Feedback Facilitates the Acquisition and Retention of Numerical Fact Series by Elementary School Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities

Abstract

The effects of feedback to assist elementary school students classified as either normally achieving (NA) or with a mathematics learning disability (MLD) in acquiring the fact series of 0 to 9 for the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were examined in Study 1. The acquisition of each fact series was facilitated by immediate, but not by delayed feedback, the latter of which was no more effective than control procedures. The students with math disabilities were tested with either delayed feedback or a Scantron form in Study 1, then participated in Study 2, in which they were provided with feedback from either an educator or the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF AT). The beneficial effects of immediate feedback reported in Study 1 were replicated and extended during maintenance which continued for as many as 25 sessions. The effects of auditory feedback provided by an educator and visual feedback provided by the IF AT were compared with the effects of combined auditory and visual feedback provided by the Write-Say method in Study 3. The integrated presentation of auditory and visual feedback was no more effective than the use of either modality, separately. The comparable effectiveness of feedback by an educator and by the IF AT, and the nonsynergistic effects of combining auditory with visual feedback, suggests that a response medium such as the IF AT has considerable adjunctive potential to assist in the instruction of elementary school students with special learning needs