New strategies urged for “learning disabled”

More than 50 percent of learning disabled students are misclassified, according to Ed Steinberg, a psychologist who heads the Colorado Department of Education’s special education unit. He said a similar percentage of the 20,642 students classified with speech or language disabilities also may be misdiagnosed.

Like many of his colleagues around the U.S., Steinberg is recommending a strategy in which teachers intervene massively at the first sign a student is falling behind in reading. The method, known as Response to Intervention (RTI), calls for diagnosis of just what part of reading the child doesn’t understand, along with one-on-one tutoring. Only after such methods have failed would the child be tested for learning disabilities. Learn more in the Rocky Mountain News.