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Teaching Math to Children With Language Disabilities

Language and auditory processing deficits affect the ability to learn language and math concepts and solve problems. Students may have receptive or expressive language problems that not only substantially affect their learning but also impact their ability to express what they don't understand or show how they solved problems.

As a parent, you may be wondering how to address these issues and help your child be successful. Here are some tips that you can utilize to help your child learn to work around their auditory processing difficulties or learning disability (LD) to successfully complete their math work.

Partner With Teachers

Matthias Tunger / LOOK-foto / Getty

All parents must be actively involved in their children's education. This fact is especially true when kids have learning differences. To support your child's learning at home, ask your child's teacher to:

• Provide you with scoring criteria as well as specify exactly what they want your child to do when completing their math work
• Send you detailed instructions for homework
• Show you examples of good work to clarify their expectations
• Teach you the specific strategies they are using successfully with your child that also can be used at home

Use this information to help your child understand instructions and accurately complete their homework.

It's likely you will need to set aside time each night to help them with the math concepts they are learning at school. But, if you make this time together a regular part of your routine, your child will benefit from the repetition.

Use Hands-on Materials

Improve your child's understanding of math concepts by giving them tools that will support them as they learn math concepts.

• Consider using flash cards to go over math facts that need to be memorized.
• Incorporate computerized math toys and software with visual and auditory prompts, such as the GeoSafari Math Whiz, a portable game that teaches addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
• Practice using a calculator.
• Teach them math concepts using multisensory methods to stimulate their thinking skills.
• Use familiar objects to set up and solve math problems. Items such as money, candy, or other small objects can be used to demonstrate concepts such as adding, subtracting, and fractions as well as show greater than, less than, and equal to.

If you're having trouble coming up with tools that will benefit your student, ask the teacher for suggestions on how to support your child at home. You also can ask a math tutor what they would recommend.

Re-Write Word Problems

How math word problems are written can have a significant impact on how well children can interpret and solve them, particularly for children with language disabilities. You can help by making your child's word problems more user-friendly.

• Avoid double negatives such as "There are no cars that are not red."
• Choose words the student already knows and can visualize.
• Create active sentences such as "Joe drove the car" and avoid passive sentences such as "The car was driven by Joe."
• Reduce the number of words in sentences, leaving only those words important to solving the problem.
• Select simple commands where "you" is implied, such as "Add these numbers."
• Use simple sentence structure including just the subject, verb, and object.
• Use specific words and avoid pronouns.
• Write the most important sentence first.

If you find that after re-writing math problems, your student has an easier time solving them, share this information with the teacher. You also might be able to request accommodations for word problems on tests and quizzes. Talk to your child's educational team to determine if this is an option.

Provide Step-by-Step Models

For specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in basic math or applied math, provide step-by-step models demonstrating how to solve math problems. Math books often include word problems requiring the student to make leaps in logic to learn new skills without showing the steps required to do those problems.

This practice may frustrate students with language processing deficits because they have difficulty with the language-based mental reasoning skills needed to make those leaps.

Instead, provide the child with models to solve all types of problems included in the assignment so they can learn without language processing difficulties getting in the way.

Basically, using models in teaching kids math skills involves drawing boxes, rectangles, and other shapes to represent numbers. Doing so enables kids to break down math problems while comparing numbers, fractions, ratios, percentages, and more.

For parents who have never solved math problems using these tools and strategies, there may be a slight learning curve in implementing them to help your student. Ask the teacher to give you a quick tutorial or use online resources.

You also can look for YouTube videos to help you learn how to draw math models. Or, you might want to use Thinking Blocks on the website Math Playground, which provides sample models you can draw to help with basic math through algebra.

Request Modifications for Math

If your child has a diagnosed learning disability or has a Section 504 plan, request an IEP or Section 504 conference to discuss strategies to help your child.

Together, you and your child's educational team can decide what needs to be incorporated into the plan to create a learning environment that benefits your student. Try to build a partnership between your family, your child's teachers, the intervention specialists, and your advocate if you're working with one.

A Word From Verywell

Children with learning disabilities often struggle with schoolwork, regardless of their intellectual abilities. For this reason, they need tailored learning strategies that not only help them meet their potential in the classroom but also guard against self-esteem issues down the road.

As a parent of a child with learning differences, you need to be persistent in ensuring that your child receives the help, support, and intervention they need both in the classroom and at home. Work with your child's educational team to build a partnership and to ensure your child gets all the support they need to succeed.

Then, supplement that support with activities at home. Together, you can ensure that your child learns how to be successful in spite of the challenges they face.

Derderian A. Best practices in service provisions in mathematics for students with learning difficulties/high incidence disabilities (RTI, specific strategies, specific interventions) . J Sci Res Rep . 2014;3(20):2665-2684. doi:10.9734/JSRR/2014/11496

Gibby-Leversuch R, Hartwell BK, Wright S.  Dyslexia, literacy difficulties and the self-perceptions of children and young people: A systematic review .  Curr Psychol.  2019.   doi:10.1007/s12144-019-00444-1

By Ann Logsdon Ann Logsdon is a school psychologist specializing in helping parents and teachers support students with a range of educational and developmental disabilities. 

What is Dyscalculia?

What is a Math LD or Dyscalculia?

How often do you hear adults say: “I always struggled with math in school,” or even worse, “I’m just not a math person,” and accept that it will always be hard for somebody to do things such as keeping track of their finances and other important math-related activities?

Were you one of those kids struggling and giving up on math? You may have a math learning disability or dyscalculia yourself, it’s not something that only affects children.

All involved, from parents, to educators, and certainly the students themselves would love to prevent or minimize this ongoing struggle in math. Recent research shows that learners can become confident and successful in math, and even love doing it, with an individualized approach, that’s preferably started early. This is much like how children with dyslexia benefit from specialized dyslexia instruction using sequential, structured, multisensory lessons and can eventually become good readers and even love to read!

What Does the Word Dyscalculia Mean?

The word dyscalculia has Greek and Latin roots: dys (the Greek part) means badly and calculia (the Latin part) comes from calculare : making calculations, so dyscalculia is ‘badly calculating’ or having trouble with making calculations. This is similar to the term ‘dyslexia’ that can be translated as ‘badly reading.’

Dyscalculia is a specific learning disability with an impairment in mathematics, which can affect calculations, problem solving, or both. It impacts all sorts of numerical tasks and it is inborn, meaning you are born with it. Although there is not yet a generally accepted definition of dyscalculia, the DSM-5 mentions difficulties with number sense, memorization of basic math facts, and accurate and fluent calculation. An estimated 4-7% of students have dyscalculia, so a teacher can expect to have one or two students with this per class.

What are Common Symptoms of Dyscalculia?

Dyscalculia in children usually involves one more more of the following:

•  Counting: starting to count later and less accurately than other children their age
•   Mentally connecting a number with a size or quantity (number sense)
• Effortlessly knowing how many dots are on a dice or dominoes without counting
•  Estimating and comparing larger quantities
• Memorizing sequences such as the order of daily activities or days of the week 
•  Doing basic math: memorizing and applying math facts for addition or subtraction
•  Learning multiplication tables: learning it one day and completely forgetting it the next day
• Difficulty choosing the calculation for the numbers in a word problem
• Needing more time for math work and making mistakes that are far off
• Learning to tell time using an analog clock
• Math anxiety is very common

Dyscalculia in adults often involves one or more of the following issues:

• Being uncomfortable with all sorts of number-related activities
• Making mistakes in copying and memorizing phone numbers, logins, and dates
•  Having trouble with everyday calculations like estimating a shopping total or change given, the tip in a restaurant or sharing the bill, calculating fractions when you need to cook for more people than the recipe is intended for
• Managing finances in general: a bank account, a checkbook, keeping track of credit card payments and understanding the annual percentage rate (APR)  
• Understanding directions and using maps and graphs, calculating distance and speed
•  Keeping track of time, missing appointments and deadlines

What Can We Do About It?

The brain of a person with dyscalculia is wired slightly differently, and mathematical stimulus is processed differently. This can be pictured with functional MRI: when a child or adult with dyscalculia does a math problem, the areas in the brain that are best equipped for numerical tasks are mostly bypassed and other less efficient areas are used instead. This can take more time and lead to more mistakes.

Luckily, we also know that the brain can be trained to develop that valuable connection with numbers, sizes, and patterns. Starting this intervention as early as possible is best. Because dyscalculia is not yet widely known, currently many students go undetected for years, losing their self-confidence along the way. To know which students can benefit from intervention we should do school wide screening to see who is at risk and arrange a more in-depth assessment of number sense and math skills for those who score low on the screening. 

The assessment should not be seen as just giving out a label, but its goal is providing suggestions for accommodations and remediations that are linked to the strengths and weaknesses of that specific student or adult. It is the start of an effective research-based intervention, which in most cases will involve structured, sequential, multisensory instruction, preferably one-on-one or in a small group setting. Using hands-on tools and visual representations can illustrate an otherwise abstract numerical problem and help make sense of it.

Many students have already benefited from such interventions and have made considerable progress both in math and in general well-being. Don’t delay when you expect that you or a loved one can benefit from such extra help with math.  

For Further Reading:

Professionals Who Can Help

Dyscalculia: Causes, Consequences, and Creative Solutions

Discovering Dyscalculia with Laura Jackson

Dr. Anneke Schreuder is a Dutch pediatrician and neonatologist, with a particular interest in the field of developmental epidemiology.

Seeing many students struggling in math as well as in reading, she decided to return to her area of expertise and passion, math. Awareness, communication, research, and remediation of Dyscalculia are her mission. In 2010, she started Dyscalculia Services to provide assessments, in-person, and online tutoring for children and adults, and to assist parents in supporting their children’s learning. In her practice, Dr. Schreuder follows and implements the latest research on the subject of learning disabilities and best practices for intervention.

Dr. Schreuder is a dedicated and active LDA Texas Board Member. She is responsible as the LDATX Outreach Community Coordinator for answering questions asked by individuals seeking guidance for learning disability resources.

Dr. Schreuder is a frequent speaker on Dyscalculia on podcasts and webinars, a consultant to various local schools, and has developed a series of online courses.

Specific learning disability in mathematics: a comprehensive review

Affiliation.

• 1 Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine, Kalamazoo, MI, USA.
• PMID: 29441282
• PMCID: PMC5803013
• DOI: 10.21037/tp.2017.08.03

Math skills are necessary for success in the childhood educational and future adult work environment. This article reviews the changing terminology for specific learning disabilities (SLD) in math and describes the emerging genetics and neuroimaging studies that relate to individuals with math disability (MD). It is important to maintain a developmental perspective on MD, as presentation changes with age, instruction, and the different models (educational and medical) of identification. Intervention requires a systematic approach to screening and remediation that has evolved with more evidence-based literature. Newer directions in behavioral, educational and novel interventions are described.

Keywords: Mathematical disability; childhood; interventions; learning disorders; numerosity.

Publication types