Can dyspraxia affect Maths?

[Dancergirl]

Hi, I'm new on the SN board. Dd2 is 12 and in Year 7. She has recently been diagnosed with (mild) dyspraxia. I had suspected something not quite right for quite a few years by way of her extreme emotional reactions to some situations, strong aversion to certain foods and textures and problems with running and sport in general.

Her Maths tutor for the 11+ actually suggested she could be dyspraxic. I don't know exactly why but there was something in the way she thought and worked things out that he noticed.

A year on she is now at a girls' grammar school. She's generally doing well but the Maths is becoming a bit of a problem. I don't think she has problems understanding - when I sit down with her when she's doing Maths homework, I can see she 'gets' it, sometimes a step or two ahead of me. But she tends to make careless mistakes. Also she doesn't always show working out and instead of working step by step she tends to do the whole thing in one go.

They've had two Maths tests so far, the first one she got 56%. I did have a quick chat with the teacher and she said she would have expected a higher mark. The next test was this week and dd came home very upset with her score of 47%. She thought it had gone well

I don't know if I'm clutching at straws, but IS there any connection to the dyspraxia? The school do know about it but I don't know how much they understand - I think they think it only affects sport. And tbh, I'm still learning about the condition too, it's all unknown territory to me.

Also, are there any good books which explains more about dyspraxia?

Yes I think it can. Dyspraxia does not just have to be about physical coordination, it affects organisational skills and space which in turn can affect sequencing etc. Is there a particular area of maths she struggles with? My DS also has mild dyspraxia and is very strong in maths (Year 8) but has always had to work harder at things like trig and geometry. Everything else he just "gets" and never has to work or revise for.

Dyspraxia is so complicated as much of it is so hidden and children, and adults, often come up with strategies to cope and "seem normal". Even though my DS's dyspraxia isn't evident, I have to remind myself he may be having to work so much harder than NT DC which explains careless mistakes he makes sometimes, if that makes sense? He also has a habit of working everything out in his head, often 5 steps ahead but this has improved with work endless nagging.

I can't help you with reading material but hopefully someone else can.

Yes
My ds had trouble writing so the whole job of writing puts him off what he is thinking

And then he writes so untidily that either he misreads his numbers, or the marker misreads his numbers.

With words, there is a context, so that if a letter is poorly written the other letters and words around make it pretty easy to work out what is going on.

But with numbers there is no contest to help.

And laying them out in vertical lines is a problem.

So yes -

my dad researched some typing options - apparently there is something called 'maths type' which you can use even for more advanced maths.

I think there may be some options with dragon dictate as well, or just try maybe at home just writing it for her and see if the results differ.

It may be that some areas of maths are just more obscure to her because of dyslexia and will need to be just practiced over and over for gcse,
But looking ahead, if she has made grammar school, her level of maths, when she reaches the adult world is unlikely to stop her being very employable and having a happy life.

My eldest is dyspraxic, and he definitely struggles with Maths.

He has had an assessment by an Educational Psychologist and there's a big discrepancy between his Verbal and non Verbal IQ - this apparently ties in with Dyspraxia -and means that he finds it hard to grasp concepts. But because he is so bright in other ways, he finds ways to compensate.

Despite these difficulties he did work really hard and got A in 4th year Maths and B in his 5th year Maths (Scotland).

Maths relies a lot on good working memory (because you have to be able to hold concepts in your head to do complex sums) and most people with dyspraxia have poor working memory.

I've recommended this on here before but I have found Caged in Chaos great in increasing my understanding of how dyspraxia impacts on the bright teenager's life and learning - it's written by a 16 year old with dyspraxia.