Even if the student strengths seem silly or out of place, they may be meaningful for some students. When you sit down with an IEP team to start the planning process, it can be tempting to start with what a student cant do: She cant read yet. Develop students intellectual humility by helping them to ask questions while thoughtfully evaluating evidence. Statement of functional abilities and needs The PLAAFP should include the student's strengths, but since it is important to establish the areas of focus for the IEP, it must document areas of weakness/in need of improvement. This is when the team discusses a students strengths, interests and preferences. Incorporating your childs strengths into SMART goals can make the goals even stronger. For example, student strengths such as "spontaneous" and "good listener" may not be as effective for student success goals because they are broad student strengths. You can also learn more about how to develop SMART IEP goals, and then help steer the IEP team to include strengths in at least a few of your childs goals. Strengths: Emotional intelligence is a term used to describe a person's ability, strong communication and presentation abilities verbally, strong analytic abilities, fairness, etc. Fault has too much negativity attached to it. honesty, integrity, fairness), Is able to plan for the future, describe future goals, Displays good common sense and decision making, Explains ideas or concepts well to others, Has good listening skills, without interrupting, Is able to effectively use non-verbal cues to communicate with others, persuasive in getting someone to do something, Can easily pick up on the emotional state of another person, able to work out his/her own conflicts with others, able to become totally absorbed in an activity, tolerant of others who have cultural, ethnic, or racial differences, pride in his/her own cultural, ethnic, or racial background, Likes to find out about historical events around the world, Enjoys learning about different cultural traditions, Enjoys listening to audiobooks or to someone telling a story or reading out loud, Has a chemistry set or other science kit that he/she works with at home, Enjoys logical or number games or puzzles like Rubiks cube or Sudoku, aptitude for fixing machines or mechanical things, Likes to create three-dimensional structures with building materials, able to visualize images clearly, can describe, Gets information more easily through pictures than words, sensitive to the visual world around him/her, can express verbally and respond appropriately, Likes to spend time using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, uses the internet appropriately for school and entertainment, Knows how to set up audio-visual or computer equipment, Enjoys social networking (e.g.