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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When 1 + 1 = 5: Dyscalculia and Working Memory

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Jacob’s mother writes that ‘Jacob, 10-years-old, still struggles with number bonds to 10. Learning to tell the time is still slow – he has not mastered half-past. Although he managed to learn his 5x tables because we practiced all summer, this has now gone’.

Jacob has dyscalculia, a math disability where students struggle to learn or understand mathematics. Students with dyscalculia find it difficult to decipher math symbols (e.g. +, -), counting principles (‘two’ stands for 2), solving arithmetic problems, and usually transpose numbers (e.g. 75 becomes 57). However, dyscalculia encompasses more than problems with numbers – there is also a struggle with telling the time as in Jacob’s case, identifying left from right, and recognizing patterns.

But why do some students struggle to learn numbers and certain mathematical principles?

Working Memory plays a key role. To solve a mathematical problem like 1 + 1, we need to use our

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Bachelor project – Paper prototype

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Before making the actual product, it was decided to produce a video prototype which could be used to show an audience how the product should work in practice. The video prototype was brought along when the second part of the empirical data was gathered. This part consisted of a semi structured interview with two students from 8th grade.

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