Helping children with Dyscalculia : the implementation of a teaching programme with three primary school children

Abstract

Dyscalculia is a specific learning difficulty which hinders an individual from developing the basic number concepts which are needed for the acquisition of mathematics. The main aim of this study was to explore strategies which would help children with dyscalculia overcome some of their barriers. After initial assessment of 15 children using the Dyscalculia Screener (Butterworth, 2003), three children were identified with dyscalculia. These children, two 10-year-olds and one 7-year-old, were selected as the subject participants for the main part of the study. The parents of the three children were questioned about their children's difficulties to confirm the Screeners assessment. Consequently, the children were formatively assessed using the Catch Up Numeracy (2009) assessment tools. Twenty 15-minute sessions were carried out with each child, using the outline provided by the Catch Up Numeracy programme as intervention targetting the areas needing development. Post-assessment was carried out to measure the degree of success of the programme for each child. The results demonstrated that if appropriate and specific intervention is provided, children with dyscalculia can succeed at acquiring the basic number concepts needed for mathematics learning. Additionally, the study showed that such intervention would greatly impact the affective domain of children, raising self-esteem and developing a more positive attitude to the learning of mathematics.