Adaptation of the Mathematics Text Material
In the process of providing substantial learning experience to children with visual impairment,
it is advisable to keep the expected outcomes on par with sighted children and adapt/
substitute learning experience to derive maximum understanding of the concept. Take for
example, the concept of “Rows and Columns”, an effective teacher will be able to create a
lot of situations to explain this concept to the child. In fact, the cells of the Braille slate
can be used to explain this idea; the Geo-board can be used, the seating positions of the
children in the class itself can be used to explain this, tactile graph sheets can be used and
so on. Even though it is primarily true that certain concepts are seen and understood, the
fact remains that most of the concepts could be modified to suit the needs of the visually
impaired child.
Development of Mental Arithmetic
The mental ability of doing mathematical calculation is the result of concentration and
mastery over the basic mathematical operations. Since no single device would be exclusively
useful for visually impaired children for their calculations in mathematics, it is quite
reasonable to look into the task of developing mental arithmetic abilities in them. Like all
other activities, this too needs systematic instruction, practice and application. In visually
impaired children, this exercise could start with the learning of abacus. The calculations in
the abacus require the mastery of addition and multiplication facts (for example,
multiplication is the easy process of adding many times) and the speedy process in the
abacus contributes to the mental abilities in calculations. Once the child is very proficient
with the operations in the abacus ranging from addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
(especially long division involving many digits) upto the process of calculating the square
root, percentage, etc., he/she can be trained to use the short-cut techniques in computing
values. For example, 458 × 208 can be broken into various steps such as 400 × 208,
50 × 208, 8^ × 208 and even to further steps depending on the ability of the child to store
the calculated values in brain before making the sum total of the entire calculation. Training
in remembering a set of numbers over a period of time, games for calculations, etc., can be
performed by the student and the teacher for getting sufficient practice. Prolonged training
and practice in performing mental calculations help children to acquire the mathematical
mind which is very essential for problem solving, analysis of information, scientific approach
in performing the day-to-day activities, etc.