Few empirical investigations have evaluated learning disabilities (LD) identification methods based on a pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses (PSW). This study investigated the reliability and validity of two proposed PSW methods: the concordance/discordance method (C/DM) and cross battery assessment (XBA) method. Cognitive assessment…

School personnel make a variety of decisions within multitiered problem-solving frameworks, including the decision to assign a student to group-based support, to design an individualized support plan, or classify a student as eligible for special education. Each decision is founded upon a judgment regarding whether the student has responded to…

The Council for Learning Disabilities' Research Committee hosted a "Must Read" session at the 35th Annual International Conference in which they discussed influential articles published between August 1, 2012, and July 31, 2013. Articles were selected in six areas relevant to learning disabilities research and practice: response to…

Starting in 2014-15, districts across the state of Tennessee must implement a Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI[superscript 2]) plan. RTI[superscript 2] is an instructional framework which provides ongoing monitoring of student performance and progress through the use of universal student screeners and interventions targeted at…

The study examined the effects of "Process Assessment of the Learner" ("PAL"), a writing expression curriculum. The program was tested with second-grade students in a suburban-rural school district in the southeastern United States. Three sections of PAL lessons were implemented in the district as a small-group curriculum…

All states test students at specified times as required by the No Child Left Behind Act, but the results of these tests indicate that many students do not meet adequate yearly progress (AYP). This problem was evident in a school district in Missouri in which 3rd-grade students in 2 of the 3 elementary schools did not meet AYP on the communication…

Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was used to investigate the ability of early numeracy curriculum-based measures (EN-CBM) administered in preschool to predict performance below the 25th and 40th percentiles on a quantity discrimination measure in kindergarten. Areas under the curve derived from a sample of 279 students ranged…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be considered an everyday practice in many parts of the United States, whereas, in Finland, only recently has a new framework for support in learning taken shape. Choosing Finland as the comparative partner for this policy paper is justified as its educational system has been widely referenced on the basis of…

The importance of reading skills to academic achievement, job acquisition and future success is well documented. Most of the research on reading interventions focuses on children in primary schools but many children start secondary school with very poor reading skills and schools require evidence-based interventions to support these children. The…

Special education disproportionality for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students persists as a controversial and intractable problem in our educational systems. Response to intervention (RtI) and culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), both independently and collectively are considered to offer promise for mitigating conditions of…

Numerous studies indicate that token economy systems continue to be used by teachers as a means to either increase or decrease behaviours observed in their classrooms. However, studies find that student demographic characteristics such as ethnicity, race, and gender inform teachers' identification of target behaviours. In response to these…

Bilingual programs continue to expand in school districts across the United States to address the growing numbers of students whose home language is other than English. The Response to Intervention (RTI) framework was used to guide this qualitative study, the purpose of which was to identify the extent to which the five elements of RTI exist in…

This study examined the efficacy of a kindergarten mathematics intervention program, ROOTS, focused on developing whole-number understanding in the areas of counting and cardinality and operations and algebraic thinking for students at risk in mathematics. The study utilized a randomized block design with students within classrooms randomly…

The Response to Intervention Framework has created a change in the paradigm of the educational system where educators must pursue other avenues before embarking on testing and labeling a child. The Response to Intervention initiative has provided educators with a research based framework that can be implemented at all levels of schooling. There…

This case study examined the implementation of a novel nontraditional teacher preparation program, "Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Preservice Residency Project" (MTSS-PR). The two-year program placed general and special education composite undergraduate majors full time in high-need schools implementing evidence-based systems of…