ABSTRACT
Most families must contend with whatever capacity to offer services their particular public school system may have. In the current fiscal environment, schools are underfunded and are hard put to provide extended evaluations that consider the whole child, let alone the services that may be recommended as a result. As a consequence, many school systems are forced to do inadequate testing, insist that screening is sufficient, take a “wait to fail” attitude or rely on a response to intervention (RTI) model. In fact, the new regulations under the 2004 IDEA revision allow for individuals to be identified with specific learning disabilities based on results from RTI alone (300.309 [a][2][i]) and excludes the use of a significant discrepancy between aptitude and achievement to determine a learning disability (300.307[a][i]). It has been convincingly argued, however, that neither RTI nor the aptitude/achievement discrepancy model alone are adequate to both identify a student’s learning disability as well as provide an opportunity to learn, particularly if that opportunity is impeded by an underlying and more complex neurological, psychological or emotional profile. Furthermore, use of either alone disregards and distorts the meaning of a specific learning disability (Ofiesh, 2006). Hale, Kaufman, Naglieri and Kavale (2006) have proposed that a multitiered approach must be used, one that starts with RTI methods that, if unsuccessful, leads to a comprehensive evaluation of cognitive processes. We would add, however, that the comprehensive evaluation must include an assessment of emotional functioning as well in order to determine the potential underlying cause of a child’s difficulty with learning and provide him or her with an adequate opportunity to learn. As we have discussed, emotional and behavioral difficulties in children and adolescents are a major impediment to learning. Although there is clearly a need for more careful and thoughtful screening for mental health difficulties in schools that includes outreach to families, services in schools and the involvement of community services (Weist, Rubin, Moore, Adelsheim, & Wrobel, 2007), screening alone is likely not sufficient. A multitiered approach to identifying learning difficulties in school that includes comprehensive testing for both cognitive and emotional problems has also been proposed and includes integrating services provided by school psychologists as well as comprehensive neuropsychological and psychological evaluations by consulting clinical neuropsychologists (Cleary & Scott, 2011).
