Response to intervention: are the Emperor's clothes really new?

With the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2004, Response to Intervention (RTI) was officially introduced. Unlike the discrepancy model, which determines eligibility in special education with a discrepancy between achievement and ability, RTI was designed to provide intensive instruction to students in the general classroom as soon as difficulties in acquiring requisite reading skills are detected. The proposed goals of RTI include the improvement of reading achievement and the identification of students with learning disabilities (LD). Although RTI holds promise for the former goal when certain conditions are met, the latter goal is more elusive. The Component Model of Reading (CMR) is described in the current paper as an alternative to the discrepancy model and RTI. CMR, which consists of three domains, evaluates a poor reader's performance multidimensionally, so the most appropriate instruction for the reader can be designed to ensure reading success. Empirical evidence of CMR is presented.     

Development and Initial Validation of a Scale Measuring the Beliefs of Educators Regarding Response to Intervention

This article presents information on the development and initial validation of the 16-item Response to Intervention (RTI) Beliefs Scale. The scale is designed to measure the extent to which educators working in schools hold beliefs consistent with the tenets of RTI. The authors administered the instrument to 2,430 educators in 62 elementary schools in the fall of 2007 and 2,443 educators in 68 elementary schools in the spring of 2008. Exploratory, single-level confirmatory, and multilevel confirmatory factor analysis procedures were used to examine construct validity. Results supported a correlated 3-factor model (Academic Abilities and Performance of Students with Disabilities, Data-Based Decision Making, and Functions of Core and Supplemental Instruction) at both the school and educator levels of analysis. Furthermore, the factor scores derived from the model demonstrated significant, positive relations to RTI implementation. Reliability estimates for two of the three factor scores exceeded.70. Implications for research on educator beliefs and implementation of RTI as well as implications for school psychologists supporting RTI implementation are discussed.     

What counts as response and intervention in RTI? A sociocultural analysis

Response to Intervention (RTI) is being used in districts and states around the United States (U.S.) as a means to enhance learning opportunities and address the needs of struggling learners. Increasing attention to RTI in the research community and the recent creation of a large national technical assistance center reflect its growing visibility. Because equity issues for ethnic and linguistically diverse students are purportedly addressed in RTI models, we conduct a sociocultural analysis of its building blocks, namely the definitions and assumptions embedded in the notions of "response" and "intervention". We used interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical insights about the cultural nature of learning and development to inform our analysis. We discuss how the assumptions of RTI might unintentionally create blind spots for researchers and practitioners about how to design, conduct, and assess learning environments, particularly for diverse students. We conclude with reflections about future directions in this research area.     

干预-应答模式鉴别学习障碍的有效性及其调节因素:20年研究的元分析

本研究采用元分析方法探讨在学习障碍的鉴别中兴起的干预-应答（Response to Intervention,RTI）模式鉴别学习障碍内部亚组的有效性及其调节因素。通过系统检索1996-2015年的文献,获得了34项研究,包括6127名学生的45个样本、261个效应值。元分析结果表明,RTI模式可有效区分学习障碍风险儿童的内部亚组,对干预无应答和有应答的学生在学业成就、认知技能、行为等多方面存在系统、显著和持久的差异,但仍存在个体应答状态的进一步分化。RTI模式对于学习障碍风险儿童内部变异的区分效果受到干预对象、干预层次、干预时间、应答指标选择、测量方法和切分点等因素的影响。本元分析结果不仅为认识RTI模式鉴别学习障碍的有效性提供了进一步证据,更重要的是通过系列调节效应分析,为合理实施RTI模式鉴别学习障碍提供了直接依据。     

Effects of public feedback during RTI team meetings on teacher implementation integrity and student academic performance

As a result of the new revision of IDEA (2004), models of early intervention and response-to-intervention (RTI) have received a great deal of attention in the literature. Although various tiered models have been described in detail, one aspect of RTI that has received little empirical attention is the need to ensure integrity of intervention as part of a team decision making process. One method that has good support for improving treatment integrity is performance feedback (PFB); however, the utilization of PFB within a team context has received very little attention in the literature. Experiment 1 evaluated the effect of PFB delivered within the context of an RTI team on treatment integrity after fidelity had fallen to unacceptable levels. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of PFB on the maintenance of treatment integrity prior to integrity fall off. Results indicate that PFB can be used as an efficient means of improving or maintaining treatment integrity when applied within a team model.     

Training preservice general education teachers in response to intervention: A survey of teacher educators throughout the United States

Response to intervention (RTI) is an evidence-based approach to educational service delivery that is being increasingly adopted by schools across the country. To effectively implement RTI models, teachers require specialized training. Little is currently known, however, about the extent to which this training is being provided at the preservice level. The purpose of this survey study was to learn more about RTI-related training provided to preservice general educators in undergraduate elementary education programs. Respondents included 95 program directors of accredited college/university teacher education programs across the United States. Participants reported providing varying levels of didactic and applied training related to each of the six core components of RTI (i.e., multitiered service delivery, universal screening, progress monitoring, data-based decision making, evidence-based interventions, and fidelity of implementation). Although most teacher educators were familiar with the overall concept of RTI, over a third of respondents were not familiar with the core component of fidelity of implementation, and reported providing limited training opportunities in this area. Respondents also indicated whether preservice teachers in their programs receive training related to specific progress monitoring tools and evidence-based interventions. Implications for school psychologists, who frequently collaborate with teachers to implement RTI models, are discussed.     

Quantifying Intervention Intensity: A Systematic Approach to Evaluating Student Response to Increasing Intervention Frequency

Response to intervention (RTI) has been discussed as a new model of assessment. Although the basic process by which RTI works has received frequent attention in the literature, the available research leaves several important questions unanswered (Kavale et al. in Learn Disabil Q 28(1): 2–16, 2005). One concept within RTI that has received little empirical consideration is intervention intensity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the application of increased intervention frequency on the mathematics performance of students and to evaluate this increased frequency as a systematic means of increasing and quantifying intervention strength. Results indicate that although all students were responsive to the intervention, some participants were sensitive only to more frequent application of the treatment or at more intense levels of treatment. Through this methodology a means of quantifying treatment intensity was also identified and implications for future research are discussed.     

Efficacy of proxy definitions for identification of fatigue/sleep-related crashes: An Australian evaluation

Fatigue/sleepiness is recognised as an important contributory factor in fatal and serious injury road traffic incidents (RTIs), however, identifying fatigue/sleepiness as a causal factor remains an uncertain science. Within Australia attending police officers at a RTI report the causal factors; one option is fatigue/sleepiness. In some Australian jurisdictions police incident databases are subject to post hoc analysis using a proxy definition for fatigue/sleepiness. This secondary analysis identifies further RTIs caused by fatigue/sleepiness not initially identified by attending officers. The current study investigates the efficacy of such proxy definitions for attributing fatigue/sleepiness as a RTI causal factor. Over 1600 Australian drivers were surveyed regarding their experience and involvement in fatigue/sleep-related RTIs and near-misses during the past five years. Driving while fatigued/sleepy had been experienced by the majority of participants (66.0% of participants). Fatigue/sleep-related near misses were reported by 19.1% of participants, with 2.4% being involved in a fatigue/sleep-related RTI. Examination of the characteristics for the most recent event (either a near miss or crash) found that the largest proportion of incidents (28.0%) occurred when commuting to or from work, followed by social activities (25.1%), holiday travel (19.8%), or for work purposes (10.1%). The fatigue/sleep related RTI and near-miss experience of a representative sample of Australian drivers does not reflect the proxy definitions used for fatigue/sleepiness identification. In particular those RTIs that occur in urban areas and at slow speeds may not be identified. While important to have a strategy for identifying fatigue/sleepiness related RTIs proxy measures appear best suited to identifying specific subsets of such RTIs.     

Ethical and legal issues associated with using response-to-intervention to assess learning disabilities

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 allows schools to use a child's response to research-based intervention (RTI) as a part of procedures to identify students with learning disabilities. This paper considers whether RTI-based assessment models meet ethical and legal standards for acceptable assessment practices. Based on a review of available research, it was concluded that RTI-based assessment practices, when carefully crafted and implemented, have the potential to be multifaceted, fair, valid, and useful. Threats to acceptable RTI-based assessment practices include: the lack of research-based interventions appropriate for diverse academic domains, ethnic groups, grades K-12, and students with limited English proficiency; uncertainty regarding how to determine when nonresponse to intervention warrants formal referral for evaluation of special education eligibility; difficulty translating scientifically sound RTI practices to the local school level; and inadequate staff training and poor treatment fidelity. Suggested directions for future research are included.     

A multi-year evaluation of the effects of a Response to Intervention (RTI) model on identification of children for special education

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of implementation of a systematic response to intervention (RTI) model on the identification and evaluation of children for special education. Using a multiple baseline design, a systematic model of assessment and intervention was introduced in consecutive years for all elementary schools (N = 5) in the district. Effect of the RTI model on number of evaluations conducted, percentage of evaluated children who qualified for services, and proportion of identified children by sex and ethnicity before and after implementation of the model was examined. Additionally, outcomes for children who did not have an adequate response to intervention versus those who were at-risk but responded successfully to short-term intervention were examined. A cost analysis of use of the model was provided. The degree to which data obtained were used by the decision-making team was also examined. The assessment and intervention procedures, decision rules, and schoolwide training methods are described in detail and practical implications are discussed.     

Construct and concurrent validity of the Cambridge neuropsychological automated tests in Portuguese older adults without neuropsychiatric diagnoses and with Alzheimer’s disease dementia

We aimed to analyze the construct and concurrent validity of the Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP), Paired Associates Learning (PAL), Reaction Time (RTI), and Spatial Working Memory (SWM) tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB®). Inclusion criteria were checked in a first session. The CANTAB and additional pencil-and-paper tests were administered within 1 week. The participants (aged 69–96 years) were 137 Portuguese adults without neuropsychiatric diagnoses and 37 adults with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Comparisons were made between the CANTAB tests and between these tests and the Rey Complex Figure Test (RCFT), Verbal Fluency (VF) test, and some Wechsler Memory Scale-III and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III subtests. Most intra-test correlations were stronger than the CANTAB inter-test correlations. The RVP correlated more with VF animals (.44), the PAL with RCFT immediate recall (–.52), the RTI with RVP mean latency (.42), and the SWM with Spatial Span backward (–.39).     

Comparison of dual discrepancy criteria to assess response to intervention

Much of the research regarding diagnosing children as LD with responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI) has examined methods to identify children as non-responsive. The current study examined the dual discrepancy (DD) definition in which children score low on a post-intervention reading measure and score below their peers in reading growth rates. Four definitions of DD were compared, student growth below the 25th percentile, 33rd percentile, 50th percentile, and less than one standard deviation below the mean. Participants were 151 children in grades 1 through 3 who were identified as experiencing reading difficulties. Results suggested that the three percentile groups significantly differentiated reading scores between DD and non-DD children, but the one standard deviation group did not. No ethnic or gender biases were noted and the 25th and 33rd percentile criteria closely matched estimates of LD prevalence. Implications for future research are included.     

The improvement of reading skills of L1 and ESL children using a Response to Intervention (RtI) Model

This study examined the development of literacy skills in children in a district that used a Response to Intervention (RTI) model. The district included children whose first language was English and children who were learning English as a second language (ESL). Tasks measuring phonological awareness, lexical access, and syntactic awareness were administered when the children entered school in kindergarten at age 5. Reading, phonological processing, syntactic awareness, memory, and spelling were administered in grade 7. When the children entered school, significant numbers of them were at risk for literacy difficulties. After systematic instruction and annual monitoring of skills, their reading abilities improved to the extent that only a very small percentage had reading difficulties. The results demonstrated that early identification and intervention and frequent monitoring of basic skills can significantly reduce the incidence of reading problems in both the ESL and language majority children.     

In search of average growth: Describing within-year oral reading fluency growth across Grades 1–8

Measures of oral reading fluency (ORF) are perhaps the most often used assessment to monitor student progress as part of a response to intervention (RTI) model. Rates of growth in research and aim lines in practice are used to characterize student growth; in either case, growth is generally defined as linear, increasing at a constant rate. Recent research suggests ORF growth follows a nonlinear trajectory, but limitations related to the datasets used in such studies, composed of only three testing occasions, curtails their ability to examine the true functional form of ORF growth. The purpose of this study was to model within-year ORF growth using up to eight testing occasions for 1448 students in Grades 1 to 8 to assess (a) the average growth trajectory for within-year ORF growth, (b) whether students vary significantly in within-year ORF growth, and (c) the extent to which findings are consistent across grades. Results demonstrated that for Grades 1 to 7, a quadratic growth model fit better than either linear or cubic growth models, and for Grade 8, there was no substantial, stable growth. Findings suggest that the expectation for linear growth currently used in practice may be unrealistic.     

Cognitive discernible factors between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder

BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia (SZ) and schizoaffective disorders (SA) are associated with cognitive deficits. Generally, a schizoaffective diagnosis is associated with better prognosis on the level of social integration. It is also well established that cognition is an important factor for good social outcome in schizophrenia. We hypothesized that, although patients suffering from SA share symptoms with SZ, they can be differentiated on the basis of neurocognitive function and that SA perform better in several domains. METHOD: Performances of two groups SA (N = 13) and SZ (N = 44) were compared on several visual-motor tasks using CANTAB [Motor Screening (MOT), Reaction Time (RTI), Paired Associates Learning Task (PAL), and Stockings of Cambridge items (SOC)]. The two groups were matched for symptom severity. ANOVA with repeated measures was employed to determine whether any difference in cognitive scores during a 2-year period was significantly related to the diagnostic status. RESULTS: A significant and durable difference was observed between SZ and SA on motor screening and explicit memory tests where SA performed better. CONCLUSION: Neurocognitive tests may be relevant for distinguishing schizoaffective from schizophrenia, chiefly via tests tapping into visuo-spatial and visuo-motor coordination abilities (e.g., paired associated learning and motor screening).     

Cognitive discernible factors between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder

BackgroundSchizophrenia (SZ) and schizoaffective disorders (SA) are associated with cognitive deficits. Generally, a schizoaffective diagnosis is associated with better prognosis on the level of social integration. It is also well established that cognition is an important factor for good social outcome in schizophrenia. We hypothesized that, although patients suffering from SA share symptoms with SZ, they can be differentiated on the basis of neurocognitive function and that SA perform better in several domains.MethodPerformances of two groups SA (N = 13) and SZ (N = 44) were compared on several visual-motor tasks using CANTAB [Motor Screening (MOT), Reaction Time (RTI), Paired Associates Learning Task (PAL), and Stockings of Cambridge items (SOC)]. The two groups were matched for symptom severity. ANOVA with repeated measures was employed to determine whether any difference in cognitive scores during a 2-year period was significantly related to the diagnostic status.ResultsA significant and durable difference was observed between SZ and SA on motor screening and explicit memory tests where SA performed better.ConclusionNeurocognitive tests may be relevant for distinguishing schizoaffective from schizophrenia, chiefly via tests tapping into visuo-spatial and visuo-motor coordination abilities (e.g., paired associated learning and motor screening).     

Effect of verbal messages with reminders to communicate driving situations to alter driver behavior in conditional driving automation

In conditionally automated driving, drivers are relieved of steering (hands-off), accelerating, and braking actions as well as of continuous monitoring of driving situations and the system operation status (eyes off). This enables continuously engagement in non-driving-related activities. Managing the allocation of a driver’s attention to the surrounding environment and automation status presents a major challenge in human–machine system design. In this study, we propose a verbal message with a reminder (monitoring request) to divert the driver’s attention from non-driving-related activities to peripheral monitoring under conditionally automated driving. When the system encounters events related to weather, traffic, and road geometry, it provides a verbal message pertaining to the road surroundings (e.g., “It is foggy outside”) to the driver. After three seconds, the system provides a reminder message (i.e., “Did you confirm it?”) to the driver. We explore two questions: (1) how does the message with the reminder affect the driver’s attention allocation, and (2) how does the message with the reminder affect the driver behavior in response to a request to intervene (RTI). With a driving simulator, we designed a repeated measures mixed design with a between-participant factor of “Driving condition” and within-participant factors of “Event type” and “Measurement time”. Three driving conditions were established as follows: no messages, messages without reminders, and messages with reminders. Twenty-seven drivers participated as participants in the driving simulator experiment. Results showed that the reminder message was effective in allocating the participants’ attention to the surrounding environment, and the participants took over the driving task after spending more time understanding the take-over situation in the condition of messages with reminders compared to those in the condition of no messages. We conclude that the proposed reminder message can direct drivers’ attention to the road surroundings during conditionally automated driving. In the future, we plan to design adaptive verbal monitoring requests to adjust the reminder message according to the situation.     

Examining change in maximal reliability for multiple‐component measuring instruments

A method for examining change in maximal reliability for pre‐specified sets of congeneric measures when developing a multi‐component instrument is outlined. The approach is applicable for purposes of estimation and testing of gain or loss in the maximal reliability coefficient as a consequence of adding or dropping one or more measures from a homogeneous composite with uncorrelated errors, as well as when one is concerned with optimal component choice for highest increase or correspondingly smallest drop in maximal reliability. The method is compared with a procedure for ascertaining change in unweighted sum score reliability, and implications for instrument construction and revision are discussed. The approach is illustrated with a numerical example.     

“Oilfield Trash or Oilfield Treasure? A Pastoral Response to Living in the Extraction Economy of the Permian Basin” by Rev. Dr. Dawn Darwin Weaks

The climate crisis is witnessed on a global scale and it is also experienced in the local communities that work in extractive industries. In this article, a pastor in the Permian Basin explores the term “oilfield trash” as it is used for oilfield workers in the Permian Basin, connecting the epithet with the negative conditions for quality of life there, and comparing it to treatment of oilfield workers in Norway. Treatment of workers is identified as essential to esteem of communities and land. Renaming workers “treasure” in keeping with the tradition of Isaiah 62:4 is identified as part of the healing needed for extractive communities to transition away from fossil fuels. Four avenues of congregational ministry within mining economies are identified, with the way of “partnership” with the workers in the industry recommended as offering hope for churches to help relieve the climate crisis.