Identifying Students with Special Needs During the School Years (continued)

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Aligned with this new option is the relatively new practice of using response to intervention (RTI) as a basis for decision making about placing many children in special education. RTI is a process whereby the decision to place a child in special education is made based on how well he or she does or does not improve after different levels of intervention have been attempted instead of basing the decision on formal tests (Fuchs, Mock, Morgan, & Young, 2003).

When a child is identified as needing prereferral or early intervening services, this is not technically a special education placement. Nevertheless, most state and local policies require that schools notify parents as soon as they recognize a possible problem. At this stage school administrators usually will invite the parents to provide information and participate in planning the intervention as well as ask them to provide support at home.

As we have noted, prereferral interventions have been used for many years. One of the most common models is the teacher assistance teams approach (Chalfant, Pysh, & Moultrie, 1979). Teacher assistance teams (or TATs, known also as prereferral assistance teams, child study teams, or general education assistance teams) are comprised of professionals such as teachers, administrators, and specialists (e.g., a school psychologist or a special educator) who collaborate to come up with tactics that will help the general education teacher increase the student's success in the general education classroom. Often a structured, collaborative, problem-solving, team approach is used to create successful intervention strategies (Bangert & Cooch, 2001; Fuchs et al., 2003). The prereferral intervention is usually tried for a specific amount of time and then evaluated. It can include modifications in different areas such as changes in the curriculum, instructional procedures, classroom management, or the classroom environment (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2000).

The early intervening option expands and enhances the traditional prereferral practice, placing greater emphasis on trying to find effective interventions to keep students in general education. Using the RTI approach, schools are likely to follow a practice such as this (Fuchs et al., 2003):

1. Students receive generally effective instruction from their classroom teacher.
2. Their progress is monitored.
3. If they are not successful, additional or different support is provided in the general education program.
4. Their progress continues to be monitored.
5. If they still do not succeed, they may be evaluated for special education services or assigned to receive these services.