2015 TASH Conference

The literature on teaching basic mathematics skills related to time, money, and early numeracy skills is extensive in comparison to interventions teaching grade aligned mathematics. Problem solving skills promote independence in current and future environments for individuals with disabilities. The results of an updated review of literature on mathematics will demonstrate the need for increased expectations and opportunities. Two studies will follow that demonstrate the effectiveness of teaching problem solving to students with severe disabilities using schema-based instruction and technology platforms. Implications of access to the general curriculum in mathematics will be discussed. At the end of this panel participants will be able to: (a) compare published mathematics literature in the field of severe disabilities in the past ten years in to the trends of the prior thirty years,
(b) justify mathematical problem solving instruction for students with moderate and severe disabilities, and (c) summarize modifications made to schema based instruction for learners with moderate and severe intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder to teach mathematical word problem solving. An updated review of studies published through 2015 extending the work of Browder et al. (2008) on mathematics interventions for individuals with severe disabilities will be presented. The results indicate there continues to be a need to teach problem solving in mathematics, moving beyond basic concepts and skills. Individuals with severe disabilities who receive full access to and instruction in the general curriculum have improved post-secondary outcomes. There has been an emphasis on the area of literacy in the field of special education, which has led to improvements in practice in classrooms, leading to increased literacy skills for individuals with severe disabilities. However, mathematics is an area that has not seen the same call to action by researchers or educators, yet the impact on the daily lives of individuals with severe disabilities is just as great. Mathematics problem solving skills are used every day by people of all ages – seeing patterns can assist with finding and putting things away on shelves, organizing homes, and playing video games. More obvious problem solving skills are used by adults when they are able to address a problem by recognizing what they know and need to know, such as when mailing 20 holiday greeting cards and knowing that they need 20 stamps. If they only have three stamps, they would need to use problem solving skills to figure out how to get from three to 20 stamps. When at the post office, they may have a choice between a pack of 10 and 25 and will need to choose which pack will have enough. The research base for teaching these algebraic problem solving skills to individuals with severe disabilities is emerging. This presentation will promote practitioner understanding of a mathematical problem solving strategy that incorporates schema-based instruction with evidence-based practices for teaching mathematics to individuals with moderate/severe disabilities. The purpose is to teach recognition underlying problem structures in word problems prior to solving them for better generalizability to real-word situations.