Outcomes 101: ECO Q&A
return to Q&A HomeQ. Some disabilities become progressively more debilitating over time and some children may regress rather than make progress. Won't this negatively impact the results that states report and make programs appear as though they aren't effective?
A. We expect that a small percentage of children receiving early intervention or preschool special education services will not make any progress during their time in the program. For state purposes, it will be helpful for states to be able to describe the types of children who are reported in each of the OSEP "a" to "e" categories, especially those in category "a," children who do not make progress. Many states are collecting additional information or linking child outcomes data to existing information collected so that they can understand more about how child and family outcomes observed are related to key child, family, and service characteristics. OSEP acknowledges that there will be children served in Part C and Part B Preschool programs who do not make any progress, but until states report the data, we do not know the percentage of children in category "a."
See link below to learn more about OSEP's reporting requirements
Related Link: http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~eco/pages/fed_req.cfm