Infant-Toddler Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs) for Screening and Progress Monitoring: Longitudinal Studies

• In Event: 3-046 - Use of Individual Growth and Development Indicators to Support Early Intervention and Early Learning

Integrative Statement

Introduction. Early language, cognitive problem-solving, and movement skill proficiency form critical foundations for later literacy, learning, and school success. Limited availability and utility of reliable and valid measures to inform intervention, underscore the need for rigorous psychometric data supporting measures for infants and toddlers (Diamond, Justice, Siegler & Snyder, 2013; Greenwood, Carta & McConnell, 2011). The Infant-Toddler Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs) are standardized play-based measures for infants and toddlers ages 6 to 42 months intended for use by early interventionists, home visitors and researchers for universal screening and progress monitoring assessment to inform intervention. What sets IGDIs apart from most early childhood measures is that they are direct observational measures of skills a child can perform in an authentic play context compared to parent or teacher report. The Infant-Toddler IGDIs may be administered frequently (e.g., monthly, quarterly) for screening and progress monitoring to assess programmatic and intervention effects. In this session, Infant-Toddler IGDIs will be described, and administration, scoring and interpretation reviewed. Research supporting the IGDIs for communication and language (Early Communication Indicator; ECI), cognitive problem-solving (Early Problem Solving Indicator; EPSI) and movement skill growth (Early Movement Indicator; EMI) will be presented.

Research Questions and Hypotheses. Knowledge of the patterns of growth and change in young children’s early communication, cognitive problem-solving and movement skills is needed as a basis for intervention decision-making and linking expected benchmark performance at an early point to developing more advanced skills over time. To advance validity and psychometric properties of the ECI, EPSI and EMI, research questions were addressed across three parallel longitudinal studies to establish: 1) benchmark means and trajectories; 2) sensitivity of the IGDIs to growth over time; 3) sensitivity to moderators including, gender, dual language and disability status; 4) whether IGDI skills support a continuum of growth; and 5) equivalence of growth patterns across samples.

Participants and Methods. Three longitudinal studies were conducted using extant samples totaling over 9,000 infants and toddlers between ages 6 and 42 months assessed using the Infant-toddler IGDIs. Over 15,000 assessments administered by early interventionists and educators from Early Head Start and Part C home- and center-based programs. Assessments were delivered in English or Spanish according to child’s home language. Children with and without disabilities were included in the samples. All assessors completed a certification process and data were entered using a password-protected web-based system.

Results. Descriptive analyses and multilevel growth curve modeling were conducted. Patterns of growth across the measures replicate earlier validation studies and suggest that rate and IGDI key skills across the Infant-Toddler IGDIs are sensitive to growth over time, age, disability and dual language status. Best fit analyses were conducted. Benchmarks were established and dynamic relations between key skills for each of the Infant-Toddler IGDIs found. Results from these studies extend the validation of progress monitoring measures across developmental domains and advance research in the assessment of infants and toddlers for the purposes of identifying when children may need additional intervention support and for documenting early intervention and educational goals.

Authors

• Dale Walker, University of Kansas, Juniper Gardens Children's Project
  Presenting Author

• Charles Greenwood, University of Kansas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jay Buzhardt, University of Kansas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Fan Jia, University of Kansas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Judith Carta, University of Kansas
  Non-Presenting Author