Dyscalculia

Many people in this world suffer from math learning disabilities. Math learning disabilities effect over 6% of people in this country, yet many people have never even heard of them. Two disabilities that I am going to be focusing on are dyscalculia and math anxiety. Upon hearing the term dyscalculia, many people think that I have just mispronounced the word dyslexia; dyscalculia is its own disorder specifically related to a disability in math, having nothing to do with reading. Math anxiety is a psychological disorder related to a fear or anxious feeling about math. It is a true disorder, and not just something a person says when they don’t like math. Today, I am going to go in to much more detail about these disorders and their treatments.
Dyscalculia
Dyscalculia is defined as” a mathematical learning disability in which a person with normal or above average intelligence has unusual difficulty solving arithmetic problems and grasping math concepts.”(Paquette and Tuttle , 72). Dyscalculia can manifest itself in many ways. Some people have problems with calculations, others have problems with processing mathematical language, some have visual-spatial problems, some have memory problems that prevent them from remembering basic math facts, and some people have a hard time estimating. Although many people think girls have a harder time with math than boys research has shown that dyscalculia affects both girls and boys in equal amounts. (Paquette and Tuttle, 73). It is estimated that between 6 and 7 percent of the population has math disabilities. This number however only represents the number of people who are “purely” dyscalculic, meaning they only have math disabilities but have fine performances in other areas of learning. It is also known though that 50 to 60 percent of dyslexic people also suffer from dyscalculia. (British Dyslexia Association). Many people’s math disabilities may stem from their problems with language; because they have problems with