TEST What Happens When A Child Isn’t Making Progress

Recognizing that an intervention is not working is not the same as knowing what to do next. For educators and specialists who have invested significant time and effort in supporting a student, a flat or declining progress monitoring trend can be disorienting. The research on intervention decision-making suggests that the most common mistake is not acting too quickly. It is waiting too long while hoping the trend will reverse, and not following a clear decision process when it does not.

Lack of progress is information, not failure. It tells teams something about the match between the student and the current intervention.
Fidelity should be the first variable checked before changing any intervention.
Increasing intensity is not always the right next step. Changing approach sometimes is.
Families should be part of the conversation when a child is not responding to intervention.

Check Fidelity Before Changing Anything

The first question when a student is not making progress is not what intervention should we try instead. It is whether the current intervention was delivered as intended. Fidelity is the most underexamined variable in intervention decision-making. An intervention that was taught inconsistently, abbreviated, or modified in ways that removed key components cannot fairly be evaluated for effectiveness.

Fidelity checks can be as simple as reviewing implementation logs, briefly observing delivery, or asking the educator to walk through what a typical session looks like. If fidelity is low, the first intervention is to address the delivery, not to layer on a new approach.

When Fidelity Is Confirmed

Once fidelity is confirmed and a trend line continues to fall below the aim line across four to six data points, the team needs to act. The options are not binary. The range of decisions includes increasing frequency, increasing duration, reducing group size, changing the modality of instruction, or adding a supplemental intervention alongside the current one.

The best decision depends on what the data and the team knowledge of the student suggest. A child who is struggling with phonological awareness but receiving mostly comprehension-focused intervention needs a different change than a child who is receiving exactly the right intervention but needs more time with it.

Bringing Families In

When a child is not making progress, families need to know, and they need to be part of the problem-solving process, not just the recipients of updates. Families often have information about what is happening at home that is relevant to the team decision-making: sleep, stress, significant life changes, what the child says about school.

Families who feel like partners in the intervention process tend to follow through more consistently on home-based strategies and engage more productively in team meetings.

Lack of progress is not a verdict on the child. It is information that tells the team the current approach needs to change.
Research to Real World
University of Kansas

Most decision frameworks suggest four to six consecutive data points below the aim line as the threshold for a team review and likely change in approach.

Not necessarily. Increasing intensity is appropriate when the approach is right but the dose is insufficient. If the approach itself is a mismatch for the child needs, a different intervention may be more appropriate.

The classroom teacher, the specialist delivering the intervention, a school psychologist or interventionist, and the family should all have a voice in the decision-making process.

Repeated non-response to well-delivered, appropriately selected interventions is one of the indicators that a more comprehensive evaluation may be warranted to rule out a learning disability or other condition requiring different support.

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