How to Teach Math to Autistic Children in the Fifth Grade

Autistic students require a different math learning environment than students without disabilities.

Most symptoms of autism are evident by age three. An autistic student is developmentally behind other children with regard to social interaction as well as verbal and non-verbal communication. Because of these differences, autistic students lend themselves to learning methods quite different from students with no developmental disabilities. Much of the current thinking involves non-traditional methods of teaching math, with an emphasis on reducing outside stimuli and trying to solve fewer problems through teaching the students that there can be several ways to get the answer.

Instructions

1. Remember that each autistic student is different with regard to learning abilities and levels of comprehension. Some have a greater degree of cognitive difficulty in processing information. Others may have more difficulty processing the fact that not all math runs from left to right on a page.

2. Provide an individual intervention when needed. According to a study at the University of Iowa, students with Asperger's Syndrome may be better able than autistic students to learn from interactions with others. And students with autism may learn tasks differently than those with Asperger's.

3. Use a less-is-more philosophy, with the focus on fewer problems to solve. Rather than having students solve a dozen math problems, have them work through one or two from a lesson using cue cards and dialogue. Choose your vocabulary wisely, using simple phrases like "extra" or "no extra" rather than abstract words like "amount" or "one."

4. Present the curriculum in ways that represent "outside-the-box" thinking. Organize differently from the start; when writing a problem, have the students turn the paper sideways to use the lines as columns. Encourage and accept different ways for the students to solve problems, rather than focusing on just one way as being correct.

5. Try a curriculum such as the "Math U See" or "TouchMath", which focus on visual tools. Autistic students are visual and tend to think in images or pictures, so these programs use items like building blocks to represent whole numbers and even fractions. Others respond positively through music, so songbooks and compact discs are commonly included in alternative curricula.

References

• Iowa Department Of Education: Math Strategies Supporting Students With ASD
• Special Ed: State Of Wisconsin Eligibility Criteria For Children With Disability