IEP Goals

Over the years, I have attended my son's IEP meetings, mostly interested in what progress has been made in the past year.  I am curious to hear if his reading level has improved and if he is keeping up with his grade level in math.  I am interested in how he copes with the day to day tasks in his school and how he gets along with staff and peers.
Every so often, a  staff member would present a goal that didn't really make sense to me. I would ask questions and voice my opinion, but I never really felt like I was taken seriously.  They were the professionals and they knew better.  I would leave feeling anything but optimistic, and most often than not, that goal would remain on his IEP until he changed schools or professionals, and they would change it to something else.
What started becoming apparent to me as I worked as an educational assistant for children with autism, is that there was this unsaid understanding between the staff members that if you helped a child complete a certain task over and over and over again, and lessened the support over time, the child would do the task without support.  This is not always the case.  There has to be some sort of "desired outcome" for the student for this to work.
For example:  Child will learn to button and unbutton jeans when using the bathroom.
Professionals assume that with correct prompting, a child will do this task.  To me, it is as if they believe they can brain washed this child...as if they assume there is nothing going on in their heads at any given time and they will just comply to any command if practiced enough. This could not be further from the truth.
These children, verbal or nonverbal, are not computers to be programmed.  They are real individuals with real thoughts and feelings....likes and dislikes.  The obstacle in helping them learn is that they may not feel social pressure to do something that doesn't matter to them.
For example: In the case of the autistic child who is expected to learn to button his pants.
He may have the fine motor skills to button his pants after using the bathroom, but he has no understanding of social expectation to do so.  Does this child care if he is wearing clothes?  If he is seen by others in his underwear or with his pants down?  If he does not, we cannot make him understand that is socially unacceptable.  Over time, with lots of patience and waiting, you could teach him he was not allowed to leave the bathroom and go on with the next task of the day until he has buttoned his pants.  This would be beneficial as a life long skill, but is there staff available for such a task?  If it were possible to teach this way, he will learn it, but what he has learned is that he has to button his pants to leave the bathroom, not that leaving pants unbuttoned or down would be inappropriate to society.
I remember an IEP goal set for my 14 year old son, during the first year of High School.  Although he attended classes and lunch with the same students he had since fourth grade, he still chose to eat alone at lunch without any social interaction.  The teacher put in a goal for him to sit with his others on his own and to strike up spontaneous conversation with peers.  At this time, he was only speaking to staff when he had a a question.
Yes!  This would be lovely!  To see Tristen being more social with his peers and having real friendships....but when you put in a goal as a professional, you should be thinking about how the student can achieve this goal. The professional assumed that in redirecting Tristen to sit with his classmates and ask them questions, he would just automatically do so over time.  He has autism!  Being social just does not occur to him as being important.  How can you MAKE him think that is important?  You can't.
Tristen is a very sweet and well liked young man.  If you were to tell him everyday he HAD to sit next to a student...he would.  If you told him he needed to talk to them, he would become confused and cry.  He would want to know exactly what you wanted him to say to that individual.  And if you told him, he would say it and then be relieved when the exchange was over and head back to his quiet spot by himself where he feels the most comfortable.
This goal bothered me because I couldn't figure out how to logically execute a teaching strategy so he could be successful.  That is a part of autism I can not change.  I can continue to expose him to the outside world to keep him from reverting too much into his own world, but I can't make him WANT to interact with others.
Almost a year after the introduction of this goal into his IEP, Tristen had made no progress.
This summer we were able to connect with some old friends.  Tristen had another little buddy with Autism when he was in preschool....he knew him a few short years before they had to move away.  It has been around 10 years since seeing his "friend", of whom he could not speak to during the time they had played together with their Thomas trains.  He was SO excited to meet up with his "friend", he ran up to him to say "hello".  Later, Tristen asked me how old his friend was, and I told him he should ask him.  About twenty minutes later, he ran up to him and looked him in the eyes and said, "I'm fifteen years old". This was his attempt at a conversation, hoping to find out the boy's age.
When we went to lunch, it was the first time Tristen had not rushed and fought to be sure to sit by me.  This time, he watched his friend and waited for him to sit so he could sit next to him.  They did not talk or have a deep conversation, but I knew this was huge.
Why?  Because this was HIS decision.  No prompting. No training.  No working.  HE wanted to sit next to his friend.  This was all Tristen and all his work leading him to this accomplishment.  I was so proud of him and the young man he is becoming.  His successes are all HIS.