THE EFFECT OF STUDENT VERBALIZATIONS ON THE MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM SOLVING OF FOURTH GRADE STUDENTS WITH MATHEMATICAL LEARNING DISABILITIES (MLD)

Students identified as having a mathematical learning disability (MLD) often struggle academically and are at risk of dropping out of school. Word problem solving can be particularly challenging for these students due to specific cognitive deficits that impact their conceptual understanding and procedural fluency as well as their overall mathematics achievement. This dissertation study employed a single case experimental study design with a multiple baseline approach to determine the effectiveness of verbalizations on the mathematical problem solving of four fourth grade students with MLD at a Public Charter School in an east coast metropolitan area. The students were randomly assigned to one of two special education teachers and participated in a mathematics intervention for up to twelve sessions of forty-five minutes each, not including the baseline data collection sessions. The visual and statistical analysis of data suggested a functional relation between student verbalizations and increase in mathematical proficiency (conceptual understanding and procedural fluency) of all the study participants. Using the standardized mean difference Cohen’s d method, the effect sizes range from 0.77 to 1.73. Additionally, the researcher found a moderate positive effect on procedural fluency and a large positive effect on conceptual understanding for all the intervention recipients