1. Indicator #7: Measuring Preschool Outcomes
Pat Cameron, Department of Early Education & Care
Donna Traynham, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
October 2008

2. What We Will Cover Why collect outcomes data?
Understanding the child outcomes
Assessing the accomplishment of the 3 child outcomes
Introduction to the Child Outcomes Summary Form (COSF)
Collecting and reporting data using the COSF

3. Essential Knowledge for Completing the COSF
Team members know about:
The child’s functioning across settings and situations
Age-expected child development
Content of the 3 outcomes
How to use the rating scale

4. Why Collect Outcomes Data?

5. Public Policy Context Age of accountability
Accountability increasingly means looking at results – not just process
Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is under increasing pressure to produce outcomes data on children participating in early intervention and early childhood special education programs

6. OSEP Response
Required states to submit outcomes targets and data in their State Performance Plans and Annual Performance Reports (SPP/APRs)
Funded the Early Childhood Outcomes Center to make recommendations, and to assist states in collecting, reporting and USING outcome data

7. OSEP Reporting Requirements: Child Outcomes
Positive social emotional skills (including positive social relationships)
Acquisition and use of knowledge and skills (including early language/ communication [and early literacy])
Use of appropriate behaviors to meet their needs

8. OSEP Reporting Categories
Percentage of children who:
-Did not improve functioning;
-Improved functioning, but not sufficient to move nearer to functioning comparable to same-aged peers;
-Improved functioning to a level nearer to same-aged peers but did not reach it;
-Improved functioning to reach a level comparable to same-aged peers; or
-Maintained functioning at a level comparable to same-aged peers

9. Schedule for State reporting to OSEP
Entry/baseline data on 1,700 preschool children with disabilities in Year 1 Cohort were reported to OSEP in February, 2007
Progress data on nearly 900 preschool children exiting ECSE from Year 1 Cohort; along with entry/baseline data on 1,624 children from Year 2 Cohort was reported to OSEP in February, 2008
Progress data on Year 1 and 2 Cohorts of children exiting ECSE and entry/baseline data on Year 3 Cohort will be reported to OSEP in February, 2009
Progress data are based on the difference between each child’s status at entry and child’s status at exit

10. MA Baseline Data reported to OSEP on February 1, 2007 for Year 1 Cohort
Social-Emotional
Acquisition of skills & knowledge
Behavior to meet needs
% Age Appropriate 20 21 33
% Not Age Appropriate 80 79 67

11. Progress Data of Year 1 Cohort
Domain
Category A
Category B
Category C
Category D
Category E
Positive social emotional skills 4%
25%
33%
18%
20%
Acquisition of skills and knowledge
32%
19%
Use of behaviors to meet needs
29%
17%

12. MA Baseline Data reported to OSEP on February 1, 2008 for Year 2 Cohort
Social-Emotional
Acquisition of skills & knowledge
Behavior to meet needs
% Age Appropriate 20 21 32
% Not Age Appropriate 80 79 68

13. Why Collect Outcomes Data?
Federal government is the driving force behind the move to collect outcomes data
However, providing data for the federal government is not the only reason to collect outcomes data

14. Why Collect Outcomes Data?
Data on outcomes are important for state and local purposes
To document program effectiveness
Support continued or increased funding
To improve programs
Identify strengths and weaknesses
Determine technical assistance and/or staff development needs

15. State Design
All states are required to measure child outcomes for early childhood programs. However, the strategies chosen are based on the values held by the state about assessing young children.

16. MA Model for Indicator #7
Cohort Model – 4 cohorts with districts each year, doubling up in year 3
Random Sample of 40 preschool students with disabilities
Baseline/entry data collection November (due to the Department in December)
Progress/exit data collection in May (due to the Department in June)
Subsequent progress /exit data collection in May 2010 and May 2011

17. Understanding
the 3 Child Outcomes

18. 3 Child Outcomes: Assumptions
Children have positive social-emotional skills (including social relationships)
Children acquire and use knowledge and skills (including early language/ communication [and early literacy])
Children use appropriate behaviors to meet their needs

19. Outcomes are Functional
Functional refers to things that are meaningful to the child in the context of everyday living
Refers to an integrated series of behaviors or skills that allow the child to achieve the outcomes
They are not
a single behavior, nor are they
the sum of a series of discrete behaviors

20. Outcomes are Functional
They cross domains– do not separate child development into discrete areas (communication, gross motor, etc.)
Emphasis is on how the child is able to carry out meaningful behaviors in a meaningful context

21. Children Have Positive Social Relationships
Involves:
Relating with adults
Relating with other children
For older children- following rules related to groups or interacting with others
Includes areas like:
Attachment/separation/ autonomy
Expressing emotions and feelings
Learning rules and expectations
Social interactions and play

22. Children Acquire and Use Knowledge and Skills
Involves:
Thinking, reasoning, remembering, problem-solving
Using symbols and language
Understanding physical and social
worlds
Includes:
Early concepts – symbols, pictures, numbers, classification, spatial relationships
Imitation
Object permanence
Expressive language and communication
Early literacy

23. Children Take Appropriate Action to Meet Their Needs
Involves:
Taking care of basic needs
Getting from place to place
Using tools
In older children, contributing to their own health and safety
Includes:
Integrating motor skills to complete tasks
Self-help skills (e.g., dressing, feeding, grooming, toileting, household responsibility)
Acting on the world to get what one wants

24. Elaboration of the ECO Outcomes
Children have positive social relationships
Children acquire and use knowledge and skills
Children take appropriate action to meet their needs
Relation-ships with adults
Relation-ships with peers
Follows group rules
Masters the environ-ment
Symbol use, abstract thinking
Applies
knowledge
Listening
Play
Exploring
Playing
Being curious
Practicing
Touching
Attending
Engaging
Persisting
Knowledge of physical world & culture
Self-care, health and safety
To be active and successful participants
now and in the future
in a variety of settings

25. Assessing the Accomplishments
of the 3 Outcomes

26. What is Assessment?
“Early childhood assessment is a flexible, collaborative decision-making process in which teams of parents and professionals repeatedly revise their judgments and reach consensus about the changing developmental, educational, medical, and mental health services needs of young children and their families.”
Bagnato and Neisworth, 1991
Quoted in DEC Recommended Practices, 2005

27. DEC Recommended Practices for Assessment
Involves multiple sources (e.g., families, professional team members, service providers, caregivers)
Involves multiple measures (e.g., observations, criterion-curriculum-based instruments, interviews, informed clinical opinion)

28. Assessment Instruments
Potential: Assessment tools can inform us about children’s functioning in each of the 3 outcome areas
Challenge: There is no assessment tool that assesses the 3 outcomes directly

29. The Assessment Tool Lens
Each assessment tool carries its own organizing framework
Many are organized around domains
But what is covered in the domains isn’t always the same, even if the names are the same

30. Currently Available Assessment Tools
There are not right or wrong assessment tools
Key question to ask about any assessment tool:
How much and what information will the tool provide about the attainment of the 3 functional child outcomes?

31. Using Data Collected from Assessment Tools
ECO has “crosswalked” assessment tools to the outcomes
Crosswalks show which sections of assessment are related to each outcome
The number of items addressing an outcome does not necessarily mean that the assessment captures functioning across settings

33. Making Use of Information from Assessment Tools
Information from formal or published assessment tools can be very useful, as long as it is used in the context of achievement of the three functional outcomes
The information almost always needs to be supplemented with additional information

34. MA Direction and Decisions
Using the Child Outcome Summary Form (COSF)
Rating children annually in the fall and spring
Using information from assessment tools currently in use in local districts
Gathering data from multiple sources

35. Using the Child Outcomes Summary Form (COSF)

36. Thinking About the Achievement of Each Child Outcome

37. Helping Children Move Toward Age-expected functioning
Assumption: Children can be described with regard to how close they are to age-expected behavior in each of the 3 outcomes
By definition, most children in the general population demonstrate the outcome in an age-expected way
By providing services and supports, ECSE is trying to move children closer to age expected behavior

38. Measuring Functioning Compared to Age-Expectations
Documenting children’s movement toward age-expected development is one type of evidence that program services are effective
The Child Outcome Summary Form was designed to measure this type of progress

39. Essential Knowledge for Completing the COSF
Team members need to know:
The child’s functioning across settings and situations
Age-expected child development
Content of the 3 outcome areas
How to use the rating scale

40. Child Outcomes Summary Form

41. Summary Ratings are Based on…
Types of Evidence
Curriculum-based assessments (e.g., Creative Curriculum)
Norm-referenced assessments (e.g.,BDI-2)
Developmental screenings (e.g., Ages and Stages)
Parent and professional observation and report
Sources of Evidence
Parents and family members
Service providers
Therapists
Physicians
Child care providers
Teachers
People familiar with the child in all the settings and situations that he/she is in

42. Group Sharing Questions? Needed clarifications?
Comments and reactions?
What TA and/or other supports will you need?

43. Contact Information
Pat Cameron
Sr. Policy Specialist, Special Education
Department of Early Education and Care
51 Sleeper Street
Boston, MA
Donna Traynham
Elementary School Services
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
350 Main Street
Malden, MA