"The goal of early intervention and early childhood special education is to enable young children with disabilities to be active and successful participants during their early childhood years and in the future. States collect, analyze, and use data on three child outcomes to measure individual child and family progress toward improved results and to improve their systems and services." -Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center
Child Outcomes include:
Child has positive social-emotional skills (e.g., social relationships)
Child acquires and uses knowledge and skills (e.g., early language/communication, math)
Child uses appropriate behaviors to meet their needs (e.g., self-care, dressing)
Schools that enroll preschool aged children with disabilities are required to report their children's progress in each of three outcome areas: Positive Social Emotional Skills, Acquisition and Use of Knowledge and Skills, and Use of Appropriate Behaviors to Meet Their Needs. Arizona currently uses one tool to document this progress, Teaching Strategies GOLD. Teachers and caregivers are able to share information regarding children's skills across each domain of learning and record their observations as soon as the children start school. Over time, children's progress on learning areas such as literacy, math, physical, and social-emotional skills are recorded and used to inform teachers' instructional practices and program effectiveness. This data is used in the state's Annual Performance Report for Indicator 7.
Teachers collaborate with families and other practitioners by observing children's skills remotely and in person and gather information from families and other practitioners to be able to report a comprehensive view of children's skills over the course of the school year. The Technical Assistance document, "Parent and Teacher Shared Observations Activities," facilitates conversations between practitioners and families and provides examples of targeted skills, identifies opportunties for gathering information, and encourages activities that would support acquisition of the skills.
What does it mean to be fluent in mathematics? In this webinar, we will examine the key components of fluency and make connections across mathematics standards that specify fluency as the intended end-of-year outcome in each grade level from K–6. Additionally, we will explore instructional routines, strategies, and games that will help all students develop flexibility to solve contextual and mathematical problems involving whole numbers.
This notice serves as a reminder that the most accurate disability representation should be reported for all students with disabilities throughout the school year.
When reporting needs (disability categories) to AzEDS for students, all eligible needs listed on a student’s IEP should be reported for all special education placements in Arizona. If a student has only one need, that need is reported as the primary need. For students with multiple needs, only one can be reported as the primary need and the other need(s) would be reported as secondary. The primary need is defined as the one that most adversely affects the student’s ability to access the general curriculum.
