Responsiveness to General Education Instruction as the First Gate to Learning Disabilities Identification

Abstract

Most definitions of learning disabilities (LD) include a qualification that adequate general education instruction was received and the child with LD did not benefit. Rarely is this tenet assessed in either practice or research before a diagnosis is made. We review three studies that investigated children's responsiveness to general education reading instruction as an indicator of need for more intensive interventions. Adequacy of instruction was quantified by children's level and rate of progress, compared to classmates, as measured by curriculum-based measures of oral reading fluency. We found that the response-to-instruction model tested was valid in that (1) children who differ from their peers on level and slope of performance (dual discrepancy) have more severe academic and behavioral problems than children who have IQ-achievement discrepancies or low achievement; (2) children who demonstrate persistent nonresponsiveness over three years differ from other at-risk children on reading, reading-related, and behavioral measures; and (3) at-risk children who participated in specially designed general education interventions had better outcomes than at-risk children who did not participate. We conducted additional analyses to assess low achievement definitional variations and found that they lack sensitivity and coverage compared to a dual discrepancy definition.

Prereferral Interventions

“…The researchers also demonstrated that dually-discrepant children who were non-responsive to specially designed general education interventions had poorer academic and behavioral outcomes than those dually-discrepant children who were responsive to general education interventions. Finally, dually-discrepant children that participated in specially designed general education interventions had better outcome and generally required little service beyond the general education classroom than those dually-discrepant children who did not participate in the model (Speece et al, 2003).…”

“…These children were described as "difficult-to-remediate" (Vellutino et al, 1996). Speece, Case, and Molloy (2003) conducted a study to evaluate the treatmentvalidity model. The researchers set out to determine if students with low performance level and growth rate (dually discrepant) differed from those students with low reading achievement or IQ-reading discrepancies.…”

“…neuro/physiological factors) as the primary or sole cause of learning problems. More specifically, the IQachievement discrepancy model does not rule out Type I or Type II problems as it does not generate data to verify that instructional practices were matched to students' needs, that such instruction was of high quality, and that appropriate pre-referral interventions were provided prior to special education testing (Adelman, 1992;Ortiz, 2002;Speece, Case, & Molloy, 2003;Vaughn & Fuchs, 2003).…”

“…For the successful identification of students with intrinsic learning problems through the use of RTI, schools must first ensure that instruction is appropriate (Speece, Case, & Molloy, 2003). That is, instructional practices must not only be research-proven, but they must also be suited to the needs of the students.…”

Viewing Response-to-Intervention through an Educational Change Paradigm: What Can We Learn?

“…RtI represents a paradigm shift in both form of instruction and educational decision-making. Unfortunately, confusion exists among professionals regarding the process of RtI at advanced stages when making educational decisions (Fuchs, 2003;Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2004;Speece, Case, & Molloy, 2003). Moreover, many districts are grappling with how to fit RtI within their current system.…”