Responsiveness to intervention (RTI) is being proposed as an alternative model for making decisions about the presence or absence of specific learning disability. We argue that many questions about RTI remain unanswered, and that radical changes in the proposed regulations are not warranted at this time. Since many fundamental issues related to…

This study examined the degree to which clinicians use various discrepancy models to identify a child as learning disabled by reviewing the case files of 105 urban (predominantly African-American) children who had been classified as LD and were receiving special education. Results suggested clinicians' decisions do not reflect recommended models…