Response to intervention

In education, response to intervention (commonly abbreviated RTI or RtI) is an approach to academic intervention used in the United States to provide early, systematic, and appropriately intensive assistance to children who are at risk for or already underperforming as compared to appropriate grade- or age-level standards. RTI seeks to promote academic success through universal screening, early intervention, frequent progress monitoring, and increasingly intensive research-based instruction or interventions for children who continue to have difficulty. RTI is a multileveled approach for aiding students that is adjusted and modified as needed if they are failing. In education, response to intervention (commonly abbreviated RTI or RtI) is an approach to academic intervention used in the United States to provide early, systematic, and appropriately intensive assistance to children who are at risk for or already underperforming as compared to appropriate grade- or age-level standards. RTI seeks to promote academic success through universal screening, early intervention, frequent progress monitoring, and increasingly intensive research-based instruction or interventions for children who continue to have difficulty. RTI is a multileveled approach for aiding students that is adjusted and modified as needed if they are failing. In terms of identifying students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), RTI was proposed as an alternative to the ability–achievement discrepancy model, which requires children to exhibit a significant discrepancy between their ability (often measured by IQ testing) and academic achievement (as measured by their grades and standardized testing). Methods to identify students with SLD have been controversial for decades and proponents of RTI claim that the process brings more clarity to the Specific Learning Disability (SLD) category of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004), while opponents claim that RTI simply identifies low achieving students rather than students with learning disabilities. RTI is originally a special education term that has broadened into general education framework that involves research-based instruction and interventions, regular monitoring of student progress, and the subsequent use of these data over time to make a variety of educational decisions, including, but not limited to SLD eligibility. To facilitate this broadened conception of RTI, there was a shift to labeling this as one of the approaches of a Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS) occurring in schools and the professional literature. The key to the RTI process is the application of scientifically based interventions that have been demonstrated to work in randomized controlled trials. A goal of the RTI process is to apply accountability to educational program by focusing on programs that work rather than programs that simply look, sound, or feel good. RTI follows a number of core assumptions: A learning disability is defined as a neurological disorder that affects the brain's ability to receive, process, store, and respond to information. They are a group of disorders that can impact many areas of learning, including reading, writing, spelling, math, listening, and oral expression. In the process of identifying learning disabilities, RTI differs from the formerly standard 'ability–achievement discrepancy' approach in that decisions are based on outcomes of targeted interventions rather than mathematical discrepancies between scores achieved on standardized assessments. In the RTI process, service delivery is typically divided into three levels (tiers) of support, with the intensity of interventions increasing with each level. Tier 1 is focused specifically within the core curriculum, with instruction and interventions targeting all students. Approximately 80% to 85% of the general student body should be able to meet grade level norms without additional assistance beyond the first tier. Students who consistently do not perform within the expected level of performance through Tier 1 instruction are then provided with additional supplementary interventions at Tier 2, which typically involves small group instruction. Approximately 3% to 6% of students will continue to have difficulties after Tier 2 interventions; these students will then receive Tier 3 intervention services, which is the most intense level of intervention (often one-on-one) provided in the regular education environment. Through RTI, educators can get enough evidence-based data to eliminate the possibility that the poor of academic performance is due to the inadequate instruction. Therefore, RTI is a more powerful process to identify whether the students have learning disability. As RTI is a regular education initiative, all three tiers of services are intended to be provided as supplements to, not replacements for, the regular education curriculum; there are some, however, who view Tier 3 as special education.