E125: Dyscalculia or SLD in Math with Laura Jackson
Does your child struggle with math? Having a hard time identifying why it's so hard or how to help them get over the anxiety, tears, and frustrations when their math just doesn't make sense to them? We are changing that TODAY with Laura Jackson From Discovering Dyscalulia!
Does your child struggle with math? Having a hard time identifying why it’s so hard or how to help them get over the anxiety, tears, and frustrations when their math just doesn’t make sense to them?
We are changing that TODAY with Laura Jackson From Discovering Dyscalulia!
In this episode we cover:
1) What is Dyscalculia or Specific Learning Disability in Math
2) Some CLEAR signs that your child may be struggling because of this disability
3) What’s happening in researching this challenge
4) Clear strategies to advocate for within IEPs to assist them in actually making progress in their math skills
5) Amazing resources to check out through Discovering Dyscalculia AND educators specializing in the field from all over the world.
Register for the FREE Parent Webinar happening live May 26th: The ONE Strategy that Will Decrease Your IEP Metting Stress and Change Your Parent Advoacy Life Forever!: (recording provided but bonus for showing up live!): Register at: www.TheIEPLab.com/webinar
Shownotes (with live links): www.TheIEPLab.com/episode125
Laura’s website: https://discoveringdyscalculia.com/
E125: Dyscalculia with Laura Jackson
[00:00:00] So this week, we’re diving into dyscalculia, which is another name for a specific learning disability in math. And not only are we going into detail about what kinds of struggles your child might be having, if they are having a specific learning disability in math or dyscalculia. And yes, we talk about the differences and the sameness of these in this podcast episode.
But we’re also talking about strategies that you can advocate for in the IEP. So you do not want to miss this episode. If your child struggles in math, because we are talking all about very useful things for dyscalculia or specific learning disability in math. Stick with me.
You are listening to the parent IEP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective IEP for your child so that you can get them supported and learning in school. I’m Beth Liesenfeld occupational therapist, who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEP for their kids without having to fight the school.
My mission is to help you learn the pillars of knowledge [00:01:00] that I saw in these effective parents use in their advocacy. And also to provide insider knowledge from the school side, so that you have context to turn that into informed, intelligent questions that actually get you somewhere with the school IEP team. So let’s dive into today’s topic, which is dyscalculia or specific learning disability in math with our special guest and think about what we can change and tweak to get the right formula for success for your child to learn and grow at school. Welcome to the lab.
If you are on the IEP lab mailing list, then you already know that I been up to something really fun. And I’ve been asking for feedback from everybody to decide what you guys need the most training ad and after many votes coming from the email that I sent out last week. We have decided on the webinar that we are doing
on Friday, may 26. And that is the one strategy that will decrease your IEP meeting stress and change your [00:02:00] IEP life forever. It’s a pretty big claim, right? So we’re going to definitely back that up. In this 60 minute, totally free webinar. We are talking about discovering the one mind shift that’s helped. So many parent advocates decrease their IEP meeting stress, learn strategies to increase the effectiveness of your child’s IEP.
And also have an action plan to start bright away making next year. Your child’s most supported iEP year ever. So go ahead and snag your free seat to the webinar by going to www.theieplab.com/webinar. The link is also below this podcast in your podcast player. And you can just tap that copy and paste it into your browser and snag your seat. We’ll see you there. Now let’s get into today’s episode with my special guest, Laura Jackson from discovering dyscalculia. And I left some edits in here about how to say dyscalculia. I say it wrong so many times. I want you to count how many times I [00:03:00] say it incorrectly,
But I thought it was such a nice reminder that we can make light of some of this very serious topic. And gosh, it was just so funny that I just kept stumbling over it. So enjoy the comedic breakup of the very serious topic of dyscalculia by starting off this interview with me saying the word wrong.
All right. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
I’m so excited to have you on, um, to talk about Discalcula. Nope, dyscalculia right. Good job. Yes. Thank you. We’re just having this whole session of like tutoring me in how to say it and I love it. Um, so excited to have you on and, and talk about this, especially because we’re, we’re diving into some specific things with like dysgraphia and now dyscalculia and I’m so excited to like, get some strategies out there for parents.
So before we really dive in, will you kind of back us up a little bit and tell us about what you do and [00:04:00] how you got into what you do, and then we’ll go from there. Yes. Sounds good. So I’m a parent of a child with Dyscalculia, and it was about nine years ago, she was in third grade, and we started noticing just how much trouble she was having in math and she had been having trouble in math for.
A lot longer than that, but that was when I first started noticing, and it was that year that I came across the word dyscalculia, also did not know how to say it. And when I went to the school saying, I think my kid may have this, I think everyone in the room pronounced it differently, Uhhuh. Um, so that started our own journey.
I had, I had no experience with learning differences, learning disabilities, and this thing with Dyscalculia was completely new to me and I couldn’t find any resources. Like the school didn’t know anything. There was like two books at the library that had a chapter on it, [00:05:00] and it was pretty, Lonely and I, so I just started digging in.
I was reading everything I could find, ordering books and trying to really understand my daughter and get the help that she needed. So, um, it was really just kind of a parent deep dive into finding what does my kid need? And along the way I ended up teaching her math at home for a season, uh, because we couldn’t find what we needed at school.
Uh, we had two different IEPs and two different school districts, uh, for it. And anyway, we’ve come a long ways. It’s, it was, uh, it’s been quite the journey. And then Dyscalculia doesn’t go away, so now she’s almost 16. And this summer we’ll get to navigate the impacts of Dyscalculia on driving. Yeah. Um, but she’s doing really well in school.
And so I [00:06:00] started discovering Dyscalculia and wrote the book Discovering Dyscalculia, um, just because there wasn’t enough resources for parents. And I basically wrote the book, made the website that I wanted when I was out there looking. Um, and so I’ve just been connecting with parents really all over the US and around the world.
Just trying to get that conversation started about what is it and how can we help these learners and how can we really support them so they can really thrive and not have it hold them back. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. So much good stuff in there. Okay. So yeah, we’re gonna talk about terminology for a second because, um, and you know, when we talked before too, it’s like, gosh, we just talk about dyslexia so much because there’s so many, like parallels between the two.
So let’s talk about terminology for a second. So, when do people have the term dyscalculia, and is it like an official diagnosis anywhere [00:07:00] and then mm-hmm. When do we talk about specific learning disability in math? That’s a great question. That comes up a lot. I have parents say, um, my student, the school told me my student has a specific learning disability in math, but I don’t know if it’s dyscalculia.
And just to clear the confusion, um, those are the same things. So you may hear it as that. You may hear it as just a math learning disability, the term dyscalculia. Uh, came up, uh, in the seventies by a researcher’s name was Kok or Kok, and so he kind of coined the term developmental dyscalculia talking about this brain difference that impacted person’s ability to work with numbers.
And so I don’t know why it’s not more readily used. I know. One of the recent D S M versions, I don’t know if it was four or five, they used the [00:08:00] specific learning disability. I think it gets a little confusing for parents because they think are there multiple math learning disabilities? Mm-hmm. And is this a specific one?
And so I think the term, and you, maybe you could correct me, but I. Years ago, people, they didn’t know so much about learning differences, and so they would, they would just say, well, you kind of have a, a non-specific learning disability. And so then they started figuring out what are these disabilities and
became more specific. Um, but really anything that is specific in a learning disability of math, that is dyscalculia. And that’s helpful to know because when you start Googling that you’ll know, okay, that’s what this is talking about. Mm-hmm. That’s fantastic because I do think that. When we had somebody on talking about dyslexia, it’s like, oh, dyslexia is like kind of a subset.
It’s like this specific characteristics of a specific learning disability. And so I love that that’s like easier to explain that it’s, it’s pretty much [00:09:00] essentially the same thing. Okay, perfect. Yes. There are some reasons that you, that a student would struggle in math that may not be because of a learning disability, or it may be like you could be dyslexic and struggle in math.
Because of the language pieces. Mm-hmm. Um, so that gets a little complicated. But dyscalculia is really a difference in the brain and their understanding of number and quantity. Um, so that’s different than just being impacted by other differences. Yeah. And that’s a perfect segue to what I was gonna ask you next, which is, you know, if somebody’s like, oh, my kid struggles in math, but like they don’t have an identified disability in this, what are some of the signs that parents might see that would make them research this a little bit more or dive into this a little bit more?
- Yeah. Um, definitely, and I would say a lot of students, this is how they find out that they’re dyscalcu, is because either they or their parents recognize the signs and symptoms [00:10:00] because schools are, as we’ve talked about, are slow moving. Mm-hmm. And even educational psychologists. So even, they may not even notice these things, but parents, Like I did, I started to notice like, is this normal that my daughter can’t tell time and she’s, you know, in fourth grade?
Um, no, that’s not necessarily normal. So, They’ll have difficulty, not necessarily with addition because they can count on in ones, but they’ll have, they’ll start struggling. When the school gets into subtraction, multiplication, division, um, you’ll see a reliance on finger counting. There’s nothing wrong with finger counting, but if that is the only method they use to calculate, that can be a sign.
Um, they have trouble estimating, so they have trouble guessing whether they’re num their, um, Solution on the math pages. Correct. But they’ll also have trouble estimating how many people are in the room or how many apples are in the bowl?[00:11:00] They have a real memory weakness for numbers, so remembering telephone numbers, number sequences, um, pin numbers, very complicated. They also have a hard time remembering what schools call, like your number facts.
So being given flashcards and you have to know your number facts for addition to subtraction or multiplication is very difficult. So that memory is very low for anything related to numbers. Trouble with multiple steps and a problem. They have trouble counting backwards, so that’s a real telltale sign.
Um, they can count forward maybe fine, but can’t, uh, go backwards or they’ll have trouble skip counting. Mm-hmm. They have trouble with, uh, directions left and right. You’ll see that with, uh, dyslexic too. Um, And then they won’t recognize number patterns very easily. So sometimes they’re given multiplication, uh, [00:12:00] charts or uh, hundreds grid, and they have trouble putting that together.
They don’t see the pattern that seems so obvious to everyone else. They’ll have a lot of stress over money, decimals, fractions, percentages. Um, and then they really learn how to tell time late in life. So on an analog clock, that’s very tricky, uh, for them to understand. And it’s almost like they don’t even have a sense of time in general.
Hmm. Which, uh, sometimes people with, uh, Well, if you have a D H D, you can ha also have a time blindness. Mm-hmm. Um, but for different reasons. But sometimes it’s overlooked because maybe the student is A D H D, and so they just assume it’s because of that. Okay.
Those were good, like concrete wise, and, and I don’t think I’ve shared this on the podcast before, but my sister actually has a learning disability in math. Oh. And she, I think my parents had her tested very different advocacy experience. Um, [00:13:00] yes. I think my parents being teachers just like, couldn’t figure out what was going on and just like, yeah, you just, you just need to do it.
You just need to do it. Yeah. So there was a lot of tears from my sister Yes. Growing up trying to like, yes. Help her, but not knowing how to help her kind of thing. I was one of those parents, yeah. Telling my daughter, you just need to practice the flashcards. And she’s in tears and, and my other child’s like, why is sister all curled up in a ball and crying?
I mean, I didn’t know what to do either. Um, I didn’t understand what. What is the problem? Mm-hmm. But I, I love to share this though, because my sister is incredibly successful as a salesperson, works with numbers and she’s fine. I can’t guarantee that, but, oh man, there was a lot of tears, but she figured it out eventually and found her niche, right.
Can I say one more thing? Um, yeah. One of the kind of tests that, um, parents can just kind of do too is DYS culex, um, [00:14:00] have trouble sizing. So that’s seeing a small quantity and just instantly knowing what it is. So most of us can do that for numbers five and down, you know, like you’ll see, you’ll see three cups and you don’t have to count them.
Well, just how Keli would see three cups and go 1, 2, 3 really quickly. So, You can even just throw a random scatter of items and just be like, and then quickly cover ’em up and be like, how many were there? And if they do not know, or if they struggle and they count the dot patterns on when you’re playing dice and dominoes, dice, yes.
That is a real indicator, a strong indicator of being dyscalculia. Oh, I love that. I can see it in my mind. I love it. I love the visuals. Okay, so let’s talk about a little bit about research and lack thereof because mm-hmm. I mean, again, we’ve talked about this like, okay, it’s kind of like dyslexia. Mm-hmm.
But dyslexia has some research coming out, some programs . What kind of information [00:15:00] is there out there? What kind of research is coming out about this? Um, so that we can know what exactly we can advocate for in schools. Yeah. No, that is, Such a great question. I have found, uh, in the last many years, um, there’s a lot of good information coming out of the UK and it’s kind of, they’re all connected to each other, so I really like to follow.
Some names are Dorian, um, yo, Brian Butterworth, Jane Emerson, Patricia Bapti Steve Chin, Judy Hornig Gold. Bonnet Bird. Those are some names of, um, a mix of researchers and teachers who have come together and they’ve been writing books and. Um, there’s nothing that’s like a curriculum. There’s no Orton Gillingham mm-hmm.
For dyscalculia yet. But, they’ve had [00:16:00] really great success with Dyscalculia learners of all ages, um, helping them gain that sense of number and quantity, which they don’t innately have. So they’re my favorite people that I follow. Um, there are some other researchers in the us I. I connect most with these people.
They, it really matches my daughter’s experience and how they write really explains well all the difficulties. So, those are kind of the people I follow in the books who I’m reading and who I’m most excited about. Um, that is doing really great work. And I’m guessing that you have those on your website, which we’ll talk about at the end, right?
Yeah, exactly. I have, well, yeah, we’ll talk about that later, but I have a free, It’s done most of my favorite books and it has all those on there. Perfect. Okay, wonderful. So we’ll get that to that in a second. So yeah, let’s, let’s kind of switch to like i e p advocacy. And again, it’s the same. Concept is dyslexia.
Mm-hmm. Where [00:17:00] schools don’t necessarily have to have like a specific program in there, but you can put, you know, specific strategies that are going to work. You can kind of suggest things like that in accommodations and kind of the way that the goals are approached. So what strategies are coming out as being the most effective for Dyscalculia?
Yeah, such a great question. Um, it was really helpful to have you speak to my group of parents, and I’m still just thinking through, um, all the helpful tips you gave about that because it is tricky to know how do we take what we know about dyscalculia and what works and how do we translate that. So, um, there are some specific methods that I mentioned, um, from these books and so I’ll just share a few of those.
I think, um, One is that it’s important for them to teach for a sense of [00:18:00] numeracy. So understanding a number, uh, a number as a set, as a group of items and how it relates to others. And this. Is often skipped over because we assume that they got that information in kindergarten. Mm-hmm. But Culex don’t have that innate sense of quantity and number.
And so they have just this sort of core gap and we’ve moved on mm-hmm. To all other concepts. So if there’s a way to take that back and, um, And almost, almost start at the very foundation first to make sure they really understand numbers are inside of other numbers, understanding our, our system based on 10.
And um, so that’s one. And the other one is all the experts are really using multisensory. Uh, Visual tactile learning. And I know this is for a lot of other, um, [00:19:00] students who struggle as well. So really no matter the age, being able to physically manipulate and use quantities mm-hmm. And, and then they can translate that to having a visual.
Uh, so when my daughter is doing math in her head, she’s visualizing. Squeeze and air rods or dot patterns in her mind to figure out a total, and that’s different than the average student. So that’s, I love, oh, go ahead. I love that you say that because that is such a common accommodation to use manipulatives or counters or whatever it is that that’s a super easy thing for parents to ask for.
Cuz I feel like pretty much everybody has that available. Mm-hmm. Teachers know what that means. I, I love that you said that one. That’s great. Yeah. Yep. And I would say, And, and the DYS experts that are working with even adults, even adults need that hands-on learning first. And if you think about how we all learn, a lot of us learn very [00:20:00] hands-on.
So there’s no shame in, in starting with those symbols that you can, work with before you go more abstract. Mm-hmm. Um, the third one is, um, An education that can adapt to where the student is currently at. And you and I talked about the struggle with this. So, uh, my daughter was her second i e p in, uh, a different school.
In middle school, they were doing fractions and so we were trying to find material to help her learn fractions. And in Ronette Bird’s ebook, she has a series of eBooks. She kind of listed, well, you need to be able to understand what having is, like cutting something in half. Mm-hmm. You need to understanding what doubling, you know, taking something and making two of it.
And there was like a list of things. I was like, my daughter doesn’t know how to do any of these, so she’s not gonna be able to do fractions. We have to first go and learn that. So being able to. [00:21:00] I think you shared that maybe those could be objectives under an i e P. Like, okay, this student needs to first understand how to work with a number and how these numbers relate to each other before we, dip into fractions, so,
sometimes that might feel like it’s a younger grade, but if you can. You’re away from that language. I would just say like, it’s a, it’s a number concept that needs to be solidified before they move on. Yeah. And that, and that feels like some parents, depending on the grade that they’re in, you might need to advocate for pullout service instead of push in service.
Because if they are significantly below what’s happening in that, That classroom, then they’re gonna be so overwhelmed by what’s happening in the classroom. You might have to pull them out for a while to make sure that they have those remedial skills first. Yep. That, that happened from my daughter, um, cuz she didn’t know she was so lost and what was happening in class.
So another one is really considering that impact on the memory. So [00:22:00] what we talked about, like the symptoms.
So making sure that when there’s a lot of focus on rote or memorization, if there can be a way to. I don’t know, modify that or if you just have 5 0 4, so like, accommodate, um, accommodations that can help support that they aren’t gonna be able to memorize as much. And so focusing on memorizing what they call like a few key facts and then helping the student use reason and logic to derive the rest.
Okay. Um, so that’s a really important one so that they don’t get flooded and just lose it all. And then the last one is very similar probably to some of your other podcasts, but just using really transparent and clear language, thinking about how you talk about things. When you talk about borrowing from a column or carrying a one, that language is so problematic, uh, because [00:23:00] it doesn’t make sense and it also doesn’t really convey what’s actually happening with the numbers.
So, Being really aware of that, and that can also help students with language difficulties. Mm-hmm. Um, so it may require finding a few different ways to word things. Okay. Um, or maybe you start with, um, I know Made for math, who does math intervention? They start with talking about what does it mean, what does it mean to fracture before you get into fractions?
So kind of just really. That language piece will really helped us calculus not get confused. My daughter will get confused a lot. Like she’ll say, why did you say takeaway? Like, like, what does that mean? And like it doesn’t necessarily connect to her. That takeaway could be minus or subtract, and those are all the same.
So being really explicit in explaining, concepts before you start [00:24:00] using this language. Oh my gosh. I never even thought about that. Never even occurred to me. I know, but, but yeah. Math has so many of those, like weird, like jargon words. Mm-hmm. Within math. So then you have like jargon words and IEPs. You have jargon words. In education in general. And then you have jargon words into math too. Oh my gosh. That’s, I know, although that one, I keep learning, like I keep from what I read, you know, I’ll read about, oh, another way of saying something or, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I can see how mani manipulatives would be really helpful for that too.
Like they have those, those bars and that you can break them apart, or like cubes that you can snap together and pull apart. Um, so going back to those visuals would probably be really helpful. That’s what I would do. I don’t think that I could explain it in different language. That would be a study. Yeah.
It’s, it’s complicated. So Perfect. That was so specific and I’m sure that we’re gonna have a ton of [00:25:00] feedback that that was so incredibly helpful. So thank you so much for coming on and, and giving us all of the, the compilation of all of your years of studying this.
So I know that there’s gonna be parents who have questions and wanna connect with you. So where should they go to connect with you and what resources do you have available? Yes, everything is on my website, so discovering dyscalculia.com and there’s a section at the top, uh, for programs. And I have, a workshop for teachers.
I have a group for parents who are just wanting information on does my student have dyscalculia or my, have this diagnosis and I don’t even know what to do, um, with school, with life, with how to support them, anxiety, all those things that we personally faced. Um, but then there’s also a section at the top that’s free.
So there’s a seven day, parent email course that I recommend. It’s just, um, a guide your [00:26:00] dyscalculia guide to get you started. Um, thinking about what does my kid need and how can I support them and how can I better understand, uh, what this is and how this impacts their life. Oh, fantastic. Go ahead. Well, I was also gonna say, just started a YouTube channel so they could check that out too.
My teenager kindly reminded me that everyone and everyone starts, no one is very good. And I didn’t know if that was an insult or a compliment, but I’m using it to remind me that we’re just gonna get going and we’re just gonna get this information out there and get the conversation started. Yes, so, hey, I watched your YouTube video on how to say Discal.
Dyscalcu Leah. Yeah. Good job. Mm-hmm. And I feel like I’m much better than I would’ve been if I hadn’t prepared with your YouTube video, so perfect. We’ll, we’ll link your website in your YouTube channel below this podcast and your podcast player so that you don’t have to try to [00:27:00] spell disc klia, because I did that as, as well.
And we’ll go from there. Thank you so much again for your time. I so appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Beth. I love what you’re doing. Okay, thank you.
Now after we stopped the recording with Laura, she was like, oh, I forgot to mention my book. So just know that you can purchase Laura’s book on her website. And I will link that up in the show notes and also have the rolling below this podcast episode in your podcast player so that you can copy and paste it in your browser.
Thank you so much to Laura for coming on the show and really sharing a lot of what you’ve learned. In the trenches. And I hope that you, as a parent got a ton of information about specific learning disability in math, and I’m sure that my parents would have loved to have a lot of that information when my sister was going through school as well.
And just one final reminder to go to the IEP lab.com/webinar. The link is also below this podcast in your podcast player. So the, you can register for our webinar happening [00:28:00] on the 26th, which is the one strategy that will decrease IEP, meeting stress and change your IEP life for forever. And yes, we are sending out a recording of that webinar afterwards.
But you will get a very special bonus if you show up live. So definitely plan on scheduling it in your calendars and you will see all of the information on the registration page, hope to see you there. And I hope you have a great week. Thanks so much for listening. Bye bye.