As researchers and practitioners have increasingly become interested in what practices are evidence based and for whom in education, different sets of quality indicators and evidence-based practice standards have emerged in the field of special education. Practices are commonly suggested as evidence based, even without a best evidence synthesis on the existing research, such as the case with the concrete–representational–abstract (CRA) instructional framework to support students with disabilities in mathematics. This study sought to support the classification of the CRA instructional framework as an evidence-based approach for students with learning disabilities by applying quality indicators and standards of evidence-based practice by Cook et al. (2014). Based on the application of the indicators and standards, the CRA instructional framework was determined to be an evidence-based practice for students with learning disabilities who struggle in mathematics relative to computational problems, such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication, largely with regrouping.

Fractions are an important mathematical concept; however, fractions are also a struggle for many students with disabilities. This study explored a new framework adapted from the evidence-based concrete–representational–abstract framework: the virtual–representational–abstract (VRA) framework. The VRA framework involves teaching students to solve mathematical problems with virtual manipulative, then representations or drawings, and finally abstractly. A multiple probe across-students single-case design was used to investigate the effectiveness of the VRA framework for finding equivalent fractions for three middle-school students with disabilities. A functional relation was found between the VRA framework and students’ ability to solve equivalent fractions. Implications related to the use of the VRA framework as a mathematics intervention for secondary students with disabilities as well as directions for future research are discussed.

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A popular technology-based intervention is video-based instruction (VBI). VBI is known to be effective in teaching various skills to individuals with intellectual disability. Although many researchers have taught this population various skills using video modeling and/or prompting, none have conducted a literature review for this population. The purpose of this review was to analyze different types of VBI (i.e., video modeling, video prompting) used in intervention research, the skills taught using these methods, and their effectiveness. The findings demonstrate both video modeling and video prompting were used to similar extents, daily/living skills were taught more often, and many studies combined video modeling or video prompting interventions with additional strategies (e.g., error correction, constant time delay).