Using Number Talks with Supports to Increase the Early Number Sense Skills of Preschool Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This multiple probe across participants design evaluated the effectiveness of teaching early number sense skills (ENS) to young children (age 4) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using Number Talks with supports. Following participation in Number Talks with supports, young children with ASD learned the ENS skills of subitizing, one-to-one correspondence, number conservation, and magnitude discrimination. This study included a baseline condition, a Number Talks alone condition, and a Number Talks with supports condition in order to evaluate how much support young learners with ASD required to learn ENS skills during Number Talks. The Number Talks with support condition combined the socially constructivism learning techniques in Number Talks alone with the direct instruction practices of visual supports, a least to most prompting hierarchy, and explicit modeling. A functional relationship was found between Number Talks with supports and increased ENS skills of all three participants with ASD. The ENS skills were also maintained at near mastery criteria levels by all three participants with ASD. A peer comparison as well as peer pre and post-test data showed that peers also increased their ENS skills from baseline to the end of intervention. This study successfully combined the socially constructed learning technique of Number Talks with direct instruction support, and increased the ENS skills of young children with ASD and peers alike. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.