Is your child still counting on their fingers at the end of primary school, mixing up 41 and 14, or unable to remember their times tables despite hours of revision? These signs may point to a simple, temporary difficulty, or to dyscalculia, a lasting disorder affecting maths. Here is how to recognise it, have it diagnosed and help your child day to day.
What is dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia is a specific learning disorder that affects how numbers are processed and how calculations are done. It belongs to the family of “dys” disorders, like dyslexia for reading or dysorthographia for spelling.
It has nothing to do with intelligence or laziness. A child with dyscalculia can be very comfortable in other subjects. What works differently is the way they picture quantities, memorise number facts or organise a calculation.
The disorder is lasting: it does not go away with a few extra exercises. With the right support, though, a child with dyscalculia does make progress, and many find effective strategies to follow a normal school path.
Signs that may alert parents
Some clues deserve your attention, especially if they persist over time despite regular work:
- they struggle to understand what a number represents (that 8 is bigger than 5, that 100 is ten times 10);
- they confuse the signs (+, −, ×) or maths vocabulary (“more than”, “half”);
- they reverse digits when reading or writing a number;
- simple calculations remain slow and they still count on their fingers when classmates have automated them;
- they cannot remember their times tables, or forget them from one day to the next;
- they find it hard to line up digits in columns, place the decimal point or organise a calculation on the page;
- in a word problem, they do not spot the useful data or the operation to use;
- they have trouble telling the time, giving change or estimating how long something takes.
A single sign is not enough to draw conclusions. Many children go through a difficult patch in maths without having dyscalculia. It is the persistence and accumulation of signs that call for a specialist opinion.
Dyscalculia or difficulty with maths?
The difference lies in where the problem comes from. Difficulty with maths often stems from a concept that was not understood, a lack of confidence or a study method that needs work. It usually clears up with suitable explanations and practice.
Dyscalculia, on the other hand, resists this usual practice. The child works, but the automatic skills do not take hold. The gap with children of the same age stays the same or even widens. In that case, only an assessment can tell the two apart.
Who diagnoses dyscalculia?
In Belgium, the diagnosis is based on an assessment carried out by a professional trained in learning disorders:
- the speech and language therapist (logopède), who assesses calculation and number skills with standardised tests;
- the neuropsychologist, who also examines memory, attention and reasoning, and rules out other causes;
- the school’s PMS centre (CLB in Flanders), which can advise you and liaise with the teachers.
The family doctor or paediatrician is often the first point of contact: their prescription is required for speech therapy treatment. The diagnosis is usually made after a few years of learning arithmetic, once the difficulties have been observed over time.
Speech therapy for dyscalculia can be partly reimbursed by your health insurance fund (mutualité), under certain conditions: a medical prescription, an assessment using tests recognised by INAMI and approval from the fund’s medical adviser. Check with your health insurance fund and the therapist before starting.
How to help your child day to day
The right kind of help depends on the form the disorder takes in your child. The speech therapist will guide you, but a few ideas come up often.
When organising work on the page is the problem
- Work orally before moving on to writing.
- Write operations in a line rather than in columns, or use squared paper with large squares.
- Use colours to tell units, tens and hundreds apart.
- Allow a calculator when the aim of the exercise is reasoning, not calculating.
When memory gets stuck
- Keep a times table within reach for exercises where mental arithmetic is not the goal.
- Review the tables in small steps, building on what is already known (the 4 times table is double the 2 times table).
When the child struggles to stay focused and plan
- Break each problem down into steps and say them out loud.
- Keep a method sheet with the solving steps, to follow in order.
When number sense is missing
- Use concrete objects: counters, sticks, coins, cooking recipes.
- Estimate before calculating (“will the answer be closer to 50 or 500?”).
Exercises and games for dyscalculia at home
The most useful exercises are short, regular and fun. Ten minutes a day works better than a long session that discourages. A few ideas:
- board games with dice and cards, which get them counting without noticing;
- shopping or pocket money, to handle real amounts;
- cooking, for quantities, doubles and halves;
- comparison games (“who has more?”) and putting numbers in order.
These activities complement the speech therapist’s work; they do not replace it. What matters is that your child regains confidence and starts to see numbers as something manageable again.
At school: reasonable adjustments
In the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, a pupil with specific needs, such as diagnosed dyscalculia, can receive reasonable adjustments in mainstream education. They are set out in a decree that came into force in 2018.
In practice, this can mean extra time, the use of a calculator or a times table, reworded instructions or less cluttered worksheets. The request is made to the school’s head, based on the diagnosis, and the adjustments are discussed with the teachers and the PMS centre.
Support from a maths coach
Alongside speech therapy, one-to-one maths support helps your child keep up with their class programme at their own pace. The coach goes over concepts one by one, with concrete materials, and applies the strategies that work for them.
At My Sherpa, an educational adviser chooses the coach according to your child’s needs, for private maths lessons in primary school or maths tutoring in secondary school, at home anywhere in Belgium or online. Working on their study method also helps them get organised in every subject.
Do you have other questions about how we work? See our frequently asked questions.
