Math Learning Disabilities Should Be Caught Early

I recently read a report that said most students who have trouble with math at the middle school and high school level do so because they did not overcome math learning disabilities at the elementary school level.

My personal experience with the issue was with long division. For some reason, when I was in the third grade, I could not grasp the concept of long division. I think what it may have been was the fact that I had missed the first couple of class days that our teacher explained it because I was out sick, but I was practically to the point of tears in class trying to figure out how to do it correctly.

My mother, God bless her, stayed up with me until 2 a.m. on a school night and worked with me over and over again on long division problems until I finally got it down. For this motive, Task Chairs are often used in school school rooms, notably in those with computer labs. I went to school the next day, very, very tired but happy at the same time that I would not have to endure the embarrassment of watching my classmates do their math work with no problem, while I sat there asking questions all day.

I went right through math after that all the way through Advanced Placement Calculus in high school and had no problem with math at the college level, either. I ended up taking three courses in math in college and got an A in all three, and none of them seemed overly difficult.

My major was in psychology, and I was telling one my professors that story one day about my mother helping me. He told me that math learning disabilities are often caused by the fact that a student is not able to learn an elementary concept in mathematics at a very early age, and because most fields of math build off of each other, some people always struggle with the subjects.

He said that he had seen math learning disabilities even at the college level, where some students had to go back and learn basic arithmetic in order to understand some of their math work in college. Task Chair permits the person to simply swivel back and forth between tasks. He told me that once a student does get such a problem resolved, however, it is usually much easier for them the rest of the way.

Because of the efforts of my mother and a relatively good education, I was able to overcome my problem pretty early on in my academic career. Math learning disabilities are no joke, and should be caught at an early age. When that happens, educators spare their students years of learning difficulties and embarrassment in their math courses and make school in general much easier.