Introduction to response to intervention: What, why, and how valid is it?

On December 3, 2004, President Bush signed into law the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004). The revised law is different from the previous version in at least one important respect. Whereas practitioners were previously encouraged to use IQ-achievement discrepancy to identify children with learning disabilities (LD), they now may use "Response to Intervention," or RTI, a new, alternative method. It is also a means of providing early intervention to all children at risk for school failure. In this article, the authors explain important features of RTI, why it has been promoted as a substitute for IQ-achievement discrepancy, and what remains to be understood before it may be seen as a valid means of LD identification.