The Educational Therapist and Mathematics
How indeed? This quotation, from a tenth grader named Ryan, asks the questions many students with NVLD ask: “Why is mathematics so hard? How am I going to pass my math classes?” Students with NVLD often find, as Ryan did, that mathematics is a very diffic
- PDF / 297,567 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 439.37 x 666.14 pts Page_size
- 37 Downloads / 165 Views
The Educational Therapist and Mathematics Dianne Matthaei
Introduction I got a D- in algebra and it was a gift. A total gift. I have never been good at mathematics and I don’t know why. I really do work at it, but things like fractions have never made sense. With a D- in algebra, how am I going to pass geometry? (Matthaei, 1)
How indeed? This quotation, from a tenth grader named Ryan, asks the questions many students with NVLD ask: “Why is mathematics so hard? How am I going to pass my math classes?” Students with NVLD often find, as Ryan did, that mathematics is a very difficult subject for them. The core deficits of NVLD include visual–spatial and executive function difficulties; these difficulties significantly impact a student’s progress in mathematics (Davis & Broitman, 2011; Forrest, 2004). The student with NVLD often presents with certain characteristics which affect his learning in mathematics.
D. Matthaei, M.Ed. (*) Annie Wright Schools, Tacoma, WA, USA e-mail: [email protected]
J. Broitman and J.M. Davis (eds.), Treating NVLD in Children: Professional Collaborations for Positive Outcomes, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-6179-1_9, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
173
174
D. Matthaei
Characteristics of an individual with NVLD Characteristic
Description and examples
Difficulty with whole/part relationships
Often these students do not see the gestalt or overall picture. They seem to view all parts separately, not as a whole. They cannot accurately differentiate the parts from the whole. They see the trees but not the forest (Foss, 2006). They have an especially hard time learning math concepts, especially ones that rely on whole/part relationships such as fractions, decimals, and percentages. Individuals with visual–spatial difficulties often write calculation problems that drift over the page instead of staying proper vertical alignment. Individuals with NVLD experience difficulty lining up the ruler to accurately measure the length of a line. Concepts for units of measurement, such as an inch or a mile, frequently hold only a vague meaning for them. They struggle to accurately estimate length, distance, or weight (Neff, Neff-Lippman, & Stockdale, 2002). Individuals with visual–spatial difficulties often cannot read an analog clock. They rely solely on digital clocks (Neff et al., 2002). They cannot estimate how long a given task might take. They report that they often are totally unaware of how much time has passed. Terms like north, south, east, and west have little meaning to these individuals. They can go from their home to point A and from their home to point B. They cannot go from point A to point B without returning home. They get lost often, even in their neighborhood or local grocery store. They report an inability to navigate even in familiar surroundings (Neff et al., 2002). Consequently, word or story problems involving direction, coordinate geometry, and trigonometry are very hard. They often report frustration with their drawing. They will state that they know their draw
Data Loading...
