Rethinking Intervention and Learning Disabilities—Response to Intervention (RTI)

What is RTI?
There has been much written and discussed about approaches to helping students experiencing difficulties with learning due to factors such as inadequate instruction, cultural or language differences, or in some cases, a disability such as a learning disability. For years schools have attempted to help these students using a variety of approaches—including programs such as teacher assistance teams, special education, and Title I.

While schools have attempted many ways to help struggling students, including those with disabilities, the current focus is on an improved, research-based process known as Response to Intervention (RTI). The RTI process is a multi-step approach to providing services and interventions to students who struggle with learning at increasing levels of intensity. The progress made at each stage of intervention is closely monitored, and results of this monitoring are used to make decisions about further research-based instruction and/or intervention in general education, in special education, or both. If a student fails to show significantly improved academic skills despite several well-designed and implemented interventions, this failure to "respond to intervention" can be viewed as evidence of an underlying learning disability.

The RTI process has the potential to limit the amount of academic failure that any student experiences and to increase the accuracy of special education evaluations. Its use could also reduce the number of children who are mistakenly identified as having learning disabilities when their learning programs are actually due to cultural differences or lack of adequate instruction. Another advantage of RTI is the ability for instructors to map specific instructional strategies that best benefit a particular student. This information can be very helpful to both teachers and parents.

How do schools put RTI into practice?
To implement RTI effectively, schools must develop a specialized set of tools and competencies, including a structured format for problem-solving, knowledge of a range of scientifically based interventions that address common reasons for school failure, and the ability to use various methods of assessment to monitor student progress in academic and behavioral areas.

Schools that follow a structured problem-solving process to help at-risk learners are more likely to have positive outcomes under RTI. Many schools use multi-disciplinary teams of educators to carry out the problem-solving model, because the combined expertise and knowledge of the group leads to better ideas and greater collaboration.

PLATO Learning's RTI Solution
Fortunately, educators don't have to do all the heavy-lifting to develop and implement an RTI program within their school district. PLATO Learning offers a robust Response to Intervention (RTI) solution that provides all the necessary tools to successfully implement an RTI program.

Using PLATO® Intervention—a comprehensive, 3-tiered, student-centered assessment and intervention model—teachers can quickly identify and address individual student difficulties before having to refer a student to special education. Today, thousands of students in schools across the U.S. are receiving PLATO Learning's research-based intervention and assessment solution. PLATO interventions and assessments help to meet each student's unique instructional needs before the student gets too far behind to ever catch up in reading and math.

PLATO® Intervention is an RTI program that reduces referrals to special education:

• Improves instruction and school performance
• Strengthens eligibility evaluations
• Maximizes use of limited time and resources
• Decreases number of complaints and/or due process hearings
• Decreases behavioral issue referrals and reduce misidentification

A well implemented, research-based RTI process promises to offer earlier, more relevant help for students at risk for learning disabilities and provide critical information about the instructional needs of students, which can be used to create effective educational interventions. Learn more about how assessment guided instruction, combined with continued intensity of instruction over time, helps to increase student achievement.

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