Is TouchMath an Effective Intervention for Students with Autism?

<p>The TouchMath program was created in 1976 to help students struggling with basic mathematical computations (Bullock, 2005). Although the research has found TouchMath to be an effective intervention for students in the general and special education populations, only four studies have found the program to be effective for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Berry, 2009; Cihak & Foust, 2008; Fletcher, Boon, & Cihak, 2010; Yıkmış, 2016). The purpose of the study was to determine how the intervention can affect accuracy and fluency for students with ASD. The study focused on single-digit plus single-digit addition problems with three participants diagnosed with ASD in grades 5-6, all of whom attended rural school districts in East Texas. A multiple-probe design was used for progress monitoring, using cold and hot probes, with three phases to the intervention: baseline, intervention, and generalization. An additional modification was made to the TouchMath curriculum involving faded TouchPoints that were used to aid in generalization. An analysis of results showed the TouchMath program to likely be ineffective for students with ASD, however more research is warranted. Limitations to the study are discussed.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts - School Psychology

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human Services

Year dc:date.available

2019

Author dc:creator

• Huckaby, April M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Daniel McCleary
• Dr. Jillian Dawes
• Dr. Frankie Clark

• Math
• Autism
• TouchMath
• Academic Intervention
• Addition
• Educational Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/256

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.sfasu.edu:etds-1289