Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can lead to a range of difficulties with mathematics. It occurs across all ages and abilities.

Possible signs of dyscalculia

A person with dyscalculia/mathematical learning difficulties may:

• Have difficulty when counting backwards.
• Have a poor sense of number and estimation.
• Have difficulty in remembering ‘basic’ facts, despite many hours of practice/rote learning.
• Have no strategies to compensate for lack of recall, other than to use counting.
• Have difficulty in understanding place value and the role of zero in the Arabic/Hindu number system.
• Have no sense of whether any answers that are obtained are right or nearly right.
• Be slower to perform calculations. (Therefore give fewer examples, rather than more time).
• Forget mathematical procedures, especially as they become more complex, for example ‘long’ division. Addition is often the default operation. The other operations are usually very poorly executed (or avoided altogether).
• Avoid tasks that are perceived as difficult and likely to result in a wrong answer.
• Have weak mental arithmetic skills.
• Have high levels of mathematics anxiety.