Dyscalculia Primer and Resource Guide

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Anna Wilson is an OECD Post-Doctoral Fellow at INSERM U562, Paris, conducting cognitive neuroscience research on the remediation of dyscalculia.

The purpose of this primer is to explain the cognitive neuroscience approach to dyscalculia (including the state of research in this area), to answer frequently asked questions, and to point the reader towards further resources on the subject.

Further references include some of the major scientific literature in the field, as well as reading suggestions for teachers and parents.

Note: The term dyscalculia in this document refers to developmental dyscalculia (present from birth or at an early age) and not to acquired dyscalculia (acquired as a result of brain lesion).

What is dyscalculia?

The first neuropsychological definition of developmental dyscalculia was put forward by the researcher Kosc (1974), who defined it as a difficulty in mathematical performance resulting from impairment to those parts of the brain that are involved in mathematical processing, without a concurrent impairment in general mental function. This definition is the same definition that researchers in cognitive neuroscience use today when searching for the causes and features of dyscalculia.

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Dyscalculia By: National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) (2006)

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What is dyscalculia?

Dyscalculia is a term referring to a wide range of life-long learning disabilities involving math. There is no single form of math disability, and difficulties vary from person to person and affect people differently in school and throughout life.

What are the effects of dyscalculia?

Since disabilities involving math can be so different, the effects they have on a person’s development can be just as different. For instance, a person who has trouble processing language will face different challenges in math than a person who has difficulty with visual – spatial relationships. Another person with trouble remembering facts and keeping a sequence of steps in order will have yet a different set of math-related challenges to overcome.

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Dyscalculia Resources, Web Sites & Videos

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Brian Butterworth is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychology at University College, London and founding editor of the academic journal “Mathematical Cognition”. He taught at Cambridge and has held visiting appointments at the universities of Melbourne, Padua and Trieste, MIT and the Max Planck Institute at Nijmegen. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2002. He is currently working with colleagues on the neuropsychology and the genetics of mathematical abilities.

He maintains a wonderful site with Resources, Websites and Videos about Dyscalculia

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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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