How are we going to identify children with special needs and how are we going to intervene once they are identified?

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How are we going to identify children with
special needs and how are we going to intervene
once they are identified?

• Daniel C. Miller, Ph.D., NCSP
• NASP President, 2003-04

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Current State of Affairs

• No Child Left Behind Implementation
• Pending IDEA reauthorization
• Education budget short falls in states
• Storage of school psychologists

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Current Buzz Words in Education

• Performance-based accountability
• Empirically-based (evidence-based) intervention
  strategies
• RTI - response to intervention

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Performance-based Accountability

• Permeates training standards for educators
  (including school psychologists)
• Permeates the public schools via competency-based
  district-wide testing. High-stakes testing
  becomes the norm.
• Very little evidence (longitudinal empirical
  base) that shows success of criteria (tests) for
  prediction of future success.
• Psychometric properties of large scale
  assessments are suspect at best or non existent.

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Empirically-based intervention strategies

• Excellent face validity to the use of
  empirically-based intervention strategies. We all
  want to use interventions that have been proven
  to effective?
• What constitutes an effective intervention?
• Does one published study constitute
  effectiveness? Does 2, or 3?
• What about the limits of generalizability?

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RTI - response to intervention

• In response to problems with the discrepancy
  approach some have argued for a Response to
  Intervention approach
• Children who fail to respond to empirically
  validated treatments implemented with integrity
  might be identified as LD (Gresham, 2002, p.
  499).

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RTI advocates argue that the current system is

• focused on eligibility not instruction
• a wait-to-fail model
• not a valid way to identify LD
• Focused on the ATI concept
• Assessment of processing is psychometrically
  suspect and largely irrelevant to the
  identification of LD
• Many LD students had bad instruction
• Eligibility process is expensive
• Not working because teams ignore established
  classification criteria

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Kovaleski Prasse (2004)

• The Dual Discrepancy Format for SLD
  identification
• Part 1 Low academic performance
• Part 2 Poor response to appropriate instruction

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Kovaleski Prasse (2004)Part I Low academic
achievement

• The student must be significantly below
  same-grade peers
• Shinn (2002) notes that a 2.0 grade level
  discrepancy is a typical index that identifies a
  significant academic deficiency.
• BUT Shinns 2.0 grade level discrepancy is also
  a wait to fail model because you cant be
  behind by two years until you are in at least
  second grade

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Kovaleski Prasse (2004)Part I Low academic
achievement

• The student must be significantly below
  same-grade peers
• This is based on a discrepancy from grade-level
  performance without reference to an assessment of
  the students ability level (i.e., IQ).
• BUTThe grade equivalent method has many well
  known psychometric problems.

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Kovaleski Prasse (2004)Part I Low academic
achievement

• Advocates argue for RTI curriculum-based
  measurement (CBM) approach
• Determine the students discrepancy from grade
  peers by comparing the performance on CBM
  measures (e.g., oral reading fluency) with norms
  from the students school or school district

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Local Norms

• Advantage
• Local norms are good at telling where the child
  is in relation to the smallest comparison group
  the childs classroom
• Disadvantage
• Local norms only tell where the child is in
  relation to the smallest comparison group the
  childs classroom
• Change the classroom and the score changes
• Change the school and the score changes

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The same Reading score of 55 112 ( above
average) 92 (average) or 84 (well below average)
Data collected from the Fairfax County Public
Schools, Virginia (Naglieri, 2004)
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Conclusions on Low Achievement

• Wide variety exists between schools in the same
  school district
• A child may be failing in one class but doing
  well in another
• Local norms are useful to determine how the child
  compares to the rest of the class
• Determining SLD on local norms will yield
  considerable inequities
• National norms are necessary

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Kovaleski Prasse (2004)Part II Poor response
to appropriate instruction

• The student performs poorly to carefully planned
  and precisely delivered instruction.
• The data are developed through ongoing progress
  monitoring on a critical academic measure during
  the course of an individually designed
  intervention.
• The use of CBM as an ongoing performance measure
  (usually through data collected twice per week)
  is recommended.

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Does an increase in counts mean improvement is
real?

• Visual examination of changes in rate are only
  sufficient to demonstrate some change
• Changes over time is helpful for instructional
  decision making
• Changes over time do not necessarily mean the
  child has reached a level that is consistent with
  normative expectations
• Standardized test results provide the more
  accurate assessment of a childs progress

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Kovaleski Prasse (2004) Article Summary

• Response to intervention appears to be a
  promising alternative to the traditional
  IQ-achievement discrepancy model for identifying
  students with learning disabilities while
  improving classroom instruction.
• Evaluation of the overall impact of this approach
  is recommended.

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RTI A Proven Alternative?

• RTI may be a reasonable way to find children who
  are doing poorly.
• RTI problems
• Local norms do not provide consistency.
• Increases in performance can be misleading.
• There is no evidence that RTI is effective for LD
  identification.
• RTI is inconsistent with the definition of SLD
  (disorder in basic psychological processes).

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RTI Conference (Dec. 2003)Kavales presentation

• Increases in rate of learning alone are not
  sufficient.
• Success is not well defined in the RTI model.
• There are not clear definitions or cut scores to
  indicate failure to respond to intervention.
• RTI is a good first step.
• RTI is not sufficient for identification (Neither
  is LD discrepancy alone sufficient).
• A thorough analysis of the unique learning needs
  of children is needed.

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RTI Conference (Dec. 2003)Kavales presentation

• The definition of LD has been ignored.
• There is no connection between the definition of
  SLD and the method of RTI.
• SLD is more than just reading failure but RTI has
  been limited to reading fluency.
• RTI is not sufficient for identification of LD.
• a formal evaluation is absolutely necessary or
  inappropriate conclusions may be reached because
  reading failure can be caused by depression,
  emotional / behavioral disorders, anxiety
  disorders, ADHD, etc.

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CECs Position on RTI

• 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.

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NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)
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NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)
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NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)
Maintaining definition and eliminating
discrepancy formula are consistent with LD Round
Table recs.
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NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)
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NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)
Sch. Psychs could be key players in Tier 1 as
well!
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NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)

• RTI is a part, but not the only method.
• Comprehensive evaluation is required for
  identification of SLD.
• Assessment of cognitive processes can and should
  be used.

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Hale, Naglieri, Kaufman, Kavale (2004)

• The definition of SLD is
• a disorder in 1 or more of the basic
  psychological processes involved in understanding
  or in using language, spoken or written, which
  disorder may manifest itself in the imperfect
  ability to listen, think, speak, read, write,
  spell, or do mathematical calculations.
• Neither the discrepancy model or RTI evaluates
  basic psychology processes.

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Hale, Naglieri, Kaufman, Kavale (2004)

• The method of RTI is disconnected from the
  definition of SLD.
• Therefore, Establishing a disorder in the basic
  psychology processes is essential for determining
  SLD.
• Practitioners have ignored this approach to
  identification and used discrepancy formulas.

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Hale, Naglieri, Kaufman, Kavale (2004)

• Processing measures of today are very different
  than those of the 1970s.
• Tests that we specifically developed to measure
  basic psychological processes should be used
• changing the focus from the content of the test
  items (e.g, auditory, visual) to the underlying
  psychology processes may be the key to
  understanding individual children (p. 13)

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Summary

• RTI is an adequate, but not sufficient way to
  assess the childs academic level
• Local norms are misleading
• Graphs may imply improvement but standardized
  normative values should be used to validate
  informal measures
• RTI could have utility in Tier 1

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Summary

• Reauthorization Bills, Roundtable Consensus
  Report, NASP documents say use more than one
  methodology
• The most defensible way to identify SLD is
  through a comprehensive evaluation that includes
  basic psychological processes (SLD definition) in
  addition to other data (e.g., RTI, achievement
  test data, measures of emotional status, etc.)

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So what can a school psychologist do?

• Respect the theoretical diversity in the field.
• Validate and cross-validity on a small scale
  before we adopt wholesale public policy changes.
• Stay tuned.the debate continues.

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Resources/References

• American Academy of School Psychology. Statement
  on Comprehensive Evaluation for Learning
  Disabilities. February, 2004.
• Hale, J.B., Naglieri, J. A., Kaufman, A. S., and
  Kavale, K. A. (2004). Specific learning
  disability classification in the new Individuals
  with Disabilities Education Act The Danger of
  Good Ideas. The School Psychologist, 58(1), pp
  6-13.
• Naglieri, J. (2004) IDEA Reauthorization and
  Cognitive Assessment. Presentation at the
  Illinois Association of School Psychologists,
  March, 2004.

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Resources/References

• Web Resources and References on IDEA
  Reauthorization and LD Reforms http//www.nasponli
  ne.org/advocacy/ldreferences.html
• NRCLDs  Responsiveness to Intervention Symposium
  December 4-5, 2003 speakers papers and power
  point presentations http//www.nrcld.org/html/sym
  posium2003/index.html

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Presenter

• Daniel C. Miller, Ph.D., NCSP
• NASP President (2003-04)
• Professor, Director, School Psychology Graduate
  Training Programs, Texas Womans University
• 1156 Point Vista Road
• Corinth, Texas 76210
• danielcmiller_at_earthlink.com
• http//homepage.mac.com/danmiller1/web/