Since the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 there has been an ongoing debate in the field of special education on the relative importance of students with significant cognitive disabilities participation and progress in the general education curriculum. Some researchers have argued that the core grade-level curriculum should be the primary focus of educational programs for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Others have raised concern about the lack of evidence supporting general education curriculum's impact on students' immediate and post-school quality of life and have suggested that functional curriculum should be the primary focus of their educational programs. IDEA requires that individual education program (IEP) teams develop annual goal statements for each student in the academic core curriculum and in functional life skills areas such as communication, daily living skills, and employment preparation. In spite of these requirements, little is known about the relative weight to assign to functional and academic curricula in targeting annual goals for students. The limited research that is available suggests that this population is receiving a curriculum with a greater emphasis on functional skills than core curriculum standards. To address this issue, the current study extends the research by examining the content of IEP goals for students with SCD who qualify for the Utah Alternate Assessment, specifically the extent to which they are receiving instruction on the academic core and functional life skills curricula. Findings of this directed content analysis indicate that students from this dataset have a larger proportion of IEP goals related to the academic core curriculum than IEP goals related to the functional life skills curriculum. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]