NCEO and an affiliated center, TIES Center, recently co-published MTSS for All: Including Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities. The brief provides suggestions for ways in which multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) can include students with the most significant cognitive disabilities so that MTSS provides a whole school and whole district approach. Following a short history of MTSS and a summary of current MTSS models, the brief presents ideas for how to make MTSS fully inclusive of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. To do so, it conceptualizes the underlying framework to include aligned general education and special education delivery systems.

To realize an MTSS framework that meets the needs of all students in a school, including those with the most significant cognitive disabilities, the framework has to include aligned general education and special education delivery systems where supplemental special education supports simplify, magnify, and possibly modify what is taught in general education. The intent of this approach is to align as much as possible with a school’s MTSS framework for academics so students are progressing in a standards-based curriculum. Concurrently, the intent is to align with a school’s MTSS framework for social-emotional and positive behavioral interventions so that students recognize, learn, and benefit from typical school routines. Special education supplementary supports could be gradually reduced as students learn the school-wide and classroom rituals and routines. Together, these offer a cohesive and sustainable means for organizing and implementing an inclusive education system for all students.