The Research On Arithmetic Ability Of Addition Of Children With Moderate Mental Retardation

Many researches in the field of psychology and education are interested in mathematical ability of children.Psychologists hope to reveal the cognitive processing of intellectual development through studying the mathematical ability of children,while educators pay more attention to how to teach the students master mathematical skills.The arithmetic ability of students is regarded as an important part of mathematic ability by many researchers.For children with moderate mental retardation,it is essential to improve their arithmetic ability.Because the arithmetic ability not only shows the level of their intellectual development,but also influences the application of mathematical ability.But in this area there are very few systemic studies on children with moderate mental retardation.This study has two purposes: first is to know the condition of arithmetic ability of addition of children with moderate mental retardation in special education school,second is to explore the addition strategies used by students with moderate mental retardation.This study includes three parts.In the first part,the author reviews the background researches on mathematic ability and arithmetic ability.Based on this review,the author develops the research plan.In the second part,two tests are applied in the study:The first one tests 242 children with moderate mental retardation in special education school.This study divides these children into 3 groups:lower graders(students in grade1-3),middle graders(students in grade 4-6) and senior graders(students in grade 7-9).Then test data of 3 groups are analyzed.The results show that lower graders have great difficulties in addition.They make more mistakes in sums under 20 than in sums under 10 and 5.The other two groups do better.Overall speaking,sums under 20 is a key point in their mathematic learning.The second one tests 50 children with moderate mental retardation in grade4-9. The author records their answer as well as problem-solving process.After analyzing their process,the study finds out 11 addition strategies used in the test.This study summary 3 main findings:First,students use all the 11 addition in sums under 20 but they use single strategy for solving a given addition problem.Second,retrieval strategies are used more often and more accuracy than other three kinds of strategies. Third,the understanding of addition principle and proficiency in the use of strategies are main factor which affect strategy choice.Moreover,students who are good at addition can choose more suitable strategies to solve problem.In the third part,two tests results are discussed together.Compared with normal children,children with moderate mental retardation in special education school develop various kinds of addition strategy.However,some strategies are missing, such as decomposition-to-10,counting up from one to add etc.They learn these strategies mainly from teachers' guidance.Addition questions which answers are less than 20 is a very important part in classroom teaching.At last,the author gives some suggestions on teachers in special education school making instructional design and teaching students use new method to calculate.