TEACHING ADULTS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES TO COUNT AMERICAN SILVER COINS IN MULTIPLES OF FIVE

Abstract

This study extended the research of Lowe and Cuvo (1976) to investigate the effects of teaching adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and intellectual disabilities to count American silver coins in multiples of five in a café setting. Participants were first taught to count each coin and then count coin combinations from $0.01 to $0.99 using a finger-counting strategy with a visual cue. A teaching sequence of modeling by the instructor, participant imitation as the instructor modeled, and the participants independently counting was used for training. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the counting strategy on the participants’ performance. The results demonstrated that the counting strategy improved two of the three participants’ ability to independently sum coin combinations after training, and the skills were generalized to giving customers change while operating a cash register.