Identifying Learning Disabilities in the Context of Response to Intervention

Posted by Beth DuBose on Jun 28, 2010

Anyone just starting implementation of a Response to Intervention process may be unclear on how RTI can be used for identification of students with Learning Disabilities. The RTI Action Network reviews the historical definitions of LD and summarizes the scientific basis for the changes in identification and intervention introduced by IDEA 2004.

The author of the article, Dr. Jack Fletcher, explains that the historical definition of Learning Disabilties was not very clear, and because the definition states that a learning disability could occur when "a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability in one or more areas, " the IQ discrepancy model became the way to identify learning disabilities dispite contrary evidence and research that the discrepancy model lacked vaildity and reliabilty. When IDEA 2004 was passed it allowed districts to choose an identfication model that represented alternative inclusionary criteria, including a model basd on RTI. This allowed for models that did not use IQ as an inclusion criteria.

Researchers have suggested three primary criteria to be used when identifying Learning Disabilities:

 
1. Student demonstrates low achievement.
 
2. There is insufficient response to effective, research-based interventions. A systematic plan for assessing change in performance must be established prior to intervention.
 
3. Exclusion factors such as mental retardation, sensory deficits, serious emotional disturbance, language minority children (where lack of proficiency in English accounts for measured achievement deficits

Thus, identifying children with LD, whether as part of the process stipulated in IDEA (2004), a clinic outside of school, or in research, requires the presence of low achievement and inadequate response to instruction as inclusionary criteria. This is true whether the overarching identification model stems from an RTI process or from some type of psychometric model.

Fletcher reminds districts that implementing a RTI process can take several years, so they should prepare for a gradual change. He also emphasizes the need for a collaboration between general and special education when implementing RTI. At the time of his report, Fletcher states that many educators feel like RTI is a special education initiaive. Through our annual RTI Survey, we have seen this perspective change over the years and now 55% of responders across the nation indicate that implementing RTI is a unified effort in their distrct.

Click here to read the entire article from the RTI Action Network.