Who, Then, Is Learning Disabled?

In recruiting RTI to search not only for unresponsive students but also for those with learning disabilites, we risk trading one main effects analysis (i.e., standardized tests) for another (i.e., standardized protocols of instruction). That is, by assuming that, under appropriate measurement conditions, overt failures to learn critical reading skills are unmediated expressions of learning disabilities and, therefore, define learning disabilities, authors abandon what we've learned about the development and cognitive changes in those with learning disabilities (Gerber, 2000) even if reading alone is the target of assessment and intervention (Leach, Scarborough, & Rescorla, 2003).

Nevertheless, several authors have now suggested that we pursue an RTI conceptualization and simply re-define learning disability (Fuchs, 2003; Vaughn & Fuchs, 2003). But such a strategy is flawed on two counts. First, there are serious theoretical as well as practical reasons to question whether it is possible, at meaningful scale, to instantiate the requisite measurement conditions in real classrooms and schools. Theoretically, RTI rests on shaky ground when it juxtaposes an idealized, highly controlled kind of instruction to teaching as it actually occurs in applied settings. Practically speaking, the kind of idealized, experimentally rigorous instruction on which RTI depends cannot be implemented at any meaningful scale.

Second, there is rapidly accumulating evidence that at least some learning disabilities -- the same associated with phonological processing deficiencies in behavioral testing -- are associated with a clear (Paulesu, et al., 2001) and modifiable (Aylward, Richards, Berninger, Nagy, Field, Grimme, Richards, Thomson, & Cramer, 2003; Temple, Deutsch, Poldrack, Miller, Tallal, Merzenich, & Gabrieli,(2003). neurological substrate. Therefore, if a demonstrable material and etiological basis exists for explaining the important behavioral manifestations of learning disability, there is strong reason to suppose that, in principal, students displaying this condition can be reliably identified independent of instructional trials. Certainly help kids that need help. If RTI leads to this, then who can argue its value. But this approach will not put us closer to understanding learning disabilities.

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