Helping a Student with Learning Disabilities Develop Automaticity with Multiplication Facts

Abstract

An eighth-grade student, was able to memorize multiplication facts (0 to 10) for the zeroes to fives with 100% accuracy. In a previous study [1] the student used skip counting and her hands to recall all the facts for the ones to fives. The overall goal of the current study was to improve the student’s automaticity of multiplication facts (0-10) for the ones through fives, such as 4 x 6 = 24. The student had been taught multiplication concepts in her elementary years and she did have a basic understanding of the meaning of multiplication facts as shown in the previous study. She understood that 4 x 6 is a representation of four sets of six or 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 = 24. The student had used skip counting and flash cards with illustrations of the multiplication facts to memorize the multiplication facts. In the current study a multiple baseline design was used to measure the acquisition of fluency of multiplication facts over time. The student was able to develop automaticity with 80% accuracy by giving the solution within 3 seconds for all of the facts (0-10) for the ones through fives.