Math is Impossible- I Just Don't Get It!

Dyscalculia has nothing to do with IQ or intelligence. It is one of the learning disabilities involved in the processing of information. Dyscalculia is the inability to process math and all things related to math. In Greek it means,"counting badly." Dyscalculia occurs in 5% of the population though most experts feel this is underestimated. There are 17% to 30% of students who have both Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. This is evident when they are having great difficulty in reading, writing, reading comprehension, spelling, languages, as well as, severe math difficulty.

What Causes Dyscalculia?

It may be caused by a genetic link or by damage to specific areas of the brain. It can be caused by short term memory being disturbed in a fall, sports accident, or car accident. The degree to which Dyscalculia affects your school work and life differs with each individual.

How Dyscalculia Affects Your School Work and Life:

After years of being diagnosed with dyslexia, I came to find out that I am one of the 5% (experts suggest this number is much higher) of the population with Dyscalculia. It was the answer to all the unanswered questions in my life. In so many ways, I did not fit the profile given to Dyslexia. I was an honor student who got A's in English and every subject until it involved math. Math in every area of my life confounded me and stopped me from my goals. I could not understand the ability gaps in my life. For me it meant giving up my dream of becoming a scientist. After high school, I became a medical assistant because it did not involve the math classes that becoming a nurse required. It can affect your career income and promotion with difficulty passing some job and college entrance tests. It may prevent you from doing well in some jobs where math skills are required.

School Work: you confuse the different math signs such as plus and division; difficulty in making change; reading analog clocks; estimating costs of items; difficulty with all the different math skills including multiplication tables, subtraction tables, division tables and mental arithmetic; mental difficulty in estimating measurement of objects and distance; inability to remember math concepts, rules, and formula and sequences; inability to read a sequence of numbers or transposing them when written or verbally repeated; poor long term retention of information and recall; needs to reread information frequently to remember it; student may do well on book work but fail tests and quizzes; may do poorly on timed achievement tests such at SAT and ACT; inability to remember calculations or numbers for long; Some students excel in science and geometry until higher math skills are required.

Sports, Dancing, Music and Games: Difficulty in keeping score during a game; Difficulty with games period such as remembering whose turn it is, rules, points, and scoring ; sequential processing problems involved in complicated dance routines, drama scripts, and aerobics; in sports difficulty remembering rules, guidelines, and plays; inability to read music notes and remembering their sequence;

Life Activities: problems determining right from left; remembering telephone and fax numbers; trouble using a cash register, calculator, or combination lock; poor long term retention of information and recall; trouble making schedules and remembering them; difficulty in navigation and maps; directional confusion in hospitals, shopping malls; apartment buildings, and school campus; trouble with North, South, East and West; difficulty with terms like port and starboard; difficulty with judging time resulting in being late often; inability to budget and keep track of finances; difficulty in understanding compound interest, bank terms, financial statement terms; difficulty in some computer programs;

Student Profile With Dyscalculia:

Students with Dyscalculia often are gifted in most learning areas, may be honor students, avid readers and learners, achieve excellent grades in everything but math areas. Their teachers tend to ignore their problems in math, because they are getting such great grades in everything else. Their parents don't catch it either. They may ask for help but not get it because of their high grade points in other subjects. The child excels in areas like social studies, English, and science until higher math in required. No matter how hard they try, they cannot understand and retain the math areas of the subjects. Many people with Dyscalculia do well in science and even geometry which require logic not formulas. The problem comes when higher levels of calculations are required. Some people with Dyscalculia are gifted in abstract math reasoning abilities. That is why Dyscalculia is confusing and often missed in testing.

Dyscalculia Is a Serious Learning Disability:

This disorder blocks students from attending some colleges and from 50% of the available jobs. Math is one of the most necessary and needed skills to succeed in life. The student is completely shattered that they get top grades in other subjects that are not math related. So many jobs and professions require math that It forces them into lower paying jobs because they cannot pass the entrance tests to schools and jobs.

Testing for Dyscalculia

From the research I did for this article, the testing for this learning problem is inadequate in schools and colleges. In most schools, Dyscalculia is not a certified learning disability. This means they don't have to give you the special help on tests that other learning disorders receive. Most students are told they have math anxiety, dyslexia, or are just not trying hard enough. Standard tutoring does not help because they don't have the proper training and tools to help the student. Proper testing separates those students who have other learning disabilities, math anxiety, were underexposed to math in school and foreign students who may have cultural underexposure to math. Correct testing given to children at elementary school level does expose the problem. You will find more information, an online test, and therapy here. The links at the bottom of this article will also help in your research.

References:

http://www.dyscalculia.org/diagnosis.html

http://www.dyscalculia.org/index.html

http://www.dyscalculia.me.uk/testing.html#comp

http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/dyscalcula.html