Mark’s story of achievement from a diagnosis of dyscalculia and lack of support in school to becoming an advocate for adult education.  “This is a film about my journey in education. It connects my past to my present, from primary school to secondary school to third level and all the challenges I faced in the Irish education system without educational support and the difficulties of finding a job. My unhappiness at home and how I returned to education as an adult and became an ambassador for lifelong learning.” Mark Daly, ambassador for lifelong learning. The post My Educational Journ ..read more

Hi dwdyscalculia! Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your Instagram? Hi! My name is Isabelle, I’m 20 years old and I work as a qualified freelance makeup artist in New Zealand. I was diagnosed with severe Dyscalculia (Acalculia) when I was around 11 years old. My Dyscalculia is not genetic, as I was born premature (25 weeks) and suffered a brain bleed, thus causing me to have Dyscalculia as a result. I was able to get specific tutoring for my Dyscalculia, in order to help me learn numeracy skills (this aided in me passing NCEA – similar to GCSE’s) Since being diagnose ..read more

Ok so maybe it’s a slow grower, but since we started this blog there have been some leaps in research and overall there is a little higher general awareness of dyscalculia. We thought we would give you a little rundown of the latest research related to dyscalculia over the last years and perhaps this will help us see what the future may hold for dyscalculics the world over! Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash Back in 2018, some researchers at the University of Bonn were up to some, quite frankly mind-boggling stuff. So we are born with the ability to count and shortly after birth, babies can e ..read more

Photo by Dustin Belt on Unsplash It’s the 1980s. I am sitting at a desk in primary school. It’s senior infants. Although I was an easy-going kid, I would get frustrated that I could not do maths and got upset about that.  There were five of us at the desk. The teacher is handing out copy books. we were doing maths work. She asked us who had finished the and they all put up their hands, and then she asked who had not finished the work, and I put up my hand. The teacher said that they would wait until Mark is finished.  It took me some time to finish the work and the res ..read more

Margot Connop’s artwork on dyscalculia popped up on our Instagram feed and we loved it so much we thought it would be great to get some insight into arts place in the world relating to dyscalculia, so without any further ado here’s the interview with Margot – Myself in Nebula by Margot Connop Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and the art you have been making recently? My name is Margot I’m 17 and I was born and raised in Hong Kong but originally from the UK and have been studying in the UK since year 6. I love listening to rock music, tarot cards, growing houseplants, art and I’m ..read more

Some people in their lives face having to climb mountains. Vicki Phelan and Charlie Bird are two examples of people who have to climb health mountains and both of them have reached a summit of a sort.  Photo by Nicolai Krämer on Unsplash My own mountain was always educational. Mathematical and numerical. My greatest supporters were always my parents. Some educational mountain climbers reach the top of the summit quicker than others. The ones who struggle are often left behind. And they cannot climb the mountain because there is no support for them. People who climb mountains educational ..read more

@JJlass1 tweeted at us the announcement of their Twitch proposal to include Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia and Dysgraphia in the newly launched release of new tags. We thought this was a brilliant idea and wanted to share this interview with JJlass1 to raise awareness, interest and the reasons why this is important. Photo by Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash What sparked this idea originally? Twitch did a big release of over 200+ new tags. It was fantastic so many more people felt represented, especially the LGBTQ+. However, when I went to search for  Dyscalculia and Dyspraxia… they were nowhere ..read more

About a decade ago, a groundbreaking study found that eye pupils detect more than just light. New research by the School of Psychology of the University of Sydney in collaboration with the Universities of Pisa and Florence has revealed that eye pupils can also detect quantity and perceive the number of objects in a person’s field of vision. Photo by v2osk on Unsplash Does this mean that Dyscalculia is caused by our eyes not working well? No, it doesn’t. But it certainly doesn’t help! Similarly to Visual Stress or Meares-Irlen Syndrome, which are independent of dyscalculia, it can make doing m ..read more

Nobody really discusses educational associated anxiety. This is separate from my more general anxiety. My mother would ask or try to ask me how was school today and just did not want to talk about it. There were no school counsellors when I went to school. The secondary school I attended was academically very strict. We were there to open our books face the front of the class and shut up.  Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash One teacher wielded a lot of power as she was the first female principal of the school and she taught at the school until she retired in the early millennium. My first ..read more

Guest article by Kevin Wiltshire To make sense of my thoughts as a potentially dyscalculic adult – who faces specific challenges with logical thinking – I probably need to start with some context.  Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash Early Challenges At primary school, long division took me years to master, and there were always strange little things I just didn’t get or couldn’t do that others found easy (despite me apparently starting off well ahead in intellectual maturity and reading age)… I also always lost at Monopoly! Nevertheless, apart from a few such uncomfortable wobbl ..read more