IGDIs and Get it, Got it, Go!

Tools for improving children’s development

How can parents and teachers promote the healthy development of young children? With that question in mind, the Early Childhood Research Institute on Measuring Growth and Development was launched by the Universities of Minnesota, Kansas, and Oregon in October 1996. Scott McConnell and the late Mary McEvoy, educational psychology professors, were the Institute’s lead researchers at the U. The Institute has developed a comprehensive, individualized measurement system for tracking the growth and development of children with and without disabilities from birth to age eight. Part of this system are assessments that allow families and teachers to monitor young children’s development and identify, as soon as possible, the need for more intensive intervention.

McConnell says the goal is to provide the earliest possible interventions to help infants and toddlers develop to their fullest potential. Building on the work of fellow College of Education and Human Development researchers with older students, McConnell, McEvoy, and colleagues wanted to design a simple set of tests to graph a child’s progress and produce information that’s meaningful to parents and teachers. “This is the first application of general outcome measures to preschool children,” McConnell says. The project also is unique because it includes measures for children with disabilities, who do not grow and develop according to the usual measurement charts.

How IGDIs work

To gather data that reveals individual levels of development, McConnell and colleagues created Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs). “We wanted measures that showed a continuum of development,” McConnell says. The IGDIs measure expressive language, literacy, motor development, adaptive behavior (eating, feeding, etc.), and social interaction, and can be charted over time. They can be administered to children with disabilities and in multiple languages, including sign language.

Picture-naming card/expressive language IGDI: Children ages three to five are presented with images of objects commonly found in their homes, classrooms, and communities and are asked to name each picture as fast as possible.

How the research has been used

Data from IGDIs are being collected by teachers and evaluators in early childhood/preschool programs, including Head Start; statewide training programs; research projects such as progress measurement of preschool children in special education classrooms; and in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

McConnell and colleagues also have created a Web-based system for early childhood educators to access tools to monitor young children’s developmental progress: Get It, Got It, Go! (launched spring 2003), ggg.umn.edu. The site makes the Institute’s tools more accessible, and it will encourage collaboration among educators, parents, and national consultants in planning assessments and interventions for children.

What others say about IGDIs and Get it, Got it, Go!

Carol Miller, deputy director for early childhood, Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board, and program manager, Hennepin County Children, Family, and Adult Services, says: “Scott McConnell and his team have done wonderful work in connecting the lessons of research in child development to the early care and education staff in the field. Their work on IGDIs is providing a simple, effective way for teachers to assess the development of the children in their care, translate that learning into work with individual children, and explain developmental gains or concerns to parents. Minneapolis is fortunate to have had Dr. McConnell’s work evolve and be implemented in our community.”

Karen Diamond, professor of developmental studies and director of the Child Development Laboratory School at Purdue University, likes the picture-naming IGDI because “It’s appealing to children (we had fewer than five children refuse to do this); it can be administered in multiple languages; it’s easy to explain the skills measured and results to parents and teachers; it takes little time; and it’s easy to teach others to use it. It is also easy to adapt this measure for children with disabilities (e.g., directions/responses can be signed). I think this approach—IGDIs in general, picture naming specifically—provides a nice complement to more time-intensive standardized measures and offers a quick ‘snapshot’ of a child’s performance.”

Judith Carta, senior scientist at the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project, University of Kansas, says: “While any number of assessments are available for measuring the development of young children, the measures available through ‘Get it, Got it, Go!’ are unique in that they’ll help early intervention practitioners know when they are truly making a difference in moving young children toward socially meaningful outcomes, and will be able to fine tune their practice.”

Jerry Gruba, coordinator, Early Childhood/Early Literacy Services at Heartland Area Education Agency 11 in Johnston, Iowa, has partnered with McConnell and the Institute for the past four years. Gruba says: “The Institute project is in line with our goals, philosophy, and practices. We are committed to finding and using measures that enable our practitioners to determine which children are not on track developmentally so that we can design interventions to get them back on track.

“Having simple assessment tools that focus on important, teachable skills has helped teachers to better understand the development and needs of the children with whom they work. Fortunately, this has resulted in a more focused and productive collaborative relationship between early childhood teachers and our practitioners.

“We are excited by the potential to link the information we get from the IGDIs with assessment information gathered on school-age children. We believe the IGDIs will change the types of conversations we have with school administrators, teachers, and communities, allowing us to show a clear connection between preschool experiences and later school achievement. To do this with data at the local level instead of citing examples from national research will be more persuasive as we have conversations about improving early care and education in our communities. This is unique and extremely promising work. Scott and his colleagues have made important contributions to the field of early childhood.”

Why this research matters

Individualized assessments provide the tools necessary to chart children’s progress over time and help families and educators identify features of classroom and home settings they can change to improve children’s developmental outcomes. McConnell, who is developing growth indicators for number knowledge, says, “Lots of parents are going to celebrate when programs are serving their kids well.”

July 2003