So another part of the wider dyslexia constellation can be issues with maths or math. And research suggests that up to 60% of children with dyslexia do experience some kind of issues with maths. What we find here, again, as with all of these aspects of the constellation, we can unpack them and their complex constructs in their own right. And obviously the same with maths. Maths actually represents many different skills to acquire. But we can, from the knowledge you've already gleaned from this course, we can actually make now connections to how that might impact maths ability. What we typically see is that for students with dyslexia, they can often have strengths in the more spatial aspects of maths, so for example geometry and things that involve spatial representations. And this is certainly an area where some individuals with dyslexia can show real strengths in relation to their typically reading peers. And often they can be actively recruited into professions that value these types of skills. But then in terms of challenges, there's lots of language in phonology in math, which can be a hurdle sometimes. And so if we think about the early stages of learning maths, dependent on the approach, of course, but in many traditional ways of teaching, there's quite a lot of rote memorization in some of the basic rules, (and multiplication tables. And so this rote memorization and reliance on both short-term memory and working memory, we can kind of predict that this might be tricky for someone with dyslexia, because these are vulnerability areas for them. And this is what we see. We see where facts are expected to be learned by rote children with dyslexia can really struggle. So then they don't have the foundations upon which to build some of the more complex processes. We also see that we've talked about how dyslexia can result in issues with sequencing. And lots of mathematical operations involve a good sense of sequencing. So you need to be able to carry out multi-step operations. But then, also, sometimes things are more complex in terms of having to reverse the order of things in part of an operation to get to the ultimate answer. So your sequencing skills need to be really strong for many aspects of maths, and so again, this can be a challenge for some people with dyslexia, if not presented in the right way. Where we're talking here, actually, teaching that helps children get, dig down to the concepts, so they're not having to rely on memorized facts for maths, can really succeed. It's not that the conceptual understanding isn't there, but sometimes the way of teaching and the layers of language and sequencing can make it hard to get down to those core concepts. There can also be difficulties distinguishing between similar types of symbols, so for example the addition symbol and the multiplication symbol can look quite similar, as can the subtraction and division symbols. So, choosing the type of operation can sometimes trip people up, as well as if you start thinking about word problems in math, there's all sorts of different words for operations that we bring in. So, for example, with even a subtraction, we can talk about subtracting, taking away, there's going to be a difference between numbers, lots of abstract relational terms, sometimes often meaning similar but slightly different things. And so this is often a big trip-up for people trying to find out what concepts they're being required to do within this mass of abstract words. And so again, teaching approaches that help teach the concepts without this, sometimes students are going to have to learn to navigate this to get through certain mandated exams. But you can give them the confidence in maths by helping them get the basic concepts, ... ... ... ... ... maths is something where it's particularly easy to develop an anxiety or a feeling of lack of competence. So you really do want to try and instill that competence in the early years. We can get even more, a bit more philosophical here as well when we actually link to what we were talking about in (week) one about writing systems. So often it's asked why some of the Asian countries are much stronger in mathematics than, for example, European countries, And one thing people sometimes mention is, well the language of their number system is just much more transparent then ours which may help with some of the processing. So to give an example of the somewhat lack of transparency in English. If you think about, if we take say the teens. So we've got 13, 14. If we think about how transparent the numerical quality of those terms is, we can tell, well especially with 14, we can tell there's something about a four there. And then if we know there's 13, 14, 15 we can extrapolate the teen is something to do with the teen numbers. But 13 is not completely transparent. We've got to link the 'thir' to a three. But then if we think about 11 and 12, if you see those written out, where's the clue to actually what the numerical properties are there? So, at the moment, we're still trying to work out how much of a hindrance this is, and it's not going to be the whole factor, but it is an interesting reflection on how actually certain languages may just give children a head start and make certain things slightly easier, especially if phonology and language are issues for you. So this is just a taster of some of the interaction between maths and reading difficulties. ... Steve Chinn, who's an expert in this area, has some great resources and talks that you can look at on his website, and we've provided a link to this within our course site.
