12:08pm June 4, 2014

Did you know researchers are finally recognizing that not all math LDs are the same?

The following comes from the Brain Post blog:

Giannis Karagiannakis and colleagures recently summarized what is known about mathematics learning disorders and proposed four subtypes. I will summarize these subtypes based upon his manuscript:

Core number subtype: This subtype represents a key early skill for learning mathematics. It denotes the ability to accurately generate an internal representation of quantity and understand different representations of quantity, i.e. analog-verbal-Arabic. It also includes difficulty understanding basic symbols of arithmetic operation symbols.

Memory subtype: This subtype reflects a deficit in working memory and semantic memory. Children and adults with this type of mathematical learning disorder have problems retrieving numerical facts, performing mental calculations. Additionally, because of memory deficits, this subtype struggles with keeping track of steps in a multistage arithmetic problem.

Reasoning subtype: This proposed subtype shows deficits in executive functions such as planning and decision-making. Executive function skills come in to play with mathematical problems include complex algorithms, if-then conditional probability and decision selection.

Visual-Spatial subtype: In this subtype there is a deficit in visuospatial skills resulting in problems with the spatial representation of numbers. Learners with deficits in this subtype will struggle with tasks such as placing numbers on a number line, geometric representations and rotations and the interpretation of numerical information presented in graphs or tables.

I’ve always been pretty good at mathematical reasoning, so long as things like measuring time and space aren’t involved, but have every core number and visual-spatial difficulty listed except for placing numbers on a number line. This ought to be expected from a person with high logical ability and weaknesses in working memory and visual-spatial processing, but it confuses people.

Previously, every study I’d read on math disability talked only about the “core number” difficulties, which they referred to as lack of “number sense” (an ill-defined mix of math knowledge and math intuition). I have never seen any studies describing math difficulties like mine.

By the way, I think the authors may be missing a type of math difficulty: difficulty understanding number words and matching them with the correct operations. Kids who know a math operation may still not use it for some problems because they do not understand the “math words” in the instructions to use that operation. If even typically developing kids have some difficulty with this, why wouldn’t kids with math LDs have more?

What I have is a really hard time translating between math as I know it, and all the symbols and stuff that are used for math. I can do extremely complicated math if it’s “translated” for me – graduate-level stuff – but without the “translation” it’s as good as gibberish to me.

And I’ve actually seen all these subtypes discussed as far back as 1999.

Notes: