This research sought to understand the improvement process according to the
cognitive development stages centered around the overall changes of number
sense and main elements that compose it by organizing number sense related
activities and applying them to mental retardation students.
For this research, 3 students with intellectual disability in 1st?2nd grade that
attend a special class at an elementary school were targeted and it was
conducted for 12 sessions over the period of 2 months.
As the result of the research, although student A, B, C all showed
improvement in the number sense through the number sense instruction, each
student showed different aspects. First, the number sense instruction has a
possibility as a teaching method for the improvement of number sense of
students with intellectual disability. Second, through the number instruction,
developments in the area of counting were showed to be in the order of
mechanical counting, intuitive counting, and material counting. Also students with
intellectual disability showed difficulties in material counting even when
mechanical counting was possible. Third, in the comparison area of the number
concepts, student A showed a concept of comparison, student B only looked for
the big number, and student C did not show number comparison concept.