Indicator #7: Measuring Preschool Outcomes

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

11. Progress Data of Year 1 Cohort

12. MA Baseline Data reported to OSEP on February 1, 2008 for Year 2 Cohort

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 70-90 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. Children have positive social relationships Children acquire and use knowledge and skills Relation-ships with adults Follows group rules Symbol use, abstract thinking Applies knowledge Relation-ships with peers Knowledge of physical world & culture Children take appropriate action to meet their needs Practicing Attending Playing Listening Exploring Play Self-care, health and safety Masters the environ-ment Being curious Touching Persisting Engaging Elaboration of the ECO Outcomes 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. 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 Summary Ratings are Based on…

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 02210 617-988-7812 patricia.cameron@massmail.state.ma.us • Donna Traynham Elementary School Services Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148 781-338-6372 dtraynham@doe.mass.edu