommodation
q # of prompts
q Type of prompts
q Student name
q Goal
q % accuracy (if can be measured)
q In # / # trials, sessions, or opportunities
q Across # days or weeks
q Consecutively
q Settings
q Generalization
q Criteria

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

 SOCIAL SKILL CATEGORIES

Students can focus on identifying their

ASKING FOR HELP needs related to needing help, then
requesting assistance for that need.

Setting, maintaining, and respecting

BOUNDARIES boundaries. Asking for boundaries and
listening to others’ boundaries.

Identifying and describing a conflict,

CONFLICT problem-solving and finding solutions,
RESOLUTION social reasoning, and differences across
contexts.

Building connections with others, apply

and show empathy with others, receive
EMPATHY empathy from others, and learn
differences across contexts.

Give respect to others, ask for respect for

self and others, understand and honor all
RESPECT types of differences from others, regard
others’ wishes, requests, rights, and
abilities.

Seek social opportunities across the

SOCIAL course of the school day (group work,
OPPORTUNITIES partner work), facilitated groups, and
extracurricular activities.

Connect with others, develop self-

awareness of preferred social
SOCIAL
communication, accept differences,
INTERACTIONS share opinions, exchange information,
and set goals.
© AGU RESOURCE CENTER
ASKING FOR HELP
SOCIAL SKILLS
1. Identify own needs
• Identify sensory needs, develop self-awareness of what to do when feeling
overwhelmed or need to fill a sensory need, and select strategies to help reduce or
increase access to support sensory needs (including select strategies to determine
who to and how to ask for help)
• Identify feelings (overwhelmed, excited, frustrated, anxious), develop self-
awareness of what to do, select strategies to determine who to and how to ask for
help
• If feeling unwell, identify what feels that way, select strategies to determine who to
and how to ask for help
2. Ask for assistance
• When stuck on work, task, or assignment, select strategies to determine who to
and how to ask for help
• When unsure of what to do next for work, task, or assignment select strategies to
determine who to and how to ask for help
• When working on specific goals, select strategies to determine who to and how to
ask for help
3. Ask for special favors
• Has too much to carry around, asks for help to carry or problem solve
• If has too much on plate/to do, asks for help to complete tasks or problem solve
4. Requesting for assistance across a wide range of settings, skills, contexts, and with
varying people
• When struggling with people (they are being unkind, doing something that
shouldn’t be done), determines who to and how to ask for help
• If accidentally left something (tech device, assignment, lunch) at home or
elsewhere, determines who to and how to ask for help

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

BOUNDARIES
SOCIAL SKILLS
1. Setting boundaries
• Identify needs for boundaries (sensory, feelings, sense of calm, personal space,
decrease anxiety)
• Develop self-awareness of what to do to set a boundary regarding a need
• Select strategies to determine what kind of boundary, who the boundary is with,
and how to communicate the boundary
2. Maintaining boundaries
• After a boundary is set, check-in on progress, review strategies, adjust as needed
• Remind others about boundaries if they may be crossed or already crossed
• Consistently maintain boundaries around a given need, activity, task, or person
3. Respecting boundaries
• Ask others to respect boundaries
• Listen to a boundary communicated by another person, reflect on the meaning,
ask questions (if needed and is not too private) as to why, and select strategies to
respect that person’s boundary
• If frequently close to breaking or are crossing another person’s boundary, reflect
on actions, review the person’s reasoning for the boundary, and revisit, adjust, and
select strategies to respect that person’s boundary
4. Asking and listening to boundaries set up
• Wanting to sit or be alone, selecting a strategy to communicate a need while still
being nice/positive
• Based on boundary goal, identify and select a way to ask for a boundary
5. Varying how boundaries are set with classmates, peers, family, teachers, adults, and
strangers
• Identify how given boundaries may be different across people, determine and
select strategies based on a given person

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

CONFLICT RESOLUTION
SOCIAL SKILLS
1. Identify and describe conflict
• Identify root of the conflict and conflicting needs between all involved
• Develop self-awareness of own needs within the conflict and how to meet own
needs
• Reflect on needs from other person/people involved
2. Problem solving and finding solutions across a variety of settings and contexts
• Set time and meet with others to problem solve
• Listen to needs and concerns from the other person/people involved
• Communicate own needs and concerns
• Create a list of solutions to the problem (separately and then together, or all
together)
• Work through the list of solutions, identify what works/what doesn’t work
• Understand that all involved may have to compromise on something
• Work together to reach an agreement on a solution
• Make sure to continue to communicate own needs and concerns while listening
and taking in the other person/people’s needs and concerns
3. Social reasoning
• Learn about own nonverbal and verbal cues, develop self-awareness around
showing emotions, feelings, and communication
• Reflect and make inferences about others’ intentions and actions
• Learn how people may show nonverbal cues that do not match their emotions,
feelings, communication, and actions
• Incorporate context into inferences about others’ intentions and actions
4. Navigating and resolving conflicts across a varying range of people (including
acquaintances, strangers, systems, friends/family
• Identify how conflicts are resolved differently across people, determine strategies

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

EMPATHY
SOCIAL SKILLS
1. Build connection with others
• Identify own needs and feelings around a given situation
• Identify others’ needs and feelings around a given situation
• Learn about others’ needs, feelings, priorities, and experiences
2. Apply and show empathy with others
• Offer to others in need aligned to what they may need help with
• In a given situation, infer how another person may feel or act, acknowledge
unknown variables
• When something is harder for another person, be patient, identify, and select
strategies to support them
• Give space to others for them to share their feelings in their preferred way (right
away, later, time to process)
• If needed, apologize based on actions, what feelings they have caused, and
validate other person’s feelings
• If there is a problem or the other person is showing unexpected emotions or
actions, identify and determine strategies to ask about what is happening and how
to support them
3. Receive empathy from others
• Receive help and assistance from others based on a need
• Communicate boundaries as needed and if they apply
• Listen to apologies and reflect on others’ actions, share feelings based on those
actions
4. Differences in empathy from classmates, adults, teachers, and others
• Identify how empathy looks and is shown differently across people, determine
strategies as needed
• Determine strategies based on person, context, and event

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

RESPECT
SOCIAL SKILLS
1. Give respect to others
• Demonstrate respect to others during games and activities
• Demonstrate respect to others’ property, things, materials
• Problem solve what to do if something accidentally/unknowingly happens or
disrespectful to others’ property, things, materials
2. Ask for respect for yourself and others
• Identify what respect from others to you looks like, signs that they are being
respectful
• Determine strategies to ask for respect if needed and others are not showing it
• Understand why others may accidentally or unknowingly disrespect us and identify
strategies to ask for respect or not based on a given situation
3. Understand and honor all types of differences from others
• Learn about and identify differences from others and how you can respect their
differences (cultural, linguistic, holidays, norms, communication needs)
• Determine strategies to demonstrate respect to others’ differences
• Listen to feedback and adjust as needed to demonstrate respect
4. Regard others’ wishes, requests, rights, and abilities
• Identify behaviors that show respect but have a hard time with, determine
strategies to still show respect
• Develop and select solutions to respect others’ requests after a problem arises
5. Differences in giving and receiving respect from classmates, adults, teachers, and
others
• Identify how respect looks and is shown differently across people, determine
strategies as needed
• Identify how respect looks and is shown similarly across everyone
• Determine strategies based on person, context, and event

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
SOCIAL SKILLS
1. Extracurricular activities
• Create a list of extracurricular activities of interest based on interests, schedule,
supportive people (clubs, sports, clubs based on interests)
• Select from the list to try out or attend
• Make a plan to attend, including coordinating schedule, setting up reminders, and
potentially going with a peer/leader of the group
2. Within classroom setting
• Groupwork (from small activities to larger projects)
• Choose group members, meet with group, delegate tasks, volunteer to
support related to a task, identify goals with the group, make a checklist or
task list and list of roles each group member will complete, reflect on
groupwork activities and identify what worked well and what to work on next
time
• Partner work (from small activities to larger projects)
• Partner based on supplementary or complementary needs (social,
independence, academics, specific academic skills)
• Pair with peer with similar interests
• Meet with group, delegate tasks, volunteer to support related to a task,
identify goals with the group, make a checklist or task list and list of roles each
group member will complete, reflect on groupwork activities and identify
what worked well and what to work on next time
3. Facilitated groups
• Lunch Bunch or other group of peers that meets on a frequent (at least once a
week) and consistent basis
• Peer Partners
• Paired with peer with similar interests inside and outside of class

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS
SOCIAL SKILLS
1. Connect with others
• Spend more time around peers in partner, group, or larger group settings
• Choose more social opportunities to participate in across the course of the day
Find and spend time with a group or club based on common interests
2. Develop self-awareness of preferred social communication
• Develop self-awareness of own social communication style
• Learn about preferences, comfortable topics, interests
• Identify potential areas to work on, challenges, and needs
• Reflect on recent social experiences, check-in, and identify next steps
3. Accept differences
• Learn about differences in social communication styles across neurodiversity,
disability, culture, linguistics amongst peers
• Identify strategies to support one’s own understanding if there is a difference
• Acknowledge and navigate differences in opinion
4. Share opinions
• Become more comfortable sharing opinions and/or ways to share opinions given a
particular situation and context
5. Exchange information
• Learn and experience how exchanges in conversation are different from person to
person
6. Set goals
• Identify situations that are safe/unsafe to unmask and spaces to seek out
• Get more comfortable listening to others talk about their interests at length
• Learn about a variety of communication styles and decide whether or not to
incorporate them, why they may be used, and others’ goals around social
communication

© AGU RESOURCE CENTER