Dyscalculia, More Than “Bad at Math” [Video]

By Understood

When does being “bad at math” mean something more? For Lily, a Missouri teen with dyscalculia, math struggles go a lot further than math class. On this episode, we go inside Lily’s world and experience the unexpected challenges that pop up because of her math learning disability. Amanda and Lexi talk with expert Daniel Ansari about why dyscalculia is underdiagnosed. And they hear from parents who called in to share what math challenges are like in their family.

To find a transcript for this episode and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood. https://www.understood.org/podcast/in…

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at init@understood.org.

Understood is a nonprofit and social impact organization dedicated to shaping a world where the 1 in 5 people who learn and think differently can thrive. Learn more about “In It” and all our podcasts at u.org/podcasts. Copyright © 2019 Understood for All, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:01
hey init listeners before we get started
0:03
today we have a small but important ask
0:05
please take our quick survey about who
0:07
you are what you like about our show so
0:10
far and what you want to hear more of
0:12
head to you.org podcast to take a minute
0:15
survey really just three minutes that’s
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you dot org podcast and thanks your
0:21
input means so much
0:27
hi i’m amanda morin a writer for
0:29
understood.org and parent to kids with
0:31
learning and attention issues and i’m
0:32
lexi walters wright community manager
0:34
for understood.org
0:36
and we are in it
0:38
init is a podcast from understood for
0:40
parents on our show we offer support and
0:42
practical advice for families whose kids
0:45
are struggling with speech and language
0:47
executive functioning and other learning
0:49
and attention issues
0:51
today we’re talking about helping our
0:52
kids who struggle with math like really
0:55
struggle with math
1:00
so
1:01
sometimes when i’m doing a certain
1:02
problem
1:04
my brain
1:05
it just kind of gets stuck
1:07
this is lily she’s 13 and she’s had a
1:10
hard time with math for as long as she
1:12
can remember
1:13
amanda lots of people have a hard time
1:15
with math i definitely did as a kid
1:18
and i still clam up the moment i need to
1:20
calculate a tip
1:22
i know some adults who feel allergic to
1:24
excel documents so you’ve met me and my
1:26
excel document allergy
1:28
right and lots of us have those moments
1:30
that’s called math anxiety
1:32
but what lily’s dealing with is
1:33
different it’s a learning disability
1:35
often called dyscalculia which you’ll
1:37
hear pronounced in a number of different
1:39
ways no matter which way you hear it
1:41
pronounced you can sort of still hear
1:43
the word calculate in there and
1:44
discalcula at its most basic is about
1:47
difficulty with number sense adding
1:49
multiplication and sometimes visual
1:52
spatial skills things like where you
1:53
don’t know left from right very easily
1:56
the thing is compared to something like
1:57
dyslexia dyscalculia is not widely known
2:01
so it can leave kids like lily who have
2:03
it feeling dumb yeah
2:06
i just kind of thought that i was bad at
2:07
math until i was 12. we’re going to hear
2:10
more from lily in a bit and from her mom
2:12
tracy but first we asked you what does
2:14
calculia looks like in your family and
2:17
here’s what you had to say
2:22
for my daughter when she was in
2:23
elementary school she really struggled
2:26
with reading the clock
2:27
being
2:28
on time for her classroom
2:31
um
2:32
adding and subtracting is super
2:33
difficult and then math homework took
2:35
hours and hours and caused a lot of
2:37
anxiety
2:38
long division
2:40
that was literally a nightmare
2:44
she just could not handle
2:47
keeping track of every step and where to
2:50
put
2:51
each and every one of the numbers
2:53
a bigger
2:55
trigger for us in noticing something was
2:57
wrong though was his inability to
3:00
connect with the idea of time and the
3:03
passage of time for him everything was
3:06
now
3:07
the idea of tomorrow or yesterday really
3:10
didn’t register for him at all and when
3:13
you started talking about
3:15
longer spans of time like weeks or
3:18
months
3:18
he was just completely bewildered by
3:21
that
3:21
once he started kindergarten he also
3:24
really struggled with the idea of money
3:26
and while other kids were picking up the
3:28
idea of
3:30
penny dine quarter and nickel
3:32
he couldn’t associate
3:35
the different values with those coins in
3:38
any way
3:39
[Music]
3:44
so as we’re hearing lexi discalcula can
3:46
play out in many ways yeah this sounds
3:48
like a very complicated topic it really
3:51
is and it’s not exactly my specialty so
3:53
we’re turning to someone else to help us
3:55
really get a grasp of what it’s all
3:56
about first i have to ask your
3:59
professional opinion
4:00
is it
4:02
discalculia
4:04
discalculia what do you say
4:06
i say developmental dyscalculia but
4:09
you know
4:11
people vary in the way they pronounce it
4:13
yeah
4:14
daniel ansari is a professor of
4:16
psychology and education at the
4:18
university of western ontario in canada
4:20
he studies how children develop
4:22
numerical and mathematical skills and
4:24
why for some children it can be such a
4:26
struggle
4:27
daniel says there are other names for
4:29
dyscalculia like math learning
4:31
disability or mathematics disorder
4:34
i think they can be used pretty much
4:37
interchangeably
4:38
because they point to the same thing i
4:40
find this calcula
4:42
useful because we hear so much about
4:45
dyslexia and the the contrast to
4:48
dyslexia helps i think
4:50
some people to better understand what it
4:52
is
4:53
and and how would you explain
4:55
dyscalculia to someone who’s never heard
4:57
of it before
4:59
i would say dyscalculia is a
5:03
severe difficulty in acquiring basic
5:06
numerical and mathematical skills being
5:09
able to
5:10
judge which of two numbers is
5:12
numerically larger
5:14
they will also have great difficulties
5:17
in learning their math facts
5:19
daniel says that long after their peers
5:21
have figured out which two numbers add
5:23
up to 10
5:24
and they can do simple calculations in
5:26
their head kids with dyscalculia may
5:29
still be counting on their fingers
5:31
and sure that makes math class tricky
5:33
but dyscalculia doesn’t just shut off
5:36
when kids walk in the door from school
5:38
i guess i’ll just make my grilled cheese
5:40
cool let’s do it that’s 13 year old lily
5:42
again she lives in kansas city missouri
5:45
she has an older sister a younger
5:47
brother and a pet guinea pig fezzy who’s
5:50
named after fezic from the princess
5:52
bride
5:52
lily and her mom said it was okay to
5:54
come to her house to see what discalcula
5:56
looks like for her it comes up when
5:58
she’s doing her math homework but also
6:00
when she’s trying to make lunch for the
6:02
family i have to put the butter in here
6:04
and melt it in the microwave so it
6:06
doesn’t take forever
6:08
when you’re making a grilled cheese
6:09
sandwich you’re probably not thinking
6:11
about all the steps it requires but for
6:13
people with discalcula going through a
6:15
long sequence of steps in a row can be a
6:17
real challenge first you have to do this
6:19
then you have to do this and it just
6:20
kind of makes my brain tired lily was
6:22
diagnosed with dyscalculia two years ago
6:25
before that she just knew that math was
6:27
really hard for her which was confusing
6:30
because reading and writing have always
6:31
come easily to her i can read like a 300
6:34
page book in less than a day
6:37
but lily’s math troubles go back as far
6:39
as first grade so
6:42
a really long time ago when i was having
6:43
trouble with even addition
6:45
it just took so long just
6:48
takes longer for my brain to calculate
6:50
things
6:51
she understands that about herself now
6:53
but when she was younger those math
6:55
struggles made her really upset i would
6:57
usually cry about it because that’s what
7:00
i do
7:03
yeah and i
7:04
i yell
7:06
because i was just so mad that i
7:07
couldn’t get it right
7:10
and then i’d
7:12
kind of start thinking about like oh
7:14
other people can do this so why can’t i
7:17
she would say things to me
7:19
um those times when she was upset that’s
7:23
tracy lily’s mom
7:25
and i won’t repeat them because they’re
7:26
not true but just really down on herself
7:29
and
7:30
that
7:31
no mom wants to hear her daughter
7:33
who’s you know at that point you know 10
7:36
11 to have that
7:39
view of herself you know it was starting
7:41
to
7:42
go into all areas and i didn’t want her
7:44
to think that just because
7:47
there’s a struggle in one area that
7:48
means that she’s an awful person
7:51
all this was hard on tracy too i can
7:53
remember one instance where she brought
7:56
home
7:57
a math paper and it was you know she had
8:00
gotten like half of them wrong
8:02
i i just felt so deflated because 45
8:04
minutes a night were spending on math
8:06
and i just thought oh my gosh you know
8:08
and then
8:10
getting
8:11
the next chapter’s homework and i’m like
8:13
wait a minute we’re not getting it and
8:17
i kind of thought what is this going to
8:18
look like in two or three years
8:21
tracy had studied to become an
8:23
elementary school teacher and while it
8:24
was never her plan to homeschool lily
8:27
she and her husband decided that might
8:28
be best so now tracy was the one trying
8:31
to teach lily math but no matter how
8:33
hard they worked on it it didn’t seem to
8:35
be getting any easier i just kept
8:37
telling myself
8:39
i haven’t found the right curriculum yet
8:42
so we would start with something that
8:45
was new and i would get really really
8:47
excited like we are going to get through
8:49
this hurdle the answer is going to be in
8:51
the curriculum and then after a couple
8:54
months we’re still stuck in the same
8:57
in the same place and i think both of us
9:00
were
9:02
kind of feeling we would get very
9:04
emotional
9:05
um not just with each other but i know i
9:09
would cry and worry about you know are
9:11
we ever what’s this going to be like for
9:12
her you know as she’s an adult because
9:14
that’s what moms do we always go to that
9:16
place
9:17
so
9:18
you know it just felt like you know
9:20
august rolls around every year and i’d
9:22
have hope and then by october
9:25
that feeling would in my gut would sing
9:27
you know i would just think oh gosh here
9:29
we go again
9:31
even though she’s an educator tracy had
9:33
never heard of dyscalculia she says she
9:36
came across it while reading up on
9:37
dyslexia online and then i went down the
9:40
rabbit hole so it was all new to me
9:43
for lily discovering there was such a
9:45
thing as a math disorder was a big deal
9:47
it was
9:48
a relief knowing that there was really
9:50
nothing
9:52
wrong
9:53
and that i just needed to learn
9:54
differently
9:55
like
9:56
i had always worried that like once i
9:58
got to adulthood like
10:01
i wouldn’t be able to do things because
10:02
i was so bad at math lily started
10:04
working with an educational therapist a
10:07
specialist who’s trained in working with
10:08
kids with learning and attention issues
10:10
together they figured out techniques to
10:12
make math easier and more accessible for
10:15
her once i started going to mrs
10:17
mccormick’s
10:18
and i started figuring things out i
10:20
realized that with more work i could go
10:23
into a store and be like hey 20 off this
10:26
means i can get this for so much
10:28
and not have to think about it so much
10:31
[Music]
10:34
daniel can you talk a little bit about
10:36
some of those methods that can help
10:38
children learn math
10:40
yeah i mean there’s no proven method for
10:44
you know
10:45
for helping somebody with developmental
10:47
dyscalculia but i think it’s good
10:49
educational principles that run across
10:52
different educational subjects such as
10:54
giving students a struggle more time
10:57
repeating things more often providing
11:00
them with opportunities to strengthen
11:02
their basic understanding of numbers
11:04
making sure that they understand that
11:06
for example the arabic numeral five uh
11:08
represents all possible sets of five
11:11
objects that’s quite an abstract thing
11:13
to understand and may take children with
11:15
math difficulties more time to learn so
11:18
like five means five cookies and five
11:20
blocks and five more minutes and so five
11:23
means five right exactly
11:27
[Music]
11:30
tracy tells us they’ve found some really
11:32
effective ways to work with lily on math
11:35
so one of the things that we found was
11:39
when she was first tackling things like
11:42
multiplication that
11:43
what worked best for her
11:45
was to have some manipulatives so that
11:48
she could touch it move it around wait
11:51
amanda what are manipulatives
11:54
so manipulatives are when you use
11:55
objects that you can move around in
11:57
order to connect those abstract ideas of
11:59
groups sets or patterns to visuals so
12:01
you can actually see and well manipulate
12:04
the numbers got it and a dry erase board
12:07
worked wonders for calculations and we
12:10
still use that because
12:12
erasing is really fast and it’s not so
12:16
labor intensive when you make a mistake
12:18
and that’s kind of what it’s okay to
12:20
make a mistake it’s okay to struggle so
12:22
we just wipe it away and start fresh
12:25
so here’s one game lily learned to work
12:28
on visual spatial skills
12:30
on a chalkboard tracy draws a figure
12:32
eight it’s not too
12:35
wonky is it
12:36
no it looks fine okay then lily starts
12:38
tracing over it left right
12:41
ready begin as she traces left she has
12:44
to say left as she traces right she says
12:46
right and then her mom starts firing off
12:49
questions math questions or something
12:51
else related to numbers when’s your
12:53
birthday right march 21st
12:56
left when it’s my birthday right
12:59
i think it’s may 9th left
13:02
sorry is it may 7th yes okay sorry
13:06
it’s that combination of keeping
13:08
multiple things in her working memory
13:09
that she’s developing there
13:11
some of that’s a muscle memory thing
13:13
where lily is learning to recognize the
13:14
feeling of going left with where left is
13:17
and the feeling of going right with
13:18
where right is but some of it’s about
13:20
being able to access that information
13:22
quickly while there are other things
13:23
going on in the background so for
13:25
example if she were going to start
13:27
driving she’d need to be able to listen
13:29
to the gps and know right and left
13:30
automatically
13:32
that’s the kind of thing this is
13:33
starting to work on for her
13:35
another thing they do to help lily is to
13:36
put lots of number related information
13:39
around the house see that up there it’s
13:41
on our chalkboard we have all of the
13:43
squared numbers 1 times 1 equals 1 2
13:46
times 2 equals four to give her an
13:49
anchor um so if she’s got six times
13:52
eight
13:52
and she’s stuck and she can’t remember
13:56
she has six times six to go off of and
13:58
then she can
14:00
do the math from there she has a
14:02
multiplication chart too
14:04
it’s the multiplication table 1 through
14:07
12. and i give that to her anytime that
14:11
she needs it
14:12
just the more she
14:14
can see them visually the better it’s
14:16
gonna stick in her head
14:19
lily has made incredible progress in the
14:21
last two years but some things are still
14:23
hard for her like going to the store
14:26
so
14:28
i’m kind of trying to work on that and
14:30
sometimes
14:32
i think it’s more of a
14:34
i don’t know
14:36
fear of social issue but
14:39
paying is a little hard for me
14:41
yeah so the store is kind of
14:44
one of the main places
14:46
one of the things that i notice is
14:49
when there’s a lot of people and she’s
14:51
in line
14:52
that’s kind of
14:54
off-putting for her you know the stress
14:56
of oh my gosh i have to do this and i
14:58
have to do it fast
15:00
she doesn’t want them to get mad at her
15:02
so i’ve noticed that
15:13
now that my daughter is a teenager
15:16
dyscalculia
15:18
looks a lot different
15:19
the things we struggle with are
15:21
helping her manage her money so her
15:24
wallet is a complete disaster there’s
15:26
bunches of dollars rolled up in it
15:28
there’s too much change in there um
15:30
because she struggles with continuing to
15:32
add and subtract money as well as to
15:35
identify what the money denominations
15:37
really are
15:38
the driving a lot of times he would get
15:41
lost and that is a huge anxiety issue
15:45
because he would not know where he was
15:46
because he would try to follow
15:48
somebody’s directions of turning right
15:49
or left
15:50
so i would teach him to look for
15:52
landmarks so that we when he would call
15:55
us
15:56
and he was upset didn’t know where he
15:57
was it was mislocated so we could
15:59
determine his location the gps find me
16:03
apps that we can put on our smartphones
16:05
for tracking are really useful for that
16:07
too
16:08
that’s it thank you
16:10
[Music]
16:16
is there any advice that you would give
16:18
to parents who are
16:20
just learning that their child has
16:22
dyscalculia or going through some of
16:24
what you guys have gone through that’s
16:26
andrea the reporter we sent to spend
16:28
some time with tracy and lily
16:30
i would just say um
16:32
to
16:33
you know not
16:35
worry
16:36
so much
16:37
about
16:38
if your child is working at whatever
16:41
grade level they’re supposed to be in um
16:45
really it’s just important to have the
16:48
master
16:49
number sense and those things that are
16:52
their struggle and i know it’s really
16:54
hard to do that because that’s just not
16:58
how
16:59
you know that’s not how we operate
17:02
with school but
17:04
it’s just so important to meet them
17:06
where they’re at and to work on the
17:07
things that um
17:10
they’re struggling with so that they can
17:11
overcome those so that they’re not
17:13
always a struggle um and just to be
17:16
patient and trust the process
17:23
why isn’t it more well known why aren’t
17:26
math issues sort of more widely
17:27
discussed the way dyslexia is
17:31
i think at least in the west um we have
17:35
a tolerance for being bad at math it’s
17:38
it’s not something that people feel
17:41
shy about admitting i often you know
17:44
when i meet new people and they ask me
17:46
what i do and i tell them you know i do
17:48
research into math learning
17:50
difficulties like oh my god i wish i’d
17:52
met you when uh when i was young i think
17:55
we have this conception that math
17:57
doesn’t sometimes doesn’t matter we can
17:59
always use our smartphone or our
18:00
calculator
18:01
but how do we use it in everyday life
18:04
we use numbers all the time without
18:07
actually thinking about the fact that
18:08
we’re using numerical information just
18:11
think about waking up in the morning and
18:13
let’s say you open your computer or you
18:15
look at your smartphone and you look at
18:16
your favorite news site you’re
18:19
immediately processing numerical
18:21
information
18:22
you go to your office you look at your
18:24
bank statement you’re trying to
18:25
understand the transactions you’re
18:27
trying to understand how
18:29
it is that you’ve got this balance
18:31
and you’re trying to add up
18:33
the different expenditures and and
18:35
things that came into your account again
18:37
you need numerical information
18:44
so amanda imagine say 10 or 15 years
18:47
from now that dyscalculia is as well
18:50
known and as readily diagnosed as
18:52
dyslexia is
18:54
that could really bring about a profound
18:56
shift in how parents and educators
19:00
respond to students with math disorders
19:02
totally and you know we’re still getting
19:04
there with dyslexia and adhd
19:07
if we get there with discalcula it would
19:09
probably also bring about a profound
19:10
shift in how those students think about
19:12
themselves
19:13
according to tracy that seems to be the
19:15
case with lily i know her therapist and
19:17
i always say
19:19
you can’t say you’re bad at math anymore
19:21
you can say it’s a challenge and that
19:22
you work harder at it than some people
19:26
we try to say that repeatedly to her so
19:29
that that internal dialogue changes and
19:31
so when she does come against the
19:34
struggle again with math to not have
19:36
that initial reaction of oh i’m really
19:38
bad at this to just stop and say
19:41
this is hard i need to fall back on you
19:44
know the strategies that i use in order
19:47
to figure this out
19:49
as her sense of her abilities has
19:51
shifted lily’s gotten more confident in
19:53
other areas too
19:54
like cooking in fact she’s become
19:57
something of a grilled cheese expert
19:59
it usually takes less time to cook on
20:01
the other side than it does the first
20:03
side because the pan’s already hot and
20:05
all that
20:06
so yeah it should probably only be about
20:09
three more minutes
20:10
and she offers these words of wisdom
20:12
which i fully support if you use a lot
20:14
of butter
20:15
it’s better
20:17
like that’s the secret to a good grilled
20:18
cheese butter
20:20
[Music]
20:29
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20:35
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20:37
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that’s the letter u as in understood.org
20:56
podcast
20:57
we heard from several of you after
20:59
episode 2 how to deal with is adhd real
21:02
and we wanted to play some of your
21:03
awesome voice memos to let you know we
21:06
are listening
21:06
[Music]
21:09
i’m calling about the question of is
21:11
adhd real it’s hard for me to sometimes
21:15
respond to that question because i feel
21:16
like i don’t have the emotional energy
21:19
or the courage to do that and then i
21:21
realize that if i don’t i’m putting it
21:23
on my first grade son to be the one to
21:25
have to respond to that as he gets older
21:27
and that’s not fair to him
21:29
but i also feel like it shouldn’t be
21:31
just on the parents of children with
21:32
adhd to answer that question and that
21:35
schools
21:37
and pediatricians and all the people
21:38
that are important part of children’s
21:40
lives need to do a better job of
21:43
communicating
21:44
what is adhd and what are other forms of
21:47
learning differences and attention
21:48
issues and disabilities so
21:52
it’s not just on the individuals who
21:53
negotiate that to be the ones to explain
21:55
themselves
21:57
[Music]
22:00
please keep your voice memos coming this
22:03
is after all a show for and about
22:05
families like yours and mine
22:08
if you like what you heard today please
22:09
tell somebody about it maybe share it
22:11
with your child’s math teacher even you
22:13
can also go to apple podcasts and rate
22:15
us which is a great way to let other
22:16
people know about init you can subscribe
22:19
to init on apple podcasts follow us on
22:21
spotify or keep up with us however you
22:23
listen to podcasts between episodes you
22:25
can find understood on facebook twitter
22:28
pinterest and youtube or visit our
22:30
website you that’s the letter u dot o r
22:33
g
22:35
come back next episode when we’ll be
22:36
talking about the unique challenges of
22:38
raising kids who are gifted
22:40
and who have learning and attention
22:41
issues
22:43
i mean he was really severely affected
22:46
by the fact that he couldn’t meet
22:47
expectations and that people didn’t
22:50
understand him
22:52
if you have stories about raising twice
22:54
exceptional kids you can call and leave
22:56
a voice message that we just might use
22:58
on the next episode of init you’ll find
23:00
that number at you.org
23:03
podcast
23:04
init is a production of understood for
23:06
parents our show is produced by blake
23:08
eskin of noun and verb rodeo julie
23:10
suberin and julia botero
23:12
mike erico wrote our theme music and
23:14
laura kushner is our director of
23:15
editorial content
23:17
thanks also this week to reporter andrea
23:19
tuthope
23:20
and thanks to all of you for listening
23:22
and for being in it with us
23:25
[Music]
23:33
[Music]
23:48
you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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The post Dyscalculia, More Than “Bad at Math” [Video] appeared first on The Good Men Project.