ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of traditional approaches to child-focused outcome evaluations and explores contemporary assessment issues, and suggests an agenda for further investigation. It also explores two related developmental domains that program evaluators might consider in expanding the scope of child-focused outcome assessments: social competence and self-regulatory behaviors. As the burden of demonstrating program effectiveness is distributed more evenly across multiple dependent variables, opportunities arise for greater creativity in assessment. Standardized developmental scales for infants and intelligence tests for older preschoolers have been the most frequently employed measures of effectiveness of early childhood programs. Instrument selection for measuring developmental progress in infants and toddlers demands a clear recognition of the domains of early childhood evaluation. Standardized intelligence quotient (IQ) tests have dominated the evaluation of preschool children. In addition to traditional cognitive measures, numerous instruments are available for assessing development in the school-age years.
