News from the web:

An international paper has called for a greater research focus on dyscalculia, the mathematical equivalent of dyslexia, saying it could lift economic growth.

Dyscalculia is estimated to affect up to seven per cent of the population, making it as common as dyslexia.

But, in a review published today in the journal Science, lead author Professor Brian Butterworth, of the University College London, and colleagues label the disorder a “poor cousin” of its literary stablemate.

“The relative poverty of dyscalculia funding is clear from the figures. Since 2000, the National Institute of Health has spent US$107.2 million (AU$100 million) funding dyslexia research but only US$2.3 million (AU$2.16 million) on dyscalculia,” they write.

Read all about it HERE

Visit us at Dyscalculia Headlines
A service from Math and Dyscalculia Services

News from the web:

Researchers have been wondering for a long time how humans learn. After all, no one is born with an understanding of math or language, yet both of these develop throughout early life. In the case of math at least, many forms of life, including humans, have demonstrated an ability to understand when one set is larger than another, without counting the items. Now a virtual neural network has done the same.

This neural network was designed only to mimic the retina of an eye and then generate false images, similar to what it originally saw. How the neurons fire as the original image is viewed and the false ones made is recorded. The researchers found the lowest level of neurons, those furthest from the virtual retina, were firing based on the number of objects in the original image, despite the fact that there is no understanding of numbers in the program. This information was then given to a second program which was able to estimate whether the image had more or fewer objects than some reference number the researchers also gave it.

Read all about it HERE

Visit us at Dyscalculia Headlines
A service from Math and Dyscalculia Services