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Introduction

During primary school years, the rate of progress of individual children with Down syndrome varies quite widely, with some making faster progress on the mathematics curriculum than others. Some teenagers with Down syndrome will have some understanding of numbers to 100, counting-on, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, when they start their secondary education, but many will still be learning these activities with numbers from 0 to 20.

In the authors' view, the mathematics curriculum during the secondary school years should focus on giving teenagers a basic set of skills for use in their daily lives. It will include learning to tell the time, to measure and to weigh, to understand volume and shape and to understand the money system. The core activity, necessary for all these applications, is learning to understand the number system - how to count, to understand that numbers represent quantities, and how to calculate using numbers. Clearly a basic competence in understanding and using numbers to 100 will be important if a teenager with Down syndrome is to be able to count, measure and weigh, tell the time and use money for daily activities such as shopping, cooking and for work tasks.

This module provides examples and practical ideas to help parents and teachers to teach young people with Down syndrome. The focus is on teaching a set of core skills and these activities should be relevant in both special schools and mainstream schools. While inclusion of individuals with Down syndrome in mainstream schools is increasingly becoming the norm in many countries during primary school years, at present the majority of teenagers will be in special schools or classes - even in the UK. There is very little research into the number development of teenagers with Down syndrome but at present, the evidence indicates that they often find understanding number more difficult than learning to read.

In the first section, information is included on the range of maths achievements of teenagers with Down syndrome from a recent survey conducted by the authors, and some examples of individual achievements. This information illustrates the wide variation in individual progress, with some teenagers showing an aptitude and interest in number and others only mastering a simple level of counting by the time they leave school. The teenagers who have more difficulty with understanding number may still have functional skills for telling the time and for using money, based on experience in daily use and the targeted teaching of practical strategies.

In our experience, teenagers with Down syndrome will be more motivated to learn if they can see the application of what they are learning in their daily lives and this seems to particularly be the case for number, time and money skills. It is therefore important for parents and teachers to work together, as parents will have the opportunity to give teenagers practice in using the skills in real situations. For this reason, the practical ideas in this module do not assume a knowledge of teaching mathematics and include a range of ideas that can be used to teach teenagers at home and in school. Ideally teachers and parents will be working in partnership, as parents can help teenagers practice and generalise their classroom learning in real situations at home such as tasks which require counting or weighing or the use of money. Parents can also help by playing number games with their teenagers, as these can be an enjoyable way of providing the practice needed to become competent.

The activities and strategies for supporting teenagers' learning are based on what is known about the learning difficulties of teenagers with Down syndrome and what is known about how typically developing children learn number. Teenagers with Down syndrome will usually have significantly delayed language and therefore they may still not have all the basic vocabulary for number, size, colour, shape and quantity that will be used in the classroom when they start in secondary school. For this reason, a list of number vocabulary is included in the module. The teenagers will have been making slower developmental progress and this may have resulted in less opportunity to learn the basic number concepts during their primary school years. Teenagers have usually experienced delay in developing fine motor skills and this may have led to fewer opportunities to manipulate, sort and count small objects.

In the classroom, therefore, some teenagers with Down syndrome will still need help to learn basic number concepts and support for the practical activities of counting. They also have specific verbal short-term memory difficulties and therefore they will be helped by the use of visual supports for their learning whenever possible - using practical apparatus, number cards and number lines for example. None of these difficulties are unique to teenagers with Down syndrome and many teachers will be using the same strategies to support learning for other teenagers with speech and language delay, motor difficulties or memory difficulties.

This module is intended to be used in conjunction with Number skills for individuals with Down syndrome - an overview, which provides the reader with a summary of relevant research on number development for individuals with Down syndrome, and the rationale for the practical approaches recommended.

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