DYSCALCULIA Ivana Marova, Ph.D.
DYSCALCULIA
DYSCALCULIA - DEFINITION
Developmental Dyscalculia (DD) is a specific learning disorder
that is characterised by impairments in learning basic arithmetic
facts, processing numerical magnitude and performing accurate
and fluent calculations. These difficulties must be quantifiably
below what is expected for an individual’s chronological age, and
must not be caused by poor educational or daily activities or by
intellectual impairments.
NUMBER SENSE
• Child’s fluidity and flexibility
with numbers
•It helps children understand
what numbers mean,
improving their performance
of mental mathematics, and
giving them the tools to look
at maths in the outside world
and make comparisons
DYSCALCULIA - SYMPTOMS
1. Delay in counting. Five to seven year-old dyscalculic children show less
understanding of basic counting principles than their peers (e.g. that it
doesn't matter which order objects are counted in).
2. Delay in using counting strategies for addition. Dyscalculic children
tend to keep using inefficient strategies for calculating addition facts much
longer than their peers.
3. Difficulties in memorizing arithmetic facts. Dyscalculic children have
great difficulty in memorizing simple addition, subtraction and
multiplication facts (eg. 5 + 4 = 9), and this difficulty persists up to at least
the age of thirteen.
D. C. Geary, C. O. Hamson, and M. K. Hoard, "Numerical and arithmetical cognition: A
longitudinal study of process and concept deficits in children with learning disability," Journal
of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 77, pp. 236-263, 2000.
DYSCALCULIA - SYMPTOMS
The following are likely to be symptoms of dyscalculia:
1. Difficulty imagining a mental number line
2. Particular difficulty with subtraction
3. Difficulty using finger counting (slow, inaccurate, unable to immediately
recognise finger configurations)
4. Difficulty decomposing numbers (e.g. recognizing that 10 is made up of 4
and 6)
5. Difficulty understanding place value
6. Trouble learning and understanding reasoning methods and multi-step
calculation procedures
7. Anxiety about or negative attitude towards maths (caused by the dyscalculia!)
MATH DIFFICULTIES (BLAŽKOVÁ, 2009)
Pre-numerical
skills
Propaedeutic
exercises to
create the term
number
Numbers as
category
General
mathematical
operations
Verbal tasks Geometry
Unit conversions Estimation of
results
Mathematics in
everyday life –
financial literacy,
spatial orientation
NUMBER AS A
CATEGORY -
PRINCIPLES
•Handling of objects with verbalization – the
child takes a hand and counts
•Counting with visual aids without eye support
•Counting from memory
oOrientation on the numerical axis (show
number on axis, show number before/after,...)
oComparing numbers – larger, smaller, same
oSort cards by Size – 42, 24, 204, 4002, 422
oWrite numbers using table numbers
oReading numerals ascending and descending,
dithering numbers
oGraphical representation of numbers in a
grid of 10 × 10 squares (thousands, hundreds,
tens, units)
COMPARE
Write numbers into the chart
GENERAL MATH OPERATIONS
Add Substract
LOGICO PICOLLO
LOGICO PICOLLO
OPERATIONS – COLORFUL PRISMS