Identification Process

Remediation suggests that an understanding of the underlying processes in learning have been evaluated, either formally or informally. The three tier process suggested by Response to Intervention ties assessment and intervention for the tertiary level for those children requiring more specialized and intensive treatment. The first two tiers recommend screening with a tool that has been validated with continued monitoring if substantial progress has not been seen. However, the screening tool to be utilized is not defined nor even explained. This difficulty is reminiscent of the original definition of a learning disability that required a "significant discrepancy" but did not define what significant entailed. Such ambiguity has plagued this field and appears to be continuing.

The research base for learning disabilities has been complicated by difficulties with definitions. States vary in how learning disabilities are defined ranging from few criteria to very stringent. In Texas, for example, a child can be identified as learning disabled by a 16 point standard score point discrepancy while in Minnesota the discrepancy is more than 2 standard deviations. Moreover, a child who does not meet criteria for a learning disability in Texas but who shows at least an 8 point discrepancy from IQ is classified as dyslexic. Such unevenness of definitions makes it even harder to determine how to identify these children as well as how to set up appropriate interventions.

The RTI model suggests that for some children identification would not occur until they had failed and may deny services to those children clearly at risk. A full assessment would also not occur until after the child had repeatedly failed at some of the interventions. Although the goal to tie how the child responds to intervention has interesting possibilities, the difficulty lies in how this response to intervention is evaluated.

It is important to understand that the developing brain learns new information through a set of neuropsychological processes--these processes lay down new neural connections that once formed may be difficult to reteach. It is also important from a neuropsychological point of view to recall that the brain is most ready to learn these connections within certain points of time; namely from ages of 5 to 8 and for higher level thinking skills from the ages of 12-15 (Teeter & Semrud-Clikeman, 1997).

The longitudinal study of dyslexia by Shaywitz and Shaywitz (2003) found that poor readers who had compensated for their difficulties through remediation utilized brain areas that were different from those who continued to have difficulty reading. More importantly the children who showed compensation not only had higher verbal ability scores than those who did not, they also attended less disadvantaged schools. There was a control group that received the "usual" interventions and who showed very little improvement. By delaying intervention until failure it is possible that the compensated systems would not develop or develop as well as with younger children. The study of the time window when remediation is most effective has not been fully completed at this time.

Perhaps, the solution lies in developing appropriate screening instruments that can assist in isolating those children most at risk for later difficulties and tracking their progress carefully through the early school years. The three-tier system can easily utilize this procedure but there needs to be agreement as to what the most important aspects are that are evaluated and monitored early on. Coupled with these concerns when developing a model for learning disabilities, is the suggestion that children with learning problems be provided instruction in the regular classroom until significant failure occurs. This model assumes that the regular education teacher has been taught the skills needed to not only identify children with learning problems, but also to devise an intervention to offset these difficulties. Most of the research has centered on children in kindergarten and first grade classrooms. There is very little empirical evidence that this program is appropriate for children at older ages. Prior to implementation of this program for all children it would be very appropriate to conduct studies with children in middle school and high school. In addition, it is important to be able to sort out variables such as attention and emotionality that may also be part and parcel of a reading problem.

University training programs provide training for regular education methods and perhaps these students are required to take one course in special education. This training certainly does not reflect the degree of expertise that the three-tiered model is requiring. My teaching of undergraduate, aspiring teachers find them woefully uninformed about the nature of learning disabilities let alone appropriate methods for intervention. These students are eager to understand the difficulties and devour lectures on brain differences in learning as well as what it is like to have a learning disability. In order for the laudable goal of introducing regular education to working with these children, it is necessary to provide additional education for these teachers as well as providing Master teachers to allow support. It is important to understand that children having difficulty with learning to read or complete mathematics problems will likely not benefit from "more of the same" but require an alternative methods of teaching to assist their learning. It is also important to understand the nature of learning. The link from neuropsychological processes to intervention has not yet been forged but the previous section on brain imaging suggests that there is much to understand about how we learn and then, hopefully, how to intervene appropriately.

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(Neuropsychology of LD) | (Summary & Conclusions)