Federal Requirements

OSEP Requirements

OSEP Requirements: Reporting Child and Family Outcomes

In 2005, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) began requiring State Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education programs to report on child and family outcomes.

For child outcomes, States are required to report on the percent of infants and toddlers with Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) or preschool children with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) who demonstrate improved:

  1. Positive social-emotional skills (including social relationships);
  2. Acquisition and use of knowledge and skills (including early language/communication [and early literacy]); and
  3. Use of appropriate behaviors to meet their needs.

The ECO Center has also developed a print version of the Three Child Outcomes.

For family outcomes, Early Intervention programs are required to report the percent of families participating in Part C who report that early intervention services have helped their family:

  1. Know their rights;
  2. Effectively communicate their children's needs; and
  3. Help their children develop and learn.

State 619 programs must report the percent of parents with a child receiving special education services who report that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities.

OSEP's SPP Templates

Provided below are the updated SPP templates and measurement tables. For Part C, go to Indicator 3 for Child Outcomes and Indicator 4 for Family Outcomes. For Part B, go to indicator 7 for Child Outcomes and Indicator 8 for Family Outcomes.

For ECO's suggested formats for updating indicators C3, C4, and B7, click here.

 

ECO Suggested Formats

Updating SPP Indicators: Suggestions from ECO

Because states will set targets for the child outcomes indicator in 2010, the ECO Center has developed new guidance for how states might organize their child outcomes indicator.  The suggested formats below are for indicators B7 and C3. Indicator C3 has two suggested formats- one for states that serve at-risk infants and toddlers, and one for states that do not.

ECO's suggestions for addressing C3 and B7 were also discussed on a national call on 8/13/09 addressing target setting for these indicators.  The PowerPoint slides from that presentation can be viewed at the following link:

OSEP Timelines

OSEP Timelines: Reporting Child Outcome Data

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) outlines the 3 child outcome areas and the five reporting categories, as well as describes the requirements for reporting child outcome data to OSEP for each APR through 2012.

Timelines document [38K PDF] - Revised November 6, 2008

FAQs

FAQs Regarding the SPP/APR

Early Childhood Outcomes (Part C Indicator #3 and Part B Indicator #7)

This document answers common questions related to SPP/APR.

FAQ document [126K PDF] - Revised October, 2007

Target Setting

Target Setting

In the Annual Performance Report (APR) to be submitted February 2010, states must set targets for child progress. The summary statements for each of the three outcomes for Part C and 619 are the following:

Summary Statement 1 : Of those children who entered the program below age expectations in each Outcome, the percent who substantially increased their rate of growth by the time they exited the program.

Summary Statement 2 : The percent of children who were functioning within age expectations in each Outcome by the time they exited the program.

The following resources provide information on target setting for Indicators C3 and B7:

A national webinar "Setting Targets for Child Outcomes" was presented by Christina Kasprzak & Lynne Kahn on October 30, 2009. The session reviewed target setting requirements for child outcomes (C3/ B7) for the SPP/APR reporting due February, 2010. Several polls were utilized to assess states' progress and approaches regarding target setting. An audio recording, presentation handout, and poll results are available at the following link:

A national conference call on “Target Setting for Child Outcomes Indicators C3 and B7” was presented by Lynne Kahn and Christina Kasprzak, ECO at FPG/UNC, on June 16, 2009. Presenters reviewed target setting requirements and explored strategies for states and stakeholder groups to determine, "How much improvement should we expect?" The PowerPoint slide presentation for the call can be found at this link:

A national conference call on “Summary Statements” was presented by Lynne Kahn and Christina Kasprzak, ECO at FPG/UNC, on June 9, 2009. The purpose of this call was to provide background on the summary statements, information on calculating data for the summary statements, attaching meaning to the data, and communicating about children's progress. The PowerPoint slide presentation for the call can be found at this link:

The ECO Center devised a summary statements calculator that allows states to take their OSEP progress category data for the three child outcomes and convert it to the summary statements for target setting. This calculator can be used by all states to generate percentages related to the summary statements, regardless of the child outcomes measurement approach.

A paper documenting the development of the summary statements for target setting is available at this link: