calendar / Planner

created for dyscalculic minds

the Problem with Calendars

Do you ever wonder why your child asks you when something will happen instead of just checking the calendar? Or why your student resists using a planner to organize their schoolwork?

You may assume this is because of laziness, executive function issues, or ADHD. But if your student is dyscalculic, their ability to understand and use a calendar is impacted by dyscalculia.

Most calendars and planners are problematic for dyscalculic individuals.

My own daughter would often ask me when something was going to happen, yet she would never check the large family calendar in the kitchen. Years later, I found out why. She felt stressed and confused by them.

Initially, I didn’t understand. How could something that was so helpful, cause stress and anxiety for her? 

Yet, she was not alone. I began to hear from other dyscalculic students and adults who had the same experience with calendars.

Here are some specific reasons why calendars are complicated for dyscalculic minds:

• The grid design. A grid setup is often used for calendars, spreadsheets, graphs, and data tables. But a dyscalculic’s directional confusion makes it difficult to discern how to navigate the grid. They do not find it intuitive to read the simultaneous interpretation of information side to side, left to right, and top to bottom.

• Visual overwhelm. Numbers are overwhelming to dyscalculics, and calendars are covered in numbers. Modern calendars do not help the anxiety with their oversized numbers.

• Lack of understanding for numerical groups. Dyscalculia makes it difficult to understand numbers as groups, and calendars assume an understanding of this. It’s a struggle to remember the groupings around time, such as how many days in a week or month, and how many months in a year. This is complicated further because the number of days in a month are not the same, and the numbered days do not correspond to the same day of the week for every month. 

• The inability to subitize makes it difficult to quickly read a calendar. Dyscalculics cannot quickly see, without counting, how many days or columns are in a week, nor how many rows or weeks are in a month. Nor can they easily see the delineation between the days in a school week and the weekend.

• They struggle to connect specific days as numbers. This means they find it difficult to memorize and reliably recall the corresponding number for each month, as well as accurately translate a date into numbers. They also struggle to remember the order and format of a date as the month-day-year. Or in other countries, as the day-month-year. They often freeze and become flustered when dates are spoken as numbers only.

It’s time we asked ourselves, “How can we adjust our calendars and planners to be more accessible for dyscalculic minds?”

A New Calendar for Dyscalculia Minds

A couple of years ago my dyscalculic daughter modified a calendar so it would make more sense. Her design differs slightly from traditional calendars in these ways:

• Clear delineation between weekdays, weekends, and weeks.

• Each month’s number is visual for quick reference.

• A month is spread over two pages.

• The numbers are small and less visually overwhelming.

• Plenty of white space to limit visual overwhelm.

For her personal use, my daughter prints one or two pages at a time to track her school assignments, appointments, and events. The pages fit in her school folder or on the wall above her desk. It could also be spiral bound on thick paper for a fantastic planner, although we haven’t tried that yet.

For our family calendar, I display one to two months at a time in the kitchen. This provides easy reference for our whole family, including my daughter. I’ll write more next week on tips for using this calendar for a family calendar.

Download and use the calendar

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