Strengths and needs
At an initial meeting, the team will collaborate to determine a list of the child's strengths and needs based on each member's experience with the child. This is an important part of the team's discussion, since the information shared from the various team members will enable the team to develop a plan which reflects the needs of the whole child.
Strengths
It is important when writing strengths to have a positive focus. In some situations it may seem easier to list the things the child cannot do than to find strengths. While you may feel overwhelmed by the many frustrations which you and the child are having, a list of "can nots" is not very helpful to either you or the child.
For any goal there will be a continuum of progression which can be identified. In other words there is a set of steps and several related pre-requisite skills which lead up to being able to do what the goal requires of the child. When writing strengths (and needs) for a particular area, try and keep this sequence of development in mind. When identifying the sequence of development in certain areas, the team may require the input of someone with expertise in the particular area, such as the speech-language pathologist, the behavior management specialist, a mentor, the physical therapist, the learning resource teacher, the community health nurse or the guidance counselor. Once you have defined the sequence of development and the related prerequisite skills ask yourself, "Where in this sequence is the child currently?" and "What is the best the child can do right now in this area?" When you have identified what the child can do in a particular area, you have identified his/her strengths. Other strengths may include predispositions, talents, innate abilities, attitudes and physical skills which the child can bring to bear on the goals which will be set for him/her.
Needs
The same developmental progression used to identify the strengths, is used to identify the needs. If the strengths are the best the child can do in the area, then the need is the next step. Once you have identified the best the child can do, simply ask, what is the logical next step or steps the child must learn to do?
Sometimes the progression is less linear, where the next step depends on the development of a related or underlying prerequisite skill in another area. This skill is also a need, since progression forward depends on its acquisition. For some children, it is not only the skill levels which are directly related to the goal which need to be considered, but related prerequisite skills may be missing. For example, with Jamie, while his curricular strengths and needs with regard to multiplication have been identified, other areas may need to be explored such as visual scanning, short-term memory and skills with copying. He may be found to also have an organizational difficulty and so find it difficult to keep numbers lined up in columns. This particular difficulty might impact on a variety of areas of Jamie's development, so further assessment into this area should be conducted. At the very least, this will impact on his success in mathematics and so should be addressed within the ISSP. If the difficulty is extensive it could become a goal area in and of itself.
As mentioned earlier, it is very important, and more productive, to maintain a positive focus when writing the ISSP. This does not mean that information is omitted or that obvious difficulties are ignored. Rather, information is presented clearly and objectively, without negative judgmental language. For this reason, it is very important that needs be used, and not weaknesses. Another obvious benefit to using the needs wording is that in doing so, the specific outcomes, the next component of the ISSP, flow directly from the needs and are much more easily written.
A final point regarding strengths and needs is that for the actual ISSP itself, there is no need to include unwieldy lists of strengths and needs. While the number will vary from child to child and from time to time, generally the two or three most relevant strengths which represent the best the child can do in each area should be sufficient. There is no need to list several strengths which are obvious prerequisites to a strength already listed. Similarly, for each area, two or three needs leading directly from these strengths should be plenty to form the basis of a program.