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I read with interest and appreciation, Rob Tomsho’s recent article about response to intervention (RTI). While the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) supports the premise of RTI as an early intervention for students in the primary grades who are struggling academically, we are very concerned about other aspects of this intervention strategy and its effect on students with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD):
- As a parent-driven organization, LDA would like to see a more uniform protocol for identifying and involving a child for this program and an immediate, formal notification dispatched to the child’s parents and teachers. This would eradicate the practice of staggeringly different practices that exist not only from school district to school district but also from education program to education program within the same school district.
- Parents must be informed that they have the right, under the law, to request a comprehensive evaluation for their child, including an assessment of cognitive processing for possible eligibility for special education services. This request may occur at any time along the instructional continuum.
- In many states, the new RTI strategy does not require use of standardized tests of psychological processing. While this practice may be a cost saving measure for the school districts, it leaves parents, teachers and students without insight and diminishes their ability to target strategies for dealing with Specific Learning Disabilities. RTI was never designed as an evaluation tool for SLD.
- As previously stated RTI was originally designed as an early intervention program for elementary students in the primary grades who are struggling academically and not performing at grade level. Scientific research-based interventions, which formed the basis of RTI have only been developed in reading and math for this level. This would question the validity of employing RTI as an intervention strategy for struggling students in all grades.
- LDA supports enhanced teacher training and parent colloquia with as much up-to-date information as possible regarding RTI interventions and consequences and recourse for teachers and parents when these interventions prove inadequate.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this extremely important issue and I urge all parents, educators and advocates who have concerns or questions about RTI to contact us at ldaamerica.org for additional information and assistance.
Charles A. Giglio
President
Learning Disabilities Association of America
4156 Library Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
(412) 341-1515
http://www.ldaamerica.org |
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