ENHANCE consists of four studies to examine the quality of the data being collected through the Child Outcomes Summary (COS) process. An urgent need exists to understand the conditions under which the COS process produces valid and reliable data, because the majority of states are using it to generate data for federal accountability reporting for Part C and Part B Preschool services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Furthermore, many states want to use their data for program improvement, so they need valid information about child outcomes to identify program strengths and weaknesses.

The Early Childhood Outcomes (ECO) Center developed the COS process to address states' needs to build measurement systems for child outcomes data that would reflect multiple sources of information on child functioning. In the COS process, members of local teams (e.g., early interventionists, therapists, teachers, and parents) synthesize multiple sources of information on child functioning on each of three child outcomes and convert that information into a single rating on a seven-point scale. The COS process supports multidisciplinary best practices in early childhood assessment and is consistent with the approach numerous professional organizations promote.

The four ENHANCE studies address the following:

• How teams decide COS ratings

• How consistent COS ratings are with information from other assessments

• COS users' perceptions of their experiences with the COS process, including their impressions of the COS tool, the process, and the training and support they have received

• Patterns and trends in state-level COS data

Additional details about ENHANCE are available on the project website.