A Systematic Review of Response to Intervention in Addressing Special Education Disproportionality for Emergent Bilinguals

Response to intervention (RTI) has received attention for its potential to improve special education eligibility practices for emergent bilinguals, who are often disproportionately identified with disabilities. The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the use of RTI as a means of reducing disproportionality in special education for emergent bilinguals. Seven studies met the eligibility criteria. Two studies used experimental/quasi-experimental group designs and reported that RTI was associated with reduced levels of disproportionality for emergent bilinguals. Two studies examining secondary data reported that emergent bilinguals were not disproportionately represented in special education when provided access to RTI but did not provide outcomes for schools in which RTI was not used. Three studies failed to identify evidence of an effect. Two studies reported that RTI was associated with improvements in reading. Results suggest that, although RTI offers benefits for emergent bilinguals in some contexts, its effect on disproportionality in special education is less clear.