DRAFT 9 (08/17/2005)
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS
Identification of Students with Learning Disabilities under the IDEA 2004
Oregon Response to Intervention
Office of Student Learning & Partnerships
Revised December 2007
OREGON DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
PublicServiceBuilding
255 Capitol Street NE
Salem, Oregon97310-0203
Phone: (503) 378-3569
Contributors
Johanna Cena
TigardTualatinSchool District
Tricia Clair
TigardTualatinSchool District
Dan Goldman
Tigard-TualatinSchool District
Petrea Hagen-Gilden
TigardTualatinSchool District
Carol Kinch
TigardTualatinSchool District
Erin Lolich
TigardTualatinSchool District
David Putnam, Jr.
TigardTualatinSchool District
Joyce Woods
TigardTualatinSchool District
Pamela Zinn
TigardTualatinSchool District
Review Committee
Ginger KowalkoLori Smith
BethelSchool District
Carol Massanari
MountainPlainsRegionalResourceCenter
Paula Stanovich
PortlandStateUniversity
Keith Stanovich
University of Toronto
Angela Whalen
University ofOregon
It is the policy of the State Board of Education and a priority of the Oregon Department of Education that there will be no discrimination or harassment on the grounds of race, color, sex, marital status, religion, national origin, age or disability in any educational programs, activities or employment. Persons having questions about equal opportunity and nondiscrimination should contact the State Superintendent of Public Instruction at the Oregon Department of Education.
Identification of Students with Learning Disabilities under the IDEA 2004
Oregon Response to Intervention
The Oregon Department of Education hereby gives permission to copy any or all of this document for educational purposes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
FORWARD………………………………………………………………………………………1
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………..2
SECTION ONE:CONTEXT AND PARAMETERS FOR A RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION MODEL……………………………………………………………………… 5
Capacities Required to Adopt RTI………………………………………………………5
Measurement of Academic Growth…………………………………………...... 6
Use of Validated Interventions ………………………………………………...... 8
Distinguish Types of Educational Difficulties ……………..…...……………………9
Determine the Effects of Interventions and Make Decisions
About Cutoff Criteria...... 10
IDEA’s Evaluation Paradigm and Response to Intervention in Oregon Regulations……………………………………………………………………………. 14
The Regulatory Framework…………………………………………………………… 14
Where is RTI?...... 15
Requirements for All Evaluations……………………………………………………..21
The Role of Norm-Referenced Achievement Testing in RTI………………………22
The Role of Intelligence Testing in RTI………………………………………………24
Summary ...... 24
SECTION TWO: IMPLEMENTING RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (RTI)...... 25
Leadership...... ………25
District Level...... 25
School Level...... 26
Teaming...... 26
Team Membership...... 26
Team Structures...... ………27
Teamwork and Planning...... 27
Research Based Core Reading Curriculum...... 29
Valid Screening or Identification Procedures and Decision Rules...... 31
Intervention Protocols and Progress Monitoring...... 32
Intervention Protocols...... 32
Progress Monitoring...... ……….33
Determining Trends...... 33
Professional Development...... 35
Curriculum & Instruction...... 35
Fidelity of Implementation...... 36
General Special Education Policy and Procedure Development38
Adopting RTI...... 38
Defining and Adopting Procedures...... 38
Decision Rules...... 38
Parental Notice and Consent...... 40
Special Education Procedures...... 40
Evaluation Planning and Eligibility Determination...... 43
Written Report...... 47
Secondary Students...... 56
Re-evaluations...... 60
SECTION THREE: PERSPECTIVES ON EVALUATION MODELS...... 61
Changes in LD evaluation: Guiding Questions…………………………….61
Response to Intervention Models...... 67
Problem Solving or Hypothesis Testing...... 67
Pre Referral Approaches...... 68
Multi-Tiered Instruction...... 70
Summary...... 71
REFERENCES...... 73
APPENDIX A: GENERAL RESOURCES...... 78
APPENDIX B: OrRTI RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION READINESS CHECKLIST80
APPENDIX C: SAMPLE RTI PARENT BROCHURE...... 86
FORWARD
It has been two years since the development of the original Oregon RTI Technical Assistance Paper and much has happened since then. There have been a number of legal, scientific, and pragmatic developments with respect to Response to Intervention (RTI), locally and nationally, that have changed the landscape of practice. Here in Oregon, fourteen school districts have participated in the OrRTI Guided Development Project, and an additional nine districts will enter the project during the 2007-08 school year. Much has been learned about RTI practices through the collaboration and reciprocal exchange of ideas with the OrRTI Project districts.
The IDEA regulations enacted in 2006 include provisions with direct bearing on RTI that significantly alter the way in which students suspected of having learning disabilities (LDs) are assessed and may be supported. IDEA 2004 specifically identifies RTI as a possible component of an LD evaluation. This language gives increased political, legal, and educational legitimacy to the use ofa RTImodel as a frameworkfor LD evaluations.Concurrently and more broadly, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has continued to move educators towards an increased focus oneducational outcomes and providing high quality, scientifically based instruction to all students. This combination of events will likely have a significant effect on education as a whole, and continue to propel educators toward an articulated system of effective instructional practices, problem solving, and data-based decision making.
The empirical data base in support of RTI as a valid and critical component in identifying students in need of support and driving interventions has grown substantially. Specific tools for implementation of RTI, such as assessment instruments in writing and math, continue to be developed and refined to enhance RTI practices. Additionally, as RTI practices have been increasingly adopted by school districts across the United States and elsewhere, much has been learned about practical issues associated with implementation of this model.
The OrRTI Technical Assistance paper has been revised to reflect the recent developments of the RTI model and its application to better serving students and their families. While the substantive portion of this document remains unchanged, refinements have been made where appropriate.
INTRODUCTION
Every day Oregon educators make decisions about children that are of life long importance. Among the most profound of these is the conclusion that a child’s educational struggles are the result of a disability. Educators engage in this difficult task because they know that, despite the dangers inherent in labeling students, important benefits may follow. When the decision is accurate, it can help parents and children understand the source of difficulties. It opens the door to resources, assistance, and accommodations.
Deciding a child does not have a disability is equally important. That conclusion says to general educators that they can effectively educate the student. It tells parents and students that success is attainable through hard work, practice, and engaging instruction, without the need for special education services.
It is critical that schools make these decisions based on the best information possible. For the majority of children in special education, those identified as having a learning disability (LD), this decision has been made in a climate of uncertainty. For decades the field of learning disabilities has struggled with identification issues both in law and in practice. However, since the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004), the climate has begun to change.
When IDEA was reauthorized in 1997, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) began a process to “carefully review research findings, expert opinion, and practical knowledge … to determine whether changes should be proposed to the procedures for evaluating children suspected of having a specific learning disability” (Federal Register,1999, p. 12541). This review resulted in a “Learning Disabilities Summit.” At this summit, a series of white papers presented relevant developments in the LD field and provided empirical validation for the use of alternatives to traditional discrepancy models. Following the summit, a series of meetings was conducted to gain consensus in the field regarding issues around LD. The following are consensus statements from the 2002 Learning Disabilities Roundtable report that apply to LD identification and were influential in the 2004 reauthorization process:
- Identification should include a student-centered, comprehensive evaluation and problem solving approach that ensures students who have a specific learning disability are efficiently identified.
- Decisions regarding eligibility for special education services must draw from information collected from a comprehensive individual evaluation using multiple methods and sources of relevant information.
- Decisions on eligibility must be made through an interdisciplinary team, using informed clinical judgment, directed by relevant data, and based on student needs and strengths.
- The ability-achievement discrepancy formula should not be used for determining eligibility.
- Regular education must assume active responsibility for delivery of high quality instruction, research-based interventions, and prompt identification of individuals at risk while collaborating with special education and related services personnel.
- Based on an individualized evaluation and continuous progress monitoring, a student who has been identified as having a specific learning disability may need different levels of special education and related services under IDEA at various times during the school experience.
(Source: Office of Special Education Programs (2002). Specific Learning Disabilities: Finding Common Ground, pp. 29-30)
IDEA 2004 represents consensus on at least three points regarding LD identification. These points are: (1) the field should move away from the use of aptitude achievement discrepancy models, (2) there needs to be rapid development of alternative methods of identifying students with learning disabilities, and (3) an RTI model is the most credible available method to replace the aptitude-achievement discrepancy. RTI systematizes the clinical judgment, problem solving, and regular education interventions recommended in the consensus statements above. In RTI, students are provided with carefully designed interventions that are research based, and their response to those interventions is carefully tracked. This information is analyzed and used as one component in determining whether a child has a learning disability.
IDEA 2004 includes two important innovations designed to promote change:
- States may not require school districts to use a severe discrepancy formula in eligibility determination, and
- Districts may use an alternative process, including a “response to intervention” (RTI) method described in IDEA 2004, as part of eligibility decisions.
This technical assistance document provides information to assist school districts in designing and adopting an RTI approach that is technically sound, sustainable, and best fits the contextual features of the district.This document also includes a review ofcurrent information regarding the use of other evaluation approaches. Whichevermodel adistrict uses to implement RTI, such an adoption will affect more than the district’s special education and evaluation departments. RTI requires a way of thinking about instruction, academic achievement, and individual differences that makes it impossible to implement without fully involving general education.
Multiple meanings and inconsistent use of the term “RTI” have led to a great deal of confusion in the field. RTI is often understood as a school organizational model that encompasses research-based core instruction, universal screening and progress monitoring, and data-based decision making. Alternately, RTI isoften understood asone component of a comprehensive evaluation for a student suspected of having a learning disability. Educators often use the term “RTI” to refer to the organizational model in systems which do not use the process foreligibility decision-making. Figure 1 provides a comparison of these two prevailing meanings of the term “RTI”.
When RTI is used as part of an LD evaluation, it must be embedded within a system of multi-tiered instruction. Without an effective, research-based core curriculum, anda continuum of interventions that can be implemented with fidelity, it is impossible to have confidence that a student’s response, or lack of response, to intervention is a true indicator of a learning disability. It is not overstating the case to say that fidelity of instructional intervention is at the very heart of RTI validity.
Figure 1. A Comparison of RTI as a School Organizational Model and as an Evaluation Procedure
School Organizational Model / Evaluation Procedure- Is a system of organizing general education curriculum and instruction to meet the needs of all students
- Is an evaluation procedure identified in the IDEA as an option for the identification ofchildren with learning disabilities
- Integrates all supplementary support programs in order to use resources more efficiently
- Is a special education procedure that is limited to assessment
- Applies to all students in a school
- Applies only to children suspected of having LD
- Can exist without using RTI as an evaluation procedure
- Cannot be implemented without a multi-tiered organizational model
This paper contains three sections: Context and Parameters forResponse to Intervention, Implementing Response to Intervention,andPerspectives on Evaluation Models. Context and Parameters forResponse to Intervention provides an overview of the capacities required to adopt a RTI model, discusses parameters for defining low skills and slow progress, and explains how RTI fits in to the Oregon Administrative Rules. Implementing Response to Intervention is a practical guide to developing and sustaining RTI in a school district. Perspectives on Evaluation Models reviewsinformation and research about the various models that have been proposed, described, and implemented and strengths and challenges inherent in each.
SECTION ONE:
CONTEXT AND PARAMETERS FOR RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION
IDEA 2004 allows the use of a student’s “response to scientific, research-based intervention” (20 U.S.C 1414 (B)(6)(A)) as part of an evaluation. Response to Intervention (RTI) functions as an alternative for learning disability (LD) evaluations within the general evaluation requirements of IDEA 2004. The statute continues to include requirements that apply to all disability categories, such as the use of validated, non biased methods, and evaluation in all suspected areas of difficulty. IDEA 2004 adds a new concept in eligibility that prohibits children from being found eligible for special education as having a learning disability in the area of reading if they have not received instruction in reading that includes the five essential components of reading instruction identified by No Child Left Behind. These requirements are those recognized by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency (including oral reading skills), vocabulary development, and reading comprehension strategies. By using RTI, it is possible to identify students early, reduce referral bias, and test various theories for why a child is failing. RTI is included in the law specifically to offer an alternative to discrepancy models.
RTI is not a new approach. It is recognizable under other names such as dynamic assessment, diagnostic teaching, and precision teaching. Those terms, however, have been applied to approaches used to maximize student progress through sensitive measurement of the effects of instruction. RTI applies similar methods to draw conclusions and make LD classification decisions about students. The underlying assumption is that using RTI will identify children whose intrinsic difficulties make them the most difficult to teach. Engaging a student in a dynamic process like RTI provides an opportunity to assess various hypotheses about the causes of a child’s difficulties, such as motivation, or constitutional factors like attention.
Capacities Required to Adopt RTI
Several organizational approaches are available for implementing RTI. These models generally encompass the following four system requirements (Gresham, 2002; Vaughn, 2002):
- Measurement of academic growth
- Use of validated interventions
- Capability of distinguishing types of educational difficulties:
- Performance deficits from skill deficits
- Instructional problems from individual learning problems
- Academic problems that are caused by extrinsic factors from academic problems caused by intrinsic characteristics
- Capacity to determine the effects of interventions and make decisions about cutoff criteria
These requirements imply both technical and practical capacity that must be considered when an RTI system is developed or adopted.
Measurement of Academic Growth
Fuchs and Fuchs (1998) introduced the important concept that a student, in order to be considered to have a learning disability, must be dually discrepant. It has been demonstrated that, in order for a student to be reliably classified as having LD, low achievement must be accompanied by slow progress. Using low achievement alone results in group membership that will change substantially over time, with students moving into and out of the group. (Francis et al., 2005). In RTI models, eligibilitydecisions must be made both on the basis of a student’s relative low achievement and on the student’s slow rate of progress.
The measurement of academic growth criterion can be met by use of an empirically well-supported approach referred to as curriculum-based measurement (L.S. Fuchs and D. Fuchs, 1998). Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) uses “critical indicators” of growth such as oral reading fluency, correct word sequences written, and rate of correct mathematical calculations. These measures may be normed on a local or large scale (e.g., national) sample (Shinn, 1988). Alternatively, typical peers may be sampled as a direct comparison group during the assessment phase (Fuchs and Fuchs, 1998). CBMs have been established as valid, easy to use, and economical. Further, because numerous parallel forms can be generated, they can also be used as frequently as daily without threatening their technical adequacy.
To aid in the early identification of students who are not progressing as expected in reading, Good and Kaminski (1996) have developed a number of “indicators” of early literacy development as predictors of later reading proficiency. These measures, included in the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), provide a tool to address the important challenge of early identification of children with potential reading problems. The DIBELS system allows for careful tracking of students on the development of early skills related to phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, andfluency. The DIBELS system includes a series of benchmarks that assist in the “sorting” of students into tiered groups that have increasing levels of risk. A further benefit of using the DIBELS system is that oral reading fluency measures extend through sixth grade and provide normative data to thousands of school districts in the United States.
The DIBELS measures are provided to Oregon schools at no cost through the Oregon Reading First Project. Further information about DIBELS may be found at
Although CBM measures of reading have been the most extensively researched and developed, CBM measures of spelling, written language, and mathematical skills are available as well. Correct letter sequences within written words are used to assess progress in spelling. To assess growth in written language, students are asked to produce a short writing sample in response to a story starter. The writing sample can then be scored in a variety of ways. The most common metrics have been total words written (TWW), words spelled correctly (WSC), and correct word sequences (CWS). Using a slightly more complex scoring algorithm, such as correct minus incorrect word sequences (CIWS) may be more technically sound (See McMaster & Espin, 2007, for a review). In the area of math, the most common measures of student progress have been brief (2 to 4 minute) computation probes. These probes are scored for the number of correct digits produced (See Foegen, Jiban, & Deno, 2007, for a review). Just as with reading, CBMs in written expression and math can be given repeatedly and frequently, are a sensitive measure of learning over time, and inform needed changes to instruction. Practitioners should use caution when using these measures, as more research is needed to establish reliability and validity in written language and math for some types of decision making.