In this article, the authors briefly examine the legal requirements for assessing students' eligibility for special education services. They then analyze the major changes regarding assessment for eligibility determination in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) passed in 2004 and the regulations implementing the…

Students with emotional and behavioral difficulties are often unserved or underserved by schools and by mental health systems. One reason for the under identification of these students is the current and past definitions of emotional disturbance (ED) specified in federal special education legislation (IDEA and IDEIA). These definitions are vague,…

In this article, the authors describe the use of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) reading measures within a response-to-intervention (RTI) framework. They examine the characteristics of the measures to illustrate their technical adequacy for use at each tier in an RTI model. Finally, they look at the use of the measures at Tier 3 (special…

Assessing response to intervention (RTI) is a complex process that requires selecting interventions, identifying a reasonable strength of intervention, implementing the intervention, assessing progress, and applying decision rules to the resulting data. Appropriate standards and practices are critically important for all of these activities.…

Children who fail to become fluent readers by the end of the primary grades are likely to achieve below same-age peers throughout their school careers. With growing use of curriculum-based measures (CBMs), it is easier to identify those students who are achieving below same-age peers. Moreover, a process of conducting individualized assessment and…

Several approaches to response to intervention (RTI) described in the literature could be blended into an RTI model that would be effective in the schools. An effective RTI model should employ three fundamental variables: (a) systematic data collection to identify students in need, (b) effective implementation of interventions for adequate…

We respond to the comments of Batsche, Kavale, and Kovaleski (this issue), on Response To Intervention (RTI) and learning disabilities. Historically, discrepancy between IQ and achievement has been used by many as a criterion for identification of learning disabilities. Recently, RTI is considered as a practice for identifying consistent and…

Batsche, Kavale, and Kovaleski (this issue) have done an outstanding job of summarizing arguments for and against the use of response-to-intervention (RTI) procedures for identifying learning disabilities. In this response, we raise issues relevant to the concept of learning disabilities, the nature of problems associated with standard…