Diagnosis of learning basic operations in students with special educational needs associated with attention deficit in basic education

Abstract

Introduction: Basic operations are part of citizen literacy and are essential for advancing the mathematical contents of higher grades as established in the curriculum issued by the Ministry of Education. Objective: To diagnose the level of learning that students diagnosed with ADHD in the fourth grade of basic education have on basic operations. Materials and Methods: This research work is non-experimental and for its development, theoretical, empirical, and mathematical-statistical methods were used. In addition, different instruments were applied to a sample of five students diagnosed with ADHD in the fourth grade of basic education and authorities of the Olmedo Millennium Educational Unit, in the city of Portoviejo. Results: The results obtained from the interviews conducted with teachers, educational psychologists, and school officials, as well as from the observation and pedagogical testing conducted with students, are presented. This contributes to an understanding of the current state of the students under study and allows for the subsequent proposal of recreational activities to improve the development of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and aptitudes. Students are the protagonists of the learning process of the four basic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, in the subject of mathematics. Conclusion: It is determined that students experience many difficulties when performing application exercises using basic operations. Furthermore, a lack of commitment and interest on the part of teachers and officials in implementing educational activities and curricular adaptations for children with special educational needs in the classroom was evident.