Teaching Mathematics to Children with Downs Syndrome

Alicia BRUNO; Carina GONZLEZ; Lorenzo MORENO; Mara NODA; Rosa AGUILAR; Vanessa MUOZ Universidad de La Laguna. Tenerife. Spain E-mail: cjgonza@ull.es
Abstract: This paper presents some aspects in our research in the design of an ITS for teaching elementary mathematics concepts, such as the addition operation, as a learning tool for children with Downs Syndrome. This research is being carried out by a multidisciplinary group formed by researchers and professors the University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. Member of the Department of Fundamental and Experimental Physics, Electronics and Systems and the Didactic Area within the Department of Mathematics Analysis have participated in the research.

Introduction Technology offers unlimited possibilities to those people with special needs in education, work and social environments. The Spanish Education System currently proposes ideas based on diversity and the concept of Special Education Needs (SEN), with the need for solutions which meet these needs. Teachers require resources in the classroom that can be applied towards the resolution of special situations, especially for these learners. Artificial Intelligence can be used to create intelligent tools that satisfy these needs. This work is a didactic response to aid in the teaching of the mathematics curriculum to children with Downs Syndrome. We began with a prototype which focused on the teaching and learning of the addition operation and other elementary mathematics concepts. We have been collaborating with the Asociacin Tinerfea de Trismicos 21 of Tenerife. This paper presents the development of this multidisciplinary research effort with our proposal. We recommend the requird software characteristics for children with special needs and a prototype we developed which follow these recommendations. 1. Can AI help in the education of children with special needs? At one time or another every student will seek out personal, technical or material assistance to meet their education goals. Sometimes it is only temporary while others have a permanent need. This second group is made up of people with Special Education Needs because they possess a structural deficit and need a modified curriculum or a newly designed one, together with an individualized plan to achieve their education objectives. Learners with SEN have the same educational goals as those of other learners, but the main differences between them are the slower learning pace and their need for more personalized teaching.

For this reason, it is necessary to adopt a pedagogical practise and resources that allow their SEN to be addressed and which aids in developing their capacities in order to achieve their individual goals. In other words, individualized processes must be introduced where objectives are determined for each learner and the best approach to get there. Then the required activity sequence for each learner must be determined. This is the adaptation process. This process may imply retrieving information and in other cases means dividing the objectives into smaller ones. The main feature of an ITS is its capability of adaptation to the individual characteristics of the learner. This is why we believe that it would be a useful resource in the teaching and learning of children with SEN, and it is the same reason for our proposal. 2. Mathematics and Special Education The teaching-learning of numbers and basic arithmetic operations are fundamental references in the early years of elementary school education in Spain, where the teaching of addition is emphasized in the two first cycles as a specific subject. Mathematics education in students with learning disabilities is a form of knowledge that allows the learner to develop a relationship with the environment, logical thought process, personal maturity and social integration. If it is true that they have the same goals that others, it is also true that they have some difficulties that will be impossible to overcome. Consequently it is necessary to establish priorities between the goals. In our case, the level of significance of mathematics knowledge that is inherent in solving real life problems (such as the individual shopping in a supermarket) could be emphasized and others with a higher level of abstraction could be eliminated. Therefore the adaptations are seen in the elimination of certain goal sequences in the curriculum and substituted by new methodologies. On other hand, mathematics activities present in the problem resolution situations of real life need to be related with some curricular objective, and the aspects concerning language, communication and comprehension of the represented situation. The key in mathematics operations is the reproduction of real life and the clear and precise language used in the communication. There are diverse studies that show how language can influence positively or negatively in learning of Mathematics. Cummins, Kintsch, Reusser, & Weimer [1] suggest "that much of the difficulty children experience with word problems can be attributed to difficulty in comprehending abstract or ambiguous language". Koedinger & Anderson [2] found evidence that acquiring comprehension skills is not sufficient for symbolization competence. Neil Heffernan [3] found a theoretical support about what makes symbolization so difficult for students in the algebra expresions: 1) Comprehension; 2) Understanding of a variable; and 3) Production: including knowing the grammar for algebra xpressions. We must remark that in this kind of education levels and with these kind of children, the suitability of the language is one of the main problems that is confronted in the comprehension of the activities proposed. 3. What software tools exist for special education? Nowadays, there are many programs for teaching at different education levels, but they do not satisfy or adapt to the needs of learners with cognitive deficits. In Spain, economic reasons, deficiencies in the formation of teachers, or less institutional support are the principal reasons why it is difficult to find cases of the incorporation of education software in schools. This has started to change in the last couple of years. Initiatives

have taken place which are being promoted by schools or university researchers and supported by parent associations, private businesses or public institutions. There are many software applications that could also be used within the field of special education, but they do not completely satisfy the needs of this population. There are several technological applications available for learning disabilities, specially in reading and cognitive disorders. We can find many resources online. The interactive guide to Learning Disabilities (http://www.ldonline.org/ ) is one among others. 4. What are the required software characteristics for teaching mathematics in children with learning difficulties? Many advantages have been described regarding the use of computers with these kind of individuals as resources in the teaching-learning process [4]. As stated previously, these users place several special requirements on the system and its individualization is the key in the design. The following suggestions are offered for the design of education programs for children with learning difficulties: Operations, instructions, and verbal content must be structured in levels and in a simple format in order to be accessible for elementary users. Feedback sequences must be present which can explain the causes of error to the learner and guide them towards getting the correct answer. Reinforcement techniques need to be incorporated. Regarding the interface features, some studies focus on the need to use direct manipulation of objects which are graphically represented because these kind of children require a simpler and more immediate interface. Education of children with learning difficulties could be improved by the correct use of instructional programs that avoid large textual instructions, confuse graphs and complex formats in the presentations [5]. Different studies have proved that an animated pedagogical agent positively influences the way these children learn. Motivational aspects and the promotion of meaningful learning in particular have been studied [6]. The effects produced by the interaction of learners with a personal agent show that they are more motivated, with greater interest and a greater transfer of knowledge is produced when the lesson is carried out by an agent than an insolated text on the screen. Effectiveness of teaching based on instructional conversations was also noted. These positive consequences found in the agents as a medium for social interaction with the learner and the learning process makes it highly recommendable in the integration of education software and especially for children with cognitive handicaps. In the case of children with Downs Syndrome, they are different in cognitive development, and it will affect their evolution. For example, they stay in the concrete thinking state more time that normal child, so the activities must be practical and we should care logic-verbal language. Furthermore, they have less capacity in the short and long term memory, so they have to learn habits by repetition, but consciously, not mechanically. There are two fundamental aspects that need to be considered in mathematics teaching: 1. The use of pedagogical methodologies is fundamental when the student begins to manipulate objects, especially in early ages. Graphic and symbolic representations can be worked starting with particular situations that allow mathematics relations to be found. For this reason, the use of computer programs must not be insolated from the rest of the teaching process that is followed for a particular concept. It must be the only other didactic resource related with others materials used in the classroom and related at objective levels. 2. Mathematics software for children with Downs Syndrome must consider their cognitive characteristics and use this profile in the teaching, as well as:

include activities related with experiences from their environment, that is, be attractive and familiar; take into account their lexical deficits, since these learners usually have difficulties in understanding the meaning of things and to incorporate it into their expressions; avoid repetition of presentation. Offering a large number of distinct activities through a variety of presentations will result in the learner not taking refuge in repetitive behaviours and automatisms where their self-confidence grows.

5. Overview of an ITS for teaching elementary mathematics to children with Downs Syndrome One of the new proposals in mathematics education emphasizes the learning of numbers associated with particular situations and problem solving. The basic ideas in the development of this goal are the existence of other concepts, such as logic, classifications, series, matching one to one correspondences, etc., prior to numbers learning. We consider the number concept and the addition operation in as well as the ITS instructional goals,. We recognize that the acquisition of number concept by the learner can establish the cardinal of a collection, know numerical series, the order of numbers, and ordinal numbers. Working with small quantities that allow the demonstrations and practical exercises with objects that can manipulate, group, change places, etc is highly recommended. When working with the addition operation we start with problems that the learner can solve without the need to write the algorithm, with a process of graphic counting or manipulation. Afterwards the resolution of these situations by algorithm (vertically and horizontally) is associated. The first addition exercises are only with single numbers. When they master this the concept of ten, addition without carry and finally with carry are introduced. The left to right direction process must be understood by the learner to successfully complete these exercises. Understanding the enunciation of a problem is the key to solving it, therefore the language used is a fundamental element. A problem is more difficult to understand if the language used to express the problem is not typical from the everyday one that the learner is accustomed to. Consequently problems must be close to the experiences of the learners. We also try to avoid the mechanic resolution of the problem without understanding the meaning of the enunciation. Texts must be short and different to accomplish this, and we propose working with problems of change, combination and comparison [7]. In order to achieve the main objective of addition we have established 4 phases (shown in figure 1). These phases must cover successive tasks with corresponding progress or return to an earlier phase depending upon the results of the learners execution. Regression is the main characteristic of learners with Downs Syndrome. [8] Some goals for ITS are achieved simultaneously while working through the exercises and others are pre-requisites for successive goals.

C la s ific a tio n

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P H A S E 2 N U M B E R A N D O P E R A T IO N S W IT H S IN G L E D IG IT N U M B E R S C o u n t & re p re s e n ta tio n n u m b e r C a rd in a lity O rd e r O rd in a l P ro b le m s

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P H A S E 3 - N U M B E R A N D O P E R A T IO N S W IT H D O U B L E D IG IT N U M B E R W IT H O U T C A R R Y IN G T en concept C o u n t & re p re s e n ta tio n n u m b e r O rd e r P ro b le m s A lg o rith m

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P H A S E 4 O P E R A T IO N S W IT H D O U B L E D IG IT N U M B E R IN V O L V IN G C A R R Y IN G P ro b le m s A lg o rith m

Figure 1: Phases in the addition operation

In phase 1 four objectives are carried out in parallel. The activities have two levels of difficulty, whereas in phases 2, 3 and 4 three levels of difficulty have been organized. Furthermore, a large number of flashcards have been created and tested on students with Downs Syndrome by a team of experts specializing in the teaching of mathematics with considerable success. 6. Instructional Planner: Modelled Fuzzy Each objective belonging to a phase has been modelled by means of fuzzy automata. This fuzzy system is characterized by one input and its state, all of which are fuzzy variables, defined as: ASR: Activity success rate for a determined objective in a given phase. Qi: State of the automata, each state defines a difficulty level in the activities to be carried out by the students. The fuzzy system outputs are the updated states of the automata. They determine the difficulty level of the activities in the near future. The Mamdani fuzzy system model has been used with T-norm and S-norm operators defined as a minimum and maximum, respectively [9]. We assumed two difficulty levels in the activities of all the objectives in Phase 1 and are designated as either low or high. In addition, we assumed four fuzzy sets for the ASR (low, 25% chance of success, medium, 50%, high, 75% and very high, 100%.) The inference mechanism can be expressed by means of any of the following tables in Fig. 2, which deal with the type of student. The transition between phases: forward (progression), backward (regression) and no change in the same phase, has been modelled using a fuzzy system. This fuzzy system uses the states of each phase objective as inputs. The aggregation operator produces a fuzzy number as output. This number will also establish three fuzzy sets: progression, regression and permanency. The ASR variable and the state have to be fuzzified before entering the corresponding fuzzy system. The states of each fuzzy automata have to be defuzzified in order to be used by the manager of the tutorial. In addition, our model uses the following motivational technique: A pedagogical agent explains the task to be carried out in each objective. This agent is chosen from an agent gallery given as a function of the cognitive and maturity levels of the student. We consider three students personalities: the student with fear of failure, the hyperactive student, and the motivated student who is unaffected by mistakes. These types are modelled in tables a) , b) and c) in figure 2.

a) ASR low State Q1 Q2 Q3 low low low

medium

high

very high low high high

b) ASR low State Q1 Q2 Q3 low low low

medium

high

very high high high high

c) ASR low State Q1 Q2 Q3 low low high

medium

high

very high high high high

low low low

low low high

low low high

low high high

low high high

high high high

Figure 2: The inference mechanism for three students personalities.

7. Architecture of the ITS This design has been planned based on criteria of reusability as well as generalization. Then, it is composed of a modular structure which allows it to be applied to other application domains. Figure 3 shows the main components of the ITS.
In s tru ctio n a l P la n n e r (F u zzy s y ste m ) D ifficu lty le v e l/o b je tiv e D a ta B a s e (S tu d e n t M o d e l) P e rso n a lity A S R /O b je ctiv e P e rs o n a lity A S R /O b je ctiv e S ta te /O b je ctiv e A ctiv itie s G e s to r A ctiv itie s M u ltim e d ia In te rfa ce (X M L )

W eb

S tu d e n t

R e sp o n s e D a ta B a s e (A ctiv itie s)

D ifficu lty le v e l

Figure 3: ITS architecture

Two aspects are fundamental to allow for the generalization of the ITS to another domain: The static and dynamic information is stored in a database The design of a fuzzy system for implementing the Instructional Planner.

Our ITS works according to the following steps: 1. The manager requests information from the student model about the personality as well as information about his evolution in the learning process. This process is fundamental in children with learning difficulties due to the presentation of contents which depends on the difference between the cognitive and maturity age level. 2. The manager provides the Instructional Planner with information from the student model and requests from the Instructional Planner the difficulty level of the activity to be carried out by the student. 3. The manager looks for activities at a specific difficulty level in the database. 4. The activities chosen are sent to the multimedia interface which generates a Web page. In this Web page, a pedagogical agent presents the activity to be carried out by the student, and the multimedia interface obtains and send to the manager the result of the activity, which will be stored in the database. For the implementation of the interface, we have decided to use XML technology.

We have implemented a template in XML for each type of interaction (click on an object, drag and drop, multiple-choice questions, etc). Multiple instantiations of the templates generate the activity set which is presented to the student. The manager will communicate to the interface the specifications of the following activity to present, and then the interface will implement the Web page that will be shown to the user. 8. Conclusions and final remarks This paper presents the main ideas in the development of our research. We want to emphasize the years of experience that the teachers at ATT21 has in the creation, use and carrying out of activities in Mathematics teaching. Furthermore, the teachers are a key component in the integration of new technologies in the classroom, since they have to be convinced of its utility. This tool must be incorporated in the teaching-learning process of Mathematics. It must be stated that the teaching of these elementary concepts represent a long term process with individuals with Downs Syndrome, where the mastering of these concepts could take years. For this reason, the system has to be rich in the variety of media and tasks presented, because it is necessary to avoid the repetition of activities. Otherwise the resolution of problems mechanically can occur. Hence, the chronological and cognitive ages of population of those students we work with must be considered, covering childhood to adulthood. This is another reason for changes in presentation styles, although we continue working with the same pedagogical goals. Motivation must also be considered when working with children. The creation of attractive interfaces, the use of multimedia resources, the fact that the activities are shown as a game, and the use of pedagogical animated agent for social interaction within the system are crucial. We have to say that the representation in the cognitive model of the student is a future activity to develop due to the large quantity of tasks and media that are necessary in the system. This research allows us to contribute in overcoming the barriers that Downs Syndrome individuals face and promotes their social integration from two perspectives: a) the abilities that they can acquire in the use of the technology by itself, and b) the knowledge that can be obtained through its utilization in the teaching of the curriculum. References
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