Understanding Dyscalculia

Understanding Dyscalculia: A Guide for Parents and Educators

What is Dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia is a specific learning difficulty that affects an individual’s ability to understand and manipulate numbers. Just as dyslexia impacts reading, dyscalculia impacts mathematical skills. It can manifest in various ways, including difficulty with basic arithmetic, understanding number concepts, and solving math problems. Dyscalculia can stand alone and can often be coexisting with dyslexia, visual or auditory processing deficits. Poor working memory and poor processing speed can also impact a child’s ability to learn math.  Dyslexia is more commonly known but dyscalculia is real! 

Personal Story

Dyscalculia is real in our house!  I struggled in math throughout my entire education! Thankfully as a Speech Language Pathologist, I didn’t have to take too many math classes. I remember needing a tutor for my statistics class. I remember feeling incredibly dumb because my SATs were so low on the math portion. I then had 4 children who all struggled with math. It started when my oldest son was in 4^th grade and could not add 8 + 8 but the school kept telling him to try fractions. He was not having any success and was feeling very dumb to the point of talking about suicide.  He had an Individualized Education Plan since he was in preschool and had a lot of math goals but was not making any progress on those goals. 

Year after year the goals would be recycled, and he wasn’t making meaningful educational progress. That is when I had to take matters into my own hands and learn more about dyscalculia and the effective methodologies. I researched every math methodology out there to help. There seemed to be a sea of options when it came to literacy intervention but math methodology seemed to be 20 years behind the literacy research.  Most math intervention methodologies lacked in teacher and parent training. 

Most methodologies talked about adding some manipulatives or having the child sing a song or other “tricks” that did not work for my kids. I felt hopeless, so I kept searching, listening to podcasts and talking to leaders in the field of learning disabilities and dyscalculia. This is when I discovered Making Math Real methodology founded by David Berg out of Oakland California.  Making Math Real offered over 800 hours of classes from Kindergarten through Algebra 2 for teachers and parents reviewing all the baby steps and increments to get a child to master all the foundational math skills and catch up to grade level.  

I drove to and from Oakland (6 hours each way) from my house so many times that I killed a car with all the miles! I slept in a campground during weeks when my classes were back-to-back to save money. I also would get up at 2am to drive to Oakland to make it to class by 9am. I took all the Making Math Real classes 3 times. I also mentored with the founder, David Berg for several years until he sadly passed away in a tragic accident. 

I hired David to mentor my own children’s math educational therapists.  My children all had to go back to kindergarten math and slowly but surely build their math skills from there with the guidance of David’s mentorship and highly skilled math therapists who had taken the Making Math Real classes. I’m pleased to say they are all now at grade level, but they have been doing 2 hours of daily one on one math intervention using Making Math Real methodology for 7 years while homeschooling year-round. Now that they are at grade level, I have no intention of going back to the math that never worked for them. 

We will continue this intensive work because it is the only thing that has proven to be effective for them.  During our homeschooling journey, we have tried other “curriculums” and programs but the problem with those programs is it jumps right to the abstract, mixed practice and synthesis without building the necessary tools. Recently my oldest tried an online math program that was required of him and within minutes he was saying he was dumb. That educational wounding is deep and quickly comes back when the appropriate supports are not in place and the math work jumps right to the mixed practice and synthesis.  I am so deeply thankful for David Berg’s work which has changed my life and the trajectory of my children’s lives. 

Math skills is as important as reading skills and is a basic need that children need to master!  It wasn’t until I took all of David Berg’s classes that I finally authentically learned math myself. Before his classes, I could not multiply, I feared fractions, I counted on my fingers and depended on a calculator. I remember having tears of joy and excitement in his classes where I authentically had my picture of what those numbers and math symbols represented! I no longer felt dumb! As a Speech Language Pathologist, I never thought half of my practice would involve providing math intervention to clients. How many people do you hear about choosing careers based on not being good at math? My hope for my own children and clients is that they can choose whatever career  they want, and that their career options are not limited by the inability to do math. During this homeschooling journey I did not care that my kids were at grade level. I knew they could only move as fast as they could. 

I cared mostly that they mastered foundational math skills, kept making progress and enjoyed learning.  Trying to keep up with the pace of outside curriculums and schools can be like drinking from a fire hose! Schools often go at such a rapid rate when teaching math and the math concepts taught can easily jump around haphazardly. Children who do not master foundational math skills are moved to the next level and fall further and further behind. Those children often get to Fractions or Pre-Algebra and are desperate for help. At that point, I cannot usually help a child with grade level math, it is common that I must go back and build the missing foundational skills such as concepts of place, multiplication facts, concepts of division, etc.  There is no magic wand or quick fix.  It takes time and it takes the child working with a highly skilled therapist at the appropriate frequency.

Signs and Symptoms

Identifying dyscalculia early can make a significant difference in a child’s educational journey. Here are some common signs to look out for:

• Difficulty recognizing numbers and their values
• Trouble with counting
• Loses track when counting
• Challenges with mental math and calculations
• Difficulty understanding time, such as reading clocks or managing schedules
• Issues with spatial awareness, which can affect geometry and measurement
• Difficulty memorizing math facts such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts
• Counting on their fingers instead of mastering math facts 
• Challenges with basic number sense (knowing what number comes before or after another number) and being able to complete base ten puzzles. 
• Difficulty understanding with calendars: days of the week and months of the year.
• Difficulty remembering number sequences such as phone numbers, zip codes, game scores or new passwords that involve numbers
• Difficulty keeping at grade level in math
• Difficulty with money matters such as making change, counting bills, calculating a tip, splitting a check or estimating how much something will cost.
• A notable discrepancy between ability and aptitude such as a child performing well in other subjects such as English or History but a very low grade in a math-based class. 

How is dyscalculia diagnosed?
There is no specific test for dyscalculia but typically can be diagnosed by an educational or clinical psychologist or an educational specialist with training in dyscalculia.  Lights On Learning specializes in assessing and treating dyscalculia.

The Impact on Learning
Students with dyscalculia often experience frustration and anxiety around math, leading to a lack of confidence. This can affect their overall academic performance and motivation. It’s essential to create a supportive environment where they feel safe to express their struggles.

Strategies for Support

Here are some strategies that parents and educators can use to help children with dyscalculia:

1. Use Visual Aids:
   
   
   Incorporate visual tools like number lines, charts, and manipulatives to help conceptualize mathematical ideas.
2. Encourage a Growth Mindset: Emphasize that struggling with math doesn’t define their intelligence. Celebrate small victories to build confidence.
3. Provide One-on-One Intervention with a highly skilled practitioner: Individualized attention can help tailor learning experiences to the child’s needs, allowing them to progress at their own pace.  This is the most important in my opinion. For some children, once a week may be effective. For my own children, it took years of intensive intervention. If you are not seeing progress with your child, it may be the methodology, the therapist or frequency of intervention. One on one therapy needs to be prescriptive to the child’s developmental needs, not a scripted program. It needs to go from concrete to semi-concrete to semi-abstract to abstract and build all foundational skills in a specific scope and sequence that covers all the necessary tool building and incrementation.
4. Incorporate Games: Use math-related games to make learning fun and engaging, helping to reinforce concepts in a low-pressure setting.
5. Utilize Technology:
   
   
   There are various apps and online resources designed to assist students with dyscalculia, providing interactive and adaptive learning experiences. Many people are quick to give individuals a calculator as an accommodation. It may fix a problem temporarily but does not replace the child needing authentic and effective math intervention. Every individual deserves to learn and master math concepts!

Resources for Further Learning

• Books: Look for titles specifically focused on dyscalculia for deeper insights and strategies.
• Online Communities: Join forums and groups where parents and educators share experiences and resources.
• Professional Help: Consider consulting with a psychologist or learning specialist for assessment and tailored intervention plans. In my own opinion, Psychologist are great at diagnosing dyscalculia but struggle with the treatment recommendations. Psychologists often recommend manipulatives and a calculator. What has been the most helpful in my opinion is finding a highly skilled educational specialist who has the necessary training to teach math from the concrete to abstract addressing the child’s developmental needs in a prescriptive way. 

Conclusion
Dyscalculia is a challenge, but with the right support and understanding, children can thrive in their mathematical journeys. By fostering a nurturing environment and employing effective strategies, we can help them build the skills they need to succeed.

Lights On Learning Solutions: 
Lights On Learning offers multiple solutions to help the child’s math development: 

1. One on one prescriptive assessments and therapy to address the child’s math development Kindergarten through Algebra. Each session is individualized to meet the child’s unique needs.  
2. Online membership where students can access recorded on demand videos so the child can learn at their own pace in the comfort of their own home.  Math skills are taught from concrete to abstract and can be accessed through the membership.
3. Lights On Learning offers some stand-alone math products in the store for additional practice and maintenance.

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