Home | Clinical Café Archive | March 2007

“Learning Disabilities (LD), Testing and RTI”

March 2007 Clinical Café
By Jeff Evans, MS, CCC-SLP

This month, Clinical Café offers a look at learning disability (LD) and the response-to-intervention (RTI) model from a school psychologist and researcher’s perspective. Dawn Flanagan, Ph.D., St. John’s University, and her colleagues recently had a paper published in Psychology in the Schools (see full citation below).

The Definition of Learning Disabilities (LD) in light of RTI

The Flanagan, et al. (2006) article begins with a discussion of what may be the most significant problem in research and practice as it pertains to LD identification—lack of a common language or standard nomenclature. It was noted that traditional definitions, methods, and diagnostic criteria for determining LD have not resulted in advances of knowledge so much as they have served to highlight the disparities in conceptualizations of LD. The emergence of RTI as yet another paradigm for conceptualizing LD has only exacerbated the problem, not so much because it is an inherently different perspective but because there was little consistency in understanding LD prior to it.

The authors state that the lack of consistency in understanding LD is due to three factors: (a) failure to incorporate a well-validated guiding theory; (b) vague and nonspecific operational definitions of LD; and (c) lack of a systematic, comprehensive framework for LD assessment to guide practice. They also state that RTI and norm-referenced ability testing are not mutually exclusive, such that either one or the other is used to diagnose LD, but not both.

The authors believe, however, that both are necessary to establish the presence of LD. RTI sits at the beginning of a process for LD determination; in depth, norm-referenced ability testing fits into the third and fourth tiers by systematically evaluating the response (or lack of response) in the earlier tiers.

“Norm-referenced ability testing offers the means to examine the specific nature of an individual’s cognitive abilities/processes within the context of a well-validated theory that specifies the relations between academic abilities and specific cognitive constructs.”

Dr. Flanagan stresses that RTI and norm-referenced ability testing are complementary, not competing, approaches. The operational definition presented in her article integrates RTI methods with modern theory on the structure of cognitive and academic abilities/processes in a manner that may lead to better consistency in accepted conceptualizations of LD. She states that the integration of RTI and norm-referenced ability testing as outlined in the article could go a long way in bringing together all professional who work within the scope and context of learning disability and its definition.

“Only when there exists a common language among researchers and practitioners will progress toward this goal materialize. Failure to use a common language is the inability to communicate within and across disciplines using a common set of terms that mean the same thing to all who use them.”

Have you been in an IEP meeting when you knew that the SLP and the School Psychologist were talking about the same “thing” but couldn’t communicate effectively? This is exactly the problem to which Dr. Flanagan is referring. She and her colleagues believe that the reasons are because of the different conceptualizations of LD and ambiguous language used to describe learning disabilities.

“This ambiguity in the LD literature and related fields (e.g., school, clinical, and educational psychology; special education, [and speech-language pathology]) has made it difficult to know whether debates over LD definitions and diagnostic criteria involve substantive or semantic differences.”

What to do? A Potential Solution

Dr. Flanagan and her colleagues suggest we study the language used in the (Cattell-Horn-Carroll) CHC Theory as a way to speak a common language about LD. There is a huge research base behind this theory. It specifies the relations between cognitive abilities/processes and academic abilities. The past decade has provided a burgeoning amount of research that demonstrates significant relations between various abilities, cognitive processes, and academic skills. Much of that research centered around the links between auditory processing and acquisition of basic reading skills, between fluid intelligence and math ability, and between processing speed and the development of fluency in academic skills.

According to the CHC theory, there are multiple domains that describe reading achievement, many of which directly relate to the SLP scope of practice and our typical language, including:

• Language development
• Lexical knowledge (vocabulary)
• Listening ability
• Working memory
• Phonological awareness/processing
• Rapid automatic naming (RAN)

For general CHC theory information, this link will take you to a summary with definitions of CHC Theory nomenclature. This information is provided by the Institute for Applied Psychometrics. Common language makes sense, doesn’t it? If we can understand each other when we talk about the same behaviors and constructs, then we can more easily learn to support students/clients and their families with clear decision-making and common direction. When we find common direction, we may even find that the job really is easier than we first thought.

Pulling it all together, the article also shows a graphical conceptualization of the integration of RTI and norm-referenced testing, using the framework of CHC Theory components as guiding language in the process of working with struggling students/clients. It may be a useful way to talk and think about a balanced and appropriate use of all the research-based processes and tools that we use to support the children and families that we serve, while also remaining true to our areas of expertise.

RTI is a way of looking at many of the same activities professionals in SLP and other disciplines have done for years, but from another angle. Philosophically, helping struggling or at-risk students sooner rather than later is always a good idea. The tools we have learned to use can serve us well in the RTI model, but may be used in different times and places than we have used them in the recent past. Paraphrasing Dr. Flanagan and colleagues, when we learn to appropriately integrate valid and reliable RTI processes with valid and reliable norm-referenced testing, we may also have the opportunity to address our own cross-discipline communication problems, which have been hindering our progress for a long time.

Reference

Flanagan, D. P., Ortiz, S. O., Alfonso, V. C., & Dynda, A. M. (2006). Integration of response to intervention and norm-referenced tests in learning disability identification: Learning from the tower of Babel. Psychology in the Schools, 43(7), 807-825.

SLP Discussion Center

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