Also trouble with Math?

Is your child, or you, struggling with math?

Read on: Recent research shows that learners can be confident and successful in Math with an individualized approach from early on! Even love it!! Much like we know that children with dyslexia benefit from special dyslexia instruction using sequential structured phonics lessons and can become good readers and even love to read, children with the math learning disability or Dyscalculia can become comfortable in math with specialized instruction.

Do the online Math and Dyscalculia Screening Test now Click HERE

What does the word dyscalculia mean?

The word dyscalculia has Greek and Latin roots: dys (the Greek part) means badly and calculia (the Latin part) comes from calculare: making calculations, so dyscalculia is ‘badly calculating’ or having trouble with making calculations, or ‘dyslexia with numbers’. Compare dyslexia ‘badly reading’.

Dyscalculia is a Specific Learning Difference or Disability (Sp LD) involving all sorts of numerical tasks. It is listed in the DSM IV.

Dyscalculia in children often involves struggling with one or more of the following:

  • simple mathematics  memorizing and applying math facts: addition and multiplication
  • the order of operations
  • the ability to visualize a small or large quantity
  • to mentally connect a number with a size or quantity (number sense)
  • learning to tell time

Dyscalculia in adults often involves one or more of the following difficulties:

  • uncomfortable with all sorts of number related activities
  • mistakes in copying and memorizing numbers  trouble with everyday calculations like estimating shopping total or change given
  • difficulty keeping a checkbook and managing a bank account getting directions and using a map is often confusing
  • time related issues

The brain of a person with dyscalculia is wired slightly differently and a mathematical stimulus is processed differently. This is pictured with functional MRI: when a child or adult with dyscalculia does a math problem the areas in the brain that are best equipped for numerical tasks are bypassed and other less efficient areas are used instead. We also know that that the brain can be trained to unleash that previously hidden capacity.

Watch a ten minute youtube video by one of the leading experts in dyscalculia, Prof Brian Butterworth

click here to watch