- is a specific learning disability (or difficulty) in

mathematics.
-Severe difficulty in making arithmetical calculations, as
a result of brain disorder.

-it goes by many names. Some public schools refer to it

as a “mathematics learning disability.”

-Doctors sometimes call it a “mathematics disorder.”

Many kids and parents call it “math dyslexia.”
It was originally defined by the
Czechoslovakia researcher, Kosc, as a
difficulty in mathematics as a result of
impairment to particular parts of the brain
involved in mathematical cognition, but
without a general difficulty in cognitive
function.
Dyscalculia was first discovered in 1919
by Salomon Henschen, a Swedish
neurologist. He found that it was
possible for a person to have impaired
mathematical abilities that did not
affect intelligence in general.
Kids identified with dyslexia would also meet the criteria for
dyscalculia. Both conditions can affect a child’s ability to
understand math-related words.

An estimated 6 to 7 percent of elementary school children

may have dyscalculia.

56 percent of kids with a reading disorder also have poor

math achievement.

43 percent of kids with a math disability have poor reading

skills.
Genes and heredity

Brain development

Environment

Brain injury
Brain bases of dyscalculia

Dyscalculic children - less grey

matter in IPS (Rotzer et al., Dyscalculic adults –less grey
2008) matter in IPS(Isaacs, Edmonds
& Lucas, 2001)
The Brain and Math

1. Left 2. Left 3. Right

Angular Intraparietal Intraparietal
Gyrus Sulcus Sulcus
Genes and heredity

Brain development

Environment

Brain injury
English Pronunciation

1 yi
2 er
3 san
4 si
5 wu
6 liu
7 qi
8 ba
9 jiu
10 shi
•Quantitative dyscalculia
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 . . . .

•Qualitative dyscalculia

•Intermediate dyscalculia
• Verbal dyscalculia
3 3 3

•Practognostic dyscalculia.
•Lexical dyscalculia

21 = 12 6=9
5007 as "five hundred seven”
576 as "five seven six"
•Graphical dyscalculia

5731 as “5000700301”

5073 as 573
•Ideognostical dyscalculia

.
 -/x
•Operational dyscalculia
+
Warning Signs in Preschool or Kindergarten

•Has trouble learning to count

4
•Has trouble recognizing number
symbols
7 to “seven”

•Struggles to connect a number

to amount of things
Warning
WarningSigns in in
Signs Preschool or Kindergarten
Preschool or Kindergarten
•Has trouble remembering
numbers, and skips numbers

•Finds it hard to recognize

patterns and sort items by size,
shape or color
•Struggles to apply math concepts to
everyday life

•Has trouble measuring things

•Struggles with finding his way
around and worries about getting
lost
•Has hard time grasping information
shown on graphs or charts
•Lacks confidence in activities that
require estimating speed and
distance
English Pronunciation

1 yi
2 er
3 san
4 si
5 wu
6 liu
7 qi
8 ba
9 jiu
10 shi
Social skills
Sense of direction
Physical
coordination
Money management
Time management
• Dyslexia
• ADHD
• Math anxiety
• Genetic disorders
American actress Mary Tyler Moore
Actor, author and the "nicest guy in Hollywood"
Henry Winkler
For me, dyscalculia is
like trying to find a
station on a short-
wave radio:
occasionally I'll catch
it, but I have to listen
and concentrate hard
to hear and
understand, and
then it goes to static
again.
-Jennifer