Teaching Money Computation Skills to High School Students with Mild Intellectual Disabilities via the TouchMath© Program: A Multi-Sensory Approach

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of the TouchMath© program (Bullock, Pierce, & McClellan, 1989) to teach students with mild intellectual disabilities to subtract 3-digit money computational problems with regrouping. Three students with mild intellectual disabilities in high school received instruction in a special education mathematics self-contained classroom. A multiple-probe across participants design (Alberto & Troutman, 2009) was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the TouchMath© program using the “touch-points” strategy to facilitate the student's mathematics performance. The results revealed the TouchMath© program improved all three of the students’ ability to subtract 3-digit mathematics operations using money applications; however, maintenance results were mixed, as the students exhibited difficulty with maintaining the necessary skills once the intervention was withdrawn. Limitations, recommendations for classroom teachers and future research directions are presented.