"Dyscalculia is difficulty in learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, performing mathematical calculations and learning facts in mathematics. It is sometimes informally known as "math dyslexia", though this can be misleading as it is a different condition. Dyscalculia can occur in people from across the whole IQ range, along with difficulties with time, measurement, and spatial reasoning. Estimates of the prevalence of dyscalculia range between 3 and 6% of the population. In 2015, it was established that 11% of children with dyscalculia also have ADHD.
Signs and symptons
The earliest appearance of dyscalculia is typically a deficit in the ability to know, from a brief glance and without counting, how many objects there are in a small group (see subitizing). Children as young as 5 can subitize 6 objects, especially looking at a die. However, children with dyscalculia can subitize fewer objects and even when correct take longer to identify the number than their age-matched peers. Dyscalculia often looks different at different ages. It tends to become more apparent as children get older; however, symptoms can appear as early as preschool. Common symptoms of dyscalculia are, having difficulty with mental math, trouble analyzing time and reading an analog clock, struggle with motor sequencing that involves numbers, and often they will count on their fingers when adding numbers.
Common symptoms
Dyscalculia is characterized by difficulties with common arithmetic tasks. These difficulties may include:
- Inability to comprehend financial planning or budgeting, sometimes even at a basic level; for example, estimating the cost of the items in a shopping basket or balancing a checkbook
- Inconsistent results in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
- Difficulty with multiplication, subtraction, addition, and division tables, mental arithmetic, etc.
- A "warped" sense of spatial awareness, or an understanding of shapes, distance, or volume that seems more like guesswork than actual comprehension (basically all of his gameplay)
- Difficulty with time, directions, recalling schedules, sequences of events, keeping track of time, frequently late or early
- Ability to grasp math on a conceptual level, but an inability to put those concepts into practice
- Difficulty with choreographed dance steps
- Having particular difficulty mentally estimating the measurement of an object or distance (e.g., whether something is 3 or 6 meters (10 or 20 feet) away)
- When writing, reading and recalling numbers, mistakes may occur in the areas such as: number additions, substitutions, transpositions, omissions, and reversals
- Inability to concentrate on mentally intensive tasks
- Mistaken recollection of names, poor name/face retrieval, may substitute names beginning with same letter."
Persistence in adults
There are very few studies of adults with dyscalculia who have had a history of it growing up, but such studies have shown that it can persist into adulthood. It can affect major parts of an adult's life. Most adults with dyscalculia have a hard time processing math at a 4th grade level. For 1st-4th grade level,
many adults will know what to do for the math problem, but they will often get them wrong because of "careless errors," although they are not careless when it comes to the problem. The adults cannot process their errors on the math problems or may not even recognize that they have made these errors.
Adults with dyscalculia have a tough time with directions while driving and with
controlling their finances, which causes difficulties on a day-to-day basis.