The effectiveness of reinforcement process on the enhancement of spontaneous focusing on mumerosity for children with intellectual disability

Spontaneous focusing on mumerosity measured by various tasks in children is closely related to early mathematical skills and is a predictor of mathematical skills observed in later years. The aim of this research is to examine the effectiveness of reinforcement process on the enhancement of spontaneous focusing on mumerosity for children with intellectual disability. In addition, it was also aimed to examine the maintenance of enhanced SFON. The participants of the study were three children with intellectual disabilities. Teaching sessions were organized using structured games and differential reinforcement to enhance the participants' spontaneous focusing on mumerosity. Anonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants desing was used. Participants were asked to baseline, probe, and follow up sessions to collect data on Spontaneous focusing on mumerosity in imitation tasks and model tasks. Graphical analysis of efficacy data and descriptive analysis of social validity data were applied. The findings of efficacy revealed that differential reinforcement was effective on enhancing Spontaneous focusing on mumerosity for children with intellectual disabilities. It was also determined that the increase in spontaneous focusing on mumerosities of the participants was maintained 10 days after the application was completed. Keywords: Intellectual disability, Spontaneous focusing on numerosity, Reinforcement