Association for Behavior Analysis International

Universities hemorrhage students in remedial algebra classes, decreasing retention, enrollment, and tuition income for the school and shutting the door to higher education and upward social mobility for developmental students. Applied behavior analysts at Jacksonville State University, AL designed Fast-Forward Algebra to quickly bring conditionally admitted students up to speed in college algebra by compressing two semesters of algebra into one. In a unique effort to individualize instruction and incorporate evidence-based teaching, two Board Certified Behavior Analysts in the Department of Learning Services recruit and train psychology graduate students as graduate teaching assistants. By incorporating Precision Teaching and explicit instruction, and by emphasizing fractions throughout with specially designed flashcards and worksheets, this approach has resulted in increases in multiple student outcomes, including historically high passing rates in Intermediate Algebra, and thereby reduced developmental student attrition. The psychology graduate students are critical to the effort: While insuring treatment integrity and conducting applied research during their two-year commitment, they earn 1500 supervision hours and prepare for the Behavior Analysis Certification Board exam. They have also helped create unique supplemental materials to accompany the curriculum.

High quality mathematics instruction for students with moderate and severe disabilities continues to be important because it is suggestive of success later in life by increasing independence and employment. This presentation will review the findings from a meta-analysis of experimental studies published between 2005 and 2015 that taught mathematics to students with moderate and severe disabilities, updating the Browder, Spooner, Ahlgrim-Delzell, Harris, and Wakeman (2008) analysis. A total of 34 studies (29 single-case and 5 group experimental) were included. Of those 34 studies, most of which taught the NCTM standard of numbers and operations, 20 single-case and four group design studies received a rating of high or adequate quality using the NTACT (2015) indicator criteria, and a Tau-U statistic was used to evaluate effective size for the single-case studies (range .05 to 1.1, mean of .85). This presentation will review the extent to which included studies used established evidence-based practices and introduce the instructional procedures of technology-aided instruction, manipulatives, and explicit instruction as evidence-based practices in teaching mathematics to this population. Implications for practitioners and areas for future research will be discussed