In my 10+ years of experience as an SLP, I’ve seen a lot of therapy goals. I’ve supervised students, worked with other SLPs, and even had SLPs send goals my way for feedback. There are three common mistakes I often see SLPs make when writing goals. I'd like to say that these goal writing mistakes are ones that I see from early clinicians, however, I’ve seen SLPs with 20+ year of experience make them as well.
Let’s explore them!
1. Writing goals by yourself
One of our responsibilities as clinicians is to provide person-centered care. This means that the patient’s priorities, values, and wants are all taken into consideration. Writing goals should not be a single person activity. Instead, it should be COLLABORATIVE. Yes, SLPs bring clinical judgment to the therapeutic alliance, but ultimate the treatment goals are not ours. The goals belong to the PATIENT. Time has to be carved out to ensure the goals have been written by both SLP and patient (or patient family/caregivers).
2. Writing goals based solely on results of standardized tests
I agree that it can be helpful to know what percentile a patient scored in or what their standard score was on XYZ test. However, we cannot let performance on standardized test be the sole dictator on how goals are written. If we do so, we miss out on capturing the FUNCTIONAL needs of the patient or even what their AIMS of therapy are. On a daily basis, patient’s aren’t being asked to name as many items in a category in one minute------ so why would that be a goal? But they may have to list off names of their medications to doctors OR order food items from a menu. Focus on capture more realistic skills when goal writing.
3. Writing goals that only measure percent accuracy
When I learned how to write goals in grad school, many of my supervisors stressed writing goals with the metric of percent accuracy. It became a habit and followed me throughout my Clinical Fellowship. It wasn’t until a couple of years after my CF, that I I realized that progress can be measured many ways. Sometimes it might be a percent accuracy that we're trying to achieve, however, often it’s not. It could be speed of completion of a task, effort required for a task, or even assistance required. For more information on this topic, read the blog “Different Ways to Monitor Progress in Speech Therapy”.
Remember: It's never too early OR too late to refine your goal writing skills. For more help in this area, download my “The Neuro SLP GOAL GUIDE” for 20% off using Promo Code: GOALS20
*This is a PDF of 20 pages that helps you think collaboratively, critically, AND creatively about therapy goals. It includes:
- (20) Considerations BEFORE and WHILE Writing Therapy Goals
- (15) Goal Structures (*customizable for patient needs)
- Examples of Goal Transformations
- Explanation of Goal Attainment Scaling
- Goal Attainment Scaling Template + Examples
- Journal Article References re: collaborative goal setting, goal attainment scaling, motivational interviewing, specification of AIMS of therapy
As always, have some amazing therapy sessions!
-Dana (The Neuro SLP)
Relevant Resources:
Nobriga, Christina & St. Clair, Jennifer. (2018). Training Goal Writing: A Practical and Systematic Approach. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. 3. 36-47.
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