Gathering and Age Anchoring Information About Child Functioning

The COS process measures Breadth of the Three Child Outcomes, which cut across developmental domains to represent the integrated nature of how children develop, learn, and thrive. COS teams must gather information about the child's functioning that covers the breadth of the three child outcomes that provides a more complete description of the child's functioning.

COS team members must gather information about all the skills that make up each outcome, so they base their ratings on the same information, and can effectively use observations and information from assessment tools organized by developmental domains.

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COS ratings are based on the child's use of functional skills. "Functional skills" are those the child purposefully uses to complete tasks and meaningfully participate in everyday life. COS team members examine the developmental progression of functional skills during daily actions and interactions across routines, for example:

• waking up
• eating
• diapering or toileting
• dressing
• playing indoors with different types of toys and play partners
• interacting with books or music
• outdoor movement and play
• expressing displeasure or seeking help
• preparing for bed
• transitions between activities and settings

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Detail and Context

To understand the child's use of functional skills and behaviors, COS team members must consider the context and details of the child's actions. Assessment tools and observations vary in how much of the information collected is functional information from natural situations, as opposed to direct testing through structured, artificial tasks that may not be meaningful to the child.

The information COS team members gather about the child's functioning must include sufficient detail to describe:

• the specific sounds, movements, and actions the child makes when using the skill,
• the settings, situations, and specific activities occurring when the child uses that skill, including any supports available
• the functional purpose the child uses the skill to accomplish
• where the skill is in a sequence of developmental progression

Without sufficient detail and context, COS team members can't align a child's functional skills with the breadth of the three child outcomes or age anchor information about the child's functioning. If information lacks sufficient details or context, COS team members should gather more information.

Observational data also helps practitioners monitor progress and document accomplishment of IFSP/IEP outcomes and goals in addition to the information it provides for the COS process.

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Children display different skills in various settings and situations. Including multiple sources and methods and observing a child in various settings and situations provides a more accurate reflection of functional skills. States, local programs, or districts frequently develop COS guidance and policies about specific sources, methods, settings, or situations to include.

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Sources

COS team members must observe the child with and gather information from different people who know the child well, for example:

• family members
• friends and community members
• service coordinators
• service providers
• educators
• child care providers
• medical professionals

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Methods

COS team members must gather current information about the child's functioning across the three child outcomes from multiple methods, for example:

• first-hand observations of or interviews about child functioning during routines
• videos featuring different situations and people
• clinical observations or service provider notes
• documented observations from intervention or instruction
• medical records
• curriculum-based assessments
• norm-referenced assessments

Information that is organized in developmental domains must be mapped to the three child outcomes.

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Settings and Situations

COS team members must gather information about the child's functioning from a variety of settings and situations across everyday life, for example:

• home
• grocery shopping
• playground or park
• preschool or child care
• visiting family or friends
• other community settings
• meeting new people for the first time
• transitions and getting from place to place

A combination of settings that are familiar and new to a child provides a better understanding of a child's functional skills.

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• COS Process Online Module, Session 2 includes an overview of the COS process and discusses gathering information needed for team discussion.
• The Breadth of the Three Child Outcomes enhances consistency in how teams describe and discuss children's functional skills and behaviors across settings and situations.
• COS Note Taker allows practitioners to record observations about child functioning organized by the outcomes.
• Sharing About Your Child allows family members to record observations of a child's functioning across the three child outcomes.
• Understanding Functional Skills: Background for the COS Process handout that explains functional skills and gives examples to help distinguish how these differ from discrete skills in structured, artificial tasks.
• Aligning a Child's Functional Skills with the Breadth of the Three Child Outcomes resources include an infographic and expanded resource as a webpage or pdf that includes both information and examples.
• COS Practice Scenarios (COS-PS) are a COS professional development resource that includes activities to identify if noted information has sufficient descriptive detail to inform COS ratings.
• Instrument Crosswalks provide information about how domain-specific assessment instrument content relates to functional information in the three child outcome areas.
• COS Process Discussion Prompts organized by the three child outcomes that can be used to talk with parents/caregivers about their child's functioning

See also:

• Frequently Asked Questions about the COS Process
• DEC Recommended Practices on Assessment, Family, and Teaming and Collaboration
• Early Intervention Services: Key Principles and Practices

• Age Anchor Information as it is Gathered: As COS team members document information about the child's skills, they must document if what they observed is AE, IF, or F, and review this prior to the team meeting. Additional information learned from COS team meetings is age anchored as well.
• Require Developmental Information: Age anchoring requires practitioners to supplement their expertise and knowledge with child development resources that feature embedded age expectations.
• Focus on Developmental Progressions: COS team members must consider where the child's skills are within the developmental progression. Developmental progression describes the steps in a sequence of skill development.
• Compare to Age Expectations: Age anchoring involves comparing the child's skills and behaviors to age expectations. It focuses on identifying where the child's skills are in the developmental progression, as opposed to comparing one specific child to another.
• Be Careful Referencing Developmental Milestones: Developmental milestones are notable changes at specific ages, but they might not be organized around the same skill across different ages. As a result, some milestones might not represent true developmental progression.
• Avoid Using Basal Ages from Assessment Tools: Age anchoring resources should focus on the age when the skill is age-expected rather than as "basal age", which are often listed as a starting point for an assessment tool. Using basal ages might cause COS team members to age-anchor the child as if they had more age-expected skills than they actually have, because basal ages represent the age when nearly all children can demonstrate a skill.
• Don't Assume a Timeline for Skill Development: Because developmental progressions proceed at different rates for different skills, there is no established timeline for a child to progress to an age-expected level. Some skill progressions cluster close together. Others span longer intervals.

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• Age Anchoring Guidance for Determining Child Outcomes Summary Ratings explains age anchoring by answering questions about the process and sharing examples of development progressions, and how to identify where a child's functional skills are within them.
• COS Practice Scenarios (COS-PS) includes practice example scenarios for age anchoring information about a child's functioning.
• COS Content Connector: Age Anchoring Functional Skills by Outcome organizes information gathered about a child's functioning across the Breadth of the Three Child Outcomes by skill bundle for age anchoring purposes.
• Developmental Progressions and the Child Outcomes Summary Process provides a brief overview of age anchoring and developmental progressions, and includes two examples for discussion.
• Topical COS Professional Development Activities on age anchoring include a variety of training activities to support understanding about age anchoring.
• Child Development Resources provide additional information to reference while age anchoring information about a child's functioning

See also: Why is the progress of children with special needs compared to expectations for same age peers?