CLASS Program - Working with Students with Dyscalculia
A Quick Guide to Working with Students with Dyscalculia
Characteristics of the Condition
This is a general term is used to describe specific and unexpected difficulties with mathematics.
These problems may be developmental in origin or may result from a brain injury or neurological disease.
- Specific difficulties with quantitative concepts, estimation and comparison of magnitudes; e.g.
- Estimation of magnitude (e.g., length of a city bus; distance from NYC to Washington, D.C.)
- Proportion of the earth covered by water.
- Specific difficulties with the acquisition of "number facts"
- Memorization/retrieval of multiplication /division values
- Concept of fractions
- Specific difficulties with basic computational operations and procedures
- confusions of application: e.g., addition rather than multiplication
- Errors in organization of steps leading to (e.g.) errors in carry operations
- Errors in sequencing of operations
- Errors of omission or repetition of procedural steps.
- Specific difficulties in problem analysis or execution due to limitations on working memory or accurate interpretation of language.
Impact on Performance
-
Unexpected limitations in estimating absolute or relative quantities, amounts, distances, sizes, etc.
-
Difficulty grasping and retaining basic quantitative ideas, e.g., mean or median,
-
Inaccuracies in arithmetic computation due to inaccurate recall of products or dividends.
-
Multiplication and division errors
Interaction with Student
- Determine whether output problems are limited to one modality (e.g., only handwriting or typing)
