This website uses cookies

This website uses cookies and similar technologies to understand visitor experiences. By using this website, you consent to UNC-Chapel Hill's cookie usage in accordance with their Privacy Notice.

Improving Systems, Practices, and Outcomes

Child Outcomes Summary (COS) Process

Topic Editor: Kellen Reid

kellen.reid@unc.edu

The COS process is a team decision-making process involving discussion about the child's functioning across settings and situations by those who know the child best, such as family members and practitioners. The COS process provides a consistent way for teams to rate a child's functioning relative to age-expected behavior at a specific point in time.

COS Data Collection and Guidance provides an overview of key practices that are important in the COS process, including the purpose for data collection, guidance and politices, building teams, gathering and age anchoring information about child functioning, use of the COS Definitions: 7-Point Rating Scale Criteria and COS Decision Tree for Summary Ratings, filling out the COS form and documenting evidence, and monitoring quality of the COS process.

Additional information and training on the COS process for team members is available:

States use the COS process for many reasons:

  • Goal of EI and ECSE: The overarching goal of EI and ECSE is to enable young children to be active and successful participants during the early childhood years and in the future in a variety of settings—in their homes with their families, in child care, in preschool or school programs, and in the community.
  • IDEA language: This goal is consistent with what is stated in IDEA under Public Law 114-95, the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015): "Improving educational results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities."
  • COS process: The COS process provides information about how each child is functioning relative to age expectations. Gathering child development information at program entry and again at program exit describes changes in the trajectory of the child's development over time.
  • Age expectations: Being mindful of a child's functioning relative to age expectations helps support the child's current functioning and development and provides an important foundation for the child's future school success when the child's achievement is measured by grade-level standards.
  • COS process data use: COS process data is used in important ways at many levels to support EI and ECSE goals:
    • Practitioners can use information from COS process to identify the individual plan that best supports the child's learning and participation.
    • Families can build on this information to communicate their child's strengths and needs to support successful participation in settings with same-age peers.
    • States and local programs can synthesize COS data across many children to make data-informed decisions that improve the services they provide.

The COS process supports and brings together DEC Recommended Practices, particularly in the areas of assessment and family.

As states support effective implementation of the COS process, they also strengthen practitioner skills and reinforce quality practices.

A good COS process involves a team of people who know the child well, and fully involves families in the COS discussion. Authentic assessment information from multiple sources helps identify how the child uses skills to accomplish meaningful tasks in everyday settings. The team references established child development milestones in the discussion of where the child's functioning is relative to age expectations so that all team members understand where the child's skills are in the sequence of common developmental progressions.

Additionally, some states have integrated the COS with IFSP and IEP processes to promote ongoing assessment, a functional view of the whole child, and to link understanding the child's functioning with planning individualized intervention and instruction.

No.

States have the option to collect the child outcomes data in any way that produces valid and reliable data. States that choose to use the COS process do so because it allows them to aggregate information from programs that use different assessment tools, and to consolidate information about a child's functioning from multiple sources. States do use other approaches to child outcomes measurement.

Making COS ratings requires teams to synthesize information about a child's functioning from multiple sources and across different settings, and then accurately apply the rating criteria in each of the three outcome areas.

Teams need training and practice to correctly select the description that describes the child's functioning compared to age expectations.

Professionals who have been trained and who implement the process thoughtfully can reach valid and reliable ratings. 9–12 hours of initial training and ongoing training for individuals and teams completing COS ratings are strongly recommended to produce valid ratings.

COS ratings are independent of eligibility determinations.

There are a number of different situations where children receiving services may be functioning at age-expected levels. Children receiving services may exhibit age-expected functioning in one outcome and have challenges in another outcome area.

Some children with diagnosed conditions, such as a visual impairment, may be functioning at age appropriate levels in all outcomes and the services and supports are intended to prevent the child's condition from negatively impacting functioning.

in collaboration with:
  • DaSy