It is a disorder characterized by difficulties in the correct acquisition of mathematical skills, which significantly affect academic performance or activities of daily living that require calculation skills.
In no case is this disorder caused by a sensory deficit or medical illness.
Dyscalculia reflects difficulties in mathematics. However, in the rest of the subjects the child evolves with total normality and his academic performance is in normal values.
Dyscalculia is described in a subcategory of neurodevelopmental disorders called “specific learning disorder”.
Types of dyscalculia
- Primary: difficulty related to a neurological lesion.
- Secondary: associated with a low capacity for reasoning and spatial-temporal orientation. It is characterized by a poor use of numerical symbols.
- Dysametric: difficulty in solving operations and problems.
- Spatial: difficulty in ordering and structuring numbers.
Symptoms
The child may have difficulty in:
- Understand the meaning of quantities or concepts such as greater than and less than.
- Understand that the number 5 is the same as the word five, and that both mean five things.
- Remembering math facts, such as multiplication tables.
- Counting money or calculating change.
- Estimate time.
- Estimating speed or distance.
- Understand the logic of mathematics.
- Retain numbers in mind when solving problems.
Evaluation
The diagnosis of dyscalculia should be made by specific tests included in a more general neuropsychological evaluation. However, it should be taken into account that the diagnosis should only be made from the end of the first year of primary education (6-7 years), being even more accurate if it is made from the second year of primary education.
The critical period for numerical learning is between 4 and 7 years of age, so there may be differences in the pace of learning between some children and others. After this critical period, if there are difficulties, they must be detected and re-educated.
However, it is important to keep in mind that there are children with difficulties in mathematics who do not have dyscalculia.
What are the causes of dyscalculia?
Researchers have identified two possible causes of dyscalculia:
- Genes and heredity: dyscalculia occurs in members of the same family. Research shows that genes may play a role in difficulties with mathematics.
- Brain development: Brain imaging studies have shown some differences between people with and without dyscalculia. The differences have to do with the structure and functioning of areas that are related to learning skills.