Why Is So Little Known?

This was something I was curious about six years ago when our journey with dyscalculia began. Where is all the information on dyscalculia? Why doesn’t it seem anyone knows anything?

This post offers a few of the ideas I have heard circulating on why so little it known about this math learning disability.

Video Transcript

Why is so little known about dyscalculia?

If you found this video you're probably YouTubing, Googling, looking for information on dyscalculia. And I was doing the same thing about six years ago when I found out my daughter was dyscalculic. I was searching for a reason for her math struggles and the reason she didn't get information involving numbers and quantities, and even in everyday activities. Why was she struggling in school so much?

When we found out that she was dyscalculic, and she was evaluated, I then was searching all over for supports on how to teach students who are dyscalculic. And how to help them in their everyday life. I still struggled to find very much information. Why is that?

Some of the experts offer suggestions to this. So here are some of the thoughts out there of why it's so hard.

One is that the research on dyscalculia is so far behind. They estimate it's about 30 years behind the research of dyslexia, which doesn't have a lot of information itself, but it is more. So 30 years behind, we have a lot of catching up to do! Most governments around the world don't spend very much money for research on dyscalculia. Why is that?

Some think, we're all bad at math. We all struggle with math, or a lot of us do at least. But that's not actually true. A lot of people love math. And some people don't like math, but they're for reasons not related to dyscalculia.

We also assume that being dyscalculic only impacts math and math class. But being dyscalculic impacts any time you run into numbers, quantities, measurements, calculations. This is all through our day, and so being dyscalculic, it doesn't just involve our math class, it involves our entire lives. Our workplaces, our transportation, our money. All sorts of things in life.

So it's surprising that there's not more information out there. There's also not as many resources because I think a lot of people think, "Well if you're dyscalculic that means you're just going to be bad at numbers and that's how it is." I hear that from a lot of teachers. If the student comes in with a math learning disability, they're just going to try to get them through the class and not actually help them gain a sense of numeracy and understanding for numbers. Which they can do. But they're with methods that are different than what are usually taught in school.

The other thing that may hold us up is lack of parental awareness. Maybe a lot of us parents aren't good at math and so we just assume that's part of life. And so when our student is struggling in math we just say, "Yeah I didn't like math either." The problem with this is this it could be an oversight. For your student, math may not be their favorite subject, but if your child is dyscalculic, you really need to be able to find them some supports to gain that sense of numeracy and understanding. And also just to understand them, because their life and their outlook, they have a unique perspective.

Those are maybe some reasons why dyscalculia is not well researched or well understood.

I want to change that. I want it to be something that is in everyone's vocabulary. And that we are all growing and understanding what it means to be dyscalculic, and asking, “How can we understand those one-in-every-20 in our life, who are dyscalculic?”