Philippine Normal University

The National Center for Teacher Education

College of Graduate Studies and Research
Special Education Program

FLEXIBLE LEARNING ACTIVITIES #4

SPED 541:
3rd Term, School Year 2018 – 2019

Submitted to:
Teresita G. de Mesa, Ed. D.
Professor

Submitted by:
Marjorie A. Soriano
MAEd in Special Education – Intellectual Disabilities
Week 4. A Simple Modified Number Skills Supplemental Guide on Intellectual Disabilities.

I. Introduction

Mathematics is an important aspect of daily life. Basic numeracy skills are needed to

accomplish everyday tasks. However, research regarding the relationship between cognitive

ability, mental age, and basic numeracy skills for children with intellectual disability (ID) is scarce.

Number skills addresses the need for all students to participate in their everyday life leading to

significantly enhanced opportunities and options for shaping their futures. This paper is a

supplemental guide on how we can implement and teach number skills to children with intellectual

disabilities.

II. Number skills

Figure 1. Math Manipulatives

For students with significant intellectual disabilities, math education has significantly

evolved over the past decade from an over emphasis on money and time instruction to math skills

aligned to grade-level standards. In a comprehensive literature review, Browder, Spooner,

Ahlgrim-Delzell, Harris, and Wakeman (2008) found 68 empirical studies that taught math related

skills to students with severe intellectual disabilities. While 68 studies were found, 93% of them
focused on simple discriminations within the domain of Numbers and Operations. However, with

increased expectations for all students and high stakes accountability, the field of severe

disabilities has begun to investigate ways to teach beyond money and time (Spooner, Knight,

Browder, & Smith, 2011).

Particularly in elementary school, many educators and researchers in the field of mild

disability have long valued intensive instruction to build early numeracy skills, due to its

correlation with student math progress in later years However, for students with severe intellectual

disability, intensive support in early numeracy skills may occur or may be limited in depth and

application to meaningful contexts. Currently research on math education for students with

significant intellectual disability has shown that students can learn grade-aligned mathematics,

such as algebra and geometry (Browder, Trela, Courtade, Jimenez, Knight; & Flowers, 2012;

Jimenez, Browder, & Courtade, 2008).

For example, if a student is not able to count sets of materials to 5 items, their ability to

access multiplication standards can only be a rote response without conceptual understanding.

Without conceptual based knowledge, even at a basic level, students may not be able to apply and

generalize these early numeracy skills to higher level math skills. Even at an alternate achievement

level, most secondary math skills require students to know numbers, compose sets, perform simple

addition and subtraction problems and generalize their learning to new contexts.

III. The Early Numeracy Curriculum

Browder et al. (2012) developed a conceptual model for building early numeracy skills

with students who have an intellectual disability. The model is based on the premise that students
with severe disability should be given the opportunity to build a foundation of early numeracy

skills throughout their elementary years. Through the growth of this model the Early Numeracy

curriculum (Jimenez, Browder, & Saunders, 2013) was developed to address the need for more

explicit instruction needed to build students with moderate and severe intellectual disability

success in mathematics (Gersten & Chard, 1999). Using evidence based practices to teach

academics to students with moderate and severe intellectual disability (Spooner et al., 2012), the

Early Numeracy curriculum uses systematic prompting and feedback, task analytic instruction,

and real life contexts for math. Because students need the opportunity to build early numeracy

skills while accessing grade-level standards, lessons were developed to be both age-appropriate

and can be embedded with more advanced mathematics of their grade level.

Early Numeracy is a curriculum designed to build number sense in elementary-aged

students with disabilities, which includes students with moderate-to-severe intellectual disabilities

and/ or autism. The curriculum addresses the adaptations required for instruction of students who

are nonverbal, have visual impairments, have physical limitations, or who are deaf. For example,

students may use assistive technology, point, tap, or eye gaze to make responses. The curriculum

was designed for students who lack a solid foundation, or need additional practice to build fluency

with their early numeracy skills.

Early Numeracy provides strategies to improve these skills:

■ Counting with one-to-one correspondence

■ Numeral identification from 1 to 10
■ Numeral naming 1–10
■ Rote counting to 20
■ Creating sets to 10
■ Beginning addition of sets
■ Identification and understanding of numeracy symbols
■ Identification, extension, and creation of ABAB patterns
■ Use and understanding of calendars
■ Use of nonstandard and standard units of measurement.

IV. Scope and limitation

 Figure 2. Early Numeracy Curriculum Guide

Figure 1 shows that there are four units of instruction, which address 7 domains, in the

Early Numeracy curriculum. The following scope and sequence present the domains, skills, and

themes across the four units of the curriculum.

To develop an effective method for teaching early numeracy skills in a highly structured

manner, the Early Numeracy curriculum is based on the principles of direct and systematic

instruction. Constant time delay is a procedure shown to be effective for students with moderate-

to-severe disabilities (Ault, Wolery, Doyle, & Gast, 1989; Browder, Ahlgrim-Delzell, Spooner,

Mims, & Baker, 2009).

 V. Underlying Principles

During this procedure, when first teaching a skill and giving a direction, the teacher

points to the correct response immediately after giving the direction to the student. This is known

as the zero time-delay interval. For example, the teacher lays out three cards with the operations

“+,” “–,” and “x.” She gives the instructional direction, “Point to plus,” and immediately she also

points to the card with the plus symbol so the student knows where to point. When the student

consistently responds at zero-time delay (referred to as Round 1), the teacher gives the direction

to the student but delays prompting for a specified number of seconds (e.g., 4–5 seconds) to

provide the student with the opportunity to respond independently. This is known as a 5-second

delay interval. Teachers should know that the amount of time specified during the delay interval

should be individualized for the student. For example, if the student has a physical limitation that

requires more time to respond, the number of seconds should be increased to provide the student

with enough time to respond.

 Figure 3. Time Delay Procedure

VI. Using Least Intrusive Prompts

Figure 4. System of Least Intrusive Prompts

 The system of least intrusive prompts is another systematic instruction procedure

shown to be effective for students with moderate-to-severe disabilities. This procedure uses a

prompting hierarchy to guide students to make a correct response during instruction. First, the

teacher provides the student with an opportunity to respond independently. If the student does not

make a correct, independent response, or does not respond within a set period of time (e.g., 4–5

seconds), the teacher provides the next least intrusive prompt (e.g., a verbal cue). The teacher

proceeds through a prompting hierarchy until the student elicits a correct response (Collins, 2007).

As shown in Figure 1, this system places prompts given to students in a hierarchy from the least

intrusive and most independent to the most intrusive and least independent. For specific

information on how the system of least intrusive prompts is embedded in the Early Numeracy

curriculum. The Early Numeracy curriculum combines the principles of direct and systematic

instruction into the curriculum by embedding the system of least intrusive prompts and the constant

time-delay procedure into the scripts.

VII. Synthesis

In summary, this research evaluated the process of implementing an early numeracy

curriculum using systematic instruction curriculum guide, underlying principles like zero time-

delay interval, and least intrusive prompts to math problems on math skill acquisition to children

with intellectual disabilities. Similar to much of the academic research over the past decade, results

from this study indicate that students with intellectual or even severe disabilities can learn new

academic skills. Due to this new skill attainment, students will be able to access math curriculum

at greater depths of knowledge than previously expected, if taught early numeracy skills with a

succinct, personally relevant math curriculum.

 Reference

Browder, D. M., Spooner, F., Ahlgrim-Delzell, L., Wakeman, S. Y., & Harris, A. (2008). A
metanalysis for teaching mathematics to individuals with significant cognitive
disabilities. Exceptional Children, 74, 404 – 432.

Browder, D. M., Jimenez, B. A., & Trela, K. (2012). Grade-aligned math instruction for secondary
students with moderate intellectual disability. Education and Training in Autism and
Development Disabilities, 47, 373–388.

Browder, D. M., Jimenez, B., Spooner, F., Saunders. A., Hudson, M., & Bethune, K. (2012). A
conceptual model and pilot demonstration of elementary mathematics instruction for
students with moderate and severe disabilities. Research and Practice for Persons with
Severe Disabilities, 37, 308 – 320.

Browder, D. M., Trela, K., Courtade, G. R., Jimenez, B. A., Knight. V., & Flowers, C. (2012).
Teaching mathematics and science standards to students with moderate and severe
developmental disabilities. The Journal of Special Education, 46, 26 –35.

Gersten, R., & Chard, D. (1999). Number sense: Early Numeracy Skills / 489 Rethinking
arithmetic instruction for students with mathematical disabilities. The Journal of
Special Education, 33, 18 –28.

Jimenez, B. A, Browder, D. M, & Courtade, G. R. (2008). Teaching algebra to students with

moderate cognitive disabilities. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities,
43, 266 –274.

Jimenez, B. A., Browder, D. M., & Courtade, G. R. (2009). An exploratory study of self-directed
science concept learning by students with moderate intellectual disabilities. Research
and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 34(2), 1–14.

Jimenez, B., Browder, D. M., & Saunders, A. (2013). Early numeracy skills builder: A skill
building math program for students with moderate and severe disabilities. Verona, WI:
Attainment Company.

Jimenez, B. A., Lo, Y., & Saunders, A. (2012). The additive effects of scripted lessons plus guided
notes on science quiz scores of students with intellectual disabilities and autism.
retrieved on March 16, 2019 from:
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