Kristin Haeger, BA

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Math Interventions for Students with Learning
Disabilities A Literature Review

• Kristin Haeger, BA
• YeonKyung Lee, BA
• Sheri Berkeley, PhD
• The University of Georgia

(Cass, Cates, Smith, Jackson, 2003)
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Introduction

• Students with LD who struggle in math have
  problems with content, self-esteem issues, and
  intellectual barriers (Montague, 1992).
• For math word problems, students with LD also
  have problems with reading comprehension
  (Jitendra, Hoff, Beck, 1999).
• Imagine that you could not understand what you
  were reading while trying to solve a math
  problem. How would you try to solve the problem
  in the next slide?

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Practice Word Problem

• ?? ???? ????, ?? 5?? ??? 2?? ?????. ??, ??? 35??
  ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????, ??? ?? ???? ??????
• How would you solve this problem? Give it a try!

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Whats the answer?

• How did you go about solving the problem?
• (If you want to see the solution, the answer is
  the last slide)

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Solving Word Problems

• Students who struggle with math will arbitrarily
  pull the numbers from the problem and use
  arithmetic to manipulate the numbers to solve the
  problem, rather than analyzing the problem and
  thinking through which strategy to use to solve
  the problem.

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How Students with LD Solve Word Problems

• Oftentimes, students with LD who struggle with
  math may have compounded problems when asked to
  solve math word problems that require both math
  problem-solving and reading comprehension skills
  (Jitendra, Hoff, Beck, 1999).

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Purpose

• The purpose of this paper is to conduct an
  extensive literature review on different
  intervention strategies used on students with
  learning disabilities for math facts and word
  problem solving.
• Examines the relationship between math facts and
  word problems.
• Compares and contrasts different interventions
  that have been used with students with learning
  disabilities who struggle in math, and identifies
  which interventions have effectively impacted
  student learning.
• Interventions cognition, metacognition, teaching
  modeling, guided practice, schema-based strategy,
  manipulatives, and visual aids.

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Method

• A computerized search of online databases
  PsycINFO and ERIC.
• Keywords learning disabilities, mathematics,
  math, mathematics numeracy, dyscalculia,
  mathematical facts, mathematical computation,
  word problem solving, problem solving,
  intervention, and instruction.
• Hand search Learning Disabilities Research and
  Practice and Journal of Learning Disabilities.
• Ancestral and descendent searches

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Inclusion Criteria

• In order to be included in this literature
  review, the following criteria needed to be met
• Published between 1992 and 2008
• Math facts addition, subtraction,
  multiplication, and division
• Math word problems
• Elementary and Middle School students
• Had to include students with learning
  disabilities

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Results Elementary

• Interventions
• Direct instruction with a teacher modeling and
  giving corrective feedback
• Perceptual visualizations
• Semantic relationships
• Cognitive and metacognitive strategies
• Schema-based strategies
• Curriculum Focus of Interventions
• Basic computation skills
• Math fluency
• Math word problems

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Results Middle School

• Interventions
• Manipulatives
• Cue cards
• Mnemonic devices
• Diagrams
• Schema-based strategy
  (Cass, Cates, Smith, Jackson, 2003)
• Cognitive and Metacognitive strategy
• Curriculum Focus of Interventions
• Equivalencies
• Manipulations of whole and partial numbers
  through the use of fractions
• Perimeter/area problem-solving
• Word problems

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Elementary Math Facts
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Elementary Word Problems
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Middle School Math Facts
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Middle School Word Problems
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Discussion

• Since the passage of NCLB and IDEIA legislation,
  research-based interventions are more important
  to the education of students than ever before.
  This is particularly true for students with
  learning disabilities who have additional
  challenges to learning.
• This review of literature highlights effective
  practices in math for this population of
  students.
• The literature indicates that regardless of
  whether working with math facts or word problems,
  students with LD benefitted from explicit
  instruction.

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Discussion

• Math facts interventions that were most effective
• Comprehensive approach
• Integrating cognitive and metacognitive
  strategies
• Elementary
• Instructional sequences, mnemonic devices, and
  strategy instruction
• Middle School
• Manipulatives paired with modeling
• Prompting, guided practice, and independent
  practice
• LAP fractions

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Discussion

• Word problem interventions that were found to be
  most efficacious
• Schema-based interventions were most effective
  with both elementary and middle school students
  with LD
• Examples Jitendra Hoff, 1996 Jitendra,
  DePipi, Perron-Jones, 2002 Xin, Jitendra,
  Deatline-Buchman, 2005.

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Further Inquiries

• Please contact
• Yeon Kyung Lee
• specialp_at_uga.edu
• Kristin Haeger
• khaeger_at_uga.edu
• Dr. Sheri Berkeley
• sberkele_at_uga.edu

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Problem answer

• A fruit salad recipe calls for 5 apples and 2
  oranges. If Ray wants to use 35 apples, how many
  oranges does he need?
• 35 / 5 7
• 7 2 14
• The answer is 14 oranges.