Use of a Pocket Calculator to Train Arithmetic Skills with Trainable Adolescents

It is not uncommon to find statements in the every child in a class, the correct analysis professional literature of mental retardation identifies the following operations as appro which bemoan the increasingly complex priate (1) addition of each child to produce structure and demands of a technological a sum number of children and (2) multiplica society as it impacts adversely on the limited tion of the sum by 3 to identify the requisite cognitive skills of the developmentally disnumber of apples. abled. A more positive and constructive Following correct analysis, correct corn orientation is one which seeks to seize the putation produces an accurate answer; advantage of technology and apply it to the errors of either computation or analysis training of handicapped people. result in incorrect answers. The proposition Described below is a program designed to put forth here is that by reducing the advance the arithmetic computational funccomplexity of computation by provision of a tioning of a group of trainable adolescents calculator and training its use, a marked through the use of an inexpensive electronic increase in frequency and rate of correct calculator. For some of the population of solutions to problems will result, mentally handicapped people these instru ments may be regarded as prosthetic devices. Pilot Study The focus of the effort reported here was the development of a program to train the use of this prothesis. This paper provides Subjects