DYSCALCULIA (DIFFICULTY WITH NUMBERS)

Dyscalculia was originally identified in case studies of patients who suffered specific arithmetic disabilities as a result of damage to specific regions of the brain. Recent research suggests that dyscalculia can also occur developmentally, as a genetically-linked learning disability which affects a person’s ability to understand, remember, and/or manipulate numbers and/or number facts (e.g. the multiplication tables). The term is often used to refer specifically to the inability to perform arithmetic operations, but is defined by some educational professionals and cognitive psychologists as a more fundamental inability to conceptualize numbers as abstract concepts of comparative quantities.

Dyscalculia is a lesser known disability, similar and potentially related to dyslexia and dyspraxia. Dyscalculia occurs in people across the whole IQ range, and sufferers often, but not always, also have difficulties with time, measurement, and spatial reasoning. Current estimates suggest it may affect about 5% of the population.

Although some researchers believe that dyscalculia necessarily implies mathematical reasoning difficulties as well as difficulties with arithmetic operations, there is evidence (especially from brain damaged patients) that arithmetic (e.g. calculation and number fact memory) and mathematical (abstract reasoning with numbers) abilities can be dissociated. That is (some researchers argue) an individual might suffer arithmetic difficulties (or dyscalculia), with no impairment of, or even giftedness in, abstract mathematical reasoning abilities.

Dyscalculia can be detected at a young age and measures can be taken to ease the problems faced by younger students. The main problem is understanding the way mathematics is taught to children. In the way that dyslexia can be dealt with by using a slightly different approach to teaching, so can dyscalculia. However, dyscalculia is the lesser -known of these learning disorders and so is often not recognized.

Another common manifestation of the condition emerges when the individual is faced with equation type of problems which contain both integers and letters (3A + 4C). It can be difficult for the person to differentiate between the integers and the letters. Confusion such as reading a ‘5’ for an ‘S’ or not being able to distinguish between a zero ‘0’ for the letter ‘O’ can keep algebra from being mastered. This particular form of dyscalculia is often not diagnosed until middle or high school is entered.

Potential symptoms of Dyscalculia

• Frequent difficulties with numbers
• Confusing the signs: +, -, ÷ and x
• Inability to say which of two numbers is the larger
• Unusual reliance on counting fingers
• Difficulty with everyday tasks ie. checking change and reading clocks
• Inability to comprehend financial planning or budgeting
• Difficulty with times-tables
• Difficulty with conceptualizing time and judging the passing of time
• Problems differentiating between left and right
• Having a poor sense of direction
• Having difficulty estimating the distance of an object
• Inability to grasp mathematical concepts and rules
• Difficulty keeping score during games.

Potential causes of Dyscalculia

Scientists have yet to understand the causes of dyscalculia. They have been investigating in several domains and the causes may well be a combination of factors. Neurologically, Dyscalculia has been associated with lesions between the temporal and parietal lobes of the cerebral cortex. Deficits in working memory have been proposed as a major factor in mental addition problems. Other causes may be short-term memory being disturbed or reduced, and congenital or hereditary disorders.

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