Dyscalculia, the Surprisingly Common Yet Understudied Disorder

While people with dyslexia struggle with reading, those with dyscalculia struggle with math and numbers

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I can’t tell you how many tantrums I’ve thrown or tears I’ve shed over math. Of all school subjects, math was my nemesis, an unconquerable adversary that tormented and bent my mind in uncomfortable ways. Geometry was the only mathematical subject I could somewhat grasp, but everything else was nonsensical. I disliked math so much that I was thankful to pass with a D.

I’ve come up with several theories to rationalize my aversion to math — like that it’s too black and white for my mind or that I easily confuse methods for solving equations. But that was before I learned about dyscalculia. And now, suddenly, my struggles in school make a lot more sense.

Dyscalculia

While dyscalculia is classified as a specific learning disorder (SLD) in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), it’s poorly understood. Despite affecting an estimated 3 to 7 percent of the global population, dyscalculia often goes undiagnosed.

That’s not to say experts don’t know anything about it. For instance, dyscalculia usually first presents in childhood, affecting someone’s ability to grasp number-based information because their brain processes math-related concepts differently than someone without the disorder. However, those with dyscalculia are no less intelligent than those without it.

Dyscalculia is defined in the DSM-5 as:

“[Dyscalculia] is for individuals who demonstrate significantly below average skills in number sense, memorization of arithmetic facts, accurate or fluent calculation, and/or accurate math reasoning.

The term ‘dyscalculia’ is used to describe difficulties with learning number number-related concepts, with processing numerical information, with learning arithmetic facts or with using the symbols and functions to perform accurate or fluent math calculations.”

If you think dyscalculia sounds a lot like dyslexia, you’re right. It is kind of like dyslexia, except it involves numbers and math rather than reading or writing. But it gets far less attention than dyslexia.

Kinga Morsanyi, a senior lecturer in mathematical cognition at Loughborough University in England, co-authored a study in 2018 which found that a child with dyslexia is 100 times more likely to receive support and be diagnosed than a child with dyscalculia.

We’ll discuss many reasons for this astonishing fact, but a big one is that our modern society values reading more than advanced mathematics in daily life.

Daniel Ansari, a professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience and head of the Numerical Cognition Laboratory at Western University in Ontario, explained to Scientific American:

“In our society, there’s an assumption that some people are math people and others aren’t,” but we don’t assume the same for reading, “We need the same attitude when it comes to math.”

Unfortunately, a hindrance to achieving equality in diagnosis and support between the two learning disabilities is that, so far, most research into dyscalculia produces conflicting results. Ansari told Scientific American that many dyscalculia-focused studies, including his own, are small and underpowered, and the definition provided by the DSM-5 is too narrow.

Still, scientists have deduced some commonality in the way dyscalculia presents.