How are we picking up these kids?

Discrepancy model: Person had to be functioning (in terms of reading, writing, math) at a level significantly lower than their mental ability (IQ) — is the discrepancy significantly large?

• Yes: Learning Disability

• No: No Learning Disability

• Education is a state by state responsibility (Florida and Texas have commissions for education)

  • What this means is that different states have different discrepancy benchmarks (you could have a LD in one state and not another)

• Over the years, there have been many problems with using IQ as basis for discrepancy:

  • Cultural and racial differences in IQ average (Native Americans have avg IQ of 80 (9th percentile, edge of disability) so they are disproportionately represented in LD classes
  • Native Americans are twice as likely to be labeled with an LD than a white kid

• Some kids are functioning even though they are "underperforming" in comparison to their IQ while others may have lower IQ and also be underperforming in general sense: even though they are struggling, they are not receiving services (because there is no discrepancy) doesn’t help the other kids more

• Some states replacing discrepancy model with RtI (Response to Intervention) : big player for 10 or 12 years (2005)

  • Some states require a certain amount of money towards RtI and school districts can pick and choose; some only RtI; growing dissatisfaction with RtI because it hasn’t helped as well as many hoped
  • Where are you functioning in relation to your peers?
  • Kids have an assessment (as simple as list of words that get increasingly harder) and there’s a bell curve -- at a certain cutoff percentile, kids get services for a certain period of time after which they get evaluated: pull out model (kids get pulled out of class for extra help); push in model (special educator pushed in)
  • Quick and easy measures
  • Entry level: Tier 1 Intervention; Reevaluation and no improvement: Tier 2, then Tier 3 (If you do well, you drop out of system) -- Still struggling? Then a full evaluation
  • Problem: People thought it’d be pretty quick to go through tiers but some of these services take years to see results
  • Discrepancy: “wait to fail” approach; RtI idea was that it would pick kids up earlier but it has actually increased the age of a diagnosis (other side of that is that it intervened for some kids who never end up with a label who would’ve but more severe cases are diagnosed later)

For school aged kids (K-12):

PL 94-142 → IDEA → RtI

The first two focused on the discrepancy approach.

A child with a learning disability is not going to show 12 months worth of growth over a 12 month time period. Maybe this looks like only 9 months worth of growth. Or 8 months worth of growth. This doesn't sound like a big difference. But if you multiply this over years, it becomes a widening gap. This gap then gets bigger and bigger as they get older because with each successive year, they get farther and farther behind. Response to Intervention (RtI) was supposed to be the solution. In other words, let’s nip it in the bud!