Why Some People Struggle with Maths: Dyscalculia, Maths Anxiety, and Brain Mechanisms

Overview

In this Royal Society talk, cognitive developmental psychologist Kinga explains why some people struggle with mathematics, focusing on two key conditions: developmental dyscalculia and mathematics anxiety. She discusses how number sense, brain networks, and working memory contribute to numerical skills, and what this means for education and intervention.

Overview

The Royal Society presentation by Kinga explores why some individuals struggle with maths, emphasizing two main factors: developmental dyscalculia, a persistent learning disorder in mathematics, and mathematics anxiety, a common yet distinct condition that can impair performance even in people with average numeracy. The talk links numeracy to everyday life outcomes and highlights the role of working memory and brain networks in mathematical performance.

Dyscalculia: Definition and Diagnosis

Dyscalculia, also known as specific learning disorder in mathematics, affects about 1 in 20 people (roughly 5 to 6%). It is developmental and persistent, often evident before or during early schooling, and can endure despite intervention. Diagnosis relies on standardized tests plus clinical history, including family background and cross-domain functioning, rather than single cut-off scores. Kinga explains how cognitive psychology investigates underlying causes beyond mere magnitude processing, considering broader brain networks and cognitive functions such as inhibition and sequencing.

• Persistence and development from early childhood
• Clinical synthesis: history, family background, accompanying conditions
• Implications for intervention targeting broader cognitive skills

Brain and Cognitive Mechanisms

The talk describes the neural underpinnings of mathematics, pointing to a distributed network rather than a single region. While the intraparietal sulcus is linked to magnitude processing and number sense, mathematical ability relies on multiple cognitive processes, including spatial representations, time processing, and language. Dot-pattern tasks illustrate perceptual number discrimination and its relation to mathematical skill. The speaker notes that dyscalculia is associated with broader cognitive differences, such as inhibitory control and sequencing, which influence mathematics learning and everyday functioning.

Logical Reasoning and Dyscalculia

Kinga shares a study comparing children with dyscalculia, typical readers, and highly skilled mathematicians. Even in non-mathematical verbal reasoning tasks, dyscalculic children relied more on beliefs, whereas gifted children used logic. This demonstrates that dyscalculia extends beyond arithmetic and involves broader cognitive systems, suggesting that interventions should consider verbal reasoning and other cognitive domains, not only numerical skills.

Mathematics Anxiety

Mathematics anxiety is described as fear and apprehension when facing maths content, sometimes reaching phobic levels. It interacts with working memory: anxious thoughts occupy cognitive resources and reduce problem-solving capacity, especially under high-stakes situations like exams. Dyscalculia and maths anxiety can co-occur, but maths anxiety is often present in people without severe mathematical difficulties. The condition tends to be more common in girls, though the exact causes are complex and not solely genetic, with cross-cultural variability observed in research.

Environmental versus Genetic Factors

The researchers emphasize that environmental factors, such as quality of teaching and time out of school, can influence numeracy development, but that developmental dyscalculia has a substantial cognitive and possibly genetic basis. Mathematics anxiety, in contrast, is not proven to be inherited and is influenced by a mix of environmental and social factors rather than a simple familial transmission.

Current and Future Directions

Ongoing work includes developing a dyscalculia screener adaptable to different ages, identifying early markers before formal schooling, and creating brief checklists to aid recognition. Researchers also study co-occurring conditions and aim to understand developmental origins of maths anxiety, exploring how to disentangle genetic predispositions from environmental effects. A QR code is provided for access to animations and resources about dyscalculia for educators, parents, and clinicians.

Q&A Highlights

Questions address the role of gender in maths anxiety, cross-cultural differences, and whether literacy shares brain mechanisms with numeracy. The responses emphasize that while there are overlaps in brain regions involved in literacy and numeracy, some mechanisms are domain-specific, and differences like magnitude processing are more maths-focused.