Association for Behavior Analysis International

Many children with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) struggle to learn to read. However, information and guidelines regarding teaching reading or other academic skills for children with ID are scarce, and often inadequate. MimioSprout Early Reading (MSER) is an online reading program. Although designed for typically developing children, there is some evidence MSER can be beneficial for children with ADHD and autism. Through a series of case studies conducted as previous pilot work, we have demonstrated that children with ID can also access and benefit from MSER with minimal or no adaptations. In the present research, we conducted a pilot RCT to investigate the feasibility of a RCT design evaluating an online reading program with children with ID attending special needs schools in the UK. Twenty-two children with mild-moderate ID (aged between 5 and 17 years) were randomly allocated to either the MSER group or a waiting list control group. Following pretest reading assessments, the MSER group enrolled in MSER for approximately 6 months. This talk will discuss the feasibility objectives of the study in relation to informing the design of future evaluations, as well as discussing reading outcomes and the potential for MSER to improve reading instruction for children with ID.

Pre-arithmetic skills takes an important role in future learning of more complex mathematics skills such as addition and subtraction. The objective of this work was to plan, implement and evaluate a program for teaching pre-arithmetic repertoires to students of early childhood education. Three preschoolers served as participants, ages from four to five years old. Procedures involved pre-testing of arithmetic skills, training those skills under 90% of correct responses in pre-test, and post-testing. Pre and post-tested skills consisted of (a) naming and discrimination of numerals, (b) discriminations of quantities, (c) numeral-quantity relation, (d) production of number sequences, (e) ordinal relations, (f) production of sets and subsets, (g) counting, and (h) comparing sets. All tasks were conducted in a MTS or CRMTS format, and were computer programmed. Results indicates that participants showed different repertoires in pre-tests, even though attended the same preschool. Worse scores were in tasks (e), (f), (g), and (h). Training was effective to establish growing repertoires, and all participants showed an average increase of 95% to 100% of correct responses during post-tests. The program was effective to assess initial repertoires as well as to teach new pre-arithmetic skills.