When IQ is Irrelevant to the Definition of Learning Disabilities

Abstract

School psychologists in North America are facing a transformation of their professional practices brought about by impending changes in operational definitions of learning disabilities (LD). This multimethod study explores the learning disabilities-related beliefs and practices of school psychologists in Western Australia, where these changes have already taken place, and where learning disabilities are not typically defined through IQ-achievement discrepancy models. School psychologists from Western Australia completed individual surveys and participated in focus group sessions that explored their range of practice in schools and their beliefs about the nature of LD. Results from the survey revealed that in contrast to North American practitioners, West Australian school psychologists spend less time on psychometric assessment, and more time on consultation and counselling activities. Surprisingly, most West Australian school psychologists continue to use IQ tests in LD assessment and to hold beliefs about LD that are consistent with ‘traditional’ definitions.

How are Reading Disabilities Operationalized in Spain? A Study of Practicing School Psychologists

“…The RTI model has become increasingly popular in the years since, and now features prominently in many training programs for school psychologists [53][54][55]. As already noted in the introduction to this paper, this shift in emphasis occurred much earlier in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, where the IQ-achievement criterion was either never adopted or was more swiftly abandoned as the basis for identifying LD [46][47][48][49], being replaced with a criterion that considered the need for remedial education.…”

“…Such factors may explain why the Spanish sample ascribed more importance to diagnostic models than to the RTI model, and even why there were high percentages of the "don't know" response on most items, or even why some of the respondents saw no need for exclusion criteria. It would be useful for future studies to establish how such variables influence the opinion of practicing psychologists on identifying RD, in the line of other research studies such [1,2,46].…”

“…The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act [44] also recognized RD as a category of disability that was eligible for special education services, linking the concept more closely to a research base and the RTI model and moving away from an IQ-achievement discrepancy criterion. In Australia, this move away from IQ-achievement discrepancy models occurred earlier than in the USA [45,46], while countries such as the United Kingdom [47], Japan [48] and Germany [49] either never adopted such an approach to the identification of RD or were quicker to shift towards a criterion focused on the need for remedial education [46].…”

“…These differences between the two studies could be the result of the changes proposed by the IDEIA (2004). In the context of research on the views of educational professionals regarding key criteria, a study of Australian school psychologists by [46] found that although 81% of them agreed that IQ tests were useful in the process of identifying RD, they used them not to assess the IQ-achievement discrepancy but because parents and teachers wanted this kind of information about a child's possible intellectual problems.…”

Current Perspectives on Prevention of Reading and Writing Learning Disabilities

“…Elsewhere, other researchers have questioned the discrepancy model as a means of defining and identifying students with specific learning disabilities [4][5][6][7][8]. These researchers have recently proposed other diagnostic criteria not relating to discrepancy.…”