When PATOSS asked me to write a course about dyscalculia, it took me a while to think about what I could do. So where to start?

I have been reading a lot about the ‘dimensional’ approach to assessing for specific learning difficulties, so this was my starting point.

The dimensional approach

A dimensional approach to specific learning disabilities (SPLDs) is a framework that emphasizes the underlying cognitive and neurological processes that contribute to learning difficulties, rather than focusing solely on diagnostic labels or specific academic skills.

As discussed by SASC, a dimensional model allows assessors to realise that difficulties such as dyslexia and dyscalculia are likely to have trajectories with some specific features not shared by other developmental conditions, but they also also share some underlying risk factors.

In a dimensional approach, SPLDs are seen as existing along a continuum of cognitive and neural functioning, rather than as discrete categories or disorders. This continuum includes a range of abilities, from typical development to mild to severe impairments in specific cognitive functions, such as phonological processing, working memory, or visual-spatial processing.

Therefore, such is the overlap between SpLDs, how do we differentiate one from the other? That would be the focus of this course.

So please take a look at my on-demand, SASC approved PATOSS course, looking at dyscalculia and co-occurring conditions

Using the SASC/ BDA definition of dyscalculia, the course looks at what makes dyscalculia distinguishable from more general difficulties with maths, namely number sense: domain specific areas, that is subitising, non-symbolic magnitude, symbolic magnitude and ordering. The course will also look at general domain areas and how these co-occur with other specific learning difficulties (such as working memory, processing speed, phonological awareness) as the likelihood of a co-occurrence of named SpLDs is high. To investigate co-occurrence, the course will follow SASC guidance for report writing and other guidance for pre-16, looking at the co-occurrence of dyscalculia and attention difficulties, dyscalculia and dyslexia and briefly touch on dyscalculia and motor difficulties.