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Education Article Summary

A Summary of ” 2003 Study: ” Discrepancy” Approach Results in Inconsistent LD Identification Rates across s”. A 2003 study explored what was then current policies and practices being used by each state for the purpose of identifying which students were in need of special education services under the IDEA due to specific learning disabilities. The IDEA is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This area was last explored in 1994.
The study was also composed of a ” beliefs inventory”. This inventory was created to assess the states’ view of current practice and policies as applied to identifying the students in need of special education services. Because current assessment methods were receiving criticism, the study finally sought to identify alternatives to the current identification methods.
The conflict arose because while the IDEA prior to 2004 had identified several methods to identify the students who had learning disabilities in need of special services, there was no uniform measure by which the states were guided in assessing the severity of the disability. Accordingly, the article found, that there was a severe lack of continuity within the states. For the most part, the states had a common definition for the term SLD.
Of particular import, the study found that:
1) Only two states, Kansas and Louisiana, did not have the discrepancy requirement in their state rules for SLD identification;
2) Few states included a statement about intellectual ability in either their SLD definition or classification criteria.
3)In some of the states, despite clearly delineated criterion, authorities could label a child as learning disabled, nonetheless.
Thus the resulting problem was that in addition to there not being a contiguous method of identifying SLD, the parameters that did exist were arbitrarily ignored. Moreover, it was determined that there was an unacceptable amount of time between identification of the problem and treatment plan for assistance. The author found that the majority polled found that the most favored method of identifying a learning disability was the ” response-to-treatment” or ” response-to-intervention”. This approach begins with teaching and a level of teaching intensity is increased according to the needs of the child.

Cortiella, Candace, A Summary of ” 2003 Study: ” Discrepancy” Approach Results in Inconsistent LD Identification Rates across States” www. schwabblearning. org