MTSS Framework: Developing a Process for Needs of Elementary School

In 2004, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) gave states an option to choose between the IQ discrepancy model for identification for Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) and a new Response to Intervention (RTI) model (Savitz et al., 2018). The change came after research had shown that SLD identification could drop up to 70% with early academic interventions implemented with fidelity. The previous IQ discrepancy model was starting to be seen as a wait-to-fail approach in that until students were truly failing and identified, they were not receiving additional support or instruction (Otaiba et al., 2019). Ultimately, the introduction of the RTI model was meant to phase out the IQ discrepancy model to be a proactive approach to help struggling students (Savitz et al., 2018).