Monitoring and Reporting Intervention Results for Children
with/without Disabilities Ages Birth to Three:
Developing a National Web-based Support Technology
Charles R. Greenwood, Jay Buzhardt, Judith J. Carta, and Dale Walker
ABSTRACT (OSEP, DOE)
Monitoring and Reporting Intervention Results for Children with/without Disabilities Ages
Birth to Three: Developing a National Web-based Support Technology
With the report of the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education in 2002, the field entered a new era of accountability for results, and not just compliance and due process. From the child to the program, to the State and Federal levels, there exists urgency to provide results showing that special education services and practices are effective. Least prepared is the measurement, workforce, and technical infrastructure needed for gathering and reporting results for children birth to 6 years old. At this writing, OSEP has just mandated states to report annual results for Part C and Part B (619) IDEA programs, and states are just beginning to grapple with this task.
The authors of this application, as members of the Early Childhood Research Institute for Measuring Growth and Development (ECRI-MGD: H024560010 - completed), published a set of technically adequate General Outcome Measures (GOMs) for infants and toddlers, birth to age 3. These measures are designed to measure intervention results. This work, funded by OSEP addressed the national needs and mandates for improvements in approach and tools for early identification and monitoring of intervention results for this, the youngest group of children at risk for and with developmental delays and disabilities. Products of this work were the following measures: (1) the Early Communication Indicator, (2) the Early Problem Solving Indicator, (3) the Early Movement Indicator, and (4) the Early Social Indicator. Unfortunately, use of these measures is currently limited by the lack of access to the instruments and the training to use them.
The aim of the present application is to translate this research knowledge to practice by making this measurement approach effective for and accessible and usable by early childhood special educators, early interventionists, and others (e.g., Early Head Start practitioners, child care programs, parents, etc.) serving this population. The technological approach chosen to support this effort is the Internet and specifically, Computer and Information Technology (IT). When completed, this will result in significant benefits that include: (a) a fast track to large sale professional development and implementation, (b) the cost-efficiencies characteristic of web-based systems with respect to access to information, procedures, materials and training, (c) services that support use and communication, and (c) akin to bioinformatics, a common archive for accumulating a large and rigorously managed, national database on the behavioral growth and development of children ages birth to 3.
Proposed is a two-year Phase 1- Steppingstones project to develop and refine this technological approach to scaling-up through dissemination, training, technical support, and service. Early interventionists and parents need access to information on the PSM-GOM approach and supports for: (a) data entry, management, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of intervention results - an accountability function, (b) training and certification assessors' qualified to administer the measures - an implementation function, and (c) peer-reviewed publications reporting conceptual frameworks and findings as well as specific measures to be used -- knowledge and dissemination functions. The project's design incorporates state of the art web-based authoring software, multimedia design, and development guided by principles from universal and user-centered designs. Steps in the project plan, design, prototype, test, and refine the website and its components based on an integrated formative evaluation plan informed by user testing/implementation results.
