Scholars Crossing Faculty Publications and Presentations School of Education 2008 Is Response-to-Intervention Good Policy for Specific Learning Disability? Kenneth A. Kavale Lucinda S. Spaulding Liberty University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/educ_fac_pubs Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Kavale, Kenneth A. and Spaulding, Lucinda S., "Is Response-to-Intervention Good Policy for Specific Learning Disability?" (2008). Faculty Publications and Presentations. 119. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/educ_fac_pubs/119 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Education at Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. RTI Policy and SLD 1 Running head: RTI POLICY Is Response-to-Intervention Good Policy for Specific Learning Disability? Kenneth A. Kavale & Lucinda S. Spaulding Regent University RTI Policy and SLD 2 Abstract The reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004) established new provisions for specific learning disability (SLD) identification, including: (a) no longer requiring consideration of IQ-achievement discrepancy, and (b) permitting response-to- intervention (RTI) as part of SLD evaluation procedures. We discuss several policy implications of these new regulations by considering the original construct of SLD, the still “experimental” status and implementation of RTI, the closer alignment of RTI objectives with No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001) than former IDEA regulations, and the shift in focus from serving as a special education identification procedure to a general education instructional procedure. We conclude by proposing several recommendations for the appropriate inclusion of both RTI and psychometric evaluation within the continuum of SLD identification procedures.