Response-to-intervention (RTI) models incorporate a screening process to identify students who appear to be at risk for learning disabilities (LDs). The purpose of this position article is to incorporate what is known about screening into a flexible, yet comprehensive screening system to help school psychologists and other school administrators in…

The purpose of the current study was to examine academic and cognitive profiles of first graders who responded adequately and inadequately to intensive small-group reading intervention (Tier 2), as well as assess how these profiles differ based on the criteria used for classification of unresponsiveness. Nonresponders were identified using two…

A data-based approach is introduced as an alternative way to help teachers formulate decisions about the validity of test accommodations for students with learning disabilities. Three rationales for the approach are provided: an inadequate research base to guide decision-making, student heterogeneity, and problems with teacher's use of subjective…

This article first describes two types of assessment (problem solving and standard treatment protocol) within a "responsiveness-to-instruction" framework to identify learning disabilities. It then specifies two necessary components (measures and classification criteria) to assess responsiveness-to-instruction, and present pertinent findings from…

Task complexity in terms of symbolic mediation (inner thought) as a determinant of differential test performance and the prediction of dissimilar functioning were examined. Preschool children with moderate to profound speech and/or language handicaps were tested using: (1) a sound-in-words subtest of the Test of Articulation (TA); (2) Action…

A language test and five psychosocial measures were used to evaluate the effect of examiners on 32 disabled preschool and school-age children who were moderately to profoundly speech impaired, or both. Results indicated that the children performed significantly better when tested by familiar examiners than by unfamiliar examiners. (Author/ABB)