new to the math disability

My daughter is 7 and in 2nd grade. I’ve always knew she had a problem with processing information given to her. She does okay in spelling, only if they cut her words down from the rest of the class, and reading is not so great. B & D look exactly the same to her and S & C she confuses? BUT Math! She just don’t understand it! Whatever I do or say, nothing she is far below grade level and she tries really hard to understand and all I get is,”mom I just don’t understand.” Now I’m fighting with her school to get testing for her, like she should’ve had long before now. Her teacher and I agree, that we think there is a problem but I heard from the board today, and the Dr. that had looked at her paperwork didn’t think she had a problem, “It’s probably a result of a poor foundation, ” and that she’s always been slow so it’s harder for her to catch up! Round in circles we go! Where they found this doctor is beyond me. Like I said at least my daughters teacher agrees with me and is going to try to talk with someone else.

I’ve read a few messages and I feel a bit relieved that other people are having the difficulties I am, but on the other hand it is just confirming what I already know, that she does have a problem……..especially math!

I am stuck, not knowing where to go other then the school and I don’t want to waist any more of my daughters time. Any thoughts on that would be GREATLY appreciated!

Interactive metronome really helped my son’s sequencing problem which in turn has improved his math. Last night he was adding numbers in the thousands that were side by side and carrying over in his head. He is in third grade.

I know the teacher will write a little note saying that he shouldn’t be afraid to show his work.

I don’t know how to help you with the math problem but you need to put your request for testing in writing. They have to test within a certain number of days legally.

Beth

Kids who have difficulties making symbols make sense in reading often have similar or worse difficulties with symbols in math. At least with reading, the symbols stand for words — words, those things that are all around them (and some of us even think in words as our native language). It’s quite possible to ignore the math in our daily lives though it ends up being a significant disadvantage.
Semantically — this isn’t “dyscalculia” unless there’s a (rare) processing problem that means the concept of more and less and counting, etc. are confused. This is a difficulty in understanding not that the three cookies in front of you are fewer than the four cookies your brother has, but that there are words and symbols to stand for that concept (and that the concept is separate from teh cookies - that “threeness” can be cookies or miles or whatever).
We are way, way behind reading when it comes to teaching this to our kiddos in the schools. (We’re so far behind that there isn’t quite as much fighting and fervor as with reading because there aren’t as many people who believe they understand what’s going on.) As with reading, my personal opinion is you’re better off taking things into your own hands. Fortunately there are many, many fewer “exceptions” in teaching math than reading and spelling ;)
Does she understand concrete quantities? place value?

Now that my son is making good progress in reading(via structured sequential phonics in the Read Well program), I am trying to find the answer for Math.

Last year we had hired an educational consultant, who told us that “numeracity” for math was akin to phomenic awareness for reading. I found a good series for very basic mathematical concepts (“Developing Number Concepts” by Kathy Richardson). It was at a preschool level, but that was where my then first grade son was. The series uses manipulatives and activies that you do with children, not worksheets. I discovered that my son had some very basic diffenciencies — like a lack of object permanance and not understanding “less and more”.

My son (now in second grade) can now do addition and subtraction worksheets using a number line. Automatic retreival of ‘math facts” just isn’t happening for him. His well meaning teacher is unindating him with endless worksheets, but it seems to em an alternative approach is needed.

Anyone have any ideas? Matthew has severe visual processing difficulites.

Jody
In doing this

What’s on the worksheets? Are they “drill” of those math facts? I would pick 3 facts to work on and only answer the questions that are those facts. When those are easy, add another fact to the collection. It would be a lot less frustrating — and he’d actually learn those :)

Joan,

My son has visual processing deficits and had sequencing issues like you describe with not understanding less or more. He had trouble with questions like what is the number before 20 or after 19. He couldn’t find pages in the book because he didn’t know if he should go up or down from 50 to get to 60.

It was interesting to me when I read Mel Levine’s book he stated some people order things through the visual spacial area of the brain and others order things through the sequential area. He felt it was important to find the area of relative strength and use it to teach the child. Now here was my son with severe deficits in both areas.

Two things to try to improve sequential processing. The one that helped my son with this and really pretty much cured it was interactive metronome. It is a type of therapy doing exercises to the beat of a metronome. There is some research to support it’s efficacy in helping sequencing.
The other is line up a fork a knife and a spoon. Ask him to move the knife in front of the spoon, then the fork between the knife and the spoon. Do it as fast as he can tolerate it. I was pretty surprised when my 8 year old couldn’t do this as fast as his 4 year old brother.

I think to deal with the visual deficit area you could try to teach him to visualize. There is a discussion of cloud nine above that I am considering trying. My son has gotten better with math since IM and since I have been working on his visualization in other ways. I have gone on long enough but if you want some basic exercises that teach visualization I will explain further.

My daughter is now 11, has repeated year 3 and just completed year 5 (we finish school in Dec in Australia). She has struggled since kindegarten with maths and has severe spacial awareness, motor planning and other problems relating to her maths difficulty. I have not heard of using the metronome technique before and would love to hear more about some of the exercises you are using. She saw an dyslexic specialiast last year who was able to help give her strategies and used manipulatives to try and strengthen her maths but this method you talk of sounds intriguing and I would be keen to give it a try. If you prefer you can email me at [email protected]. Thanks

www.interactivemetronome.com It is a program that improves timing, which is thought to be an underpinning of some learning difficulities. They have alot of research on the site.

I don’t know if it is available in Australia. It is not really something you can do yourself although you could become trained if you were so inclined. My son’s therapist intially became trained because there was no provider in our area and she wanted if for her son with Aspergers. She now does it as a business. She was a computer programmer before.

My son was in special ed before IM and I credit IM for his getting into a regular class.

Other things that can help is improving timing through things like music and sports like Karate. The IM people did a study and found that musicians and athletes had better timing than the rest of the population. In fact many high level athletes have done IM to improve performance, the miami dolphins did it recently. (A professional football team in the U.S.) My son had some motor difficulties that were improved with IM. Before he couldn’t ride a skateboard and now he goes off ramps. He was in football during IM and couldn’t do the exercises that were asked of him after IM he could. The biggest gain was in sequencing. It was truely remarkable.

And Shirin on parenting bb says that IM solved her daughter’s sequencing problems, making math a strength. Post IM, my son has been able to learn math more easily than before. Still, we’re having to incorporate motor activities into learning the multiplication tables (hopefully this time for good—he learned them last year and forgot them!!!).

Beth

Beth,

I told my husband to pick them to win the super bowl before the season began. If you can pick the team before the season begins you can win big. He just looked at me like I had finally lost it. If they win I will have one big, “I told you so,” for him.