How Common is Dyscalculia?

Discussion Numerical understanding is imperative in everyday life. Even making coffee in the morning, a person considers whether she is making 1 cup or 2, and how much fluid will be in each cup. How many more days can she go without buying more coffee with the ground coffee left in the container? Other numerical skills such as telephone numbers, street addresses and locations, time and dates, and buying and selling of products and services occur all day long in people’s lives. What happens when those skills are not automatic? Dyscalculia or developmental dyscalculia (DD) is “a heterogeneous learning impairment affecting numerical and/or arithmetic functioning at behavioral, psychological and neuronal levels.” It can also be defined as a “…domain-specific learning disorder that emerges at an early stage of development and cannot be explained by inappropriate schooling or deficient learning opportunities.” It can also be defined as a specific learning disorder. Specific learning disorders such as dyscalculia, reading or writing are “… a neurodevelopmental disorder of biological origin manifested in learning difficulties and problems in acquiring academic skills markedly below age level and manifested in the early school years, lasting for at least six months, not attributed to intellectual disabilities, developmental disorders, or neurological or motor disorders.” DD is not a term to be used for all forms of mathematical di...
Source: PediatricEducation.org - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news