Abstract

he current study examined the problem solving strategies used by children with intellectual disabilities (ID group) before and after a modified Schema Based Instruction (MSBI) intervention, and compared the strategies to those of children who were (a) struggling with mathematics (SM group) and (b) of average mathematics ability (AM group). The potential impact of MSBI on children’s ability to use appropriate strategies, to use more than one strategy to solve a given problem, and to identify the problem structure was also assessed. All three groups received three hours of MSBI on how to solve a specific type of addition and subtraction word problems. Results demonstrated marked differences in strategy types across groups, with children in the ID group favoring strategies unrelated to the mathematical action or context, and children in the AM and SM groups using standard algorithms during the pretest. Following the MSBI intervention, children in the ID group began to use Direct Modeling strategies. In both the SM and AM groups, most students continued to use the standard algorithm. In the SM group, however, there was more variability with some students using some Direct Modeling strategies. All children showed improvement on appropriateness of strategies and identification of word problem structure following instruction, with the biggest gains observed for children in the ID and SM groups, respectively. The results of this study show promise for the use of MSBI in inclusive classrooms to help students with different abilities learn to successfully solve word problems.