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Improving Systems, Practices, and Outcomes

COS Teaming

The COS process is a team-based decision-making process leading to consensus on ratings.

Building and Engaging the COS Team

Consistently and accurately identifying ratings that describe a child's functioning starts with building and engaging a team of people familiar with the child's use of skills and involving the full team in an effective rating discussion. In addition to the following best practices, many states have guidance and policies to consult, and specific tools and resource for the team to use.

A COS team usually includes all members of the child's IFSP or IEP team, and at least one family member. Teams also commonly include:

  • Additional parents or family members
  • Teachers and educators
  • Childcare providers
  • Service providers
  • Therapists
  • Service coordinators

Collectively, the COS team members should:

It's not vital that every COS team member knows everything—they probably won't. Rather, it's important COS team members learn from one another, and recognize each other's value in gathering and interpreting information throughout the COS process. Team members bring different knowledges and strengths to the team discussion. For example:

  • Parents and family members can describe the child's functioning across settings and situations, and share their culture's age-expectations for child development.
  • Therapists can provide information about the three child outcomes and progression of age-expected child development, so that the team can accurately age-anchor the child's skills.
  • Service coordinators can understand the three child outcomes, organize the conversation using the rating scale and decision tree, and facilitate conversations that make best use other team members' knowledge and expertise.

Providers must engage families in the COS process, ensuring they have everything they need to be full partners in the process and COS rating discussion. Family participation is essential to gathering and age anchoring information about child functioning and during COS rating discussions.

The Child Outcomes Summary Team Collaboration (COS-TC) presents quality interactive practices that support family engagement throughout the COS process.

Many states have an official brochure for families beginning the COS process. When explaining the COS process to families, providers must ensure the family understands:

These first discussions are essential to build team knowledge that will lead to a high-quality COS process. Teams build on these as they:

  • Share how childen develop in a predictable progression of age-expected skills and behaviors.
  • Discuss the child's current skills relative to age-expectations.
  • Discuss the child's developmental progression, what skills come next, and what skills are age-expected.
  • Reach consensus on a rating that describes the child's functioning.
  • Plan and implement individualized services that build skills in the developmental progression.
  • Ensure the child has supports needed to function in environments structured around age-expected skills.
  • Celebrate skills the child develops and incorporates into everyday activities.

States should provide support to practitioners on:

  • Answering "Why is the progress of children with special needs compared to expectations for same aged peers?"
  • Explaining how understanding the child's functioning relative to age-expected is essential for maximizing this child's participation in settings designed for children their age.
  • Becoming comfortable talking to families about their child's strengths and developmental delays. Practitioners play an important role in helping families understand their child's functioning, where it fits within the developmental progression, and communicate about what kind of supports their child needs.