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Exceptionality: A SpecialEducation JournalPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hexc20

Reflections on 'MultisensoryMathematics for Children WithMild Disabilities'Kristin S. ScottPublished online: 08 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Kristin S. Scott (1993) Reflections on 'Multisensory Mathematicsfor Children With Mild Disabilities', Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal, 4:2,125-129, DOI: 10.1207/s15327035ex0402_6

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327035ex0402_6

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Exceptionality, 4(2), 125-129 Copyright o 1993, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Reflections on "Multisensory Mathematics for Children With Mild Disabilities"

Kristin S. Scott Department of Special Education

University of Georgia

Several years ago, when I was teaching elementary school children with mild mental handicaps, I was introduced to the TOUCH MATW program1 (Bullock, Pierce, & McClelland, 1989). It looked intriguing; I knew some of my students were struggling with addition and subtraction, so I thought I would give it a try. My third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students were still relying on the "counting everything attached to their bodies" approach to solve even simple addition and subtraction problems. If they were not counting their fingers, foreheads, and toes, then they were drawing hash marks all over their papers or simply guessing at an answer. Using manipulatives was a concrete method of solving the problems, but some students could not transfer their skills to a paper-and-pencil task easily. After much instruction on these skills, my students had not learned their addition or subtraction facts or how to solve addition and subtraction problems quickly and accurately. With the TOUCH MATH program, my students were soon able to solve addition and subtraction problems quickly and accurately, without the frustration.

Because the TOUCH MATH program seemed to work so well with these students, I decided to conduct a study to determine the effectiveness of the program using a controlled design. I also wanted to examine the use of the TOUCH MATH program with students with learning disabilities as well as students with mild mental handicaps. Results from my study substantiated my hypothesis that the TOUCH MATH program was indeed an effective approach to addition and subtraction instruction with students with mild disabilities.

Why do I think the TOUCH MATH program was effective with these groups of students? I believe that several factors inherent in the program facilitated the acquisition of addition and subtraction skills. First, the TOUCH MATH program involves teaching the students using three modalities: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Touch point instruction in all three modalities reinforces the

Requests for reprints should be sent to Kristin S. Scott, Department of Special Education, 570 Aderhold Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602.

'TOUCH MATHM is the registered trademark of innovative learning concepts, inc. They can be contacted at 6760 Corporate Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80919-1999; telephone: (800) 888-9191; fax: (719) 593-2446.

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information being processed. Second, as recommended in the TOUCH MATH Instmction Manual (Bullock & Walentas, 1989), I made sure that each student knew where the touch points were located on every number with 100% accuracy before beginning instruction on solving problems. In addition, I made sure they could fluently count forward from any number to 20 or to any number prior to 20 for addition problems. For example, they needed to be able to count from 5 to 17. They also had to be able to fluently count backward from 20 to 0 or to any number prior to 0 for subtraction problems. For example, they needed to be able to count backward from 16 to 8. Finally, the students were required to either recite verbatim or in their own words the relevant instructional statements regarding addition, subtraction, arrow, and regrouping. These five factors facilitated the acquisition of the skills and accurate problem solving.

TEACHER IMPRESSIONS

As a teacher, there are several components that I liked about the TOUCH MATH program. First, it was flexible; there was no set curriculum to follow. I could adapt the program to fit the needs of my students or could use it as a supplement to another math program.

Second, it took very little time to fade the actual touch points on the numbers, which were used to facilitate counting for addition and subtraction. For example, for each target skill in the study, the student completed worksheets on which the touch points were removed from all of the problems, to half of the problems, to no problems in 5 to 6 days, with students performing at mastery level. Because the students were required to learn the locations of the touch points with automatic recall with 100% accuracy, they did not require the touch point prompts to solve the math problems. It is a good idea, however, to include touch points on the problems while a student is initially learning a new skill so that he or she can concentrate on how to solve the problem, not on remembering the touch points.

Third, the TOUCH MATH program facilitated the acquisition of addition and subtraction facts. The program manual suggests that after students solve a problem, they read the problem and the answer (Bullock & Walentas, 1989). When students are required to read the problem and answer, they begin to connect the two as a math fact. The students began to remember some of their facts and no longer required counting touch points to solve the problems. Note that students who were working on simple addition and subtraction problems were able to acquire the facts more readily than those who were solving more complex problems. I believe that this is true because the students who were working on the more complex problems concentrated more on solving the overall problem and completing each step properly than on remembering the math facts. No student in the study or in my class acquired all the facts from the TOUCH MATH instruction alone. In my class, we still spent time working on math facts, but using touch point counting increased student confidence and enabled them to respond quicker and correctly.

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REFLECTIONS 127

As a teacher and researcher, one component that I consider to be essential is the generalizability of the instructional program by the students. In my study, I examined the students' ability to generalize the TOUCH MATH strategies from the training problems to novel addition and subtraction problems. As demon- strated in the results, all three students were able to generalize the skills they learned to novel problems.

Although generalization across math problems was found to be successful, generalization across settings was not evaluated as part of the design. However, the students' resource teacher did comment that one of the three students used the TOUCH MATH strategies during resource math class, but the other two did not generalize the strategies. This is not surprising given the results of research in this area. Research has demonstrated that students with mild disabilities do not automatically generalize newly learned skills and strategies (Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983; Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1988; Telzrow & Speer, 1986). It should not be assumed that because a student with a disability is able to acquire a skill, he or she will generalize that skill to novel tasks or settings. These students must be instructed to use the skill with other tasks and in other settings. In this study, the resource teacher did not cue the students to use TOUCH MATH when they were working on any type of math problems with addition or subtraction. Without a prompt, two of the students were not able to connect the use of the TOUCH MATH strategies with solving math problems involving addition and subtraction in a novel setting.

Results of this TOUCH MATH study and a current study in which I am involved indicate that students with mild disabilities need more than instruction in a skill or strategy to generalize the skill or strategy to a novel setting or situation. I concur with Stokes and Baer (1977) that generalization instruction must be programmed as part of the instructional program. I believe that it is necessary to include some type of generalization instruction that tells the student how, when, and where he or she can use the new skill or strategy. In addition, teachers using generalization strategies need to be involved in the generalization process in that they should give the student feedback and reinforcement (i.e., verbal praise) when he or she uses the skill and cue the student when he or she is not using the skill at appropriate times. Finally, I believe some type of self-monitoring of the student's use of the skill is necessary so that the student will be taking the responsibility of cueing, monitoring, and reinforcing himself or herself regarding the appropriate skill or strategy use. In order for students with mild disabilities to be successful in using the TOUCH MATH program in novel settings and situations, it is necessary to include some type of generalization instruction.

In summary, the results from the TOUCH MATH study are encouraging. The students were able to learn easily how to solve addition and subtraction problems accurately and quickly. In addition, because the students had mastered touch point counting before they received instruction on solving problems, I was able to fade the touch point prompts quickly. Finally, the students were able to generalize skills from the training problems to novel problems. Further program- ming in generalization is necessary to ensure generalization to novel settings and situations.

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128 SCOTT

STUDENT IMPRESSIONS

Although it is necessary for a teacher to be supportive of a program, it is equally important that the students like the program so that they will be willing to learn the new program methods. Both the students I taught and the students involved in the study liked using the TOUCH MATH approach. One student involved in the study did not like math and became easily frustrated when he could not solve a problem. After a couple weeks of instruction with the TOUCH MATH program, he began to feel confident with his math problem-solving abilities and even said that he liked doing "math like this." Because the TOUCH MATH program offers a way for students to solve problems consistently and accurately, they begin to feel more confidence with their math skills. Also, because the TOUCH MATH program was novel to the students, it was fun for them to learn. They enjoyed practicing the touch points and solving math problems by counting the touch points.

In addition to becoming more confident about math, the students were able to complete math problems in a less conspicuous manner than they previously had. Instead of counting on fingers and foreheads, trying to count fingers under a desk, or drawing hash marks all over their papers, the students could lightly tap their pencils on their worksheets to count the touch points and write the answer. My fifth-grade students, who were going to middle school the following year, especially appreciated this new way to do math. If they were hiding their finger counting under their desks in my self-contained class, then they were sure to be embarrassed in a middle school classroom with other children. These students were glad they had a new method for solving math problems that was not nearly as noticeable as counting fingers or drawing hash marks.

I believe that for older students who do not know addition and subtraction facts, the TOUCH MATH program would be beneficial for them. It would help them to be more consistent and quick in solving problems, and it would be a less conspicuous method of solving math problems. In addition, the TOUCH MATH approach would be easy for them to learn.

CONCLUSION

From the TOUCH MATH study and my teaching experiences, I have found that students with mild disabilities are capable of solving addition and subtraction problems quickly and accurately, given the proper instruction. The TOUCH MATH program was successful with my students. However, 1 do not suggest that this program is the only program that is successful or that it would be beneficial for all students with mild disabilities. I do suggest that, whatever math program a teacher uses, the program should facilitate the acquisition of math facts and computation to a high level of accuracy, and that the instruction should include some type of programming for generalization to novel tasks and settings.

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REFERENCES

Brown, A., Bransford, J., Ferrara, R., & Campione, J. (1983). Learning, remembering, and understanding. In J. Flavell& E. Markman (Eds.), Handbook of childpsychology (Vol. 3,4th ed., pp. 77-166). New York: Wiley.

Bullock, J., Pierce, S., & McClelland, L. (1989). TOUCH MATH. Colorado Springs: innovative learning concepts, inc.

Bullock, J., & Walentas, N. (1989). TOUCH MATH instruction manual. Colorado Springs: innovative learning concepts, inc.

Mastropieri, M., & Scruggs, T. (1988). Increasing content area learning of learning disabled students: Research implementation. Learning Disabilities Research, 4, 17-25.

Stokes, T., & Baer, D. (1977). An implicit technology of generalization. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 10, 359-367.

Telzrow, C., & Speer, B. (1986). Learning-disabled children: General suggestions for maximizing instruction. Techniques: A Journal for Remedial Education and Counseling, 2, 341-352.

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