Ivy Corron Fall 2013 Curriculum-Based/Academic Intervention Standard: M.ES.1.1 Count and identify numbers from 1-10.

. Objectives: The student will correctly identify all numbers from 1-10 when verbally prompted: Can you find 2? The student will correctly identify all numbers of objects from 1-10 when verbally and visually prompted: How many circles (squares, cars, etc.) are on the card? Student: J., age 8

Summary of Student Performance: This student, J., is in a self-contained classroom for students with multiple disabilities. He has low motor ability, limited to arm, trunk, head, and neck movement. He is unable to sit or stand independently and uses a wheelchair or is placed in a Tumbleform chair or on the floor. He has cognitive deficits as well. He uses a communication device activated by a sensor on his forehead. He uses this talker with great success in the classroom, answering teacher questions and often coming up with creative ways to express his wants, needs and interests. His use of the communication device is limited to single words, though he is working with teachers and aides to learn to use a program that will allow him to create sentences. He can understand a majority of adult speech and interacts with adults and other students. He sometimes refuses to do academic work or responds using random words when bored or frustrated. He is highly aware of his surroundings. He is currently working on identifying numbers and letter sounds. He can name the next number in a counting sequence, which he does daily during circle time. I had observed my teacher working with him on naming numbers and groups of objects and realized that he was in the beginning stages of acquiring this skill, only naming numbers of objects with support. He is also able to work with other conceptual ideas like size or sameness.

Pretest The student correctly identified 10 of 10 numbers on his communication device when verbally prompted, ex. Can you find 2? The student correctly identified 2 of 10 numbers of objects on his communication device when verbally and visually prompted, ex. How many circles are on the card? Correct identifications: 1, 3 Correct identifications with support: 4, 9, 10 Ex. Listen to me count them. One, two, three. How many circles are on the card? Incorrect identifications: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 Materials used were student-made cards with numbers of shapes on them (1 circle, 2 squares, etc.) A picture is below:

Implementation of Intervention Day 2 Plan: 1 When theres just one thing by itself, like this ball, we say there is one ball. Can you find one on your talker? Student responds, one. Thats right! How many balls am I holding? Student replies, one. Good job! There can be one of just about anything. There is only one of you. I am wearing one pair of glasses. Continue to give examples. Hold up one pen. How many pens am I holding? Student replies, one. Exactly. Show one card. How many stars are on this card? Student replies, one. Right! I think youve got that down. Lets move on to two. 2 If you take one thing and you add another, like these two pencils, we say there are two pencils: one, two. Hold up pencils as you count. Can you find two on your talker? Student responds, two. Good! Give examples, another with held objects and a few more from items in the room. Ask student to tell how many of an object, then how many shapes are on the two card. Have student count to two objects using the talker. Great job! After two, we can move to three. 3 If we take our two objects and add another one, that makes three: one, two, three. Hold up objects as you count. Can you find three on your talker? Student responds, three. Thats right! Give examples, another with held objects and a few more from items in the room. As student to tell how many of an object, then how many shapes are on the three card. Have student count to three objects using the talker. Excellent. Now, lets practice what weve learned today. **If student is doing well and time allows, the procedure for 2 and 3 may be repeated for additional numbers through 10. Practice: Show 5 sets of objects or cards ranging from one to three. Have student tell how many of each object there is using the talker. Number of correct responses: 2/5 Results, Reflection: I was able to present 1, 2, and 3 in the manner above. The student was distracted by activity in the classroom and appeared frustrated with material. I came to the conclusion that, though this student can identify numbers and some numbers of objects, he is unable to generalize the skill of naming numbers of objects to other contexts or new materials. I decided to use Ms. Ansons materials used for counting activities, rather than my cards or unrelated materials, for future lessons. Day 3 I presented numbers 1-5 in a similar manner to Day 2 using unifix cubes. After several presentations, the student was still unable to consistently identify how many cubes were being shown. I decided these materials, though somewhat familiar to the student, were not familiar enough. Then, I used flash cards the student frequently uses to present numbers 1-10. The cards showed a numeral and a number of objects. First, I presented the card with the numeral showing and asked the student to say how many objects there were. Then I covered the numeral and asked again immediately after the first presentation. o With the numeral showing, he was able to identify 8 of 10 numbers of objects. o With the numeral covered, he identified 7 of 10 numbers of objects.

I determined that familiar materials greatly increased this students level of performance.

Day 4 I used the same flash cards from day 3 and repeated the procedure I used to review. (Show card with numeral and objects, ask how many there are. Cover number and ask again.) The student was able to identify all numbers of objects. Then, I put the cards in random order and showed them with the numerals covered as the posttest. The student identified 2 of 10 numbers of objects correctly, which was the same as his performance on the pretest.

Overall Reflection: This students performance did not improve from my pre-test to my post-test. He has belowaverage cognitive functioning, which leads to a lessened ability to transfer knowledge to new contexts. Instruction must be repetitive and very explicit, something I learned throughout this placement. If I were to continue this intervention, I would continue to use the same materials until mastery (10/10) was achieved. I would then lead the student to generalize knowledge to other materials and eventually to real-world applications. I am not discouraged that this student did not show progress in such a short time frame. I understand that students with cognitive deficits can learn new skills, but it takes them longer than the average student. I wish I had started implementation earlier in this placement, and I believe this would have been necessary for my instruction to have any measurable effect. I was able to adjust instruction to meet this students needs, and I now better understand how to modify instruction for him and for similar students.