Teaching Mathematics to College Students with Mathematics-Related Learning Disabilities: Report from the Classroom

2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary M. Sullivan

This article reports on action research that took place in one section of a college general education mathematics course in which all three students who were enrolled had diagnosed learning disabilities related to mathematics. The project emerged in response to a question about performance in a mathematics course in which making sense of mathematics would be a primary focus, explaining one's work would be expected, and discourse among members would be a routine occurrence. Implications for teaching similar courses to students who have a mathematics-related learning disability are discussed.

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Woodcock ◽  
Wilma Vialle

Over recent years, moves toward the inclusion of students with special needs in mainstream classrooms has brought about increasing attention to the way general education teachers perceive these students. Commensurate with this has been a growing interest in what may constitute educational success for children with special needs in mainstream classrooms, plus the ability of general education teachers to provide effective and appropriate instruction for them. It is known that teachers form beliefs about the process of teaching during their pre-service training and also that once a belief has been held for a long time, it becomes extremely difficult to change (Bandura, 1977, and Liljedahl, 2005). With learning disabilities being one of the most common disabilities in the classroom (Clark, 1997, and Clark & Artiles, 2000), it was considered that the need to further explore pre-service teachers’ perceived use of instructional strategies in relation to students who have what is termed learning disabilities, is indeed critical. This study looked at the instructional strategies Australian pre-service teachers reported they would use for students with a learning disability compared to students without a learning disability. The findings show that pre-service teachers favour more direct teacher-centred instructional strategies for students with a learning disability and more learner-centred instructional strategies for students without a learning disability. The greatest discrepancy in strategy use between the two groups of students was the higher cognitive level instructional strategies within a learner-centred environment. Pre-service teachers would use these strategies more frequently with students who do not have a learning disability. Implications for future practice and recommendations for future research are presented.


2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
André Duncan Arceneaux

Even though there has been increasing awareness of and accommodations for college students with learning disabilities, many of them still face various forms of stigmatization from instructors and peers. In this research project, I exam the ways in students with learning disabilities are stigmatized in academic and nonacademic settings, how they responded, or accounted, for their disability when questioned by others, and the strategies which they used to cope with problematic situations. This research is based on qualitative interviews of twenty-three college students with learning disabilities. Although the respondents viewed their learning disability as a minor issue, they did report problematic and embarrassing situations during their college career. Individuals with LD were concerned about the negative perceptions that others had of their LD label. To cope with stigmatization, college students with learning disabilities strategically performed tasks in order to minimize the negative reactions from peers and teachers. They also developed a series of accounts to neutralize the questions of their actions or their disability status. For this dissertation, I use Goffman's concept of impression management and information control to examine how college students with learning disabilities strategically use the performance of reading, writing, and other tasks associated with learning to present a positive self-concept. This dissertation looks at college students who are successful in managing the stigma associated with LD. While other learning disability narratives emphasize the all-encompassing, this study focuses on how individuals with learning disabilities attempt to control the effects and the significance of LD in everyday life.


2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Melinda M. Leko ◽  
Cynthia C. Griffin

In a 1986 study published in the Learning Disability Quarterly, Simmons and Kame'enui examined information found in popular periodicals about learning disabilities (LD) in an effort to understand what people learn about LD from these high-readership sources. After more than 20 years, advances in technology have brought significant changes to how people obtain and disseminate information. Therefore, we revisited the findings of Simmons and Kame'enui by investigating information about LD presented on the Internet. An analysis of the contents of 23 websites suggested that medically based etiologies are most frequently associated with LD, supporting the 1986 results. Unlike the 1986 findings, however, the interventions found on the Internet include a variety of educational supports designed to promote the success of students with LD in the general education environment. Situated in the context of the digital age, implications for LD organizations and future research are provided.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Huiling Peng ◽  
Shyue-Ying Chiang

The investigation of college students’ learning satisfaction for a new teaching model: Example of incorporating art therapy and spirituality into a career planning course. The subjects of this action research were 47 freshmen enrolled in the “Career Planning-Soft Power of Employability” course (10 males and 37 females). Two types of Likert scale questionnaire surveys were conducted before the end of the first semester. The Learning Satisfaction Questionnaire survey showed that the students’ response to the course was positive. Regarding the precursor activity designed for incorporating art therapy into the career planning course, the students’ average learning satisfaction was 4.45 with a standard deviation of 0.82, whereas their average learning satisfaction of overall curriculum planning was 4.34 with a standard deviation of 0.78. The results of open feedback forms showed that the incorporation of art therapy into the relevant activities of this course helped enhance the students’ concentration and interest in learning. In addition, the course was designed to enhance the effectiveness of teaching assessment. The results of the Teaching Assessment Questionnaire showed that the students’ average satisfaction of teaching in this course was 4.44 with a standard deviation of 0.78. Finally, this action research not only proposed specific suggestions for incorporating art therapy and spirituality into career planning course design and teaching method but also pointed out the direction for future action research on the incorporation of expressive art therapy into the relevant course activities of general education.


Author(s):  
Christopher J. Lonigan

Specific learning disability is a common neurodevelopmental disorder affecting about 5–8% of the school-aged population. A key concept in specific learning disabilities is unexpected low achievement. An individual whose achievement in reading, math, or writing is both low and less than what would be expected based on developmental capacity and opportunity to learn and whose low achievement cannot be explained by a sensory impairment, limited language proficiency, or other impairing medical condition is considered to have a specific learning disability. This chapter provides an overview of issues and challenges involved in the identification and diagnosis of a specific learning disability, and it provides information on prevalence, epidemiology, and interventions for specific learning disabilities. Response-to-instruction models of identification hold promise for the identification of individuals with a specific learning disability, and they provide a means for the identification of false positives while enhancing the instructional context for children at risk.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Vasudha Hande ◽  
Shantala Hegde

BACKGROUND: A specific learning disability comes with a cluster of deficits in the neurocognitive domain. Phonological processing deficits have been the core of different types of specific learning disabilities. In addition to difficulties in phonological processing and cognitive deficits, children with specific learning disability (SLD) are known to also found have deficits in more innate non-language-based skills like musical rhythm processing. OBJECTIVES: This paper reviews studies in the area of musical rhythm perception in children with SLD. An attempt was made to throw light on beneficial effects of music and rhythm-based intervention and their underlying mechanism. METHODS: A hypothesis-driven review of research in the domain of rhythm deficits and rhythm-based intervention in children with SLD was carried out. RESULTS: A summary of the reviewed literature highlights that music and language processing have shared neural underpinnings. Children with SLD in addition to difficulties in language processing and other neurocognitive deficits are known to have deficits in music and rhythm perception. This is explained in the background of deficits in auditory skills, perceptuo-motor skills and timing skills. Attempt has been made in the field to understand the effect of music training on the children’s auditory processing and language development. Music and rhythm-based intervention emerges as a powerful intervention method to target language processing and other neurocognitive functions. Future studies in this direction are highly underscored. CONCLUSIONS: Suggestions for future research on music-based interventions have been discussed.


1981 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 565-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jules C. Abrams

The role of visual problems in learning disability has been a source of considerable controversy for many years. One major issue in the continuing argument is the frequent confusion of labels and concepts in the visual field. It is important to view vision as a psychophysiologic mechanism and to differentiate it from a mechanistic orientation emphasizing the eyes. Most visual problems related to learning disability represent a breakdown in the ability of the eyes to function in an harmonious fashion, that is, some interference in binocular function. While visual defects should not be confused with defects in visual perception, the identification and treatment of visual problems is an important element in the diagnosis and remediation of learning disabilities.


2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Shotter

Three themes seem to be common to both Greenwood’s and Gustavsen’s accounts: One is the social isolation of professional [research] elites from the concerns of ordinary people, which connects with another: the privileging of theory over practice. Both of these are connected, however, with a third: the great, unresolved struggle of ordinary people to gain control over their own lives, to escape from schemes imposed on them by powerful elites, and to build a genuinely participatory culture. An understanding of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and the recognition of its striking differences from any previous philosophical works, can make some important contributions to all these issues. Wittgenstein’s aim is not, by the use of reason and argument, to establish any foundational principles to do with the nature of knowledge, perception, the structure of our world, scientific method, etc. Instead, he is concerned to inquire into the actual ways available to us of possibly making sense in the many different practical activities we share in our everyday lives together: “We are not seeking to discover anything entirely new, only what is already in plain view.”


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