A specific learning difficulty in mathematics (sometimes called dyscalculia) means that a person has ongoing challenges with learning and using maths. This is due to how their brain processes numbers and mathematical concepts.
Common Difficulties With Dyscalculia
People with dyscalculia often struggle with:
Understanding the size and order of numbers
Comparing quantities and estimating amounts
Recognising number patterns and place value
Naming and ordering numbers correctly
Some individuals may not have difficulties with number understanding but still experience serious maths challenges due to other factors, such as:
Language processing difficulties
Problems with memory and organisation
Challenges with visual-spatial skills
How It Affects Everyday Life
Maths is used in many aspects of daily life, from telling the time to managing money. A specific learning difficulty in mathematics can make tasks like these much harder. It can also affect schoolwork, exams, and career opportunities. Struggling with maths over time can also lead to low confidence and anxiety around numbers.
Who Does It Affect?
This learning difficulty can appear differently from person to person and may change over time. It often coexists with other conditions such as:
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
Dyslexia
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)
Many people with a maths learning difficulty also experience maths anxiety, but having maths anxiety alone does not mean someone has dyscalculia.
If you or your child are struggling with maths, early support and tailored strategies can make a big difference.
What Is Involved In An Assessment Of Dyscalculia?
Several areas will be assessed through observation and formal assessment.
1. Language
Including:
· Receptive language and listening comprehension.
· Expressive language.
· Measures of verbal reasoning.
· Phonological awareness.
These skills are the foundation for mathematics learning. Poor early language skills are implicated as a risk factor for dyslexia and a specific learning difficulty in mathematics.
2. Mathematical Language
It is essential that spatial language is appraised in younger learners.
Other factors that will be considered are how everyday words have specific, different meanings in maths, maths terminology to describe the elements in mathematical actions and mathematical entities and the ability to talk coherently and confidently about mathematical ideas and actions.
2. Speed of Processing and Retrieval
Speeded tests of processing and retrieval can be used to gain information about the individual’s ability to perform relatively simple, repetitive cognitive tasks quickly and accurately. Processing speed can impact on numerical fluency.
3. Memory and Attention
Working memory has an impact on word problems and calculation. Generally, verbal working memory and phonological short-term memory are associated with maths achievement, but the role of verbal working memory appears to fluctuate with age (development) and the area of maths under scrutiny.
Verbal working memory is of particular importance in multi-step calculations where interim solutions must be held in mind.
Attentional facilities usually correlate with mathematical performance.
4. Visual-Spatial Processing
The processing of visual-spatial information enables us to make sense of what we see and to interact efficiently and appropriately with the world around us. It is crucial to our performance of everyday tasks in academic and workplace environments.
Visual-spatial skills contribute to mathematical performance at a practical level: when reading and interpreting graphs, lining up calculations and comparing visual quantities. The ability to store accurate spatial representations in memory and to marshal these when solving problems is important in the development of mathematical understanding and problem-solving. Spatial skills influence all areas of mathematical thinking, not just shape and space.
5. Numerical Cognition
Including:
· Symbolic magnitude processing
· Non-symbolic magnitude processing.
· Magnitude estimation
· Counting
· Sequencing/ordering numbers
Weaker performance on numerical (symbolic) magnitude processing is strongly associated with weak maths achievement. Accuracy in symbolic number comparison is specifically associated with mathematical performance.
6. Maths Attainment
Including:
Timed test(s) of calculation
A written untimed test of graded computation
General maths attainment
Mathematics reasoning and problem solving, including worded problems