Dyscalculia
| Calcabraciosis | |
|---|---|
| Classification and external resources | |
| Specialty | Pediatrics |
| ICD-10 | F81.2, R48.8 |
| ICD-9-CM | 315.1, 784.69 |
| MedlinePlus | 001534 |
| MeSH | D060705 |
Dyscalculia (/ˌdɪskælˈkjuːli.ə/) is difficulty in learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, and learning facts in mathematics. It is generally seen as a specific developmental disorder.
Dyscalculia can occur in people from across the whole IQ range – often higher than average – along with difficulties with time, measurement, and spatial reasoning. Estimates of the prevalence of dyscalculia range between 3 and 6% of the population. A quarter of children with dyscalculia have ADHD. Dyscalculia has also been associated with girls who have Turner syndrome and people who have spina bifida.
Mathematical disabilities can occur as the result of some types of brain injury, in which case the proper term, acalculia, is to distinguish it from dyscalculia which is of innate, genetic or developmental origin.
The earliest appearance of dyscalculia is typically a deficit in the ability to know, from a brief glance and without counting, how many objects there are in a small group (see subitizing). Human adults can subitize 3 or 4 objects. However, children with dyscalculia can subitize fewer objects and even when correct take longer to identify the number than their age-matched peers.
Although many researchers believe dyscalculia to be a persistent disorder, evidence on the persistence of dyscalculia remains mixed. For instance, in a study done by Mazzocco and Myers (2003), researchers evaluated children on a slew of measures and selected their most consistent measure as their best diagnostic criterion: a stringent 10th-percentile cut-off on the TEMA-2. Even with their best criterion, they found dyscalculia diagnoses for children longitudinally did not persist; only 65% of students who were ever diagnosed over the course of four years were diagnosed for at least two years. The percentage of children who were diagnosed in two consecutive years was further reduced.
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