The term "child find" refers to a district's ongoing obligation to evaluate upon reason to suspect a child may meet IDEA eligibility standards. This obligation consists of two components: a reasonable suspicion of eligibility and initiating the evaluation within a reasonable period of time. Because child find is a procedural matter, it…

Introduction: The current study examined the extent to which static and dynamic measures of vocabulary and word learning predicted response and identified poor responders to a vocabulary intervention. Methods: Participants were 46 preschool children in classrooms randomly assigned to complete the Story Friends intervention in two…

Ongoing evaluation of student progress is a key practice within tiered systems of supports. This study evaluated whether selecting an intervention influenced the number of observations participants requested before determining whether an intervention was working or a change was needed. It was hypothesized that participants who selected the…

Response to Intervention (RtI) is a tiered system that is designed to provide varied levels of support to students that may be at-risk for learning disabilities. These interventions are adjusted for students based on their progress and associated data. For students that are nonresponsive to interventions over time, a special education evaluation…

The growing number of English Learners (ELs) in American schools has led to increasing referrals of these students for special education, including speech-language services. These ELs are frequently overidentified as having a language impairment (LI) due to biased assessment practices that are not legal or grounded in research promoting best…

Response to intervention (RTI) is a valuable framework for providing effective and equitable educational opportunities to all students; however, recent research indicates that RTI programs are not achieving their potential for promoting student learning. As schools develop, implement, and sustain RTI systems, they would benefit from the addition…

This article is the second of a series of articles appearing in "Communiqué" about how school psychologists can adopt and promote the evidence-based practices in math assessment and instruction. The focus of this article is on measuring math skills for screening, diagnostic decisions, and progress monitoring. [For the first article in…

This paper provides an analysis of one state's Response to Intervention (RTI) model, bringing to light two predicaments that plague efforts to address disproportionality and support learning: (1) That RTI may continue to perpetuate disproportionality, both in the model's tiers of support as well as in the placement of students in special…

Many school psychologists spend a large portion of their time conducting evaluations for special education, but school psychologists' confidence in learning disability (learning disability[ies] [LD]) identification has not been examined experimentally. This study examined differences in 376 school psychologists' confidence in their identification…

When data is collected, summarized, and analyzed with sufficient frequency, decisions about instructional changes can be based on student progress. Use the suggestions here to begin conducting progress monitoring.

This study examined the identification frameworks, specific models, and assessment practices used by school psychologists to identify students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) in public schools in the United States. We surveyed school psychologist practitioners using an online survey, conducted a review of state regulations addressing…

Meet the needs of students who have fallen the furthest behind. Created for elementary school educators, this guide details how to implement intensive interventions at Tier 3 of the RTI at Work™ process. Discover practices and strategies to intervene successfully when students struggle with core content, as well as with foundational skills from…

Fewer than half of students demonstrated proficiency on Michigan state-administered summative assessments at the end of third grade at a rural, Title I school in Michigan. The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare reading fluency gains between grade levels (i.e., kindergarten, first, and second grades) in an effort to better understand…

A recent qualitative study by a team of researchers looked into how grade-level teams of teachers are thinking about causes and strategies based on looking at student performance data. What is interesting in these findings is how infrequently teachers attribute student results to instruction -- just 15% of the time. Teachers in this study were…

When determining whether or not children have a difficulty in learning, the quality of instruction they have received during their school career must be excluded as a possible explanation for their lack of progress. To this end, educational psychologists (EPs) have for some time adopted a model of response to intervention known as…