Response to Intervention: The Link Between Specific Learning Disability and Special Educaiton Services

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative study is to determine if there is a statistically significant difference in the percentage of students identified as Specific Learning Disability before and after states policy adoptions in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and West Virginia that required the use of Response to Intervention (RtI) as the sole methodology for identifying students with Specific Learning Disability. Response to Intervention assumed a dominant role in education with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Identified as a method to intervene early with students who were not making adequate academic achievement, RtI found its way into special education law with the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act in 2004 hereafter referred to as IDEA 2004. Referenced only once within IDEA 2004, RtI was adopted by seven states as the sole method for identifying students with a Specific Learning Disability. Response to Intervention is multifaceted and has components in both general education and special education. A full evaluation of the entire policy of Response to Intervention as it applies to K-12 public education should be undertaken to validate its applicability and its benefit to the K-12 learning environment in conjunction with its identification of Specific Learning Disability. For this policy evaluation, RtI was evaluated from the perspective of the identification of students with SLD and claims that Response to Intervention will reduce the number of referrals and students identified with Specific Learning Disability. A hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) study indicates a decrease in the percentage of students identified with Specific Learning Disability long before the Response to Intervention policy change and that rather than continuing to decrease, the percentages actually increase shortly after legislative requirements.