Aligning Instructional and Behavioral Practices Across Tiers of Support: Introduction to the Special Issue

Special education has made substantial advances in evidence-based academic and behavioral interventions, but less attention has been devoted to understanding how instruction and intervention can be systematically aligned across tiers of support to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability. In this article, we introduce the special issue regarding aligning instructional and behavioral practices across tiers of support. We define alignment as the deliberate coordination of instructional goals, teaching practices, intervention approaches, assessment systems, behavioral supports, professional learning structures, and implementation processes across tiers of service delivery to create coherent approaches for multitiered systems of support while preserving the flexibility needed to address individual student needs. Future directions for research and practice are discussed.