Tell me what you know about Dyscalculia

[Crinkle55]

Hoping to find out more about dyscalculia as it's been suggested that my DC has this. If your child has it, when/how were they diagnosed? When did you first notice their difficulties with maths? Are there always problems early on with numbers? My DC was very advanced with numbers as a young child, only really saw problems with maths in the later years of primary school.
Thanks in advance!

One of mine (now adult) has it. Diagnosed by Ed Psych: excellent at recognising patterns in words, text etc, could not fathom number sequences, number bonds etc. One thing we did from an early stage was Kumon which I know some think is terrible but rote learning was the only way they were going to grasp the basics. Always found maths at school difficult and ended up having a tutor and doing the basic GCSE paper (max grade C as was) and scraped through. Has never had to do anything number related (that can’t be done on a calculator) since, including a social science degree and a good job now. We considered it something to be managed and a hurdle (GCSE) to be jumped but which has very little impact on everyday life.

Ex teacher

the diagnosis covers a lot of ground. It’s usually helpful to have a bit more detail.

eg students I have had with the diagnosis in the past have really struggled with shapes and visualising 3d shapes, other students found number work hard.

try to get more details if you can of what specifically is the problem and then that can be worked on.

kumon can be helpful but only for some difficulties

Thanks, that's really interesting. At what age was your child diagnosed? How was their early maths?

Thank you. Her early number skills were really advanced and I'd say she was well above her peers aged 2-8. Averageish from age 8-10. Problems only really showed from age 10 onwards but tbh she has dyspraxia (and suspected ADHD) so not sure how much of the maths issues now can be attributed to those, rather than dyscalculia, if you see what I mean. I'm not sure a child with dyscalculia could have been that advanced early on, but I'm not expert!

@Crinkle55 official diagnosis at Y4 age after realising they were having a great deal of difficulty in maths compared to literacy where they were top of the expectation range all through. If your DC “gets” (or has done) numbers, patterns, number bonds, concepts of subtraction, division etc then my inexpert view would be that maybe she’s just levelling out after an advanced start.

Recommend the Dyscalculia Association for info op, dd has it and pretty sure I do but I’ve never been assessed myself. Our experience has been that school doesn’t know anything about dyscalculia and has no interest in supporting dd with it unfortunately. We’re paying for a tutor to try and get her the pass she needs at GCSE

https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyscalculia

There is approximately 15-20% crossover with ADHD and an association with dyspraxia.

The dyscalculia assessments are fairly recently developed and there are not as many people qualified to assess dyscalculia as there are dyslexia. LinkedIn might be a good place to look for specialists.

It’s fairly common for this to be picked up in the later years of primary school as SATs preparation begins.

I have this and is maths but it’s more than maths.
I get very disoriented and have no sense of direction also struggle to read with maps if I get off a bus I can never tell which facing so I don’t know what side the road I’m on.
I have no facial recognition and no photographic memory so I can’t draw anything unless it’s in front of me because I just can’t picture something that’s not there in my minds eye.
This affects my recall of things like what someone was wearing, I’d be terrible at identifying someone.
I don’t know about this one but my husband says I always think things are bigger than the are so when we were looking to move house and I’d be saying this room was massive and we can fit this and that in and have… and he’ll be stepping in saying no it’s not big enough to fit any of that but I can’t picture the space again once I’ve left like other people.
You have to remember though, one person with it is just one person, he may have none of the above but have other struggles that I don’t.
Maths to me is like another language and no amount of maths courses are going to change that for me, it’s just beyond my comprehension.
But - I’m happy.

Yes, Maths skills are definitely WAY below her literacy levels. It's weird as things like telling the time she could do effortlessly and before her peers earlier on in school, she now struggles to do, it's like she's fallen back.

Thanks, I'll have a look at that. At what age was your child diagnosed, and who did it, if school have been no help? We are the same - school wants to diagnose her but have openly said they know nothing about it and have no policy on it!

That would concern me and not in a dyscalculia sort of way.

have you had her vision and hearing tested recently?

Thank you - I'll have a good look at that later when I have time. That's really helpful.

I just can't understand how nothing was seen until age 10. She wasn't just meeting milestones before this, she was definitely very advanced. I wonder if it's her lack of concentration (we have always suspected ADHD too) that's affecting her ability to do the more complex maths now. Or possibly dyspraxia causes maths issues

That's very interesting, have you ever considered you might be dyspraxic?

No, but that's a good shout.

We had just put her academic regression down to possibly ADHD symptoms getting worse with puberty and so she's not concentrating. Her focus, distractibility etc have deteriorated in the last couple of years. Though school don't think she has ADHD despite telling us constantly that she's interrupting, getting out her seat in class!!

Thanks to everyone for the helpful replies on this. Just wondering if anyone else has experience of dyscalculia with their child?