Access courses are intended only for students with a significant cognitive disability. Access courses are designed to provide tiered access to the general curriculum through three levels of access points (Participatory, Supported, and Independent), which reflect increasing levels of complexity and depth of knowledge aligned with grade-level expectations. The access points included in access courses are intentionally designed to foster high expectations for students with significant cognitive disabilities.

The study of mathematics provides the means to organize, understand, and predict life’s events in quantifiable terms. Organizing life using numbers allows us to keep accurate records of objects and events, such as quantity, sequence, time, and money. Using numbers to understand the relationship between relative quantities or characteristics allows us to accurately problem solve and predict future outcomes of quantifiable events as conditions change. Many of life’s typical activities require competency in using numbers, operations, and algebraic thinking (e.g., counting, measuring, comparison shopping), geometric principles (e.g., shapes, area, volume), and data analysis (e.g., organizing information to suggest conclusions). Some students with significant cognitive disabilities will access and use traditional mathematical symbols and abstractions, while others may apply numeric principles using concrete materials in real-life activities. In any case, mathematics is one of the most useful skill sets and essential for students with significant cognitive disabilities. It provides a means to organize life and solve problems involving quantity and patterns, making life more orderly and predictable.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with significant cognitive disabilities access to the concepts and content of mathematics at the sixth grade level. The concepts of joining and separating quantities, part-to-whole (fractions), measurement, rate, equality, estimation, and data analysis provide a means to analyze our environment, sequence, and predict outcomes of quantifiable events. The content should include, but not be limited to the concepts of:

• Whole numbers
• Combining and separating quantities
• Mathematical properties
• Fractions
• Equality/inequality
• Attributes of plane and solid figures
• Data collection and analysis
• Estimation
• Rate
• Ratio
• Measurement
• Solving routine and non-routine quantitative problems