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More than two-thirds of parents think specific signs of learning disabilities* are something a 2-to-4 year-old will “grow out of” and are therefore more likely to delay seeking professional help, according to poll results released this week. At the same time, 78 percent of respondents recognize that early intervention is important.

These were two key findings in a poll released by the  and GfK Roper earlier this week. The 1,000 poll respondents include members of the public, parents, teachers and school administrators.

Why the contradiction? One reason could be due to stigmas linked with learning disabilities. According to the poll, a majority of the public and parents said they believe that a student’s home environment causes learning disabilities. A majority of respondents also said that learning disabilities arise because of students’ laziness. And while most said they agreed that children with learning disabilities are of normal or above-normal intelligence, 80 percent of the public, parents and teachers mistakenly associated learning disabilities with mental retardation and autism.

 make it clear that there is much confusion about what a learning disability actually is. Learning disabilities are a neurological disorder, but they are not a cognitive (or intellectual) impairment, meaning that the problem has to do with how a student’s brain process information not their capacity to learn. Most frequently, students have problems learning to read, write and solve math equations.  And students with learning disabilities typically have normal or above-normal intelligence.

Waiting to identify potential learning disabilities and to provide extra support for students who have them is to their detriment. The  reports that 25 percent of students with learning disabilities drop out of high school. Students with learning disabilities are also over represented in the juvenile justice system, accounting for 38.6 percent of students with disabilities in the system.

At a Capitol Hill briefing releasing the results of the poll, presenters highlighted the importance of early intervention and pointed to Response to Intervention (RTI) in pre-k programs as a promising practice.

“We should be determining children’s learning needs at the earliest possible age,” said Stewart Hudson of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. Hudson also called for more widespread implementation of pre-k Response to Intervention initiatives. 

Response to Intervention is both a prevention and identification model with a three-tiered approach. The model serves both general and special education students. The basic idea is this: teachers, or another adult, screen students at the start of the school year to evaluate their abilities in reading and math (although RTI is often used to improve student behavior as well) and spot any problems. If a student is found to have difficulties, the school conducts more assessments and creates a plan to address  the student’s specific needs. RTI is based upon a three-tiered system of instruction and service delivery. Most students receive regular instruction. A smaller number of students receive in-class intervention to address specific needs. And the students who do not progress after receiving that second tier of interventions are provided with more targeted support and possibly evaluated further for referral to special education services.

The RTI approach has been around for several years (in the primary grades, but more recently is also being used in secondary grades too) and was included as part of the , which stated that RTI may be used as part of the process for determining if students have a learning disability. Additionally, the law allows schools to use a portion of federal special education dollars on early-intervention programs for students who need extra support in the classroom.

While originally an approach for school-age students, recently RTI has gained traction as an early intervention model for pre-kindergarten children too, with the goal of . One pre-k version is  called “.”

The Response to Intervention approach is not without criticism.   is that it is only as effective as a teacher’s ability to accurately identify a student’s needs – something that not all teachers are equipped to do. Some critics question RTI’s ability to diagnose whether students have a learning disability and say it , without additional research. Y.

On the other hand, there’s also research that shows Response to Intervention is a  that could lead to better outcomes for students with learning disabilities, and it is included in the  as a way to assist students who struggle with reading. Additionally, the  is funded by the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

The Council for Exceptional Children’s Division for Early Childhood (DEC), the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Head Start Association (NHSA) plan to develop a , which should be released in about a year from now.

We, here at Early Ed Watch, think that whether in the primary grades or early years, teachers, principals and early childhood program directors would definitely need quality professional development and ongoing support and training in order to implement RTI with fidelity. The Response to Intervention approach essentially calls for a whole-school transformation in the way students are assessed and supported; teacher instruction is delivered to and planned for both general and special education students; and data are used to determine whether students progress appropriately.

What have you heard about Response to Intervention? Is it being used in your school or your child’s school?

In the coming weeks, we will write about how Response to Intervention is used at an early childhood school here in Washington, D.C. 

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