As regulations are rewritten regarding school-based learning disabilities identification practices, the components of those practices are likely to change. For example, cognitive assessment and aptitude-achievement discrepancy might be less important. A student's responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI) is emerging as an important construct for assessing underachievement. This article provides a framework for understanding how RTI fits as one LD determination component, describes research on RTI, and outlines the NRCLD's research efforts to examine current RTI implementation in schools and model site selection.
This introduction to the special series provides an overview of the December 2003 Responsiveness-to-Intervention (RTI) Symposium, hosted by the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities (NRCLD). RTI refers to individual, comprehensive student-centered assessment models that apply a problem-solving framework to identify and address a student's learning difficulties. This introduction presents the rationale for the symposium, participant selection, and key questions that provided the underlying framework. Further, we introduce the 14 symposium papers featured in this special issue. The papers represent the high-quality, thought-provoking presentations and subsequent discussions held during the RTI Symposium. Finally, in light of anticipated changes in specific learning disabilities (SLD) determination as indicated by the recent reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; P.L. 108-446), we briefly describe the NRCLD's research, dissemination, and technical assistance efforts related to the assessment and identification of students with learning disabilities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.