Review of Academic Mathematics Instruction for Students with Mild Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Mathematics education-like all education-faced changes in recent years including increasing expectations, and these expectations have impacted all students, including students with mild intellectual disability. To explore the impact of the changes on mathematics education on students with mild intellectual disability, the authors reviewed the literature from 1999 -2010 on academic mathematics interventions for students with mild intellectual disability. Of the seven articles found, the majority focused on interventions designed to improve knowledge of mathematical facts and computational procedures. One study included an intervention involving metacognition and diagramming of mathematical relationships to help students solve word problems. Results suggest a dissonance between the mathematics focus of mathematics professional organizations and federal and state policies regarding higher order mathematics and perhaps current practice for students with mild intellectual disability, as reflected in the research literature.