Numerical dyslexia: is it real?

There is a lot of research on dyslexia that is being done on an ongoing basis. Dyslexia is a neurological disorder that affects a person’s ability to learn to read, spell, or understand the meaning of what they read. There is also research to suggest that some dyslexics have similar difficulties processing numbers instead of words and letters, or in addition to them.

Let’s take a look at how numerical dyslexia or dyscalculia (as it’s also known) affects someone. The first sign of number dyslexia may be that a younger student is having trouble identifying numbers. As with the word dyslexic, a child will inadvertently mix up numbers from 1 to 20, for example. They can also memorize that 3+2=5 but they don’t understand why this is so. Another symptom that may be present is not being able to recognize that there are 3 or 4 objects present without counting them as most people can. Short-term memory may also play a role in numerical dyslexia. Since dyslexics can’t remember things in the short term, they may have trouble memorizing things like multiplication tables. Sequencing is also key to learning numbers and math, this is another known difficulty in some dyslexic students.

Numerical dyslexia is real and means that the brain does not process numbers correctly. This may be due to heredity, trauma, a combination of both, or some other reason that we don’t yet understand. Some people seem to be predisposed to developing dyslexia.

As mentioned above, it has become clear through recent studies of dyslexic children that many of them have problems with sequencing. The sequencing disorder over time is known as numerical dyslexia. It is not something that can be cured, but it can be corrected if you pay close attention when doing something with repetition.

As an example of a technique to help a student with dyscalculia, a parent would have their child work on the sequencing by helping them when it came time to make dinner. First, he would take the spaghetti out of the box 10 at a time and ask his son to count the noodles as they went into the pan. At first, he could only get to three noodles without getting frustrated. However, with repetition he was able to count to ten, then 20, then 50. He shows that with repetition, even people affected by number dyslexia can learn the correct sequence of numbers.

Similarly, another family asked their daughter to count street signs as they drove. At first, she only counted a few signs without making mistakes, but over time she began to remember the sequence 1, 2, 3, etc. It became easier for her to correctly count the street signs without making mistakes. That particular family gave up the “numbers game,” as they called it, when she counted 220 signs on a family vacation. In her opinion, she had won the game.

Unfortunately, dyslexia is not a game. Having number dyslexia can be very disorienting and downright embarrassing. Children are supposed to be able to count from 1 to 20 before they start kindergarten, and people with number dyslexia have difficulty counting from 1 to 5 without training. There’s no specific advice on how long repetition work takes before it starts to take hold, but it’s obvious that a dyslexic’s brain can be trained by a patient and loving teacher. Just because your child has dyslexia, don’t give up. This disorder has been compared to color blindness. It is not an indication of intelligence, just a difficulty learning to count or do math.