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Goal Attainment Scaling: An Idiographic Measure Sensitive to Parent and Teacher Report of IEP Goal Outcome Assessment for Students with ASD

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Abstract

Young students with ASD have instructional needs in social, communication, and learning skills that should be reflected in their Individualized Education Program (IEP). Research suggests that many of these goal areas present a challenge for special educators because of problems with measurability. The current study utilized an idiographic approach called Goal attainment scaling (GAS) for measuring IEP progress of individualized skills. Cross-sectional analysis of the associations between GAS ratings from an independent observer were correlated against teacher and parent ratings of IEP progress at the end of the school year and with standardized measures of the Behavior Assessment System for Children and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS). GAS scores were associated with parent and teacher ratings, including the VABS.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge Alexis Rodgers and Yue Yu for assistance with data coding.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Special Education, Teachers College, Ball State University, TC745, Muncie, IN, 47306, USA

    Lisa Ruble & Brittany Dale

  2. Department of Psychology, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, USA

    John McGrew

  3. Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA

    Madison Yee

Authors
  1. Lisa Ruble
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  2. John McGrew
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  3. Brittany Dale
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  4. Madison Yee
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Contributions

LR and JM conceived the study, analyzed data, and wrote the manuscript. BD assisted with writing the manuscript. MY assisted with data cleaning and analysis.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Ruble.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Appendices

Appendix

GAS Development and Coding Instructions

Instructions: A 3-point Likert Scale is applied for each of the three dimensions described. Each scale has its own anchors.

Level of Difficulty

1

2

3

Not at all difficult

Somewhat difficult

Very difficult

  • (1) The skill is very close to what the child is already described as able to perform in the present levels of performance.

  • (2) The present levels of performance indicates that the child is able to perform the skill in limited ways compared to what is written in the objective (limited people, prompts, or places); if PLEP says child has difficulty doing it, score a “2”.

  • (3) The present levels of performance indicates that the child is unable to perform skill with anyone, anywhere, or with any prompts compared to what is written in the objective.

Measurability

1

2

3

Not at all measurable

Somewhat measurable

Very measurable

  • (1) None or only one indicator (prompt level, criterion for success; observable skill) is listed for in each description.

  • (2) Two of the three indicators (prompt level, criterion for success; observable skill) are provided.

  • (3) Describes all three indicators (prompt level, criterion for success; observable skill).

Equality

1

2

3

Not at all equal

Somewhat equal

Clearly equal

  • (1) None or only one of the three descriptions (−1, + 1, + 2) are equilibrated appropriately in reference to the targeted objective (which is the zero level). Descriptions of prompts do not follow increasing independence from −2 to + 2 and go from environmental/visual to verbal/physical and /or the skill frequency increases or reduces by less or more than 50% (do not include the present levels of performance −2 description) relative to the zero level.

  • (2) Two of the three descriptions (−1, + 1, + 2) are equilibrated appropriately in reference to the targeted objective (which is the zero level) accordingly from verbal/physical to visual/environmental prompts or the frequency of skill increases or reduces by at least 50% relative to the targeted objective (do not include the present levels of performance -2 description).

  • (3) All of the three descriptions (−1, + 1, + 2) relative to the targeted objective are equilibrated and scaled appropriately: hierarchy of skills are reduced from verbal/physical to visual/environmental or frequency of skill increases or reduces by at least 50% for the all descriptions.

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Ruble, L., McGrew, J., Dale, B. et al. Goal Attainment Scaling: An Idiographic Measure Sensitive to Parent and Teacher Report of IEP Goal Outcome Assessment for Students with ASD. J Autism Dev Disord 52, 3344–3352 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05213-3

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