Dyscalculia
Dyscalculia is a term used to describe specific learning difficulties that affect a child’s ability to understand and learn maths. Not all children who struggle with maths have Dyscalculia.
A young child with dyscalculia might:
- Have difficulties recognising numbers
- Struggle to learn to count
- Find it hard to understand one to one correspondence
- Find it difficult to recognise patterns and put things in order
- Often lose track when counting
- Relies upon visual resources to help them count e.g. counters, fingers.
As they become older they are likely to:
- Struggle with adding and taking away
- Find it hard to understand and solve word problems
- Find it hard to manage their time
- Struggle to use visual-spatial ideas like graphs and charts.
- Find understanding money difficult- finding change, working out percentage.
- Find lengths and distances difficult and struggle to estimates times
- Find remembering directions difficult
- Struggle with recognising and remembering left and right
- Find it hard to tell the time.
If you are concerned about your child please speak to your class teacher. If they share your concerns then we can look at screening programmes, although these will not give a diagnosis, they can help us identify concerns and look at strategies to help.