Functional Assessment and Curriculum for Teaching Everyday Routines (FACTER)
What It Measures
FACTER treats the routine, not the isolated skill, as the thing worth assessing. Eating lunch, doing seatwork, socializing with friends, riding the bus, shopping — each is a routine a student either completes independently or does not, and each breaks down into core steps that can be taught and tracked.
A teacher first rates how independently the student performs a broad range of routines, then selects specific ones for instruction and scores progress on their component steps. Because assessment and teaching share the same structure, results feed directly into IEP goals and then back into the next assessment. Two versions exist, elementary and secondary, covering school, leisure, community, vocational, and career exploration routines.
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Sold as separate Elementary and Secondary kits, each containing the Program Manual plus five student booklets. Reproduction requires publisher permission.
Learn More: FACTER is criterion-referenced, it describes which routines a student can complete rather than ranking them against peers, which is the right design for a tool meant to generate IEP goals.