There are two broad categories of disability status: high-incidence and low-incidence.
Assessment of learning disabilities in mathematics occurs within the context of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS); a comprehensive prevention framework providing academic, behavioral, and social-emotional supports for all students. The delivery of robust, increasingly intense, evidence-based interventions within an MTSS for students not acquiring basic academic skills, while closely monitoring student instructional response is an essential component in identification of Specific Learning Disability (SLD). Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Chapter 14 criteria, students may qualify for special education services under 2 categories of Specific Learning Disability (SLD) in math: math calculation and/or math reasoning. Students with Dyscalculia, a disorder characterized by difficulty understanding number-based information and math, may qualify for special education services within IDEA within the Specific Learning Disability category.
Students that have been identified with a low-incidence disability (e.g., deaf-blind, autism spectrum disorder, etc.) may also struggle to learn mathematics.
Regardless of the label, students that struggle to learn mathematics need the provisions of evidence-based instructional practices matched to their stage of learning within the instructional hierarchy along with accommodations that support their unique needs. In other words, good math instruction is good math instruction. Good math instruction doesn’t change because a student has a label. However, the exactness of instructional matching through data-based decision making will intensify as students show greater need. Additionally, accommodations may need to be provided to ensure students have access to curricula.
Educating students in the least restrictive environment is a cornerstone of K-12 programming. Instructionally, this means that core math content teachers need training and technical assistance with data-based decision making as it relates to their students and their math content. Teachers need support in identifying what skills students have and do not have, pinpointing their stage of learning within the instructional hierarchy, matching evidence-based strategies, and monitoring students’ growth and achievement over time to see if alterations to instructional intensity should be made.
To illustrate these ideas, consider a teacher that is teaching an introductory unit on adding and subtraction fractions. The students in the class represent a broad spectrum of needs, regardless of disability status. The teacher assesses their twenty-two students on the prerequisite skills needed at the beginning of the unit and identifies three (3) students that are not fluent with addition facts, four (4) students that are not fluent with subtraction facts, and fifteen (15) students are not fluent with multiplication facts. Based on this data, the teacher decides to provide daily classwide intervention on multiplication fact fluency, while addressing addition and subtraction facts during small group opportunities with explicit instruction to support acquisition. Because these gaps are present, the teachers plans to provide calculators and multiplication charts as a scaffold for those students struggling with facts. As their performance increases in classwide intervention or small groups, these scaffolds will be removed. Finally, the teacher determines that a Concrete-Representation-Abstract (CRA) sequence of instruction will be the best instructional approach to help students acquire the ability to add and subtract fractions because it will reduce the initial abstract computation barrier, as well as provide physical representations of math concepts and procedures to the one student that has a visual impairment.
In this illustration, the teacher’s use of manipulatives not only served the student with a visual impairment but also benefited others in the class. They also identified specific needs of individual learners and plan to repair those skills gaps. The plans were not based on any one label, but based on matching evidence-based practices to students’ needs through the instructional hierarchy and could be used more broadly to support the overall outcomes in core instruction.
PaTTAN’s Mathematics Initiative helps schools and teachers collect and use data to drive instructional planning and increase the use of inclusive practices in order to increase student opportunity in core instruction and give students access to a less restrictive environment.