A Toolbox for Teaching Price Comparison to Students With Disabilities

For secondary students with intellectual disability, a common post-school goal is maximizing independence through learning functional skills. Price comparison, a component of purchasing skills, is one such functional skill that can increase independence. For a consumer, price comparison ultimately involves identifying lower-priced products or products with better price deals. However, there is lack of systematic instructional strategies to support special education educators to teach such skill. The mathematical component (i.e., multi-digit number comparison) is especially challenging for students with disabilities. This article presents different number comparison models that address the mathematical abilities and needs of students with moderate and severe disabilities. The authors also discuss instructional tools (e.g., number lines and self-operated prompting systems) to support price comparison.