RTI is a multi-tiered system that provides students with increasingly intensive instruction matched to their needs, identifies learning difficulties early through data-based problem solving, and aims to reduce the need for special education by improving general education services. It determines eligibility for specific learning disabilities by evaluating how students respond to scientific, research-based interventions rather than through an IQ-achievement discrepancy model. RTI relies on three tiers - universal instruction for all students at Tier 1, targeted small group instruction at Tier 2, and intensive individualized instruction at Tier 3. Advantages of RTI include early identification, a focus on risk rather than deficits, reduced bias, and emphasis on student outcomes.

1. Response to Intervention (RTI):
in Early Childhood Special
Education
What is RTI?

2. RTI is a systematic problem-solving process
designed to:
• Allow for earlier identification of students’ difficulties
• Provide students with a level of instructional
intensity matched to their demonstrated response to
intervention
• Provide a data-based method for evaluating the
effectiveness of instructional approaches and
changing/improving them

3. • RTI is intended to reduce the need for special
education by improving and providing services early
• RTI services are individualized and based on
evidence-based strategies
The reauthorization of IDEIA introduced an alternative
means of identifying a disability, known as responsiveness
to intervention, or RTI:
In determining whether a child has a specific learning
disability, a local educational agency may use a
process that determines if the child responds to
scientific, research-based intervention as a part of the
evaluation procedures (IDEIA 2004, Sec. 614.b.6.B).

4. The RTI models rely on a multi-tiered system of
evidence-based interventions, becoming
progressively more intense based on student
responses to those interventions (Hoover & Patton,
2008).
• Tier 1 – Universal Instruction
• Tier 2 – Targeted Instruction
• Tier 3 – Intensive Instruction

5. Gresham (2005) identified four advantages that
RTI holds over the discrepancy model:
• (a) early identification of learning problems,
• (b) use of a risk model rather than a deficit model,
• (c) reduction of identification biases, and
• (d) focus on student outcomes.