When I was teaching elementary school, yes. For the kind of special education support available at my school there had to be a "discrepancy," which meant a normal or high test score and a low performance score, or a very uneven intellectual score. We had some kids with very low IQ who got that kind of support anyway because they had lucked out and got a higher score on one or two measures so the staff could declare a discrepancy and get the kid some help.
And yes the question of testing is very complex. You actually do want to have some protocols and routines for helping kids so you're not just guessing all the time, but it's hard. Special education is always evolving and would be doing a pretty grand job with enough resources and support.
(my third-fourth grade class had a higher proportion than average in the school because, as I discovered at the end of the year when we were tweaking the next years' classes, they had been dumping all the different types of kids who needed more work into the one class for years. You can understand what that was like when you know that the reasons they needed more work ranged from special ed needs to trauma from the earthquake the year before, pre-gang affiliation, and newcomer status and some things I'm not remembering now) The next teacher in line let the cat out of the bag by vigorously protesting the suggestion that she should inherit them.)
Supposedly that changed in 2004: see http://www.wrightslaw.com/idea/art/ld.rti.discrep.htm . I still hear of schools citing insufficient discrepancy as a reason to deny services, though. (I hang out in gifted ed circles, so I mostly hear about kids who are twice-exceptional and have trouble accessing either gifted or special ed services, the administration feeling that they should just average themselves or something, which is like trying to average one's lousy eyesight with one's perfect pitch, rather than being allowed both eyeglasses and advanced music lessons.)
ARRRGH. RTI is horrible, horrible, horrible. It was presented as the second coming, but...it was overrated.
Discrepancy is a less-accurate model. The one I prefer is called the pattern of strengths and weaknesses model, and requires the use of a Woodcock Johnson Cognitive for best application. Discrepancy is still allowed under the law, but it is not considered best practice.
PSW requires (in best form) three cognitive scores in the normal/above normal range (that's looking at the seven areas I described above). Then the student needs to have a score below 70 in corresponding academic areas (basic reading skills, reading comprehension, reading fluency, math calculation, math reasoning, written expression).
Discrepancy in the gifted realm is a different story and I don't know much about that. Twice-exceptional has minefields of its own, and I think after ten years in the field I honestly only encountered a handful of those kids--and their special education area usually was not a learning disability, it was usually autism or emotional disturbance. OTOH, I also worked in a high white poverty rural area (specifying "white" because situations are different in urban areas with people of color) and lots of meth/alcohol usage.
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2016-05-01 10:34 am
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And yes the question of testing is very complex. You actually do want to have some protocols and routines for helping kids so you're not just guessing all the time, but it's hard. Special education is always evolving and would be doing a pretty grand job with enough resources and support.
(my third-fourth grade class had a higher proportion than average in the school because, as I discovered at the end of the year when we were tweaking the next years' classes, they had been dumping all the different types of kids who needed more work into the one class for years. You can understand what that was like when you know that the reasons they needed more work ranged from special ed needs to trauma from the earthquake the year before, pre-gang affiliation, and newcomer status and some things I'm not remembering now) The next teacher in line let the cat out of the bag by vigorously protesting the suggestion that she should inherit them.)
no subject
no subject
Discrepancy is a less-accurate model. The one I prefer is called the pattern of strengths and weaknesses model, and requires the use of a Woodcock Johnson Cognitive for best application. Discrepancy is still allowed under the law, but it is not considered best practice.
PSW requires (in best form) three cognitive scores in the normal/above normal range (that's looking at the seven areas I described above). Then the student needs to have a score below 70 in corresponding academic areas (basic reading skills, reading comprehension, reading fluency, math calculation, math reasoning, written expression).
Discrepancy in the gifted realm is a different story and I don't know much about that. Twice-exceptional has minefields of its own, and I think after ten years in the field I honestly only encountered a handful of those kids--and their special education area usually was not a learning disability, it was usually autism or emotional disturbance. OTOH, I also worked in a high white poverty rural area (specifying "white" because situations are different in urban areas with people of color) and lots of meth/alcohol usage.