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

1. 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

2. Current State of Affairs • No Child Left Behind Implementation • Pending IDEA reauthorization • Education budget short falls in states • Storage of school psychologists

3. Current Buzz Words in Education • Performance-based accountability • Empirically-based (evidence-based) intervention strategies • RTI - response to intervention

4. 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.

5. 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?

6. 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).

7. 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

9. Kovaleski & Prasse (2004) • The Dual Discrepancy Format for SLD identification • Part 1: Low academic performance • Part 2: Poor response to appropriate instruction

10. 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… Shinn’s 2.0 grade level discrepancy is also a “wait to fail model” because you can’t be behind by two years until you are in at least second grade

11. 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 student’s ability level (i.e., IQ). • BUT…The grade equivalent method has many well known psychometric problems.

12. Kovaleski & Prasse (2004):Part I: Low academic achievement • Advocates argue for RTI curriculum-based measurement (CBM) approach • Determine the student’s discrepancy from grade peers by comparing the performance on CBM measures (e.g., oral reading fluency) with norms from the student’s school or school district

13. Local Norms • Advantage • Local norms are good at telling where the child is in relation to the smallest comparison group – the child’s classroom • Disadvantage • Local norms only tell where the child is in relation to the smallest comparison group – the child’s classroom • Change the classroom and the score changes • Change the school and the score changes

14. 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)

15. 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

16. 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.

17. 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 child’s progress

18. 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.

19. 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).

20. RTI Conference (Dec. 2003)Kavale’s 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.

21. RTI Conference (Dec. 2003)Kavale’s 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.

22. CEC’s 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.

26. NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)

27. NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)

28. NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003) Maintaining definition and eliminating discrepancy formula are consistent with LD Round Table recs.

29. NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003)

30. NASP Recommendations to Congress (April, 2003) Sch. Psychs could be key players in Tier 1 as well!

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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)

35. Summary • RTI is an adequate, but not sufficient way to assess the child’s 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

36. 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.)

37. 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.

38. 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.

39. Resources/References • Web Resources and References on IDEA Reauthorization and LD Reforms http://www.nasponline.org/advocacy/ldreferences.html • NRCLD’s  Responsiveness to Intervention Symposium December 4-5, 2003 speaker’s papers and power point presentations: http://www.nrcld.org/html/symposium2003/index.html

40. Presenter Daniel C. Miller, Ph.D., NCSP NASP President (2003-04) Professor, Director, School Psychology Graduate Training Programs, Texas Woman’s University 1156 Point Vista Road Corinth, Texas 76210 danielcmiller@earthlink.com http://homepage.mac.com/danmiller1/web/