The Individualised Education Programme (IEP) is a fundamental document that describes all educational responses to the additional support needs of students, setting up the guideline for their learning and developmental experiences. Specifically, the IEP goals represent the personal destination translated into desirable behaviours and skills that will enable students with additional support needs to meet their educational and functional needs. This paper analysis the quality of the 2497 IEP goals established for 135 Portuguese students with additional support needs and their fit to the students’ level of severity and educational level. The quality of IEP goals was measured using the Revised IFSP/IEP Goals and Objectives Rating Instrument and the content was categorised in reference to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, version for Children and Youth. Findings showed that goals are generally poorly written, particularly in terms of their measurability and that their quality decreases as students’ progress in education. Results also showed that IEP goals for students with a highly individualised curriculum do not attend to their needs of more functional contents. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for teacher training.

Purpose: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) was introduced in Portuguese education law as the compulsory system to guide eligibility policy and practice in special education. This paper describes the implementation of the ICF and its utility in the assessment process and eligibility determination of students for special education. Methods: A study to evaluate the utility of the ICF was commissioned by the Portuguese Ministry of Education and carried out by an external evaluation team. A document analysis was made of the assessment and eligibility processes of 237 students, selected from a nationally representative sample. Results: The results provided support for the use of the ICF in student assessment and in the multidimensional approach of generating student functioning profiles as the basis for determining eligibility. The use of the ICF contributed to the differentiation of eligible and non eligible students based on their functioning profiles. Conclusions: The findings demonstrate the applicability of the ICF framework and classification system for determining eligibility for special education services on the basis of student functioning rather than medical or psychological diagnose.

Portugal was the first country decreeing the mandatory use of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Child and Youth (ICF-CY) framework for guiding special education assessment process and to base eligibility decision-making on students’ functioning profiles – in contrast with traditional approaches centred on medical diagnosis. Considering the conceptual and pragmatic adjustments underlying this change, this study intends to explore how the professionals involved in assessment procedures perceive the impact of the ICF-CY use. Inscribed in an external evaluation commissioned by the Portuguese Ministry of Education, a content analysis was conducted over 33 focus groups composed of 192 educational professionals selected from a stratified random sampling design. Professionals’ opinions revealed that the ICF-CY use supported a better understanding of students’ functioning by prompting the description of the environmental influence on students’ participation. Challenges were pointed out regarding the ICF-CY use, namely: (1) the need of assessment tools that can provide information about the environmental influences on students’ functioning; (2) the establishment of collaboration mechanisms between professionals; and (3) the professionals’ ICF-CY training. Based on these three challenges/dimensions, recommendations were drawn in order to prompt a multidimensional approach on educational assessment and intervention planning.

Current Portuguese Public Law No. 3/2008 requires the use of the International Classification of Functioning, Health and Disability for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) as a reference framework to guide assessment and intervention procedures for students with additional support needs. This study explores whether the ICF-CY use fostered multidimensional and interrelational descriptions of students’ needs, and enhanced the congruence between assessment data and intervention plans. Content analyses were conducted on a total of 198 Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) concerning 99 students. Two IEPs were compared for each student, one delineated before and the other designed after the mandatory ICF-CY usage. An analytic process was conceived to measure operational indicators of multidimensionality, interrelatedness and congruency in the descriptions written in the IEPs. The results indicate that the ICF-CY use has supported more complete portrayals of students’ functioning, a broader emphasis on person–environment reciprocal influences, and greater individualised responses, linking goals and strategies to individual and environmental specific circumstances. It had not made an impact on the intervention procedures, namely on regard to multidimensionality and interrelatedness. The integration of the ICF-CY conceptual framework into the IEPs, as a stage of implementation that goes beyond the usage of its taxonomic structure, is discussed.