Response To Intervention in Child Find

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

A key concept of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) that was considered in 2011 by the special editionwas the child find mandate. This principlerequired school districts in every state toidentify, locate, and evaluate all children with disabilities, from birth to the 22ndbirthday, who may need Early Intervention or Special Education services regardless of the extent of the child’s disability or the child’s socioeconomic status. Prior to 2004, students who were thought to having specific learning disability (SLD) had to exhibit extreme gaps between their intellectual ability and their learning achievement so as to be considered fit for special education services. Majority of the students who needed services often had to wait for their discrepancy to be severe enough to get approval for the said services.

The advent of Response to Intervention (RTI) method was discovered by educators and was presented within regulatory notes as a method to help identify students with specific learning disabilities. The legislators and the Office of Special Programs (OSEP) then wrote into those notes a statement that asked school districts not to rely on what is called the discrepancy model for identification of specific learning disabilities, but rather consider using interventions tried within the RTI model. In practice, most school districts use RTI to intervene prior to special education referral, which is good, but very few use this method to identify the students who might need services. Typically, they will try interventions in RTI and when they do not work, refer for testing using the discrepancy model. The only category that allows you to utilize response to interventions for identification purposes is specific learning disabilities.

History of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

The education of students with disabilities has evolved over time. Not until 1975 did the law require students with disabilities to be educated inclusively with general education peers (Burns, Appleton, &Stehouwer, 2005). In 1997, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act required schools to provide students with disabilities access to the general education curriculum and justify any special education services provided outside the general education classroom (Magiera&Zigmond, 2005). Many co-teaching models have been developed in which general and special education teachers work together in general education classrooms supporting at-risk students and students with disabilities, although challenges of meeting their needs still exist (Gurgur&Uzuner, 2010; Hwang & Evans, 2011; Walther-Thomas, 1997). In 2004, the law was reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, which highlights Response to Intervention as a solid approach for identifying students for special education services (Zirkel &Krohn, 2008). Buffum, Mattos, and Weber (2012) caution that RTI should not be used solely for special education placement considerations, but that it should become the system by which all students are supported with instruction that matches their needs.

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature Search Procedures

            Researchers and authors used ERIC, PsycINFO, ProQuest, and Web of Science to locate articles across special education literatures pertaining to implementation ofResponse to InterventioninChild find mandates within schools, clinics and communities.They also indicate steps to identify and recommendimplementation strategies to the said issues surrounding early childhood education identification. Authors also performed searches from studies held to show differences of implementing RTI in child find and child find without RTI. The searches were limited to studies published from January 2000 to December 2020. This list was narrowed by only published empirical studies from peer-reviewed journals that focused on literacy and professional development.The literature about connecting children to RTI within child find is sparse and fragmented; few studies document the whole process from community and early education monitoring to the child’s outcome. Results indicate opportunities for development of systems to better track and improve the identification of young children in need of early detection.

Keywords: Early Childhood Special Education; Children with disabilities; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA);Response to Intervention (RTI); Specific learning disability (SLD)

Effects of RTI

School districts have an obligation under the Child Find Mandate to identify, locate, evaluate and potentially serve all children with disabilities, regardless of the extent of their disabilities or whether a school can provide the needed services or not. Implementation of the Response-to-Intervention (RTI) within this directive, has enabled the public education system in the nation to advance from a reactive stance, to an earlier and high-quality evidence-based intervention model in the regular programs. Therefore, creating applicable information with which to make vital decisions for each struggling student. However, RTI may not effectively identify students who may meet criteria for regular education interventions but may in fact struggle in classrooms due to learning disabilities.

In a case study focusing on a survey of administrators and teachers in a mid-size urban school district, participants indicate that RTI components and critical elements were lacking because of decreased leadership, training and teacher buy-in (Dimick, 2009). RTI often has been described as a ‘wait-to-fail’ model because students must be performing significantly below grade level before they are identified, and intense interventions are offered. This model replaced the discrepancy model, which has been the sole means for identifying students with learning disabilities for the past 30 years.

The discrepancy model identifies students with disabilities by comparing their academic achievement to their IQ scores. Fuchs stated that this model has been criticized as an inconsistent and unfair method (2003). RTI appears to be the model of choice for most states. In addition, it appears that since implementation of RTI, special education referrals have decreased in many cases. In a recent publication of the U.S. Department of Education, the Institute of Education Sciences characterized RTI as a comprehensive early detection and prevention strategy that assists struggling students before they fall behind (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). It assumed that if a student is not responsive to increased levels of intervention, and data supports this, then that student is eligible for additional assistance that may include special education services (Gresham, 2007). However, prior to referral to special education services, students are given various opportunities and interventions to remediate in their area of weakness causing fewer referrals to special education (Gresham, 2007).

The child-find requirement remains present and unchanged despite schools expending resources on effective interventions outside of special-learning disability (SLD). Given existing dynamics, difficult questions have arisen about how the child-find requirement given by IDEA can be incorporated with RTI methodology. If a student is identified to have a learning disability during intervention programs, what are the effects of the “one size fits all” curriculum in which the said student continues to receive regular interventions before a school initiates the IDEA evaluation and how can schools make use of high-quality research-based interventions while at the same time avoiding potentially child-find legal claims?

In order for a student to meet the definition as a child with SLD, the IDEA outlines eligibility criteria that must be met. However, the criteria have been known to be highly flawed because it fails to defend IQ as a measure of intelligence, making the validity of the model difficult to support. It also has different requirements per state hence a child who is eligible in one state, becomes ineligible once moving to a different state. This state to state discrepancy has caused lack of clarity for implementation. Approximately a dozen states have chosen to implement a mandatory RTI approach, however, the vast majority of the separate state laws still permit flexibility for SLD identification.

Eligibility determination of students with specific learning disabilities should cause one to not only look at the legal obligation but also put the need for specially designed instruction of the children at the forefront without violating child find laws (Zirkel, 2015). This is especially directed to local education agencies that are using RTI strategies to delay or deny a timely initial evaluation for children suspected of having a disability. Or those that reject a referral or delay provision of an initial evaluation on the basis that a child has not participated in an RTI framework. Regardless of the instability of how RTI and child find laws interconnect, risks can be diminished if a standard of care approach is implemented on behalf of students. This ought to be an individualized process that should be exercised case by case with regard to educational decisions in the identification of students with SLD (Bateman & Linden, 2012) rather than by “a cookie cutter” type of approach. Schools ought to see the importance of finding a balance between effective use of RTI interventions and the obligation of meeting child find requirements. RTI procedures should be implemented with flexibility and in partnership with parents to help the children in concern and also avoid child find violations.

Research Related to RTI

Research suggests that the greatest obstacle and advantage of a successful implementation of RTI in schools lies in its implementation. Lose (2008) said the task of implementing and sustaining an RTI initiative is best met by a school’s instructional leader, the building principal. A review of the literature on this subject suggests there are several leadership practices and tasks associated with the successful implementation of the RTI process. The concept of RTI has deep roots in that it began with the collaboration for inclusion and collaboration for consultation, which had its focus on a team of professionals to include the special education teacher, general education teacher and support professionals who worked together to design interventions for struggling learners (Spiegel, 2009). Wells (2007), who also found that administrative support is necessary for successful implementation, studied the effectiveness of Educational Support Teams (ESTs), teams formed for problem solving. The research overwhelmingly supports the idea administrative behaviors will cause RTI to either succeed or fail. In doing so, the referrals to special education may increase or decrease based on administrative leadership. In a study done in Wisconsin, teachers posited that classroom hands-on experience and in-service training are important and should be provided by the instructional leader of the school—the principal (McCutcheon, 2008).

However, in studies done by Rafoth and Foriska (2007), it appears that administrative support and effective teams are not linked directly. They suggested that it is not leadership behaviors that affect drive and effective implementation of RTI; it is the culture of the school that drives a successful implementation. At the least, there is a consensus among all researchers. Leadership does affect RTI whether it has a positive or negative effect. It is clear that the role of the principal in schools has moved from the manager who handles lunch duty and sports event supervision to theinstructional leader in the building whose effectiveness directly affects students’ academic achievement. Chamberlin (2010) stated it best, “school leaders have the job of overseeing an increasingly diverse population, with the responsibility to lead the redesign of their schools in an outcome-based accountability era.”

Summary

RTI, whether implemented at the national, state or system level, has become an essential part of school communities throughout the nation. Although national guidelines may differ from state and county guidelines, it is the effective implementation that provides the greatest effect on individual students (McCook, 2007). Various researchers have conducted studies outlining, identifying, and researching the significance of RTI in various forms. RTI is a growing part of the decision-making process concerning students. The implementation of RTI may vary from state to state; however, the impact that RTI has on success rate weighs heavily upon the appropriate interventions given to students identified as at-risk before being referred to special education (McCook, 2007).