Let me introduce Zyana Morris, a passionate blogger who loves to write on disciplines such as health care and lifestyle. She is a featured author at various blogs and a staff writer at Centracare.org, a Tampa urgent care provider. She reached out to me and wanted to share her story about her son and Dyscalculia. Here is her story, which she hopes will help others.
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Seven
years ago was the time when I started hearing from John’s teachers
that he is not behaving like other children, that he is not able to keep up with other children, that something might be bothering him
due to which he is not able to concentrate, that math seemed to be
the worst ghost ever that existed in his world! Not only there, but
when I used to sit with him to make him complete his homework, I
could just feel that something was not working right. Yes, my child
was not being able to pick basic mathematical concepts. He really
could not. I eventually took him to the doctors
for a thorough check up and what triggered me was proven to be right!
Some disability…
I
found out that my child was suffering from math disability, in complex
terms “Dyscalculia”,
an issue that causes severe difficulties in learning mathematics. I
felt nothing more than shattered and broken completely.
4-6%
children suffer from this math disability. The ratio seems too little to
be negligible, but who would even imagine that the young
ones you care for everyday would be caught by it? I wondered what he or I did wrong that he
became the one to suffer.
I
remember when I was young, I had to face certain uncertainties in
life that led me to severe depression, but I was glad that after years
of struggling I was able to help myself, stand up and live life
again. I did not want my child to go through the same, the reason
though being different. This was the time when I felt a little
contented about what I went through, and I did not want my child to suffer and react the same way.
There
was no one in the family I could recall having such issues to believe
that it was hereditary. It broke me even more when I found out it has
happened due to brain development issues. At that moment, the only
words that kept triggering my mind were, “I wish I could donate math knowledge to my child, he is way too precious to me... I only wished I
could.”
Since
it was the time of his life where a child is encouraged to study
(being the most important phase of life), what I wanted to make him
learn was that grades don’t matter. I never wanted him to stand out
in school to, but to learn and understand the
concepts well. Furthermore, I decided to take help to an
educational psychologist. She being a professional knew obviously
much more than me. She took tests and evaluated John’s
condition and confirmed that he has math disability. I was
disheartened but she was a great support for me and John, and would come to help him with this situation. She taught me how to deal with John's situation. The only thing I kept in mind
was consistency, confidence and not to lose hope.
By keeping
notes of what I figured out was bothering him helped me and John to
get encouraged, and to work on his weaknesses. These notes were always
helpful to remind me what should be focused on in particular, and work
on accordingly.
Thanks
to his teachers who have been very cooperative and understanding to
what my child was going through. Their help and support has been a
great contribution for him, to turn his math disability to an ability to
do math. When I felt my world would fall apart, I got support from his teachers and psychologist.
I
asked John to practice in front of me, obviously keeping in mind that
he doesn’t feel burdened. Practice and drilling (with
patience in mind) helped him a lot to get better on his weaknesses.
Whenever I could, I tried that he mingle with his group mates and
don’t feel left out. Even though that’s a difficult thing for
such children, but I always encouraged him that he could do it.
Problems
and complicated situations, one after the other, kept haunting my
mind and what I could see in the future was only the conditions
related to the math disability (i.e. medical conditions that co-exists
with it like ADHD and dyslexia). This happened during the time I
started reading about dyscalculia and that if I could share my experiences on the internet.
All the extra time given to my child at school was really worth the help.
Children usually panic when it’s time to hand over their exam
papers to their teachers and when they know they still have a little
left to complete. For my child these normal conditions that children
face were not even real. He needed time to understand, understand other things that were normally understood more easily by other children. This
led a fear in me that my child, not being able to explain, might lose
self-esteem and confidence and consider himself unusual among his peers.
I was also worried as any other parent may be. I did not want my child to feel special in any way. I wanted him to stay with other children, study among them, and get
along with them. All thanks to his teacher’s patience and support, she helped me develop confidence in myself too. I was able to help my
child with an even more positive attitude.
Here is what
I learned about the signs and symptoms that my child suffered through
and what I learned over the internet to help my child overcome it. I hope you all will find it useful to analyze if you
feel that there’s something wrong with your child.
- Children facing a math disability are not able to understand and memorize basic mathematical concepts and computations. (I have seen John suffering from this.)
- They might feel overburdened while solving questions that include multiple steps and understanding reasonable methods. (It was very depressing seeing John getting demotivated over such a little thing.)
- Long worksheets might also make them feel burdened as they lack the capacity of remembering and handling mathematical operations. (Worksheets with a lot of work always scared John.)
- Counting becomes a trouble for them and they cannot recognize and relate the number symbols and words. (The initial times were difficult for John to count the numbers, even from 1 -10.)
- Solving word problems becomes a great problem sometimes. They are not able to pick what’s important and how it needs to be solved. Verbal explanations usually do not work as they are not able to follow and recall. (During those times, John was really not able to work over them.)
- Some children with a math disability might not be able to speak, read and write properly. They aren’t able to follow the directions or write correctly in straight lines or columns. (He was given graph papers to solve things which also led him to learn and write on the lines.)
- Children with a math disability face difficulties recognizing shapes, their dimensions, graphs and charts. (We trusted and supported John and made him practice learning through drawings, paper crafts and solid objects to recognize them.)
- Activities that require speed and distance are usually avoided by them. They lack confidence in it and are usually not able to cope up with others in this regard. (I always encouraged John to keep trying even if he is working slow.)
It’s been seven years now. Today I am really glad that John has
been able to cover up his disabilities and he is working quite well
in mathematics. I am hopeful that these hindrances will not
come in his future and even if they do, I will always work harder
than ever to assist him to overcome them.
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Thank you for sharing your experiences Zyana. I know life can be hard, but when we are able to get help when we need it, it is quite a blessing.
