Quality DAYC Reporting Criteria

Quality DAYC reports serve two purposes in the First Steps process: 1) to determine eligibility for children who are referred to First Steps due to concerns about a possible developmental delay, and 2) they are used in developing the initial IFSP for the family. A copy of this report should be given to the family, so it is important to use family-friendly language that is easy to understand and not offensive or harsh. If a provider has specific concerns and/or impressions/opinions about what they saw during the evaluation, those thoughts should be shared with the Family Service Coordinator outside of the DAYC report. For example, words like “atypical,” “significant,” and “abnormal” can be alarming to families. When DAYC reports are written and reviewed, we should be considering the audience and writing them knowing that parents will read them. We should keep in mind the feelings of our parents when writing the reports and consider what words would be helpful and hurtful. Instead of saying “Jimmie has significant regression with feeding skills that are atypical for his development and this continued pattern is sure to impact him negatively,” you could say “Jimmie used to eat some solid foods with his family but will now only take a bottle. His parents are concerned because he is 12 months old and they would like him to be eating some of their family meals with them.”

Any assessment protocols that are considered in addition to the DAYC can be discussed in the summary section but should be written in a way that families will understand. For example, families may not understand all of the jargon involved with sensory profiles, so that needs to be written in a way that is very easy to understand. We also expect providers and service coordinators to communicate often during the intake process in order to keep everyone informed during this process with families. If the SPOE receives a DAYC report that is not of quality standards or is questionable, the service coordinator will contact the provider and have a discussion about changes that need to be made. It is our expectation that the need to return a report to a provider for changes will be rare after this DAYC Reporting Criteria has been shared with providers. We are expecting high quality reports with rich, individualized family friendly detail!

What Quality DAYC reports should always include:

• statements of family routines


• strategies and activities across all areas


• information specific to the individual child and family; not cut and paste or cookie cutter


• statements written in family friendly/centered language that do not emphasize the negative with "harsh" words


• a detailed description of what was observed during time spent with the child and family


• a quick turn around time based on the date on the Provider Request Form from the Family Service Coordinator


• likes and dislikes including motivators for the child


• fears of the child


• specific examples of skills from the parent of caregiver


• a rich description included in the child and family section of any information that is not captures in the domain sections of the DAYC report


• a mention if the child has had any opportunities or exposure to a specific skill/task prior to the evaluation

What Quality DAYC reports should not include:

• language and statements that are not accurate nor do they match the findings in the domains


• narrative information that is not specific to the child


• generic listings of skills activities/strategies that are not specific to the particular child and family routines


• listing skills directly from the DAYC protocol


• statements that list too much of what a child is "not doing"


• negative or harsh language such as "significant delay, abnormal, regression, atypical"


• spelling errors, grammatical errors (including child/parent names and child's date of birth), all lowercase/uppercase words


• therapeutic/clinical/medical/discipline-specific jargon


• references to "area or concern" or "area of weakness"


• recommendations for therapy or other services

Please Note: There is a new DAYC report summary form available on the First Steps page on DESE's website. This is the correct form that is to be used for all DAYC reports as of September 2009. The form can be found by following this link:

http://www.dese.mo.gov/divspeced/FirstSteps/DAYCtemplatefillform0909.docx