GiGi's Playhouse Rochester Receives $25,000 Social Impact Grant from L3Harris Technologies to Support Math Education for School-aged Children with Down Syndrome Impacted by Covid-19

Rochester, NY — October 13, 2020 — GiGi's Playhouse Rochester, a nonprofit Down syndrome achievement center, is pleased to announce they are a recipient of a $25,000 grant from L3Harris Technologies to support math education for school-aged children with disabilities who have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The math sessions will be offered throughout the year and are free to all participating GiGi's families.

GiGi's Playhouse Rochester president, Jennifer Bustamante said, "Children with disabilities have been at a significant disadvantage during the COVID-19 pandemic because they tend to rely on direct, hands-on and individualized instruction to attain their academic goals. To fill this gap, GiGi's is offering an in-person educational program for individuals with Down syndrome, with a focus on children who are attending full-time or part-time remote schooling in their school districts."

"The L3Harris Technologies grant will help support the math component of our educational program. Many individuals with Down syndrome struggle with math because they have significant deficits in their working memory and the abstract nature of math relies on a strong working memory," Bustamante said.

Working memory is the 'workspace' where individuals keep information during processing or manipulation and it plays an essential role in mathematical learning, even in the most basic mathematical functions as comparing numbers and one-to-one correspondence and counting.

"Despite their challenges with working memory, individuals with Down syndrome tend to have very strong visual-spatial short-term memory, making the ability to learn from visual information a relative strength," Bustamante continued.

“While shifting to online work is safer, we are seeing more and more students being impacted by inequities in educational access,” said Erica Lemp, Community Affairs Director, L3Harris. “GiGi’s Playhouse has continued to provide literacy programs, tutoring resources, language skills and one-on-one opportunities to keep students engaged throughout the pandemic. We applaud GiGi’s Playhouse and their impact on the community and the students they serve.”

The following outcomes will occur because of the new GiGi's Playhouse math program:

• Individuals with Down syndrome will gain new skills in math.

• Students with Down syndrome will progress in meeting the goals identified in their Individual Education Plans and will be able to participate in the general education curriculum to a greater extent.

• Parents will be better equipped to support the learning of their child with Down syndrome.

• Volunteers will learn more about Down syndrome.

• Individuals with Down syndrome will increase their ability to live independently in the future.

• Individuals with Down syndrome will have greater access to postsecondary education and/or employment in the future.

• Individuals with Down syndrome will participate in their communities at a higher rate.

• Community perception of the capabilities of individuals with Down syndrome will improve.

A key focus area of the math programs will be parental involvement and support. GiGi’s will provide each parent with an introductory set of math manipulatives and will give each parent a guide on specific activities that can be done at home to support the lessons that are taught at the Playhouse.

GiGi's in-person educational programs – including math and literacy – will also serve a secondary target population of teens and adults with Down syndrome who were not given adequate learning opportunities when they were younger. Each student will have an instructional volunteer who has received training by a special education teacher.

GiGi’s Playhouse will use the following math programs:

Numicon

This program offers children multi-sensory activities with shapes, rods, number lines, and a broad range of everyday experiences and contexts so that their understanding of number ideas is varied. Each number has its own piece so that children can physically combine them so that calculations are made 'real'. The Numicon pieces physically fit together so that when combining numbers children can physically do the calculations that we want them to think in their heads. Numicon pieces can be used for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, geometry, measurement and statistics.

Stern

Stern is similar to Numicon, in that it is also a multisensory, hands on program that uses manipulatives to help children gain meaningful concepts for whole numbers and to understand the relative sizes of numbers. The materials represent the relative sizes of numbers and give children concrete materials to work with to understand counting and calculating operations. Stern materials are designed to enable children to learn from their own discovery and thus gain insights into the number system. Once children learn concrete understanding of math, they are able to move on to more abstract concepts.

For more information and to sign up visit: gigisplayhouse.org/rochester

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About GiGi's Playhouse Rochester

GiGi’s Playhouse Rochester is a non-profit organization that serves people with Down syndrome from prenatal diagnosis to adulthood focusing on achievement, belief and confidence. Open since April, 2017, it is part of GiGi's Playhouse network of 48 Down Syndrome Achievement Centers and growing across the United States and Mexico — the only network of its kind that provides free, life changing therapeutic, educational and career training programs for 30,000+ individuals of all ages.

Through free programs and the Generation G Campaign for global acceptance, GiGi’s helps maximize opportunities for daily achievement and lasting acceptance. The program helps advance a vital social impact goal by showing the world what individuals with Down syndrome are capable of achieving as students, co-workers, volunteers, friends, and valued members of their communities.

For more information about free programs, volunteerism, impact partnerships, events, and the many ways to support GiGi's Playhouse Rochester families visit: gigisplayhouse.org/rochester.

About L3Harris Technologies

L3Harris Technologies is an agile global aerospace and defense technology innovator, delivering end-to-end solutions that meet customer's mission-critical needs. The company provides advanced defense and commercial technologies across air, land, sea, space and cyber domains. L3Harris has approximately $18 billion in annual revenue and 48,000 employees, with customers in more than 100 countries. L3Harris.com