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Abstract: Mathematical problem-solving is a core content ofprimary school education. Therefore, it is necessary to provide all students with a meaningful way of acquisition of problem-solving shills. The objective of this research was to verify the effectiveness of a problem-solving routine based on the Pólya 's model and the use of cognitive strategies combined with systematic and explicit instruction with continuous feedback, to improve additive problem-solving shills of students with autism. Twenty-eight students with autism participated in a quasi-experimental exploratory study. The empirical study consisted offour phases: pretest, intervention, posttest, and maintenance. The results show a significative improvement of the students' performance in the experi-mental group after the intervention, and most of them maintained what they have learned six weeks after the intervention. Between-group effect size during the post-test supports the effectiveness of the intervention.
People with autism may have difficulties relat-ing to others, interest in repetitive activities and following routines, literal interpretation of language and alterations in executive func-tions (APA, 2022; Happé, 1993; Ozon off & Schetter, 2007; Wing & Gould, 1979). How-ever, they usually have good visual memory (Grandin, 1995).
Students with autism often may show difficulties in mathematics, including problem-solving (Bullen et al., 2020). Due to alterations in the theoiy of mind, the abstraction requirements and the lack of reading comprehension, students with autism may present lower performance than their neurotypical developing peers (Polo-Blanco, Suarez-Pinilla et al., 2022; van Vaerenbergh et al., 2022). In addition, these difficulties can lead students with autism and intellectual disabilities to solve only those prob-lems that are familiar to them (Polo-Blanco, Gonzalez-López et al., 2021) or to use strategies in a mechanical way (Bae, 2013; Polo-Blanco et al., 2019).
In recent years, several researchers have developed fruitful lines of work, stating different approaches to promote problem-solving skills in students with autism, for an overview of these findings see (Barnett & Cleary, 2015; Gevarter et al., 2016; King et al, 2016; Root et al., 2021) among others.
Between these effective approaches we can highlight schema-based instruction (SBI), modified schema-based instruction (MSBI) and conceptual models. SBI uses schematic diagrams to facilitate the understanding of the relationships between the statement data (Jitendra et al., 2002). Core components of SBI approach include the identification of the structure of the problem...