Category Archives: Dyscalculia Overview

Dyscalculia (or dyscalcula)

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The word ‘dyscalculia’ means difficulty performing math calculations. In other words, it just means ‘math difficulty’. And specifically, it means a learning disorder which affects math. Sometimes confusion arises when we start dealing with the term ‘dyscalculia’ as it relates to ‘special education services’.

There are very strict criteria (which can differ quite a bit from State to State) which determine if a student has a learning disability as it is defined by special education rules. When a student’s math difficulties are severe enough to meet this criteria, special education services are indicated. On the other hand, ‘dyscalculia’ has no clearly defined criteria. A student with any degree of math difficulty may be considered to have ‘dyscalculia’ by some educational specialists. This frequently occurs when a student receives an educational evaluation outside of the public school system.

So, being identified as having ‘dyscalculia’ may or may not indicate the need for special education services. It should be noted that some students with learning disabilities experience math difficulty and probably could be considered to have ‘dyscalculia’. However, the term is seldom used within public schools because of the lack of any strict or measurable criteria.

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Talk:Dyscalculia

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What’s the difference between a person who sucks at maths and a person who has dyscalculia?

Yes, all symptoms described sound suspiciously like “sucking at math”. I also wonder how someone diagnosed with both dyscalculia and dyslexia can be “anywhere on an IQ scale” under any possible definition when the subject can’t understand a clock, learn words or tell right from left (which happens to be “caused by both dyscalculia AND dyslexia”). Next thing is IQ-ia, people who also are range from extremely bright to plain stupid, but have only this nasty handicap of just performing really bad at IQ tests. This article needs more proof that there is a difference between suffering from dyscalculia and simply being stupid. The absence of a correlation between dyscalculia and dyslexia would do the trick, but unfortunately dyslexia explicitly states they do correlate. My guess is that dysmusica, dislaboria, dischessica, dissuccessfulia and probably even dysgymnastia also have a strong correlation to dyscalculia. (dyslexia does have a controversy section

Clearly dyscalculia has not been as thoroughly studied as dyslexia. If there is a statistical correlation between the two, I suspect it is because there are a number of people who suffer from both. But there are also large numbers of people who only suffer from one or the other. And apparently many of these people who find certain basic math tasks difficult nevertheless have normal intelligence in other math areas (and in non-math areas) and can do quite well in those areas of math not affected by dyscalculia (e.g. problems not requiring rapid recall of math facts). Children with dyscalculia do not “suck at math,” they only struggle with certain areas of math. These people have normal or even high IQ scores in spite of their difficulties in a few specific areas. I am not an expert, but I believe, for example, that reasoning skills are not affected by dyscalculia. Since IQ tests are based on reasoning skills, and not recall of the multiplication table, IQ scores for dyscalculia sufferers can be quite normal. Is not dyscalculia defined as a condition causing difficulty in certain areas of math in spite of normal IQ? In any case, no one is challenging IQ test validity or suggesting IQ-ia. I know some experts suspect a short-term memory problem as part of the cause of dyscalculia. I wish we knew more. This article still needs a lot of work, but I suspect there are not enough qualified people to contribute to it. This is a reflection of our state of knowledge about this condition. 

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Free chapter from book on Dyscalculia

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Dyscalculia exists in a number of different varieties, each involving a specific difficulty in solving mathematical tasks. It corresponds with mathematical performance to dyslexia in the area of reading. The majority of children and adults who are subject to dyscalculia have the ability to read and the ability to understand what is read unimpaired, although about 20–30 % of those who are subject todyscalculia are characterized by having difficulties  readingand with mathematics. They often require extensive mental strain to carry out even simple arithmetic tasks. They countusing their fingers as a visual aid far into the upper grades. Difficulties of this sort are categorized as automatisation difficulties.

Children and adults subject to dyscalculianever-theless tend  to be of normal intelligence, but often present an uneven picture in their results on intelligence tests. Their problems reflect not emotional issues but difficulties in mentally connecting with specific types of thought processes.

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Difficulty or Dyscalculia?

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Burgeoning research into students’ difficulties with mathematics is starting to tease out cognitive differences between students who sometimes struggle with math and those who have dyscalculia, a severe, persistent learning disability in math.

A new, decade-long longitudinal study by researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, published Friday in the journal Child Development, finds that 9th-graders considered dyscalculic—those who performed in the bottom 10 percent of math ability on multiple tests—had substantially lower ability to grasp and compare basic number quantities than average students or even other struggling math students.

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