Teaching Math to Students with Disabilities

“A study by Russell Gersten, professor at the University of Oregon, of research on teaching math provides further insights into teaching mathematics to students with disabilities:

Students improve their problem solving abilities when they have an opportunity to verbalize the problem or talk about possible solutions. They need to “practice the language,” Gersten says.

Having students use visual representations (pictures, symbols, maps, or number lines) are consistently helpful in learning mathematics.

While we’ve progressed in learning the most effective ways to teach mathematics to students with disabilities, we have more to do. Chard outlines the following challenges:

–  We don’t know if we can prevent math difficulties as we can in reading.
–  Many students with disabilities have language issues, which makes it difficult for them to learn from language intensive verbal instruction.
– We need to determine when math should be more function-based for students with severe disabilities.
–  Math content is getting increasingly complex at earlier ages.
–  We need more professional development in the teaching of mathematics.

From Teaching Math to Students with Disabilities (www.cec.sped.org)