A little late... but special needs students

I read the article called "Why Students with Special Needs Have Difficulty Learning Mathematics and What Teachers Can Do to Help" by David Allsopp. This article considered special need students to have one or more of four struggles. The first one was attention problems. These students have trouble focusing on one thing because they are constantly focusing on EVERYTHING making it difficult for them to catch the important details that the teacher may be saying.The second problems children sometimes face are cognitive processing problems. These children have trouble processing from what they see visually to what they are writing on paper. Metacognitive problems can also hinder children's mathematics learning. This means that the students me be unaware of other possible ways of learning. The fourth struggle is one that is extremely hindering in mathematics. Memory problems put students at a disadvantage because they have difficulty retrieving the information that the brain has successfully stored. In mathematics, children have a disadvantage because they require memory. For instance, in long division, it is necessary for the child to know addition, multiplication, subtraction and it takes memory to remember all the correct steps in the correct order.
In order to help these children, there are a number of ways we can plan and teach lessons. Allsopp explains some strategies to help with instruction with special need students. First, teach in authentic and meaningful contexts. It is helpful to directly model both general problem-solving strategies and specific learning strategies using multisensory techniques. This allows the teacher to cater to the different learners and show the children other ways to learn. Another strategy is to ensure that the sequence of instruction moves form the concrete, to the representational and then to the abstract. Teachers will find it helpful to allow the students opportunities to use their language to describe their mathematical understandings. It is also important to provide multiple practice opportunities to help students use their developing mathematical knowledge and build proficiency. Studies have also shown that using nemonic devices because they help retrieve problem solving steps from memory both independently and efficiently. For example, for the order of operations, we continually hear "please excuse my dear aunt sally". These "name games" are helpful for students. Most importantly, and I believe this is true for all students, is that we must continually monitor students performances and offer meaningful feedback.