Dyscalculia
I knew there was a problem. Growing up, I knew I wasn’t stupid so why could I never figure out math? I had proved my cleverness and capability in all other sections of the educational curriculum, but I was never able to get a decent grade in math. All my life my grades have been A, A-, D, B+, A. So what was it?
I would not find out until I was 19 years old. I was attending a workshop by a friend of mine’s mother, Shellie Burrow, when she explained there are many learning disabilities out there. I would not have ever said it was an actual problem until I heard her say there is something out there called dyscalculia, a disability not unlike dyslexia, only with numbers. She insisted that it would be wise to be tested before I turned twenty, if only because it is easier to get universities to accept records of younger persons and test scores.
When a child has a problem in reading, someone can say “Oh my child has trouble reading.” And the teacher will nod sympathetically. As opposed to “My child has dyslexia.” The teacher will say “alright, these are our options and this is what we can do.”
The same goes for mathematics. However, there are so many kids out there who dislike math and/or also have troubles but still manage to pass alright, that kids like me fall through the cracks of detection. So when a child’s mother says, “Oh my child has difficulty in math.” It is even harder to get anyone to double check on it. Teachers in public education were not taught to see these things when I was in grade school. Nor are many of them taught to do so today.
According to Dr. Anna J Wilson, a postdoctoral researcher whose specialty is dyscalculia and Numerical cognition, 6% of the population has dyscalculia. A disability so unknown, not even my spell checker recognizes it as a real word; which is a vanguard for how the public in general reacts to it. (Huh?) I have yet to find another person with dyscalculia, other than myself.
Dyscalculia is a Learning disability is mathematics. First defined by the Czechoslovakia researcher Ladislav Kosc, Ph.D. ("Developmental Dyscalculia," Journal of Learning Disabilities, vol. 7, pp. 164-77, 1974) as a difficulty in mathematics as a result of impairment to particular parts of the brain involved in mathematical cognition, but without a general difficulty in cognitive function.
Meaning there is nothing wrong with my ability to think or formulate solutions to problems, only my ability to process certain data into my short term memory, though my working memory, and onto my long term memory.
In my personal search for information on dyscalculia that I could actually make sense of, I turned back to the woman who tested me for it last summer. Shellie Burrow MaED is a pioneer for disabilities in education in the state of Utah. She herself has 3 deaf children and has fought for their success from the beginning (two are currently attending MIT). She travels to seminars frequently across the United States and abroad to further the public’s education and in exchange learns more for herself. She told me the first time she had even heard of dyscalculia was when a young man approached her 2 years ago to be tested for any learning disabilities, as he was attempting to get help from the disability center at a university. I was only her second pupil that she tested with the Woodcock-Johnson III test of achievements. It is a test with two parts, one to measure the child’s abilities (most often it is children that are tested for learning disabilities). The second portion is to measure the child’s performance levels. The test is designed to find the holes and loops in the child’s cognitive abilities and to eliminate any other reasons for discrepancies.
In my personal results, she discovered that the problem was mostly tied into my memory. There is a problem in my ability to transfer data from my short term memory, which is the memory like unto RAM in a computer; you use it just long enough to remember a phone number to write it down. Next, the data goes into the working memory which is where the information is processed and makes the connections to whatever else you have stored in my brain. This must happen before anything can be transferred into one’s long term memory. The only way something can make it to the long term memory is essentially practice. The thought must make a neuron-pathway enough times to ‘stick’.
My problem resides clear back in the short term memory. My brain works so hard trying to get the information past the short term into the working memory that it never really gets the chance to be processed properly and it doesn’t really ever get the chance to go into the long term memory.
She wrote on my results that I possess incredible compensatory skills; the ability to creatively come to the correct solution to the problem at hand, however unorthodox the methods. An example being: if you asked me to find the solution to twenty-five times eight, instead of doing the problem with the rules and shortcuts taught in schools today, I would think to myself,
Alright, there are four twenty-fives in a dollar. So if I draw eight rows of four quarters, add them up, I’ll come to the correct answer.
A paradoxical condition. That is what Renee Newman; M.S of Special Education calls it in her 1998 master’s thesis on dyscalculia and other disabilities in gifted children.
“There are a great number of students who have serious difficulties in learning mathematics, but find the rest of academic subjects easy. These students have high IQs, are excellent readers and creative writers, and learn quickly. They are frustrated by a paradoxical condition. Superior performance is easily demonstrated in thinking, verbal, reading and writing skills and in every subject where these skills are the predominant modes of learning and assessment. But when it comes to any subject that requires understanding and application of the language of mathematics, they fail miserably, to everyone's surprise.” (Newman 1998)
She includes many letters from children and adults that she put into her thesis, one that looked remarkably like my story. On the ACT test, I received over a 29 in all sections, except math, I received a 15, bringing my composite score down to 22; not a very good estimate of my potential. A twenty-one year old claimed a similar predicament.
One of the most important things she put in her thesis is a section on red flags. As I read though this chapter, I became overwhelmed with emotion.
This was me! I had these problems! I still have a lot of these things defining who I am today! Why did no one see these things? Couldn’t anyone see there was something wrong?
“Because they enjoy the challenge of multi-tasking, they assume responsibility for physically and emotionally demanding course loads, extra jobs, and activities. When they are not over-extended they feel nervous and "out of control." Sometimes their stress results in forgetfulness, indecision, poor concentration, impulsiveness, self-destructive behavior, and rash decisions.” (Kaplan 1990, 1-2)
Watch for these signs of burn out: Lost interest in school, lost personal happiness, lost positive outlook, lost excitement for people and activities, resentment of people, school or work; lost motivation, ambition, and effort; boredom, sleeplessness, emotional volatility, fatigue, personal dissatisfaction, nervous habits, frequent illness or health complaints, dependent and attention-getting behaviors, aggression, despondency, indecision, lost sense of humor and perspective; and physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.” (Kaplan 1990, 4)
Many of these things happened to me, and as I found this information and discovered that this disability was not me, that it did not define me, I felt enormous relief.
‘Gayle Dallaston likens the gifted child's predicament to that of the hare, in the old tale of the race of the tortoise and the hare. Dallaston says, "Our schools are full of tortoises and we encourage them to do their best....[and] they are justly rewarded. But what happens to the hares? Perhaps they go to sleep half way through primary school." (Dallaston 1996, 1)
"Trying to keep hares motivated seems an unwinnable battle," says Dallaston. "To keep in contact with the tortoises, the hares must cripple themselves or run around and around in circles." Demoralized, they often lose sight of the goal and are unmotivated to participate in the race. And teachers, naturally concerned with the majority of students who are more compliant, willing, and appreciative, are forced to abandon the unwilling hare on the side lines to continue guiding and encouraging the body of students that remain.” (Dallaston 1996, 1)
I found this metaphor to be incredibly accurate, in my view and experience. I may not have ADD, ADHD, or be considered a ‘gifted child’ but the structure of the public education system today in the United States has no room for these children.
Now that I personally know that I am not stupid or lazy, that my inability to do math according to the ways taught in schools I know that my potential is boundless. I believe others have a right this feeling.
