The Representational Characteristics And The Teaching Intervention Of Primary School Students With Mathematical Learning Disability On Solving Multiplication And Division Word Problems

The study takes two facts into consideration. First is that there are a few researches on therepresentational characteristics of mathematical learning disability in primary school onmultiplication and division word problems; second refers to the fact that conceptual model-basedproblem-solving instruction has been proved could improve the ones’ ability to solve arithmeticword problems with mathematical learning disability in foreign, but whether it can improvestudents’ problem-solving ability has not been confirmed in the domestic. The present studyconcludes two studies.The first study explores the representational characteristics of the overachiever，mathematicslearning disabilities without reading disabilities(MD only)and mathematics learning disabilitieswith reading disabilities(RD/MD) in primary school. What the results indicate are as follows:(1)On the time of information perception, no significant difference could be found among the threekinds of students on grade two; the overachievers take significantly less time than MD onlychildren and RD/MD children on grade three, but there is no difference between both mathematicslearning disabilities children; the overachievers and MD only children take significantly less timethan RD/MD children, but there is no difference between the overachievers and MD only. On thetime of situational representation, the overachievers take less time than MD only children andRD/MD children on grade two, but there is no difference between both mathematics learningdisabilities children; the overachievers and MD only children take significantly less time thanRD/MD children on grade three and four, but there is no difference between the overachievers andMD only children.(2)Grade two chose more imaginative representation、direct translationrepresentation, less relational representation; grade three adopted more direct translationrepresentation and relational representation, less sub-representation; grade four used more sub-representation and relation representation, less imaginative representation、direct translationrepresentation; On the categories of representation, grade two and three are significantly more thangrade four, but there is no difference between grades two and three. The overachievers use morerelation representation, less sub-representation, rehearsal representation and direct translationrepresentation, less relation representation. MD only children chose more rehearsal representation and direct translation representation and relation representation, less sub-representation; RD/MDchildren chose more sub-representation and direct translation representation, less relationrepresentation; the overachievers use less categories of representation than the disability ones, butthere is no difference between MD only and RD/MD children.(3) The over achievers on grade twochose more imaginative representation and direct translation representation, less relationrepresentation; the overachievers on grade three chose more imaginative representation andrelation representation, less direct translation representation; the over achievers on grade four choseless imaginative representation and direct translation representation; on the categories ofrepresentation, grade three use more than grade four. MD only children use more direct translationrepresentation on grade two and three than that on grade four, but no difference could be found onthe categories of representation among different grades; there is no difference on frequency ofevery representation style and the categories of representation among RD/MD children on differentgrades.(4) On the efficiency of representation, the result of equation listing of the overachiever，MD only and RD/MD children on each grade reduced successively. In detail, imaginativerepresentation and direct translation representation are effective for the grade two students to solvearithmetic word problems; direct translation representation and relation representations areeffective for the grade three students to solve arithmetic word problems; relation representationsare effective for the grade four students to solve arithmetic word problems.The second study introduced the design of pair sample and adopted drawing as teachingintervention to explore the adaptability of COMPS to the grade two and four students withmathematical learning disability. The results indicate that: both the two teaching methods improvedthe achievement on solving arithmetic word problems of the ones with mathematical learningdisability; moreover, COMPS is more suitable for the grade four and drawing intervention is moresuitable for the grade two.