More Words, Deeper Hole

Ah. To be blunt, cognitive scores are what distinguish the label between learning disability and intellectual disability. Quite often the remedial techniques will be very similar. Math computation disability, for example, often has very similar origins in spite of the cognitive ability.

IOW, if the IQ is below 70 and there are life skill deficits, it's an intellectual disability. If the IQ is above 90, it's a learning disability. If it's in the 80s, it's a slow learner. Now I do personally happen to disagree with hanging the 80s out to dry, but until we're in a world where education and especially special education gets better funding and support...triage has to happen. RTI was supposed to be the intervention that helped. Instead, with the exception of places who did it right, it's become another means to keep kids out of special education.

More blunt talk: when budgets get tight, that's when special education identification gets shafted and triage happens. I spent my last years teaching in a school building trying to protect kids as best as I could because of an idiot state-level administrator who demanded that my district cut their numbers (and I happened to have the highest caseload by percentage of school population). Now I'm working in an alternative school setting and doing what I can to help those kids online. Many of those kids might have benefited from special education services at an early age. In another era (cough-cough "90s" cough-cough) they would have gotten those services. Now? Iffy.