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What Are IGDIs and Why Use Them? Dale Walker, PhD, Jay Buzhardt, PhD & Barbara Terry, PhD Juniper Gardens Children’s Project, University of Kansas. Infant IGDI Development Team. Current IGDI Development Team: Charles Greenwood, Judith Carta, Dale Walker,
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What Are IGDIs and Why Use Them?Dale Walker, PhD, Jay Buzhardt, PhD & Barbara Terry, PhD Juniper Gardens Children’s Project, University of Kansas
Infant IGDI Development Team Current IGDI Development Team: Charles Greenwood, Judith Carta, Dale Walker, Jay Buzhardt, Kathleen Baggett, Barbara Terry and Mary Abbott Original IGDI Development Team: Judith Carta, Charles Greenwood, Dale Walker, Jane Atwater, Gayle Luze, Deborah Linebarger, Carol Leitschuh, Ken Parsley, Annessa Staab, Gabe Cline, and Susan Higgins IPCI Development Team: Kathleen Baggett, Judith Carta and Eva Horn
Focus on Outcomes-Based Program Evaluation • Increased expectations for accountability • Need to identify children who need early intervention • Programs and individual staff members need to know when they are making a difference in moving children toward outcomes • Early educators need to know how children are responding to interventions
Why are we interested in examining children’s outcomes? • To check on individual children’s growth • To inform parents about child growth • To ramp up individual children’s program if necessary (in a tiered model, to decide when to change to more intensive or individualized intervention) • To get a check on how well our programs are doing • To ramp up professional development in programs if necessary
Young Children Not Entering School Ready to Learn (Terry, Carta, Greenwood et al. ) • Evaluation of readiness profile for children in Northeast Kansas City kindergarten • School Readiness • 22nd percentile in Oral Language • 30th percentile on Initial Sound Fluency and Phonemic Segmentation • 40th percentile on Social Skills
Missouri School Readiness Indicators Project (2004) • Percent of children recognizing relationship between letters and sounds at kindergarten entry • 35% (decreased – goal 50%) • Percent of children using language to communicate ideas, feelings, questions and to solve problems • 59% (decreased – goal is 70%)
These Studies and Reports Tell Us That… • Differences in early experiences: • Lead to differences in early language and school readiness outcomes for children prior to preschool, and impact children through early elementary school • Young children are not entering preschool or kindergarten with expected levels of proficiency in key areas of development • Children who begin school at a disadvantage, with lower rates of language-learning and lower general performance continue to be at a disadvantage during early schooling
Key Questions: • How can we learn more quickly that a child is falling behind in development? • How can we use that information to guide what we do in our programs? • How do we know if what we are doing is improving a child’s trajectory?
What are IGDIs and What do they do? • Measures that provide helpful information about children's growth toward socially valued outcomes and that guide intervention decision making • Measures that focus on key skills indicators rather than wide-band comprehensive skills
“Indicators” can lead to improvements in intervention • Can give us a focus for our efforts with young children • Can help interventionists “see” when they’re making a difference • Can help us know more quickly when a change is necessary • Can help directors understand when programs need improvements
Other Common “Indicators” Height/weight Charts Thermometer • Quick and easy • Relatively inexpensive • Repeatable • Indicates potential problem and effectiveness of an intervention
The General Outcome Measurement (GOM) Approach • Measure valid and important general outcomes for infants and toddlers • Measure “sensitive” indicators of progress toward attaining the general outcome • Measure indicators repeatedly to gauge rate of growth over time • Use a rate of growth metric (Growth Chart) • Intervention decisions may be made based on progress or lack of progress as measured by change in the indicator
IGDIs are alternative to existing measures in that they are: • Direct measures of child performance • Designed for early interventionists to administer • Sensitive to short-term growth • Information that guides early interventionists • Website Reports understandable and helpful to interventionists