High-Leverage Practice 19: Use Assistive and Instructional Technology

The use of assistive (AT) and instructional technology (IT) may be the broadest high-leverage practice (HLP) within the instruction domain (McLeskey et al., 2018). It is broad because the universe of technology-based options, tools, and products has tremendous breadth, depth and is always expanding. Simply recommending a teacher and student use technology is far too vague to help guide practice. To use this HLP requires an understanding of technology in broad terms and how it can impact student performance on a range of tasks, but it also requires knowledge about specific tools, apps, products, and other solutions and how they might intersect with and address unique needs of students with disabilities. In addition, as we note in this brief, HLP 19 intersects with several other HLPs (McLeskey et al., 2018).