Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia

People diagnosed as having difficulty with arithmetic computation and stated problems in math.

What is Dyscalculia?

Inefficiency with math calculations is caused, primarily, by three separate information processing problems (or some combination of the three very different difficulties):

• Memory Problems,
• Position-in-space Problems, and
• Sequential Order Problems.

Difficulty with word problems is often related to another information processing problem, Dysphasia (dis-phase-yuh). Someone with dysphasia is referred to as Dysphasic.

People with either or both of these problems (people who have difficulty with math computation and/or word problems) are described as dyscalculic (dis-cal-cool-ick).

If the math problem from which this student suffers includes computation inefficiency, please refer to the sections that explain the three separate learning disability difficulties (those three mentioned earlier in this section on the previous page) in more detail (memory, position-in-space, and sequential order). It is important to understand those separate learning disabilities. In this chapter we will focus on how these three underlying information processing problems impact on an individual's ability to learn math. It will also address how to offset the academic difficulties these information processing difficulties cause.

If the student's difficulty with math includes confusion with the language within word problems, please refer to the section on dysphasia or difficulty in understanding the meaning of language. That section (on dysphasia) addresses the general problems that exist for someone who is dysphasic. This section (on Dyscalculia) will also address how to offset the academic difficulties that problems with language meaning cause in the math class.

Difficulty with word problems (also called stated problems or story problems) sometimes co-exists with computation problems. Sometimes trouble with word problems exists when the student is efficient with the actual computation of the numbers in math challenges, the ones that involve only numbers, those with no words.

There are two main causes of poor performance with word problems. Word problem inefficiency can develop for a student when the words in the story problem (or stated problem) are simply too hard for the student to read. In other words, the math problems are presented using words this student cannot yet read easily. This is in reality a reading problem.

The other possibility (if you are sure the student's reading is efficient) is that the individual is having difficulty understanding the meaning of the words. This usually means the student is having trouble everywhere with word meaning. Math story problems may be the first place it becomes really obvious. Refer to the section on Dysphasia as well as this section.

Ignore these concerns and explore memory, position-in-space, and sequential order if computation is the only problem.

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