What is Dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia is a specific learning disability, characterised by persistent difficulties in learning and understanding mathematics, despite adequate intellectual ability and age-appropriate school education. It is a neurodevelopmental condition, which means that it has a biological basis, although environmental factors also play a role in its development. Early signs of dyscalculia are present from a young age, and problems persist, even when pupils receive specialist intervention. This does not mean that people with dyscalculia cannot improve their mathematics skills as a result of specialist intervention, but achieving age-appropriate levels of knowledge and skills may require extraordinary effort and time investment.
Dyscalculia occurs across all countries and education systems. With a prevalence of about 6%, it is likely that there is at least one child with dyscalculia in every class of 30. Unlike some other developmental disabilities, such as autism, dyslexia and ADHD, which are more likely to affect boys, dyscalculia is equally common in boys and girls.
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What are the difficulties associated with dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia involves impairments in basic numerical and mathematical skills, which means that it has a strong impact on students’ experiences within mathematics classrooms, and can affect performance in other subjects as well.
In school-age children, typical areas of difficulty include problems with reading and writing numbers, doing basic arithmetic, learning multiplication tables, understanding place values, working with decimals and fractions, logical reasoning, and solving word problems. Additionally, children with dyscalculia may also use inefficient, error-prone strategies when they do maths.
Outside of the classroom, children with dyscalculia may also have trouble using calendars and clocks, recalling the order of past events, playing traditional board games with dice, keeping track of scores during sports games, and they may confuse left and right.
However, as dyscalculia is a developmental condition, typical difficulties may also change with age. In adults, in addition to struggles with calculations, typical problems include difficulties with planning and managing time, problems with estimating costs and financial values, difficulties with reading maps, and getting lost easily.
It is important to note that dyscalculia is not indicative of poor cognitive ability or poor academic skills in general. Many people with dyscalculia will have strengths in other areas and can still be very successful in their academic and professional careers.
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Low mathematics performance vs. dyscalculia
Low performance in mathematics does not necessary mean that a person is dyscalculic.
Mathematics difficulties can arise due to a variety of other reasons as well, including sensory or neurological impairments, and limited access to good education.
Although some environmental reasons, such as socio-economic disadvantage or not speaking the language of instruction as a first language, may increase the risk of dyscalculia, genetic factors play a major role too. If a person is dyscalculic, it is likely that they will have other people among their close relatives with dyscalculia or other neurodevelopmental conditions.
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Co-occurring conditions
Dyscalculia is not the same as mathematics anxiety (which can be defined as a feeling of apprehension and fear when a person encounters numbers and mathematical content), and it is also not the same as low confidence in mathematics, although both anxiety and low confidence often co-occur with dyscalculia. Mathematics anxiety differs from dyscalculia in that it is commonly found among pupils with age-appropriate levels of mathematics knowledge and skills, and it may have the strongest effect on mathematics performance in high-stakes situations.
Other conditions that commonly co-occur with dyscalculia include language and communication problems, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and ADHD. Co-occurrence means that many people meet the diagnostic criteria for more than one of these conditions, and mathematics problems do not simply arise as a consequence of another type of disability. Rather, the most likely reason is that these conditions have partially overlapping genetic and neurological bases.
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Why is it important to diagnose dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia is a lifelong condition, and it does not disappear when children finish school or grow older. Early diagnosis of dyscalculia is particularly important, because children with dyscalculia often miss basic knowledge about numbers, which is necessary to learn more complex topics later. Additionally, without specialist support, children may not be able to develop efficient strategies to deal with their mathematics problems and everyday difficulties. This can lead to frustration and negative attitudes towards mathematics and school in general, which can make it difficult to engage children in interventions at a later stage. Moreover, undiagnosed dyscalculia can lead to low self-esteem, anxiety and depression. This is why diagnosis should be a top priority, so that relevant support can be provided.
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Are there any tips for parents and teachers on how to manage dyscalculia?
Some tools and adjustments can help children with dyscalculia to reach their full potential. These may include using everyday objects, such as beads or tokens, which can be useful for demonstrating simple number concepts and supporting memory. Additionally, it is helpful to allow extra time for assessments, offer partial solutions, or present multiple-choice questions, instead of open-ended questions, and use assistive technology, such as dyscalculia-friendly calculators. Computer-based maths programs and apps can also be useful for repeated practice of arithmetic and times tables.
If a child is struggling to understand basic maths concepts, appropriate intervention may mean going back several years in the curriculum, instead of focusing on age-appropriate content. Assessing children’s memory, attention and verbal abilities can also help with finding appropriate strategies and methods of teaching and learning. These are just some examples, and effective interventions may look different for each person.
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Are there any tips for people with dyscalculia?
Although dyscalculia can lead to a variety of difficulties, people with dyscalculia can still succeed in other subjects, including literacy, arts, and some science subjects. A diagnostic assessment can be useful in identifying specific cognitive strengths and weaknesses, which, in turn, can help with developing personalised strategies for mathematics learning. People with dyscalculia may also come up with their own strategies to help them in day-to-day life or when learning. For example, they may use visual aids like playdoh to help with numeracy, or play a song that is 3 minutes long when they need to complete a task in 3 minutes, instead of using a stopwatch.
Although dyscalculia is a lifelong condition, it does not mean that people with dyscalculia, including adults, cannot improve their mathematics skills. It is never too late to learn more about dyscalculia, or to seek specialist assessment and support to fully develop one’s potential.
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Article Author: Dr Kinga Morsanyi, Reader in Mathematical Cognition, Department of Mathematics Education, Loughborough University.
Some Related Articles and Useful Information:
Dyscalculia: ‘maths dyslexia’ or why so many children struggle with numbers (theconversation.com)
UK study finds children with maths difficulties (SLDM/dyscalculia) far less likely to receive an official diagnosis than their peers with dyslexia | BPS
Understanding Dyscalculia, Dyslexia’s Numeric Counterpart | Scientific American
Dyscalculia Network – The Leading Support Network for Dyscalculia
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