Research Unravels "Math Dyslexia"
"This research holds tremendous promise for people who, in the past, had simply accepted that they are 'not good at math.' Understanding the causes and brain correlates of dyscalculia may help to design remediation tools to improve the lives of children and adults with the syndrome."
(Ontario, Canada)—From the University of Western Ontario comes news that there could be a physiological explanation for children struggling in math. Daniel Ansari is an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Western. He is using brain imaging to understand how children develop math skills, and what kind of brain development is associated with those skills.
As reported in ScienceDaily, research shows that many children who experience mathematical difficulties have developmental dyscalculia—a syndrome that is similar to dyslexia, a learning disability that affects a child's ability to read. Children with dyscalculia often have difficulty understanding numerical quantity. For example, they find it difficult to connect abstract symbols, such as a number, to the numerical magnitude it represents.
They can't see the connection, for instance, between five fingers and the number '5.' This is similar to children with dyslexia who have difficulty connecting sounds with letters. In a recent study Ansari and graduate student Ian Holloway showed that children who are better at connecting numerical symbols and magnitudes are also those who have higher math scores.
Ansari says parents and teachers are often not aware that developmental dyscalculia is just as common as developmental dyslexia and is frequently related to dyslexia. There is a great need to increase public awareness of developmental dyscalculia. "Research shows that many children have both dyslexia and dyscalculia. We are now exploring further the question of exactly what brain differences exist between those who have just math problems and those who have both math and reading difficulties," says Ansari.
This research holds tremendous promise for people who, in the past, had simply accepted that they are 'not good at math.' Understanding the causes and brain correlates of dyscalculia may help to design remediation tools to improve the lives of children and adults with the syndrome.
"We have some cultural biases in North America around math skills," says Ansari. "We think that people who are good at math must be exceptionally intelligent, and even more dismaying and damaging, we have an attitude that being bad at math is socially acceptable. People who would never dream of telling others they are unable to read, will proclaim publicly they flunked math."
