Goal Attainment Scaling with Moderately and Severely Handicapped Preschool Children

Conventional assessment methods have serious limitations for measuring program impact with special education populations, and do not contribute much to managing effective IEP service delivery This article focuses on the utility of Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) as a methodology for meeting those dual needs of special educators. A feasibility study of GAS in a multicategorical preschool demonstration project pointed to the relevance of the method for improving IEP implementation effectiveness with severely impaired preschool students. However, there were serious limitations for using GAS as a measure of program impact. The advantages of GAS as an intervention to improve the overall functioning of the model program are discussed, along with considerations for improving its application to IEP management.