Response to Intervention: Lore v. Law

Abstract

The legal dimension of response to intervention (RTI) has been the subject of considerable professional confusion. This brief article addresses the issue in three parts. The first part provides an update of a previous iteration that compared 12 common conceptions, referred to here as the “lore,” with an objective synthesis of the applicable primary sources of law. Due to the relative paucity of case law to date, this synthesis includes various policy interpretations of the United States. The second part consists of a summary of the results of the polling of professionals who attended a recent series of regional RTI conferences. The third part provides a discussion of these results, including the limitations of the items and the polls, the implications for practitioners, and recommendations for further research.