Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities: The Signs of Dyscalculia and Interventions

Dyscalculia is the general term given to describe a wide range of mathematical learning disabilities, meaning that the disability affects people differently due to differences in development. Some people with dyscalculia have weaknesses in sequencing, some have problems with visual-spatial concepts, and others have difficulty in math due to language deficits or problems remembering facts. Math related learning disabilities are not as commonly diagnosed as learning disabilities which impact progress in reading, but they are just as common. The term is not widely used in schools because there is no clear, unified way to measure dyscalculia but the condition affects roughly between 3% and 6% of the population. Dyscalculia can have a negative impact on school performance and self-esteem without appropriate intervention strategies. While only trained professionals in the area of diagnosing learning disabilities can evaluate a student for the condition, parents and teachers can request an evaluation if warning signs are present. Some of the warning signs that a potential problem exists are: problems with mental math tasks like estimating, the inability to retain information related to computing math problems, a poor concept of time, direction, and other abstract ideas, name/face retrieval problems, the inability to sequence, and difficulty learning new math concepts. Students with dyscalculia have trouble playing games which require strategy, such as chess, and they often get confused when taking score on the board during class games. Some students with dyscalculia cannot line up numbers properly on paper due to problems with visual-spatial relationships.

Because dyscalculia manifests in such a wide variety of symptoms and impacts learners in different ways, strategies used when working with students with this learning disability should be geared towards achieving independent success. A careful observation of the student's ability and the way in which he or she performs mathematical tasks should be conducted prior to making accommodations. However, there are some strategies which have proved successful for students with a math learning disability. Such interventions include: reducing the amount of distracting information or pictures on worksheets, using rhythm to learn math facts, frequent remediation/review of taught material, allowing the student to take tests in a small group to alleviate math anxiety, using graph paper to line up numbers in columns, and using manipulatives or other visual aids to enhance comprehension. The student may benefit from additional time to process information or write down the steps to solving math problems. It is also beneficial to teach easier concepts before more complex concepts or to break down the steps of a problem into even smaller increments. Many students benefit from the use of a calculator. There are calculators with special "talking" features that allow the student to hear the numbers and functions as they are being used which are helpful for some students with dyscalculia.

Sources:
Dyscalculia Primer and Resource Guide, Anna J. Wilson