Big Ideas in Special Education: Specially Designed Instruction, High-Leverage Practices, Explicit Instruction, and Intensive Instruction

The mandate to provide specially designed instruction to support the learning and behavioral needs of students with disabilities is at the core of special education. As the field of special education has evolved, a proliferation of terms has been introduced to describe the mandate and how special education professionals can provide it. Currently, our field is seeing the following interrelated ideas surfacing in the context of specially designed instruction: high-leverage practices (HLPs), explicit instruction (EI), and intensive instruction (II). These terms, represent four distinct ideas but the terms are sometimes used synonymously or imprecisely. In this article, we will define and describe SDI, HLPs, EI, and II and provide a classroom application.