Early Childhood Outcomes – Refresher
Session
Kathi Gillaspy, TA Specialist, ECTA Center
2015 Spring Leadership Meeting
March 17, 2015
Atlanta, GA
Background
Outcome measures help determine if federal funding
through IDEA is making a difference for young
children with disabilities and their families.
What is an Outcome?
an end result
Goal of Early Intervention and
Early Childhood Special Education
“To enable young children to be active and successful
participants during the early childhood years and in the future in
a variety of settings – in their homes with their families, in child
care, in preschool or school programs, and in the community.”
From Family and Child Outcomes for Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special
Education, Early Childhood Outcomes Center (April 2005).
http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~eco/assets/pdfs/eco_outcomes_4-13-05.pdf
Why Gather Child Outcomes Data?
•
Inform stakeholders, including families, about the
effectiveness of the program
•
Identify program strengths and weaknesses for
improving program services and delivery
•
Provide information for policymakers to justify future
funding of programs
•
Meet federal government requirements
What Happens to the Data?
Programs
Programs
State Agency
• Generates reports for
federal reporting
• Uses data for program
improvement
• Collect data in common format
on three outcomes
• Report data to the state
• Use data for program
improvement
States
Federal
Government
US Department of
Education
Office of Special
Education
• Summarizes data to produce
a national picture
• Reports data to Congress
Quality data is
essential for
data use!
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What is the Child Outcomes Summary (COS)
Process?
• A team process for reviewing child
assessment data from different sources
culminating in the ‘rating’ of a child’s
functioning on a scale of 1-7
• Considers the child’s functioning across
situations and settings
• Compares child’s functioning to same age
peers
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Why was the process developed?
• For federal reporting on child outcomes
• No method to synthesize child outcomes data
from multiple sources
• Different programs would be using different
assessment instruments, and outcomes data
would need to be aggregated across programs
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Purposes of the COS
• It is not an assessment tool
• It uses information from multiple sources,
including assessment tools, observations, and
family interview to get a global sense of how
the child is doing at one point in time
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Features
•
Uses information from multiple
sources to describe how a child is
functioning
•
Relies on team-based discussion
and decision-making
•
Uses a 7-point rating to describe
the child’s functioning across
settings and situations
•
Is completed upon program entry
and exit (at a minimum)
Division of Early Childhood (DEC)
Recommended Practices for Assessment
•
Involves multiple sources of information
including information from a child’s family and other significant
individuals in the child’s life
•
Includes multiple measures
including observations, interviews, and direct assessments
appropriate for the child’s age and level of development,
sensory, physical, communication, cultural, linguistic, social,
and emotional characteristics
2014 DEC Recommended Practices in Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special
Education
Summary ratings are based on…
Types of Information
Sources of Information
– Curriculum-based assessments – Routines Based Interview
(e.g., HELP)
(family information)
– Norm-referenced assessments – Service providers
(e.g.,
– Therapists
BDI-2)
– Physicians
– Developmental screenings
– Child care providers
(e.g.,
– Teachers
Ages & Stages)
– People familiar with the
– Observation and report
child in all of the settings
and situations he’s in
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Gathering Information from Families
• Family input about the child’s functioning is critical
– Family members see the child in situations that
professionals do not
– Need to ask family members about what the child does at
home
• The team will need a way to learn what family
members know about the child
• There is no expectation that family members will be
able to determine whether what they are seeing is
age appropriate
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Essential Knowledge for Completing the COS
Among them, IFSP team members must:
• Know about the child’s functioning across settings and
situations
• Understand age-expected child development
• Understand the content of the three child outcomes
• Know how to use the rating scale
• Understand age expectations for child functioning within the
child’s culture
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Important point
• It is not necessary that all team members be
knowledgeable in all 5 areas
• Especially, there is no expectation that parents
understand the rating scale or typical child
development…
• But the professionals have to!
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Key Components of the COS Process
3 Child
Outcomes
Age
Anchoring
7-point
rating scale
The
Decision
Tree
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The Three Child Outcomes
• Positive Social
Relationships
• Acquire and Use
Knowledge and Skills
• Appropriate Behavior
to Meet Needs
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Why age anchor?
Knowledge of child development is
needed so the team can age anchor
the child’s skills and behaviors.
EI and ECSE help children acquire
age-expected skills to support their full
participation in their homes, schools
and communities.
Describing Children’s Functioning
A child’s functioning with regard to age
expectations skills can be thought of as:
• age- expected, or
• immediate foundational, or
• foundational skills.
Looking at Development…
Foundational
Skills
Foundational
Skills
Immediate
Foundational
Skills
AgeExpected
Skills
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Levels of functioning
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7
• Child shows functioning expected for his or her
age in all or almost all everyday situations
that are part of the child’s life
• Functioning is considered appropriate for
his or her age
• No one has any concerns about the child’s
functioning in this outcome area
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6
• Child’s functioning generally is considered
appropriate for his or her age but there are
some significant concerns about the child’s
functioning in this outcome area
• These concerns are substantial enough to suggest
monitoring or possible additional support
• Although age-appropriate, the child’s functioning
may border on not keeping pace with age
expectations
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5
• Child shows functioning expected for his or her
age some of the time and/or in some
settings and situations
• Child’s functioning is a mix of age-appropriate
and not age-appropriate behaviors and skills
• Child’s functioning might be described as like
that of a slightly younger child
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4
• Child shows occasional age-appropriate
functioning across settings and situations
• More functioning is not age-appropriate
than age-appropriate
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3
 Child does not yet show functioning expected of a
child of his or her age in any situation
 Child uses immediate foundational skills, most
or all of the time across settings and situations
 Immediate foundational skills are the skills upon
which to build age-appropriate functioning
 Functioning might be described as like that of a
younger child
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2
 Child occasionally uses immediate
foundational skills across settings and
situations
 More functioning reflects skills that are not
immediate foundational than are immediate
foundational
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1
 Child does not yet show functioning expected of a child his
or her age in any situation
 Child’s functioning does not yet include immediate
foundational skills upon which to build age-appropriate
functioning
 Child functioning reflects skills that developmentally come
before immediate foundational skills
 Child’s functioning might be described as like that of a
much younger child
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Activity
Kim Case Study –
Read summary for
Outcome 2. Use rating
descriptions and
decision tree to help
you determine Kim’s
rating for Outcome 2.
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Questions?
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The COS Team Process
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What is a high-quality
team discussion?

All team members participate


Parent input is respectfully considered
Multiple sources of assessment information are
considered (observation, family report, formal
‘testing’)
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In a quality team discussion…

The team describes the child’s functioning (not
just test scores)

Discussion includes the child’s full range of
functioning

The team documents the rationale for the rating
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What we should expect
from family involvement
• That they can provide rich information about their
child’s functioning across settings and situation –
YES!
• That they will know whether their child is showing
age appropriate behavior? Maybe… but not
necessarily!
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In a high-quality team discussion…
•
All team members participate
•
Parent input is respectfully elicited and
considered
Multiple sources of assessment information
are considered (observation, family report,
formal ‘testing’)
Discussion focuses on the outcomes and
includes the full breadth of the outcome
Group reaches consensus on rating
•
•
•
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Where to focus
in deciding the rating
• Focus on the child’s overall functioning across
settings and situations
• Functioning that is displayed rarely and/or when the
child is provided with a lot of unusual support or
prompts is of little significance for the rating
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Suggestions for reaching consensus
on COS ratings
• Re-visit process – describe functioning first, not #
• Focus on outcome content – considering breadth of
outcome content, does the skill fit, is it functional?
• Share examples – settings, situations, supports, and
describe if view as AE, IF, F (do not correct for prematurity)
• Include more discussion about skills that would see
in child with typical developmental pattern as
common ground for comparison
• Policy – what to do in rare case of disagreement
(majority, supervisor, additional info, etc.)
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Example probe in team discussion
Tell me about the kinds of evidence that suggest to you this child has
[AE, IF, F] functioning in this outcome?
• When have you observed those skills? In what situations?
• How frequently does that occur?
• Were the accommodations/supports available in that setting?
What were they?
• Are there other steps in the sequence of development that need to
occur between developing this skill and the skills same-aged
peers display (AE) in this area? (when an IF skill is identified)
• Is there other information we need to be better equipped to make
this decision?
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Checking for Quality - Documenting the Rating
• On the form, documentation needs to include:
– What evidence led to the selected rating, evidence
of …..
• Age expected functioning?
• Immediate foundational skills
• Skills and behaviors that will lead to immediate
foundational skills
– Who participated in the conversation and the
decision
• Documentation provides a record of the
rationale for the rating decision
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Why is it important to document the rating?
• Evidence can be reviewed to see whether people
are using the system properly (i.e., rating similar
children in the same ways)
• Documentation helps identify needs for future
training and technical assistance
• Documentation may be useful for new team
members reviewing the file
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Checking for Quality - Ratings
• Ratings on all three outcomes should be
reported for every child enrolled
• Ratings are needed in all areas even if:
– No one has concerns about a child’s
development.
– A child has delays in one or two outcome
areas, but not in all three outcome areas
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Checking for Quality - The Progress Questions (1b,
2b, 3b)
• Apply only if a Child Outcomes Summary Form has
been completed previously
• Has the child shown any new skills or behaviors in
the outcome area since the last rating? (Yes or No)
– Small steps of progress count!
– Most will select “Yes”
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Checking for Quality – Completeness of the Form
• All information is
completed (i.e. name,
DOB, people involved,
family input)
• Evidence for all ratings,
that support each of the
ratings
• Ratings complete
• Progress question
answered at exit
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Questions?
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Training and Technical Assistance Resources
Professional Development Page – ECTA Website
http://ectacenter.org/eco/pages/training_resources.asp
Includes:
• Self-directed learning opportunities
• Child outcomes video
• Organization of COS training, with materials
• Training activities for use
• Sample trainings from other states
• Child development resources
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Child Outcomes Online Modules
The Child Outcomes Summary (COS) Competency
Check
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Thank you!
Kathi Gillaspy
kathi.gillaspy@unc.edu
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