Response to Intervention: A ProblemSolving Approach for Enabling Learning

1
Response to Intervention A Problem-Solving
Approach for Enabling Learning

• Presented by
• Jim Clark, MSW, Supervisor, School Social Work
  Services (jclark_at_aea11.k12,ia.us)
• Beth Dedic, MSW, School Social Worker
  (bdedic_at_aea11.k12.ia.us)
• Jennifer Gilmore, MSW, School Social Worker
  (jgilmore_at_aea11.k12.ia.us)
• Andrea Timm, MSW, School Social Worker
  (atimm_at_aea11.k12.ia.us)

2

• The real difficulty in changing the course of any
  enterprise lies not in developing new ideas but
  in escaping old ones.
• John Maynard Keynes

3
Learning Objectives

• understand the difference in purpose between a
  battery and a functional/problem-solving approach
  to assessment
• be able to identify the key features of a RTI
  system
• be able to identify and understand the links
  between assessment, intervention design and
  implementation, data collection to monitor
  intervention effects, and decision making.

4
Overview

• The SSW context for RTI practice
• Brief Case Illustration
• RTI Essential Policy and Practice Ingredients
• Extended Case Illustration
• Extended Case Illustration
• Questions/Comments

5
The Iowa ContextState Infrastructure

• 12 Area Education Agencies (AEAs)
• State funded
• State mandated
• IDEA sub-recipients (defined as LEA)
• Employ support/related services personnel
• Service/monitoring and enforcement

6
Iowa Area Education Agencies
7
Iowa Area Education Agencies
8
(No Transcript)
9
Heartland AEA

• Organized 1975
• Main office Johnston, Iowa
• Service area 11 counties
• 6,518 square miles
• Regional offices 10 (including Johnston)

10
Heartland AEA

• Students served 126,000
• Educators served 12,000
• Schools served 54 public districts 32
  nonpublic
• School buildings 330

11
Heartland AEA

• Staff members 700 full- part-time
• (44 school social workers)
• Des Moines staff 170
• Heartland AEA funds about 170 special education
• positions for the Des Moines Public Schools.

12
(No Transcript)
13
Response to InterventionCase ExampleSam
14
SamBehaviors of Concern

• -Difficulties with following routines,
  transitions, following teacher directions
• -Multiple office referral for escalation and
  refusal to comply
• -Classroom based interventions in place since
  beginning of school year
• -Receiving ongoing assistance from guidance
  counselor, general education teacher, and support
  staff

15
Initial Intervention Progress
16
Trend Data
17
Extended Problem Solving

• Request for additional problem solving due to
  ongoing office referrals for refusals and
  aggression.
• Refusals to participate or transition between
  activities
• Difficulties with assessing and planning for
  academics due to lack of compliance with work
  tasks.

18
Functional Assessment and Problem Analysis

• Review of current progress, records
• Interviews of general education teacher, building
  administrator, support staff, parents and student
• Systematic Classroom observations completed
  across multiple days and settings

19
Intervention Design and Implementation

• Team meeting to discuss intervention components
  (setting demands, skills to be taught,
  reinforcement strategies, and reduction oriented
  strategies)
• Discussion of roles of personnel, data
  collection, and decision making

20
Data and Decision Making
21
Review of Intervention Progress

• Discussion of progress on current intervention
• Review of data and ongoing trend of performance
• Decision making and next steps

22
Response to Intervention (RTI)/Problem Solving
Defined

• The practice of
• providing high-quality instruction/intervention
  matched to student needs, and
• (2) using learning rate over time and level of
  performance to
• (3) make important educational decisions.

NASDSE 2005
23
RTI/Problem-solving is

• The application of the scientific method to
  solving educationally relevant problems.

24
RTI/Problem-solving is

• A framework for organizing evidenced based
  practices in a systematic process for the purpose
  of determining what interventions enable learning.

25
RTI/Problem-solving is

• A process that can and should be used in all
  decisions regarding what educational resources
  (including special education) are needed to
  enable learning.

26
RTI/Problem-solving is NOT

• Pre-referral
• An additional process hurdle to jump prior to
  using a Refer-Test-Place (RTP) process to place a
  student in special education
• Only used in special education eligibility
  decisions

27
RTI/Problem-solving is NOT

• In itself a practice that can be determined to be
  effective/ineffective (not an independent
  variable).
• Resistance to intervention

28
Policy Supports for RTI

• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
  (IDEA)
• Presidents Commission on Excellence in Special
  Education
• Iowa Administrative Rules and Eligibility Document

29
IDEA Eligibility

• Two-pronged eligibility determination
• Disability Need
• Eligibility

30
IDEA Evaluation Procedures(34CFR300.532)

• A variety of assessment tools and strategies are
  used to gather relevant functional and
  developmental information about the child
• Tests and other evaluation materials include
  those tailored to assess specific areas of
  educational need

31
IDEA Evaluation Procedures(34CFR300.532)

• The public agency uses assessment tools and
  strategies that provide relevant information that
  directly assists persons in determining the
  educational needs of the child.

32
P.L. 105-17 The Individuals With Disabilities
Education Act of 1997 (IDEA)

• A shift in emphasis/philosophy
• Child Find Outcomes
• (Access) (Results)

33
Purpose Child Find

• Find students who are eligible

34
Purpose Outcomes

• Solve problems
• Improve student performance

35
P.L. 105-17 The Individuals With Disabilities
Education Act of 1997 (IDEA)

• A shift in assessment approaches
• Assessment Functional
• Battery Assessment

36
Categorical vs. Noncategorical Identification

• Assessment
• battery
• Functional
• Assessment

• Categorical
• Identification
• Non-categorical
• identification

37
Categorical vs. Noncategorical Identification

• Nothing in the Act requires that children be
  classified by their disability so long as each
  child who has a disability listed in 300.7 and
  who, by reason of that disability, needs special
  education and related services is regarded as a
  child with a disability under Part B of the Act.
• IDEA 97 regs 34CFR300.125(d)
• Proposed IDEIA 2004 regs 34CFR300.111(d)

38
Assessment Battery Approach

• The same assessment procedures are administered
  to every student for the purpose of establishing
  eligibility.

39
Functional Assessment Approach Characteristics

• Professional, data-based decision-making
  assessment, tailored individually to student
  needs and concerns with solving student problems
  as the central purpose.

40
The functional in functional assessment

• Examines the function of behavior
• Is functional in providing data useful in
  designing interventions

41
Assessment Battery vs. Functional Assessment
42
Contrasting Refer-Test -Place (RTP) and RTI
Systems
43
Contrasting Refer-Test -Place (RTP) and RTI
Systems
44
(No Transcript)
45
Battery Approaches Flaws

• Focus on student characteristics often excludes
  contextual or environmental variables
• Data that primarily describe characteristics of
  an individual student, are not useful in
  designing interventions
• Focus mostly on the disability prong of the
  two-pronged eligibility test and do not
  adequately document need

46
Battery Approaches Flaws

• Inefficient use of precious resources -
  professionals time
• Professional judgment and decision- making not
  valued
• Unnecessarily delays helping efforts
• Legal???

47
IDEA Evaluation Procedures(34CFR300.532)

• Note
• No requirement that assessment be
• multi-disciplinary

48
IDEIA 2004 Proposed Federal Regulations

• 300.8. Specifically, proposed 300.307(a)(1)
  would allow States to prohibit the use of a
  severe discrepancy between achievement and
  intellectual ability criterion for determining
  whether a child has an SLD.
• Proposed 300.307(a)(2) would make it clear that
  the State may not require LEAs to use a
  discrepancy model for determining whether a
  child has an SLD.

49
IDEIA 2004 Proposed Federal Regulations

• Proposed 300.307(a)(3) would require States to
  permit a process that examines whether the child
  responds to scientific, research-based
  intervention

50
IDEIA 2004 Proposed Federal Regulations

• The use of the IQ-discrepancy drives assessment
  practices for most special education services
  (Presidents Commission on Excellence in Special
  Education, 2002). Nationwide, virtually every
  student considered for special education
  eligibility receives IQ tests.

51
IDEIA 2004 Proposed Federal Regulations

• This practice consumes significant resources,
  with the average cost of an eligibility
  evaluation running several thousand dollars
  (MacMillan Siperstein, 2002 Presidents
  Commission on Excellence in Special Education,
  2002). Yet these assessments have little
  instructional relevance and often result in long
  delays in determining eligibility and therefore
  services

52
IDEIA 2004 Proposed Federal Regulations

• We believe that the focus should be on
  assessments that are related to instruction, and
  that identification should promote intervention.

53
IDEIA 2004 Proposed Federal Regulations

• Identification models that incorporate response
  to intervention represent a shift in special
  education toward the goals of better achievement
  and behavioral outcomes for students

54
Presidents Commission on Excellence in Special
Education

• A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
  Children and Their Families
• www.ed.gov/inits/commissionsboards/whspecialeducat
  ion/reports/images/Pres_Rep.pdf

55
The education of all children, regardless of
background or disability must always be a
national priority. One of the most important
goals of my Administration is to support states
and local communities in creating and maintaining
a system of public education where no child is
left behind. Unfortunately, among those at
greatest risk of being left behind are children
with disabilities. -President George W. Bush,
Executive Order 13227
56
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their Families - Findings

• 1. Legal safeguards and access are provided,
  however, qualifying for special education
  becomes an end-point - not a gateway to more
  effective instruction and strong intervention.
• 2. The current system waits for a child to fail
  instead of a model of prevention and intervention.

57
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their Families - Findings

• 3. Special education and general education are
  considered to be separate systems. General
  education and special education must share
  responsibilities for students with disabilities.
• 4. Parents are not empowered when the system
  fails them.

58
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their Families - Findings

• 5. The culture of compliance has diverted energy
  from educating every child.
• 6. Identification methods lack validity and as a
  result many students are misidentified and many
  are not identified early enough.
• 7. Children with disabilities require highly
  qualified teachers.

59
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their Families - Findings

• 8. The current system does not always embrace or
  implement evidence-based practices.
• 9. The focus on compliance and bureaucratic
  imperatives instead of academic achievement and
  social outcomes fails too may children with
  disabilities.

60
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their Families Major
Recommendations

• 1. Focus on results - not on process.
• the system must be judged by the
  opportunities it provides and the outcomes
  achieved by each child.
• 2. Embrace a model of prevention not a model of
  failure.
• Reforms must move the system toward early
  identification and swift intervention, using
  scientifically based instruction and teaching
  methods.

61
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their Families Major
Recommendations

• 3. Consider children with disabilities as general
  education children first.
• Shared responsibility
• Funding
• flexibility
• should not create incentives for identification
• Each special education need must be met using a
  schools comprehensive resources, not be
  relegating students to a separately funded
  program.

62
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their FamiliesIdentification of
Students with Disabilities

• A key component of the identification process
  should be a careful evaluation of the childs
  response to instruction. Children should not be
  identified for special education without
  documenting what methods have been used to
  facilitate the childs learning and adaptation to
  the general education classroom

63
A New Era Revitalizing Special Education for
Children and Their FamiliesIdentification of
Students with Disabilities

• In the absence of this documentation the
  Commission finds that many children who are
  placed into special education are essentially
  instructional casualties and not students with
  disabilities.

64
RTI is an opportunity for School Social Workers
to Reclaim our Problem-solving Heritage

• Create systems that support early intervention
  and prevention by promoting the development of a
  continuum of programs and services
• Promote the development of problem solving,
  response to intervention systems of identifying
  students for special education

65
Iowa Administrative Rules of Special Education

• 41.48(2)b. General education interventions shall
  include teacher consultation with special
  education support and instructional personnel
  working collaboratively to improve an
  individual's educational performance. The
  activities shall be documented and shall include
  measurable and goal-directed attempts to resolve
  the presenting problem or behaviors of concern

66
Iowa Administrative Rules of Special Education

• 41.48(3) Full and individual initial evaluation.
  The purpose of the evaluation is to determine the
  educational interventions that are required to
  resolve the presenting problem, behaviors of
  concern, or suspected disability, including
  whether the educational interventions are special
  education.

67
Systematic Problem Solving

• Description of the problem
• Data collection and problem analysis
• Intervention design and implementation
• Progress monitoring
• Evaluation of intervention effects

68
Components of a Comprehensive Problem-Solving
Process
Define the problem
Develop a plan
Evaluate plan
Implement plan
69
Iowas Special Education Eligibility Standards

• Response to Intervention (RTI) model is
  intended to be a general education, school-wide
  system. The model is designed with flexibility
  and fluidity to be applied across multiple
  settings and content areas. The purpose of Iowas
  RTI model is to identify appropriate and
  effective interventions that result in improved
  individual performance.
• p. 1

70
NASW Standards for School Social Work Services

• Standard 12 School social workers shall conduct
  assessments that are individualized and provide
  information that is directly useful for designing
  interventions that address behaviors of concern.

71
NASW Standards for School Social Work Services

• Standard 13 School social workers shall
  incorporate assessments in developing and
  implementing intervention and evaluation plans
  that enhance students abilities to benefit from
  educational experiences.

72
Most importantly

• Thinking is required.

73

• Heartland Area Education Agency
• Program Manual on line
• www.aea11.k12.ia.us
• Under Programs and Services click onDiverse
  Learners/SPED and then click on SPED Program
  Manual

74
Iowa Special Education Eligibility Standards

• The document at the Iowa Department of Education
  website below includes guidelines for AEA
  procedures for determining Special Education
  eligibility
• http//www.state.ia.us/educate/ecese/cfcs/speced/i
  ndex.html

75
(No Transcript)