Changing the Way We Identify Learning Disabilities

Since 1975, the number of students with learning disabilities has increased 150 percent, and they
represent more than half of all students with disabilities. These numbers have caused legislators,
educators, and others to question whether the way we identify students with disabilities is valid.
While many schools use an IQ-Achievement Discrepancy model, that is students with learning
disabilities show an unexpected gap between their potential and achievement, there is a push for
schools to use a Response to Intervention (RTI) method to identify learning disabilities (LD). In
RTI, students who do not respond to intensive intervention would be identified as disabled.
Advantages and disadvantages exist for both methods. But the debate goes beyond the pros and
cons. The discussion calls into question whether or not LD should exist as a separate category,
and a change in identification methods may precipitate a change in special education funding
uses.

IQ-Achievement Discrepancy
Though the tide seems to be against the discrepancy model, some educators say it has a valid
basis it documents the unexpected underachiever. Other educators say that though the model
is flawed, we should use it but with greater integrity.
However, arguments against the discrepancy method abound. As mentioned, the high number of
students identified as LD through this method is suspect. Also, results arent consistent: one state,
and even districts, may have a high number of students with LD while another has few. Some
research has even shown that the same team using the discrepancy model will not identify the
same students as having LD.
One of the most pressing arguments against the discrepancy model is its wait and fail
aspect. Students must be in third or fourth grade to have a discrepancy large enough to be
identified as disabled. That time encourages a destructive cycle of failure, low self-esteem, and
lowered achievement, says Doug Fuchs, CECs 2003 Research Award winner and a professor at
Vanderbilt University.
The discrepancy model is further criticized because IQ tests can be biased against certain
racial groups or those who are indigent. Also, some say IQ is irrelevant to instruction.

Response to Intervention
RTI seems to address the wait to fail concern. With RTI, low achievers are identified as quickly
as possible and provided intensive and validated instruction.
However, RTI also raises concerns. First, it can present its own version of wait to fail. We dont
have effective measures for students in pre-school, says Barbara Keogh, professor emeriti at
UCLA. Further, there is no guarantee that a student who responds to interventions will continue
to progress when he or she returns to the general education classroom, adds Dan Hallahan,
CECs 2000 Research Award winner and a professor at the University of Virginia.
Second, questions exist as to how RTI will be implemented. For example, how long
should a child receive interventions and how extensive must non-responsiveness be before a
student is identified as disabled? Another problem is few intervention strategies exist for
academic areas other than reading or for students at the middle or high school levels.
Even selecting intervention strategies could be problematic. Problem solving
interventions allow special education teachers to individualize by selecting the interventions to
use but may compromise the programs integrity. With standard protocol interventions, which
involve a teaching package, teachers lose the ability to individualize.
 Another issue is that RTI implies that teachers provide assistance to underachieving
students immediately. Many are unable to do that, says Keogh. In addition, teachers will need to
teach, test, and keep data in ways they are neither accustomed nor trained to do.
Finally, educators say RTI is untested and we dont know how to scale it up to a national level.
To do so will be costly. Thus far, RTI for reading has been implemented in only a handful of
states.

Other Considerations
Using RTI to identify students with special needs could drastically change the LD landscape.
Essentially, RTI is a non-categorical approach, and students who fail to respond to intervention
may not be identified by their disability.
One of my biggest concerns with RTI is that it will take away from consideration of LD
as a true disability, says David Scanlon of Boston College. Instead, there will be a failure to
teach and learn, which is not a disability.
It will mean the de facto end of the LD category, says Fuchs.
Another issue is how RTI will be funded. Monies for RTI could come from special
education. If that is the case, what resources will be left for those students who are unresponsive
to best prevention efforts, asks Fuchs.
You would expect the students who are placed in special education after they
experienced early intervention would be more severely disabled, says Fuchs. With this
situation, special education has to ratchet up its interventions. Will ther be enough resources to
meet the learning needs of those students?

Future Options
Educators say we should use caution in changing the way we identify LD. Recommendations
include implementing a transition model before plunging into RTI and developing better methods
to determine disabilities.
We should have psychometric and non-psychometric methods for people to think about
and debate, says Fuchs. We are fixated on two poles. Thats too narrow a set of choices.
Meanwhile, the National Research Center on LD is conducting comprehensive research on the
issue, including LD identification models, the methods states use to identify LD, a plan for
technical assistance and dissemination of new procedures, and a national evaluation study of
existing RTI models.

CECs Position
For the reauthorization of IDEA, CEC said more research needs to be done before moving to RTI
to identify LD. Our comments included the following:
The use of research-based interventions in early reading offers a real opportunity for more at
risk students, including many with LD, to acquire needed beginning literacy skills. However,
the use of scientific research-based intervention cannot determine whether a child is or is not
learning disabled. Instead, students who do not display meaningful gains and who appear to
be unresponsive to intervention are candidates for referral for special education evaluation.
Insufficient data are available regarding the long-term effects of RTI on student outcomes.
The ability-achievement discrepancy formula should not be used as the sole criterion to
determine eligibility. However, discrepancy remains a hallmark of specific learning
disabilities.
 CEC supports using methods other than the discrepancy formula. However, there are no
research-based alternatives that have been sufficiently validated at this time.
Non-responsiveness to intervention should trigger a multi-disciplinary evaluation and should
not, in itself, be considered an indication of a specific learning disability.

Permission to Share September 2005 from CEC.

"Changing the Way we Identify Learning Disabilities: Pros and Cons." CEC Today January,
February, March 2004.