Response to Intervention (RTI) Services: An Ecobehavioral Perspective

Schoolwide Response to Intervention (RTI) services are growing in prevalence in U.S. schools. Most advanced are RTI programs in elementary schools, with preschool and secondary education programs beginning to discuss, develop, and experiment with schoolwide RTI. At its heart, RTI seeks to account for individual differences in student learning success by discovering the instructional situations in which each student learns best and providing them for all who need them. RTI is an early intervention approach to the prevention of learning and behavior problems before they become disabilities. The implementation of schoolwide RTI approaches reorganizes school ecology at multiple levels. When implemented with fidelity, RTI schools have a distinctive "ecological footprint" that differentiates them from traditional, non-RTI schools. Implementers of RTI need consultation that provides them with information on the structure and function of their programs for use in problem solving and decision making. The purpose of this article is to describe RTI and illustrate an ecobehavioral approach to providing RTI school staff with information they need.