Great stuff as usual. Is there anything we diagnose well, outside of medical issues with clear biological markers? For example, you could have written this essay about ADHD.
I honestly don't know, but that says more about my psychiatric knowledge than anything else. There was recently an interesting article in the NYer about sociopaths and borderline personality disorders -- seems like a similar story there as well.
The story about Kirk made me smile. I’ve never heard of him previously, but what a delight to read of the endearing and timeless attitude of an educator.
This article had some interesting similarities to discussions in the speech language pathology world about Specific Language Impairment. The new name is Developmental Learning Disorder, and a gap between IQ and language scores on standardized tests is no longer a requirement for diagnosis.
I remember also hearing a hypothesis that because kids with SLI/DLD often end up with learning disability labels, that a deficit in language ability is the root cause for the learning disorder.
Interesting hypothesis! Sort of lines up with what I wrote about previously about RAN and math disabilities -- it would make sense that a phonological processing disorder would impact all sorts of learning. I mean, really: what learning doesn't involve some amount of retrieving, storing, manipulating language?
I wasn't aware of those parallels to speech language pathology. Thanks for that connection. And thanks for reading!
I think we don't teach math well enough to have any real clue. Disability rates result, in part, from the quality of teaching. Some people and publishers advocate teaching math in a way that would leave the majority of their class with the appearance of having a disability.
I've never understood what "dyscalculia" is. To be blunt, when I was growing up we had a notion of "smart" kids and "dumb" kids, and "dyscalculia" sounds a lot like what being "dumb" at math is. For instance, the Cleveland Clinic lists these traits as symptoms of "dyscalculia" in high-school students:
* Counting backward.
* Solving word problems.
* Breaking down problems into multiple steps to solve them.
* Measuring items.
* Measuring quantities (such as for cooking/baking recipes).
* Using money (coins and bills) to pay for items, exchanging bills for coins (and vice versa) and making change.
* Understanding and converting fractions.
How is this different from just being dumb at math?
The traits you listed are task-based or output-based metrics, rather than neurological or cognitive process measures. Two students could horrendously fail their algebra exams, but it would not tell you much about their brains.
unlike general difficulty with math, which may improve with tutoring and practice, dyscalculia is thought to persist even with high-quality instruction and effort.
It’d be interesting to distinguish the neural basis of dyscalculia from general poor math performance. I wonder if anyone has applied brain imaging to the two groups while controlling for mathematical fluency?
E.g…
1. A group with dyscalculia
2. A group with low math achievement but without dyscalculia
"A group with low math achievement but without dyscalculia"
Well, that's the issue right there. As far as I can see, what we call "dyscalculia" is really just low math achievement. But apparently you can discern a distinction between the two. So my question is: what is it about "dyscalculia" that makes it different from low math achievement? More concretely, what would cause an observer to conclude that a student had low math achievement but did not have "dyscalculia"?
"unlike general difficulty with math, which may improve with tutoring and practice, dyscalculia is thought to persist even with high-quality instruction and effort."
This statement seems to me to be a data point in my favor. Doesn't this mean that people with "dyscalculia" are just really bad at math?
Just chiming in to say that this is the core of confusion about the term dyslcalculia.
One difference (and more or less everyone agrees with this I think) is that dyscalculia refers just to arithmetic. If a kid has trouble exclusively with say algebra, that would not be called dyscalculia.
Check out that last article I linked to in the post about specific learning disorders and you'll find a lively discussion about whether it makes sense to make distinctions like these at all, especially as a matter of research.
"One difference (and more or less everyone agrees with this I think) is that dyscalculia refers just to arithmetic. If a kid has trouble exclusively with say algebra, that would not be called dyscalculia."
That's clearly not true -- the quote from the Cleveland Clinic that I posted included many items that are not strictly speaking arithmetic. So the good doctors at CC don't seem to agree with this claim. Also, from the EdWeek article that you linked to, there's this statement:
"Children with dyscalculia may have difficulties in a wide array of areas, including understanding the meaning of numerical symbols, such as number words and digits, and spatial processing, such as mentally rotating an object to match an example shape."
So again that doesn't seem to be restricted to just difficulties with arithmetic.
Finally, a quick Google search indicates that there are many different conceptions of what "dyscalculia" means, and it's certainly true that some of these are limited to problems with arithmetic (broadly defined). But most of them basically treat "dyscalculia" as just having difficulty with math.
It very well may be that for many people using the term dyscalculia is indistinguishable from having a math learning disability aka "being bad at math." Looking at the CC page, it wasn't clear to me which items are PRIMARY to dyscalculia and which are SECONDARY. In other words, a student with a number-based learning disability MAY ALSO have difficulty rotating shapes, and that may in fact be a good diagnostic indicator of further problems...
...ultimately though this is precisely the issue with these terms, and I don't really have much at stake one way or the other.
Either I’ve misunderstood your original point of confusion, or you’ve missed the point of my comment. I am not claiming to be able to discern the brains of children based on their math ability, lol.
I am restating one criteria that’s been used in diagnostic criteria , which is response to intervention. Do a student's math skills change in response to targeted, high-quality instruction over an extended period? The following question would be what separates groups who do vs groups who do not. This is different from a one-time assessment of math ability.
I have no opinion on whether the current definition is good or not good, but I do think the way to answer such questions is through experimental evidence. if experiments fail to reveal consistent, meaningful distinctions, we may need to reevaluate our categorizations.
Great piece.
Great stuff as usual. Is there anything we diagnose well, outside of medical issues with clear biological markers? For example, you could have written this essay about ADHD.
I honestly don't know, but that says more about my psychiatric knowledge than anything else. There was recently an interesting article in the NYer about sociopaths and borderline personality disorders -- seems like a similar story there as well.
The story about Kirk made me smile. I’ve never heard of him previously, but what a delight to read of the endearing and timeless attitude of an educator.
This article had some interesting similarities to discussions in the speech language pathology world about Specific Language Impairment. The new name is Developmental Learning Disorder, and a gap between IQ and language scores on standardized tests is no longer a requirement for diagnosis.
I remember also hearing a hypothesis that because kids with SLI/DLD often end up with learning disability labels, that a deficit in language ability is the root cause for the learning disorder.
Curious about your thoughts. I enjoy your emails!
Interesting hypothesis! Sort of lines up with what I wrote about previously about RAN and math disabilities -- it would make sense that a phonological processing disorder would impact all sorts of learning. I mean, really: what learning doesn't involve some amount of retrieving, storing, manipulating language?
I wasn't aware of those parallels to speech language pathology. Thanks for that connection. And thanks for reading!
Great article. Coming back to it after the fuss around Alan Levinovitz's Chronicle piece on much the same: https://x.com/AlanLevinovitz/status/1838959454647173156
I think we don't teach math well enough to have any real clue. Disability rates result, in part, from the quality of teaching. Some people and publishers advocate teaching math in a way that would leave the majority of their class with the appearance of having a disability.
I've never understood what "dyscalculia" is. To be blunt, when I was growing up we had a notion of "smart" kids and "dumb" kids, and "dyscalculia" sounds a lot like what being "dumb" at math is. For instance, the Cleveland Clinic lists these traits as symptoms of "dyscalculia" in high-school students:
* Counting backward.
* Solving word problems.
* Breaking down problems into multiple steps to solve them.
* Measuring items.
* Measuring quantities (such as for cooking/baking recipes).
* Using money (coins and bills) to pay for items, exchanging bills for coins (and vice versa) and making change.
* Understanding and converting fractions.
How is this different from just being dumb at math?
The traits you listed are task-based or output-based metrics, rather than neurological or cognitive process measures. Two students could horrendously fail their algebra exams, but it would not tell you much about their brains.
unlike general difficulty with math, which may improve with tutoring and practice, dyscalculia is thought to persist even with high-quality instruction and effort.
It’d be interesting to distinguish the neural basis of dyscalculia from general poor math performance. I wonder if anyone has applied brain imaging to the two groups while controlling for mathematical fluency?
E.g…
1. A group with dyscalculia
2. A group with low math achievement but without dyscalculia
3. A control group with typical math achievement
"A group with low math achievement but without dyscalculia"
Well, that's the issue right there. As far as I can see, what we call "dyscalculia" is really just low math achievement. But apparently you can discern a distinction between the two. So my question is: what is it about "dyscalculia" that makes it different from low math achievement? More concretely, what would cause an observer to conclude that a student had low math achievement but did not have "dyscalculia"?
"unlike general difficulty with math, which may improve with tutoring and practice, dyscalculia is thought to persist even with high-quality instruction and effort."
This statement seems to me to be a data point in my favor. Doesn't this mean that people with "dyscalculia" are just really bad at math?
Just chiming in to say that this is the core of confusion about the term dyslcalculia.
One difference (and more or less everyone agrees with this I think) is that dyscalculia refers just to arithmetic. If a kid has trouble exclusively with say algebra, that would not be called dyscalculia.
Check out that last article I linked to in the post about specific learning disorders and you'll find a lively discussion about whether it makes sense to make distinctions like these at all, especially as a matter of research.
Thank you for your reply.
I'm puzzled by this statement:
"One difference (and more or less everyone agrees with this I think) is that dyscalculia refers just to arithmetic. If a kid has trouble exclusively with say algebra, that would not be called dyscalculia."
That's clearly not true -- the quote from the Cleveland Clinic that I posted included many items that are not strictly speaking arithmetic. So the good doctors at CC don't seem to agree with this claim. Also, from the EdWeek article that you linked to, there's this statement:
"Children with dyscalculia may have difficulties in a wide array of areas, including understanding the meaning of numerical symbols, such as number words and digits, and spatial processing, such as mentally rotating an object to match an example shape."
So again that doesn't seem to be restricted to just difficulties with arithmetic.
Finally, a quick Google search indicates that there are many different conceptions of what "dyscalculia" means, and it's certainly true that some of these are limited to problems with arithmetic (broadly defined). But most of them basically treat "dyscalculia" as just having difficulty with math.
It very well may be that for many people using the term dyscalculia is indistinguishable from having a math learning disability aka "being bad at math." Looking at the CC page, it wasn't clear to me which items are PRIMARY to dyscalculia and which are SECONDARY. In other words, a student with a number-based learning disability MAY ALSO have difficulty rotating shapes, and that may in fact be a good diagnostic indicator of further problems...
...ultimately though this is precisely the issue with these terms, and I don't really have much at stake one way or the other.
Either I’ve misunderstood your original point of confusion, or you’ve missed the point of my comment. I am not claiming to be able to discern the brains of children based on their math ability, lol.
I am restating one criteria that’s been used in diagnostic criteria , which is response to intervention. Do a student's math skills change in response to targeted, high-quality instruction over an extended period? The following question would be what separates groups who do vs groups who do not. This is different from a one-time assessment of math ability.
I have no opinion on whether the current definition is good or not good, but I do think the way to answer such questions is through experimental evidence. if experiments fail to reveal consistent, meaningful distinctions, we may need to reevaluate our categorizations.
I do not know the answer.