Defensible Decision-Making for SLD Identification: Using Current Theory, Research, and Tools to Guide Practice

Program Description: This presentation provides an overview of the latest Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory, highlighting the most prominent changes that should be incorporated into test interpretation. The new WJ V is highlighted as the first battery to be based on recent revisions and refinements to CHC theory. Next, a hybrid approach to SLD identification is offered, which follows a continuum of data gathering methods to ensure sufficient information is gathered for identification and intervention. A case is made for analyzing students’ patterns of strengths and weaknesses (PSW) when a comprehensive evaluation is warranted and interpreting results in a manner that reduces false positives and false negatives, thereby improving diagnostic accuracy. New research, procedures, and tools will be integrated to demonstrate how to organize referral-relevant evaluations for students suspected of having a specific reading or math learning disability. The presentation concludes with a brief case study that highlights how theory and research guide practice.

This is an intermediate level presentation appropriate for Graduate students, Recent graduates, Early-career doctoral-level professionals, and Mid-career doctoral-level professionals.

Speaker's Bio: Dr. Flanagan is a professor of psychology in the School Psychology Training Programs at St. John’s University in Queens, NY. She is also a co-founder of Comprehensive Assessment for Intervention (CAI), a hub for disseminating information from leading researchers and scholars across multiple disciplines to improve practice. Dr. Flanagan serves as an expert witness, learning disabilities consultant, test and measurement consultant, and trainer for organizations and school districts nationally and internationally. She is a widely published author of books, journal articles, and software. She is best known for the co-development of the Cross-Battery Assessment method and its corresponding software system, X-BASS. Dr. Flanagan and her colleagues proposed an operational definition of specific learning disabilities over 20 years ago that contained a PSW component now known as the Dual Discrepancy/Consistency or DD/C method, the most widely used PSW method across the country. Dr. Flanagan has received numerous awards for her work. Her most recent awards include the President's Award from the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) and the inaugural Contributions to Practice Award from APA's Division 16 (School Psychology) for exceptional contributions to the field through innovations in practice.

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