Many different disabilities can affect children’s math learning and performance, but none more than disabilities that affect cognition—mental retardation, traumatic brain injury, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and learning disabilities, to name a few. Several specific areas of disability are clearly connected to math learning difficulties. Visual processing, visual memory, and visual-spatial relationships all impact math proficiency in that they are threads in the fabric of conceptual understanding and procedural fluency (Kilpatrick et al., 2001). Specific math learning difficulties also can affect a student’s ability to formulate, represent, and solve math problems (known as strategic competence).
The term learning disabilities (LD) certainly appears throughout the literature on math difficulties. This is not especially surprising: LD is the most frequently referenced disability affecting math learning and performance, with a well-documented impact on the learning of 5% to 10% of children in grades K-12 (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2002; Garnett, 1998; Geary, 2001, 2004; Mazzocco & Thompson, 2005).
The National Research Council's Concept of "Mathematical Proficiency"
“The integrated and balanced development of all five strands of mathematical proficiency [shown below] …should guide the teaching and learning of school mathematics.”
- Conceptual understanding— comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations
- Procedural fluency—skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately
- Strategic competence—ability to formulate, represent, and solve mathematical problems
- Adaptive reasoning—a capacity for logical thought, reflection, explanation, and justification
- Productive disposition— habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s own efficacy (Kilpatrick, et al., 2001, p. 11).
|
That’s more than 2.8 million children (U.S. Department of Education, 2007). While some of these children are primarily affected in their ability to read or write, many others struggle predominantly in the math arena, a manifestation of LD known as dyscalculia. This can be seen in the Federal definition of LD, which captures well the variable impact of the disability:
Specific learning disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations....
34 C.F.R.§ 300.8(c)(10)(i)
The “imperfect ability to…do mathematical calculations” accurately describes how LD affects many students. However, not all children with LD have math troubles, and not all children with math troubles have a learning disability. The commonality of interest here, then, is trouble with math, not what disability a child may have. That’s one very good reason to look beyond labels and focus on what teachers can do, instructionally speaking, to support students who are struggling in math. Which we’re going to do right now.