Dyscalculia Tutors
What is Dyscalculia?
Signs and Symptoms of Dyscalculia
The signs of dyscalculia will often present themselves very early in a child’s educational development. A child with this disorder may have difficulty counting or organizing numbers. The child may struggle with learning math concepts or solving math problems. Fractions, operations, and sequencing may be a real challenge for them, as well as understanding math language. Because so much of our daily lives revolve around math, this learning difficulty will also appear when learning to handle everyday tasks, such as counting money, identifying months and days and telling time. In many cases, a child may develop significant math anxiety and frustration as a result of not being able to understand the subject, and this can cause further learning problems if not addressed.
Diagnosing Dyscalculia
If a parent or teacher suspects that a child has dyscalculia, they can have the child evaluated. There are various tests that are used to determine if a child has dyscalculia and they can be given by a qualified psychologist or educational specialist to determine the diagnosis. These tests will cover such areas as computation skills, math fluency, and quantitative reasoning. In many cases, a child with dyscalculia will often display attention span problems, so it is important to also evaluate the child for problems such ADHD or any other learning difficulties.
Treating Dyscalculia
Effective Strategies
To help a child with dyscalculia, there are some simple strategies that can be used in the classroom and at home, such as allowing the child to use their fingers or a piece of scrap paper for counting and calculations, using mnemonic devices or by proving pictures and graphs for word problems. These tools can help a child to visualize the numbers, which may help them to grasp math concepts better.
For more information on dyscalculia, visit the Learning Disabilities Association of America or dyscalculia.org for more resources on how to help a child with this disability.