Effective Practices Supporting Early Childhood Outcome Measurement

1. Effective Practices Supporting Early Childhood Outcome Measurement Overview of the Child Outcomes System

2. What we will cover • Why are we doing this? • What are the three child outcomes? • What is functional performance and how do we measure it? • What is the 7 point rating scale? • What is a developmental trajectory? • What does this mean to me and my program?

3. Reliable and Valid Child Outcome Summary (COS)Ratings What are the Expectations of Professionals who do the COS ratings?

4. Required competencies • Understand the content of the three outcomes • Develop an intentional plan to collect measureable data that will support the ratings • Know about and use resources to compare a child’s functional behavior to age expected milestones • Know how to use the rating scale • Understand the “developmental trajectories”

5. Measuring and collecting child outcomes data Why Are We doing this?

6. Goal of early childhood education Young children with disabilities will receive high quality services and supports that will enable them to be active and successful participants during their early childhood years and in the future in a variety of settings

7. Child outcome information will be useful to provide: • Information on how programs are making a difference for the children and families; • Information to improve early childhood special education services in North Carolina; and • Provide data to demonstrate results to all stakeholders at the local, state, and federal level.

8. Accountability to federal government • Each year LEAs must submit to the state individual child outcome data on children who transition out of their program • Each year the state must report data on the three early childhood outcomes to the federal government

9. What Are the three child outcomes?

10. “Child Outcomes Step by Step” • Edelman, L. (Producer). (2011). Child Outcomes Step-by-Step (Video). Published collaboratively by Results Matter, Colorado Department of Education; Desired Results access Project, Napa County Office of Education; and Early Childhood Outcomes Center.

11. Insert video here

12. It’s not just about developmental domains What are functional outcomes?

13. Functional Outcomes • The three child outcomes refer to actions that children need to be able to carry out and knowledge that children need to use in order to function successfully across a variety of settings.

14. What does it look like? Functional outcomes are the “why” of a child’s behavior

15. Functional Outcomes

16. Why not just measure developmental domains? • Developmental domains describe children's skills and abilities within specific areas of development. • The skills and abilities described by domains are a necessary but not sufficient component of functioning within the routines and activities of early childhood.

17. Valid measurement • It is NOT about how much progress the child has made in your class, in someone else’s class, or in your therapy sessions. • It IS about how does the child’s functional behavior compare to age-expected developmental levels as he/she enters or leaves the program.

18. Positive Social Relationships Involves: • Relating with adults • Relating with other children • For older children, following rules related to groups or interacting with others

19. Positive Social Relationships Includes areas like: • Attachment/separation/autonomy • Expressing emotions and feelings • Learning rules and expectations • Social interactions and play

20. Acquisition of Knowledge and Skills Involves: • Thinking • Reasoning • Remembering • Problem solving • Using symbols and language • Understanding physical and social worlds

21. Acquisition of Knowledge and Skills Includes: • Early concepts- symbols, pictures, numbers, classification, spatial relationships • Imitation • Object permanence • Expressive language and communication • Early literacy

22. Taking Action to Meet Needs Involves: • Taking care of basic needs, getting from place to place, using tools • Integrating motor skills to complete tasks; taking care of one’s self like dressing, eating, grooming and toileting • Acting on the world in socially appropriate ways to get what one wants

23. Functional Behavior and Outcomes What is the process for measurement?

24. Initial COS Ratings • Recommend that Assessment Teams conduct COS ratings for children who have had a comprehensive evaluation using those results. • Recommend that SLPs conduct COS ratings based on their initial assessment information and information from parent interview and child observations.

25. Exit Ratings- Classroom Teachers Classroom teachers conduct COS ratings using curriculum-based assessment information, child observation, and input from related service providers and parents.

26. Exit Ratings- Itinerant Teachers Collaboratively team with others using: • child observations • teacher interview • classroom curriculum assessment information • parent interview

27. Exit Ratings- Speech-Language Pathologists When child is in a classroom, collaborate with others using: • child observations • teacher interview • classroom curriculum assessment information • and parent interview

28. Service Provider Location • When a child is driven into a specific location to receive services, the collection of valid and reliable outcomes data can be challenging. • You must intentionally plan to collect data from outside the service location at critical times in the year.

29. Functional Behavior and Outcomes How do you Gather Reliable data to support the ratings?

30. Observation: data from you

31. Scripted observations

32. Interpreting observations

33. Documenting observations Objective: • observable behavior • not influenced by opinion or emotions Subjective: • cannot be verified • based on opinion and emotion

34. Objective and specific

35. Observing Nathan Activity: Watch a video of a child in play • Write down everything you see Nathan do in this video tape clip • Note his exact actions and “script” them in objective language

36. Insert Nathan Video here

37. Collecting data from other sources • Classroom data from portfolio collection and curriculum assessment process • Interviews that collect data about the child’s functioning in everyday routines

38. Activity • Organizing the data • HO: Teacher Completed Observational Notes for Nathan.

39. Classroom data to be collected

40. Classroom portfolio data Taking a picture of a writing sample, or a video of the child writing

41. Classroom portfolio data Take a picture of how these children worked together to build a structure

42. Classroom portfolio data Take a picture and write exactly what the child said to his friend when they were cooking together

43. Classroom portfolio data- family input

44. How those classroom teachers do it! Embed the video of Amy from Cabarrus Use what they’ve already got!

45. Collecting data through interviews T E A C H E R S P A R E N T S

46. How do I Measure this Data?

47. Age anchoring the data • Apply the TPBA age tables other validated age referenced developmental skill charts • Handout: NC Age Referencing by Early Childhood Outcome • Handout: Nathan’s observation script organized into the three child outcomes

48. Now, how do I do the rating?

49. COS 7 point scale • 7 point rating scale- comparing child’s functioning to what is expected at his/her age level. • Team summarizes multiple data sources to determine rating • Rating is not an assessment

50. NC Early Childhood Outcomes Brochure