Teaching students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to calculate cost after discounts via schematic...

Life skills instruction is important for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and an emerging research base exists in which schema instruction is used to support students with IDD. In this single-case multiple probe across participants study, researchers explored the use of a schematic diagram in conjunction with the system of least prompts (SLP) to support the acquisition, fluency, maintenance, and generalization of life skills mathematics for secondary students with IDD.

Researchers collected data relative to student accuracy and independence in solving problems involving finding the cost of an item after a discount (i.e., sale or coupon). Researchers collected data across baseline, intervention, maintenance, and generalization phases.

Researchers found a functional relation between the intervention package and accuracy for all three students. Students were successful with the schematic diagram, however, the data for generalization to when no schema was provided were more idiosyncratic.

This research holds implications for the use of a schematic diagram to support students with IDD learning life-skills mathematical problem solving.