Disabilities, Teaching Strategies, and Resources

In this site presents accommodation and inclusive strategies for Mathematics students with disabilities. Topics include teaching strategies, learning environments, and assistive/adaptive technologies. All of the strategies have been found to assist students with disabilities in their academic pursuits. The strategies herein have been collected over the last 40 years primarily from science teachers, special educators, and by teachers in schools for the deaf and blind. This collection of strategies are not based on rigorous statistical experiments but rather on the craft of teachers knowledge about "what works" with students who are different even when the same disabilities. What works well for one student may or may not work for another, even though they have the same disability.

Please recognize that all strategies have "worked" for students with disabilities. Utilizing these strategies as a common sense solution to more effectively teach many of those with disabilities.

Eight general types of disabilities are presented across four Mathematics teaching methods, viz., teacher presentation, recitation, reading, and discussion (24 subsets). Over 600 teaching strategies are presented.

Newton is the most influential mathematician/scientist in history (and the first to be knighted). Today, he would undoubtedly be considered to have a behavioral disorder. The logic and his computational tome published some 300 years ago, today guides the paths of satellites and spacecraft, and his mathematical methods are utilized in the computers that facilitate the operation of "the world." He created the mathematical framework for physics as well as the "blueprint" for the physical sciences. His "Principals of Mathematics" was published in 1686.
 

Over the three centuries, since Newton one of the outstanding mathematicians with a disability, Dr. Stephen Hawking (who has anymls lateral sclerosis), now holds Sir Isaac's chair of Mathematics at Cambridge. Among a series of outstanding contributions in mathematics on astro-science is his theoretical synthesis of the birth of the Universe. He elaborated, among other things, the black holes hypothesis in a popular book "Brief History of Time."

 

The 1988 "Report to the Nation on the future of Mathematics Education" states that, "Mathematics is a field well suited to offer opportunities to disabled individuals." Further, "as a mental discipline, [mathematics] requires only mental activity for effective performance." This is true for many students with disabilities, but, currently, some 19% of the 50,000 students in the West Virginia public school systems are intellectually impaired. Also, individuals with certain other types of disabilities (e.g. autism), or multiple forms of neurological impairment, generally have difficulty in obtaining Mathematical knowledge, or in doing so, in "a timely" fashion. The report further stated that the "growing use of computers as an aid for disabled people, is yet another effective link to enable disabled persons to succeed in mathematics and Mathematics based careers." About individuals with disabilities, the report finishes with, "the nation cannot afford continued under-representation of disabled persons in the mathematical careers." Of note, is that there are some individuals who cannot use, or easily use a computer.

These comments set the stage in 1988 for action, and now, 13 years later, we still find students, who have disabilities, that have a final course grade with statistically significant differential slightly under one letter grade lower as compared with their same class non-disabled student peers.

It is the purpose of this web site to assist the Mathematics teachers in the public school and college systems in mitigating such discrepant outcomes by the use of some of the appropriate strategies and assistive devices presented herein. Information is presented about facilitating the students with disabilities to be assist in making the "Mathematics learning field level" between those students who are disabled and those who are not.

Attention Deficit
Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

Learning Disabilities
 Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

Behavioral Disorders
Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

Intellectual Disorders
Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

Communication Disorders
Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

Motor/Orthopedic
Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

Hearing Impairments
Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

Visual Impairments
Strategies
Organizations
Resources
Books and Videos

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Last updated:
May 2, 2006
Ed Keller