Training of basic arithmetics skills for pupil with dyspraxia

Good artihmetic skills are very important, since we deal with different mathematical problems in our everyday life. These skills also affect our academic achievements. We often only focus on the child's good grades, and do not pay attention to the cause of his learning disabilities. To improve his artithmetic skills the pupil must first develop conceptual and procedural knowledge, metacognition, language skills. Children with dyspraxia have to cope with many problems in their everday life. They usually excell in verbal language and phonology, but have a deficiency in the field of fine and gross motor skills, graphomotor skills, … We can see a developmental delay in the motor developement, troubles with visual perception, a pragmatic language impairment and understanding the nonverbal communication . They rarely play with their peers, and prefer to spend time with adults. The aforementioned competences are very important for a child's developement, and need to be sistematically improved, while supporting the child, since his failure can affect him badly. A child can often have a combination of two learning disabilities, so we must know the fields in which he excels or deficits. It is important, to carefully specify the child's disabilities and plan the training accordingly. Only a well planned training, which also includes the child's strong point, will be successful. In my thesis, I prepared a training for a 5th grader with arithmetic learning disabilities and dyspraxia. I focused on searching for strategies, that would help the pupil overcome his problems with arithmetics and other deficits, that are consequences of dyspraxia. The goal of the training was to improve the pupil's artihmetic skills and search for suitable strategies that help him solve arithmetic problems. Before the begining of the training I evaluated the pupil's academic abilities using different tests (Sugerman's Test, The 10-minute Test, Mathematical Screening Test, ACADIA), and based on the findings, I formulated the training. I met with the pupil once a week for two school periods, from January 2013 to April 2013. All the exercises were sistematically planned, because the pupil had not acquired any basic arithmetic skills prior to that, so we had to start by counting numbers. In April 2013, when we finished the training, I evaluated the pupil againg, using the same tests as I did before the training, and compared the results. If I compare the initial and final results, I can see the pupil's improvement in all his academic areas. After the completed training the pupil now counts in sequences, calculates numbers to 10, using arithmetic facts, and has broadened the range of mathematical strategies (separating numbers to tens and units), which he uses in solving arithmetic problems in large scale numerical (to 100). With the training he sets some basic arithmetics skills (counting, calculating)