ABSTRACT
Children with severe learning difficulties (SLD) have delayed language development and do and not use verbal thinking to the same extent as their typical peers, and this tends to change the way we interact with them, in particular: There is a tendency for adults to organise things for SLD pupils and, as a consequence, the children exercise less experience of independent thinking about the need to solve problems. Different approaches are needed to provoke children to think and encourage them to be interested in affecting changes to quantities, space and time and develop thinking skills that apply to life maths. Research indicates that short-term memory difficulties hinder the verbal understanding of SLD children, who have comparably better visual memory and remember better if they have observed and actively touched things. Using recall and rehearsal are processes that strengthen working memory and enhance possibilities of immediate retention, promoting links to longer-term storage, which improves the chances of connecting and modifying ideas.
