Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Dyscalculia
A child with dyscalculia is not bad at maths — they lack number sense, and that can be built.
Also known as: dyscalculia · specific maths disorder · number blindness · arithmetic difficulty
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Dyscalculia, formally a specific disorder of arithmetic, affects the understanding of quantities and numbers: the intuitive sense of how big a number is and how numbers relate is missing. Calculating therefore stays laborious counting instead of understanding. Around 3 to 6 percent of children are affected, girls and boys about equally — though girls are identified later because they cover gaps for years with memorised facts. First hints appear in kindergarten: dice patterns are counted rather than recognised, sorting by size is hard, the number sequence breaks off. In years one and two children count stubbornly on their fingers, confuse plus and minus, stumble crossing tens and cannot do the same sum again the next day. Word problems fail not at the reading but at choosing the operation. In Switzerland assessment runs via the teacher and school psychology service, supported by the paediatrician or child psychiatry, with standardised arithmetic tests plus checks of attention and language. What works is targeted support with hands-on material linking quantity, number word and digit, plus formal accommodations: extra time, permitted aids, less timed mental arithmetic. The most dangerous sentence is “she’s just not a maths person” — children adopt it and give up a whole subject for years.
Counters, cubes, an abacus: quantity, number word and digit must visibly connect before abstraction.
Support restarts where understanding stopped — often within twenty, even for older children.
Extra time, permitted aids and less timed mental maths make tests fair, not easier.
Timed drills mostly measure automation. Without a stopwatch you see what a child truly understands.
Baking, shopping, laying the table, keeping score: quantities become graspable without a worksheet.
Never say “she’s just not a maths person”. Explain that number sense can be trained, step by step.
Dyslexia and ADHD often co-occur and change which support actually fits.
Small documented gains instead of grade comparisons show the child that practice really does something.
There is no drug for dyscalculia. What works is targeted practice with the sense of quantity, not more of the same arithmetic — twenty to thirty minutes daily over months, with material to handle. Food supplements and perceptual training unrelated to numbers brought nothing in comparisons. What changes the school path are the adjustments: more time, a calculator, marking the working rather than only the result.
About three to six in a hundred children are affected, girls and boys about equally. The diagnosis is made from the end of the second school year. A core sign is the sense of quantity: those affected take measurably longer to compare two numbers, even as adults. Effective practice needs several sessions a week over at least a year. About half also have dyslexia or ADHD.
Whether 7 or 70 is plausible cannot be judged. Nonsensical answers do not stand out to the child.
Even in year three simple sums are still counted one by one instead of recalled.
It worked last night and is gone by morning. That is typical, not laziness.
The text is understood, but whether to add, subtract, multiply or divide stays unclear.
Telling the time, estimating change or placing metres and kilos stays uncertain for long.
Tummy aches on test days, excuses, tears at timed mental maths — the anxiety outgrows the actual gap.
A lack causes exhaustion, problems concentrating, low mood and forgetfulness — and it is one of the few causes that can be found and put right with a single blood draw.
Low values are common with low mood. Whether correcting it lifts the mood is not settled; that it makes sense in winter at our latitudes is.
An empty store causes tiredness, lack of drive and problems concentrating long before any anaemia becomes visible. In women of childbearing age the most common single reason.
A building block of the cell coverings in the brain. The studies on mood are inconsistent; as part of a good diet it belongs there anyway.
Needed for making the messengers in the brain. It runs short with alcohol and under certain medicines — and it is always judged together with B12.
As with reading: no preparation improves arithmetic. The route runs through practising the sense of quantity, and it is long. What counts here is that tiredness and fear of the subject do not stand in the way as well — and the first of those is measurable.
Ferritin below about 30 µg/l goes together in children and adolescents with poorer concentration and faster tiring, even before the blood count is conspicuous. One of the few numbers in this field that really changes something.
Clearly worthwhile and well supported when deficient — vegan, older adults, certain drugs. No energy boost without a deficiency.
Clearly worthwhile and well studied when deficient; fewer data for the wider uses. Fat-soluble — check blood levels at high doses.
Effects on inflammation and triglycerides established; cardiovascular prevention is mixed. Watch quality and freshness.
In pregnancy clearly established against neural-tube defects, otherwise mainly with deficiency. Can mask a B12 deficiency — watch both.
As with dyslexia: programmes with balance or brain-hemisphere training show no effect on arithmetic. What works is targeted practice with number, preferably with material to handle.