Essay on History of Response to Intervention

Provisions of IDEA mandates fair testing practices, provides increased parental support involving evaluation and placement recommendations of students with special needs. In compliance to IDEA legislation, parents must receive contact from the school regarding inadequate academic progress. Parental information must be provided in the parent's native language using their typical mode of communication. IDEA regulations also define fair testing practices in regarding student referral to Special Education Services. Fair testing practices include tests administered by trained specialists in the student's most common mode of communication, adhering to strict testing guidelines to minimize testing errors. Multiple data points must be analyzed by

The two options for identifying students with disabilities are RTI model and the IQ-Achievement discrepancy model. The RTI model is a multi-tiered approach to identifying students with disabilities. With this approach the amount of students who are identified as having a learning disability has decreased because of the support students receive at different tiers and it eliminates inadequate instruction as the reason for reading problems. Universal screening and high quality teaching is done for all students. Students who show that they need additional help receive tier 1 services where frequency and intensity increases. Students are monitored and receive research based instruction in the general education classroom. Some students may still struggle and have to receive more intensive and frequent service. Those students will receive supplemental support from an educational professional. Tier 3 services are provided to students who still struggle and need even more intensive service. Students may also qualify for special education services. The IQ-Achievement discrepancy model is used to determine if a disability is present. Standardized tests are used to eliminate low intellectual ablity as a determining cause for reading problems. With this model, a professional assess whether there is a discrepancy between a student’s scores on an iq test and scores obtained from areas

As in any research based program there are benefits and challenges. One of the biggest benefits of RTI is it has the ability to transform how we educate all students. When implementing Response to Intervention it helps to treat learning disabilities, identifies students with disabilities, classifies every student’s strengths and targets the specific disability. Perhaps the greatest benefit of an RTI approach is that it eliminates a “wait to fail” situation because students get help promptly within the general education setting. As soon as assessment data indicates a problem area for a student, interventions are put into place to address these concerns. One of the biggest challenges that are occurring is that RTI is still uneven; some districts use it and some do not and because of this it becomes a challenge. There is confusion as to what RTI is and whether schools are required to use. In addition, the evidence based and differentiated instruction is one of the issues in response to education. “Interventions that are research based but not feasible are not likely to be implemented with fidelity, which would undercut the validity of RTI decision making” (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2010,

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is an important law that was passed, which advocates for the needs of disabled children. Federal funding is given to the schools to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Each state works with the federal government to provide this service. It is the states responsibility to follow the laws and find appropriate placement for these children. (US Department of Education, 2007) These students go through a process called appropriate placement by going through a series of referrals, evaluations, and classifications to see which category they fall under. These students may suffer with learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, emotional disorders, cognitive challenges, autism, hearing impairment, visual impairment, speech or language impairment, and developmental delay. Once they find the category then the Child Study Team (CST) made up of a school psychologist, social worker, and a learning disabilities teacher consultant will decide if the student needs an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Then the consultant will decide if the student needs an Individualized Education Program (IEP). This program is offered to students struggling in school allowing them to be taught a different way in the school system. If the student needs an IEP the multidisciplinary committee will meet. The

This three-tier RTI system is wonderful at the early stages of education because it allows teachers to identify at-risk students and move them through the intervention process. However, in the later stages, it is often too late to evaluate students for learning disabilities as these should have been recognized early on in a child’s education. It should be noted that students at this stage do still need interventions, but in a different format.

Over the last decade, school administrators began implementing the RTI program at a rapid pace. This implementation was inspired by President Bush’s reauthorization of IDEA, which identified RTI as a viable way to qualify students for special education (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2007, p. 14). Fuchs and Fuchs (2007) defined RTI as a three tiered system of education. There has been research completed to show RTI was a reliable systems, but it is an open ended systems. The designers of the RTI program have left several of the specifics for individual administers to determine for their districts. While the open framework granted administrators leeway to alter the program, this also leads to questions about

Response to Intervention (RTI) is an in school service program designed to guarantee that all students are getting a high quality education. Before students are referred for special education services, it is essential that they receive effective teaching designed to meet their own learning requirements. All students in public schools are required to be included in the RTI program.

RtI is a great program for students mainly because of its timeliness. “Response to Intervention calls for intervention as soon as a problem is documented” (Friend 50). Prior to RtI, students with learning disabilities would not be identified until they fell far enough behind so they would show a large discrepancy between their achievement level and their potential.

Response to Intervention (RTI), is an early detection, prevention, and support system that attempts to identify and assist struggling students with appropriate levels of intervention. This strategy may determine if a student based on their time prior in Tier 3, would be qualified for special education with a qualification of learning disability. The RTI has three tiers which allows a teacher to monitor their student’s progress during instructions. The three levels of the RTI are explained through an article called, “Understanding Response to Intervention”, which states:

RtI works at its best when personal from across the school, including administrators, general education teachers, special education teachers, supplemental specialists, music and gym teachers, and counselors all collaborate to support the framework, because each staff member shares equal responsibility for the success and failure of all students (Shapiro 2011). RtI needs the full support of all staff members, because it does not show immediate results and could take between 3-5 years to see its positive impact. RtI gives schools the chance to correct literacy issues, and fix the problem early, before students’ progress forward where they pay for it long into their future.

This webinar focuses on regulatory requirements for RTI process. This webinar focuses on the federal regulations. RTI should not be the only measure for determining a learning disability, many various assessments should be used. RTI provides only one part of the data necessary for this determination. Appropriate instruction is required for a student in order to determine if the student is a student with a learning disability.

Throughout the RTI process it has been made very clear to me that the process was to provide students with intervention and targeted instruction to facilitate learning. I was placed on the team my first year back in the education system so I never knew anything different. However, many people viewed it as the process for referring students to special education and I have often heard comments such as “they aren’t going to qualify for services anyway so why take the time to fill out the paper work”. This is the first thing that came to mind when I read “in their well-intentioned effort to create a sense of collected responsibility among schools, some

Response to intervention (RTI) is an assessment procedure that consists of a multi-step approach to progressively intensive intervention and monitoring within general education for purposes of improving achievement outcomes and accurately recognizing students with learning disabilities. Components of the RTI process include universal screening, multi-tiered levels of support, evidence-based intervention, and using students' responsiveness to evaluate the status of their progress (Jenkins, Schiller, Blackorby, Thayer, & Tilly, 2013). Universal screening measures for students are not likely to result in definite identification for special education. Before students are placed they must be correctly identified with a precise assessment

In order for a student to be diagnosed for any disability, there is a process that involves many people that are important in the child’s life. The school must conduct tests that measure the child’s academic success in the classroom, as well as tests that measure IQ (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), work samples, developmental history (usually get this information from the parents), physical exams (vision, hearing etc.), psychological tests, adaptive skills (BASC) and other areas as needed. Testing is usually done by professionals from various disciplines. In order to qualify for special education services under IDEA, the disability must impact the child’s ability to be academically successful (IDEA, 2004).

The next article I researched was bout potential implementations for 3rd grade students who were identified as learning disabled. This article talked about how RTI’s are the front running alternatives to placing a student in special education. Interventionists, who were undergrad special education teacher candidates, used RTI approach on 3rd grade children with reading disabilities. The