Effects of early explicit strategic intervention on the mathematics performance of students at-risk for Mathematics Difficulties

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of the early systematic strategic mathematics intervention on the mathematics performance of students at risk for Mathematics Difficulties (MD) in first grade. The investigator imbedded several intervention design features as well as learning principles into the early mathematics intervention. The features included increasing the intensity of intervention; providing explicit systematic instruction; tracking children’s understanding and adjusting instruction; delivering the instruction one-on-one; and utilizing learning principles. A multiple baseline design across participants was utilized to evaluate results related to the following research questions: (1) Does the early mathematics intervention result in improved performance on a weekly proximal measure of mathematics? (2) Does the early mathematics intervention result in improved performance on a less proximal to the intervention? (3) Does the early mathematics intervention result in improved performance on a distal mathematics measure? (4) Are the effects of the intervention maintained two- and four-weeks post-intervention? (5) What are the students’ perspectives on the early mathematics intervention? The first-grade students were identified at risk for MD as established by a performance at or below the 30th percentile on a standardized mathematics outcome measure. The intervention sessions were delivered four days per week, in 30–35 minutes sessions, over six weeks. The results of visual analysis and computation of the effect size of the proximal measure showed that the explicit, strategic early mathematics intervention was effective on the mathematics performance of first-grade students at risk for mathematics difficulties. All participants showed improvement in their mathematical skills and knowledge during the intervention phase and maintained intervention effects after two and four weeks. The results demonstrated that there was a significant effect of the intervention on the participants’ performance in the addition-strategy task, and number-sets tasks. The result in the pre/post-intervention demonstrated significant effects of the intervention on the overall mathematical performance of first-grade students with mathematics difficulties. The result of a social validity questionnaire showed that all participants had positive perspectives toward the intervention components and agreed that the intervention had a positive impact on their understanding of mathematics.