As an additional service, Vital Behavior Services will recommend measurable IEP goals.   We measure skills because we want to make informed decisions about instruction.  How do we define the next step if we don’t know how the student performed on the previous step?  We write IEP goals in a measurable fashion for the same reason: we want to know that the child is progressing.  There are times that educators make instructional decisions based upon opinion; it looks to them that the child has improved in a skill, so they move the child forward.  On the flip-side, we have observed situations where a child is progressing within a skill, but because of behavioral or physical limitations, the teacher’s opinion is that the child is not progressing as necessary.  Writing IEP goals (so that they are measurable) assists in preventing instruction based upon subjective decisions.