Developmental dyscalculia: How it affects the brain?

A Quick Guide

Developmental dyscalculia is a learning disorder that affects math and arithmetic skills, causing difficulties in understanding numeric symbols, mental math, and abstract concepts. It is not related to overall intelligence and has a genetic component. The disorder affects brain functions such as attention, focus, memory, planning, processing speed, and recalling names, impacting academic and daily life performance.

Understanding developmental dyscalculia

Developmental dyscalculia is a learning disorder characterized by having difficulty related to mathematics and arithmetic. Oftentimes, it is also referred to as “math dyslexia”. Around 3-7% of children, adolescents, and adults are affected by developmental dyscalculia regardless of gender. 

This disorder has nothing to do with the child’s overall intelligence. A child may have difficulty interpreting numeric symbols and arithmetic operations such as subtraction, addition, division, and multiplication. They may confuse numbers and signs, and be unable to do mental math, or work with abstract concepts. 

Developmental dyscalculia is basically the dysfunction of neural pathways that interpret numeric information. Hence, it becomes problematic to access and process numeric information. 

There is a strong genetic component when it comes to the potential causes of dyscalculia. To learn more about the causes of dyscalculia, check out our other article: Understanding Developmental Dyscalculia: Its Causes & Prevalence 

Developmental dyscalculia increases the incidence of co-occurring mental disorders such as ADHD and has a significant negative impact on performance in school, the workplace, and daily life.

How does developmental dyscalculia affect the brain?

The neurological disorder dyscalculia manifests in the intraparietal sulcus of the brain. The intraparietal sulcus has been demonstrated to monitor the quantity of information kept in visual short-term memory. This disorder creates a tendency of cognitive decline that typically shows up as skill inadequacies like:

Divided attention

This ability is crucial since it enables multitasking. Because they can’t focus, are easily distracted by other stimuli, and become tired easily, children with math impairments have trouble responding to a stimulus.

Focus

It is a cognitive function associated with the dyslexia-related process of cognitive decline. The structural impairment in these brain network connections is also linked to inhibition, which has an impact on mental clarity and makes it more challenging for children to learn math.

Memory

It is a cognitive ability that relates to short-term memory and the capacity to manage data in order to finish challenging tasks. Some of the issues that a person might face due to memory problems are: 

• A lack of drive
• Being easily sidetracked
• Forgetting numbers
• Forgetting tasks and instructions
• Sluggish mental arithmetic
• Trouble following directions

Planning

Low levels of this cognitive ability imply challenges with planning and understanding exercises and statistics. The learner is unable to successfully complete the task because of their incapacity to predict events or consequences.

Processing speed

It is the amount of time it takes for our brain to absorb, comprehend, and act upon information (such as a number, a mathematical equation, a problem, etc). Children with dyscalculia require more time and effort to digest the information than children without learning disabilities, who complete this process swiftly and effortlessly.

Recalling names

It implies the capacity to remember and apply a word or number later. Due to additional challenges their brains may have processing information and labeling concepts, children with dyscalculia frequently have issues recalling numbers.

We hope you found this article useful in learning more about how a person’s brain may be affected by developmental dyscalculia.