Compensation: Rewriting Our Understanding of Math Learning Disabilities

Research has yet to make measurable progress toward understanding how to help students with math learning disabilities (MLDs) overcome their persistent difficulties. Prior research has traditionally framed MLDs as cognitive deficits and studied these deficits by analyzing failing students' errors. In this paper, we provide an alternative. We explore a student with an MLD who has compensated so effectively that she was able to major in statistics. Eight videotaped interview session were conducted. We identify how symbolic notation was inaccessible for her and how she developed ways of compensating. This research pushes boundaries not only by breaking away from the traditional deficit model, but also by removing the delineation between researcher and participant. The case study participant (second author) was an active member of the research team collaborating in the design, analysis, and dissemination of this work. [For the complete proceedings, see ED583608.]