Chapter 1- "Dyscalculia is Mathematical Dyslexia"
No.
Dyscalculia is not mathematical Dyslexia, but it's easier to explain it that way to someone in a matter of 2 seconds, instead of unpacking all of the symptoms I face on a daily.
So what is it if it's not a sub-category of Dyslexia?
Most people I mention Dyscalculia to have never heard of it before, which is completely understandable, as it is estimated that only around 3-6% of the population, with some variation, have it. Dyscalculia is a dysfunction of the region in our brains that surrounds the intraparietal sulcus and possibly also the frontal lobe.
Now, I'm not trying to bore anyone with sciency terms but as someone who is extremely interested in Neuropsychology, I want to dive into the topic as much as I can without having it sound like someone's dissertation. I want to bring up everything from symptoms to the neurocognitive processes that don't work like they're supposed to, to my personal experience with it because it is definitely something that hasn't been spoken about due to its epidemology. However, I think after 24 years of living, I've got plenty to share- sometimes funny and sometimes serious.
Anyways, back to the intraparietal sulcus. It is part of the parietal lobe, which you may recognise as one of the 4 major lobes of our cerebral cortex. The parietal lobe's main functions include speech, cognition and the processing of information, movement and visual orientation, the regulation of our 5 senses (touch, sight, smell, taste and sound) and sensing things like pain and touch. This is interesting to me because upon reading visual orientation, my spidy-senses started tingling- but I'll get to that in a separate post. The intraparietal sulcus is important for things like grasping movements and head movements. Now, what does moving your head have to do with Dyscalculia? Probably nothing.
The intraparietal sulcus, however, is still involved. Molko et al. (2003) explained that in people who don't have Dyscalculia, the horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulci is activated upon doing calculations or in number comparison tasks.
In a different study by Dr Roi Cohen Kadosh, neuro-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (or TMS) was used in people without Dyscalculia to "paralyze" the right parietal lobe to induce Dyscalculia for a short time. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is non-invasive by the way, and
is just the process of applying magnetic pulses to the brain using a coil (through which electric current flows). The participants in this study were then asked to complete a simple arithmetic task. For instance, something like being shown the number 2 and 4, where the number 2, however, is written in a bigger font than the number 4. Then being asked to point out which number is numerically bigger. They found that the participants severely struggled. This is super important as it allowed these researchers to propose a possible relationship between Dyscalculia and the malfunctions along the right intraparietal sulcus.
So... would that mean that people with Dyscalculia don't process numbers? Yes and no.
Yes, because we struggle understanding the value of a number. We can't imagine how big or small a number is. I understand that 4 is numerically larger than 2 but if you ask me to walk 4 meters away from you, I would probably end up being way too far away from you. That's because the value of numbers don't mean anything to me. I don't understand it. It has no significance to me. Kind of like if someone tells you a super boring story with no climax or real reason.
Another study by Kucian et al showed that children with Dyscalculia have a deficit of grey matter in their intraparietal sulcus. Okay, more science. The grey matter is one of two tissues that make up our brains. The basic function of the grey matter is to process information, so a deficit in that would mean that information can't be processed as efficiently as normally.
No, because Dyscalculia is so much more than just numbers. Throughout my next couple of posts, I will present every symptom that I have experienced and how each symptom has manifested itself in my life. I will try my best to continue explaining why a specific symptom is a symptom but unfortunately there is not much literature on Dyscalculia and the reasons behind why and how neurocognitive processes and mechanisms are affected. I will also be sure to include any papers I used as references in every relevant post for those who are interested in psychological studies.
But for now,
Take care of yourselves!
Study by Kadosh et al
Study by Molko et al
Study by Kucian et al
.
Dyscalculia is not mathematical Dyslexia, but it's easier to explain it that way to someone in a matter of 2 seconds, instead of unpacking all of the symptoms I face on a daily.
So what is it if it's not a sub-category of Dyslexia?
Most people I mention Dyscalculia to have never heard of it before, which is completely understandable, as it is estimated that only around 3-6% of the population, with some variation, have it. Dyscalculia is a dysfunction of the region in our brains that surrounds the intraparietal sulcus and possibly also the frontal lobe.
Now, I'm not trying to bore anyone with sciency terms but as someone who is extremely interested in Neuropsychology, I want to dive into the topic as much as I can without having it sound like someone's dissertation. I want to bring up everything from symptoms to the neurocognitive processes that don't work like they're supposed to, to my personal experience with it because it is definitely something that hasn't been spoken about due to its epidemology. However, I think after 24 years of living, I've got plenty to share- sometimes funny and sometimes serious.
Anyways, back to the intraparietal sulcus. It is part of the parietal lobe, which you may recognise as one of the 4 major lobes of our cerebral cortex. The parietal lobe's main functions include speech, cognition and the processing of information, movement and visual orientation, the regulation of our 5 senses (touch, sight, smell, taste and sound) and sensing things like pain and touch. This is interesting to me because upon reading visual orientation, my spidy-senses started tingling- but I'll get to that in a separate post. The intraparietal sulcus is important for things like grasping movements and head movements. Now, what does moving your head have to do with Dyscalculia? Probably nothing.
The intraparietal sulcus, however, is still involved. Molko et al. (2003) explained that in people who don't have Dyscalculia, the horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulci is activated upon doing calculations or in number comparison tasks.
In a different study by Dr Roi Cohen Kadosh, neuro-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (or TMS) was used in people without Dyscalculia to "paralyze" the right parietal lobe to induce Dyscalculia for a short time. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is non-invasive by the way, and
is just the process of applying magnetic pulses to the brain using a coil (through which electric current flows). The participants in this study were then asked to complete a simple arithmetic task. For instance, something like being shown the number 2 and 4, where the number 2, however, is written in a bigger font than the number 4. Then being asked to point out which number is numerically bigger. They found that the participants severely struggled. This is super important as it allowed these researchers to propose a possible relationship between Dyscalculia and the malfunctions along the right intraparietal sulcus.
So... would that mean that people with Dyscalculia don't process numbers? Yes and no.
Yes, because we struggle understanding the value of a number. We can't imagine how big or small a number is. I understand that 4 is numerically larger than 2 but if you ask me to walk 4 meters away from you, I would probably end up being way too far away from you. That's because the value of numbers don't mean anything to me. I don't understand it. It has no significance to me. Kind of like if someone tells you a super boring story with no climax or real reason.
Another study by Kucian et al showed that children with Dyscalculia have a deficit of grey matter in their intraparietal sulcus. Okay, more science. The grey matter is one of two tissues that make up our brains. The basic function of the grey matter is to process information, so a deficit in that would mean that information can't be processed as efficiently as normally.
No, because Dyscalculia is so much more than just numbers. Throughout my next couple of posts, I will present every symptom that I have experienced and how each symptom has manifested itself in my life. I will try my best to continue explaining why a specific symptom is a symptom but unfortunately there is not much literature on Dyscalculia and the reasons behind why and how neurocognitive processes and mechanisms are affected. I will also be sure to include any papers I used as references in every relevant post for those who are interested in psychological studies.
But for now,
Take care of yourselves!
Study by Kadosh et al
Study by Molko et al
Study by Kucian et al
.
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