ANALYSIS OF LEARNING DIFFICULTIES AND SELF CONFIDENCE OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS SLOW LEARNER TYPE IN MATHEMATICS LEARNING AT SLB ASUHAN KASIH KUPANG

The objective of this study is to identify types of learning challenges and self convidence of children with special needs, specifically slow learner type during mathematics learning. The study used a descriptive qualitative approach with six children at eight graders as the subject. The data were collected through observation, interviews, test sheets, and questionnaires. Data analysis approaches involve: data reduction, display, verification of conclusion drawing, and data validity. The results showed three main problems: (1) difficulty calculating arithmetic operations such as multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction, making it difficult to work on issues, (2) Difficulty in distinguishing units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, but this difficulty does not match what students experience because there are students who can still accomplish the questions presented and kids who still find it difficult to separate, (3) Low ability to identify and solve math story problems, so that students have difficulty working on story problems, proven by questionnaire in total 57,08%, it showed that some of them no longer experience difficulties. There is a fact that the self-confidence of slow learner students is quite positive, but there still some students who still show an anxious, shy and nervous attitude when asked to answer questions from the teacher, besides that there are also some students who still copy answer questions from the teacher, besides that there are also some students who still copy answers from their friends, this shows attitude of still depending on other people, the percentage of the self-confidence questionnaire was obtained at 68,54%, this shows that the majority of slow learner students already have good self-confidence in learning mathematics.