Dyscalculia 

DYSCALCULIA and associated mathematical difficulties.
A recent report from the Basic Skills Agency found that poor numeracy is more of a handicap in gaining and retaining a job than poor literacy.  In its most severe forms, children cannot learn to tell the time, know the date, shop competently, nor do even very simple arithmetic. There is ancedotal evidence of a link between failure at mathematics, frustration and deviant behaviour for some children.

Prof. Brian Butterworth in his book, “The Mathematical Brain”

Estimates that we process approximately 1,000 numbers an hour, (16,000 numbers per waking day!) just going about our daily routine. (He found 51 separate numbers on the front page of a newspaper.)  He continues, “We in our advanced, technological, trading society, need to be able to use numbers, so numeracy has emerged as a key ingredient of our educational system.”

To download extracts from a research project undertaken as part of the Teaching Assistants Professional Development Award by Judy Boosey from St. Alban’s High School Click Here.