When Ari Cornwell is rocking it hitting out tunes on the drums, it's as if he's on top of the world. His musical talent puts him in complete control, providing pleasure, pride and status in a pre-teen world.
In his maths class, it's a different story.
The 11-year-old, while a gifted musician, sportsman, artist, computer whizz and inventor, is stumped when it comes to basic mathematical tasks such as division and sequencing.
Rhyming games have finally seen him conquer times tables and private tutoring is trying to tackle the rest, but at school, it's still as if maths is a different language.
"English can be challenging sometimes but it's not like maths, where I don't actually understand what the teacher is talking about. Having to rush makes me get confused and I make mistakes, like writing numbers in the wrong order. I'll think of a number, like 27, but then I write it down as 72, and so I get the answer wrong. Doing maths makes me feel a bit pressured and kind of stupid when I can't do it. Being shown different strategies usually just confuses me more because the teacher will start telling us about another way of doing something but I haven't worked out the first way yet. It's especially hard when we're on the mat and the teacher tells you to cross your arms when you're done and everyone yells out done but I haven't finished yet and I feel pressured."
It's called dyscalculia - google it - and is estimated to affect 6% of the population.
Dyscalculia is a neurological phenomenon that means parts of the brain associated with maths cognition function differently - causing difficulties with mathematical performance - despite otherwise normal cognitive functioning.
It was first defined by Czech researcher Ladislav Kosc in 1974.
Generally, dyscalculia refers to developmental dyscalculia, but acquired dyscalculia can also occur due to a brain injury.
What does having dyscalculia mean in layman's terms?
Struggling with many parts of maths because your brain is wired differently, without experiencing difficulty in other areas although, interestingly, sometimes people will present with both dyslexia and dyscalculia (scientists are uncertain of the relationship between the two).
Dyscalculic pupils will often have a delay in counting and using counting strategies, have difficulty with the concept of quantity and have trouble memorising basic processes such as addition and multiplication.
Subtraction can be particularly difficult, and division a complete mystery.
Not everyone who has trouble with maths will have dyscalculia, and if they do, it can present in a variety of ways.
But it is the difficulty with recall of basic facts that starts to cause real problems with most dyscalculic pupils.
Even simple tasks become complex efforts of manual calculation, and an inability to master things such as times tables causes issues further down the line and makes it difficult to move on to other areas of maths.
Pupils keep falling further behind and maths anxiety is common; pupils who feel "dumb" and are often labelled as "could do better if only they'd focus more" take those feelings of inadequacy into other areas of learning and life.
• Compared with other learning difficulties, dyscalculia has received little attention from the scientific community and awareness among the public is extremely low.
So what is our education system doing about it?
Dyscalculia gets a small mention in the Ministry of Education's TKI (Te Kete Ipurangi) website under the twice-exceptional/learning disorders headings in the gifted and talented section.
A weird place to put the information?
Not necessarily.
Twice-exceptional pupils (google that too) are those who present as gifted despite having a learning difficulty.
Often they will have a superior vocabulary; advanced ideas and opinions; high levels of creativity, problem-solving ability and questioning; and a specific talent or consuming interest area.
Accompanying that might be difficulties with simple tasks such as basic writing, spelling or simple arithmetic; a discrepancy between verbal and performance skills; poor performance in one or more academic areas; poor listening; and poor organisation and study skills.
Typically, their high achievement in some areas and low achievement in others results in a mid-range average for achievement overall.
The MOE website makes two suggestions for educators to help those with dyscalculia: using big-screen calculators to check answers, and highlighting mathematical symbols in colour (always the same colour) to help recognition of mathematical symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
But what other assistance and advice is available to teachers?
Ministry of Education head of sector enablement and support Kim Shannon said dyscalculia was a relatively new term, and "in our experience, most children with learning difficulties can't be neatly categorised into solely one category or another, and may have a range of difficulties".
She rejected suggestions from some quarters that insufficient funding was available for learning difficulties, and said the Ministry spent $590 million a year on additional learning support, also known as special education - up 29% since 2009 - and schools and teachers were becoming more confident and skilled at teaching in a way that responded to the needs of every child, including those with learning difficulties, Ms Shannon said.
A range of teaching resources was provided and schools had access to a wide variety of information, programmes and special funding.
The ministry also provided a subsidy for up to 600 teachers each year to study an approved mathematics paper that covered learning difficulties in maths, at the graduate or postgraduate level.
Often, strategies teachers used for those with dyslexia - with an emphasis on other ways of communicating information apart from the written form - would also help pupils with maths difficulties such as dyscalculia, Ms Shannon said.
"Where a child is having unexpected difficulties in learning maths, a good classroom teacher would consider a range of different strategies to see which would be effective in helping the child. What may work with one particular child with difficulties may not work for the next child. What's important is that teachers have access to a range of approaches that they can try to see how individual children respond. A teacher wouldn't need a diagnosis of dyscalculia to work on helping a child with these difficulties."
• Speld New Zealand chairwoman Marion Fairbrass says Speld has been aware of dyscalculia for a number of years and is increasing professional development in maths tuition for its tutors, largely due to an increase in inquiries from families with children with maths difficulties.
The first national conference about dyscalculia is being hosted by Speld in Wellington this month in a bid to spread awareness, learn from national and international experts and discuss optimum teaching methods.
Mrs Fairbrass says it's sad children with dyscalculia often feel they are "dumb" and can be labelled as lazy, unfocused and distracted.
If a child is displaying avoidance behaviour, educators need to ask if it is caused by the child not coping with their work, she says.
But she emphasises there is light at the end of the tunnel for students with dyscalculia.
The brain can change, and dyscalculic children can learn to do maths; it's just going to be harder for them.
They're going to have to practise more, with a constant focus on repetition, be granted more time to do tasks, if possible, and go back to master things that have remained unlearned, all with a patient teacher.
"Children with maths difficulties such as dyscalculia can learn, it's just going to take longer."
Mrs Fairbrass knows it's hard in a classroom - she's a former long-serving classroom teacher herself - but she would like to see more understanding and flexibility from teachers, greater content in undergraduate degrees about learning differences and more government funding for schools; Speld has been working to raise government awareness of all learning difficulties (not just dyscalculia) and increase funding to schools since 1971.
• Dr Anna Wilson is recognised as New Zealand's pre-eminent expert in the area of dyscalculia.
She has worked and studied alongside international experts, done a postdoctoral fellowship project on the co-occurrence of dyscalculia and dyslexia, designed and tested software for remediation of dyscalculia (The Number Race) and lectured at the College of Education in Christchurch about educational neuroscience and learning difficulties, and is now doing further training to be an educational psychologist.
She favours an "ecological" approach between school and home to help those with dyscalculia, and constant encouragement of children.
"Tell them some things might be harder or take them longer but not to give up."
She encourages parents to advocate for their child, notes schools are legally obliged to cater for those with learning disabilities and says practical things like an hour a week of maths tutoring can help pupils tremendously - ideally, from somebody specialised to help children with learning difficulties.
She'd also like to see more government funding for learning differences.
"It would be great if it would occur to the Government that one reason New Zealand has a learning tail could be that we don't handle learning difficulties as well as we could", and more training about learning differences in teachers' colleges.
But although the generation of teachers who were literally taught that learning disabilities did not exist is fading out, there is still resistance from some academics further up the chain.
Many have an ideological resistance to labelling.
"There's this idea that by identifying a label, we're not being inclusive."
But a label, if used in a positive way rather than to limit expectations of a child, means a child's difficulty will be recognised and strategies for dealing with it developed, in much the same way that recognition of physical disabilities allows for supports to be put in place.
"Kids with learning difficulties have the right to be identified and have their learning catered to."
Dr Wilson says New Zealand's awareness and understanding of dyscalculia is about where it was with dyslexia 30 years ago.
But while maths may always be more challenging for those with dyscalculia, she emphasises the brain can be rewired.
"Many people think 'because it's in the brain it can't be changed'. This is not true! The brain is very adaptable (or `plastic'), especially during childhood. Research has already shown that training programmes can increase functioning in brain areas involved in reading. The same is likely to be possible for dyscalculia."
But knowing your brain needs rewiring and waiting 30 years for international and national research to catch up can seem an eternal and impossible prospect for a 11-year-old who still can't get half their maths test done.
What support do such children need in the meantime?
• Alexandra Primary School principal Adele Gott is particularly passionate about catering for those with learning differences and her school is known for its support of those with various learning difficulties.
She says it is vital to acknowledge a pupil's learning difference, support them, work with the parents and come up with a plan.
At her school, where e-learning is embraced, coming up with strategies to deal with something like dyscalculia would become part of a pupil's goal, and individual education plans (IEPs) would be developed if required.
But she knows that is not what all teachers would do, and says it is sad many children with learning disabilities are still labelled as the "naughty, disruptive" child.
However, no longer is there any excuse for a teacher to say they do not know how to handle a student's learning difference, she says.
In today's online world, there is a wealth of information "at your fingertips" and teachers should take charge of their own professional development (PD).
"No longer do we need to attend courses and have formal PD. There is so much information online that it is possible to train yourself."
In the meantime, kind, sensitive, compassionate, faithful, fun, intelligent Ari (as proudly described by his mum) soldiers on.
Deirdre Coleman keeps reminding Ari of his strengths as she supports him through the education system, but she knows there are more bumps ahead.
"I worry about the impact dyscalculia has on Ari's confidence and self-esteem. It must be soul-destroying to spend hours each week in class where you have very little idea of what's going on but the kids around you seem to understand it just fine."
For now, she is taking one significant stand.
When talking about Ari's dyscalculia and dyslexia, she uses the word learning difference, not disability.
"The stigma of the word disability is annoying. We need to remove the stigma of having a learning difference. Having a learning difference means it's not bad or good, it's just different."
And she encourages other parents to keep advocating for their children, do their own research and talk to each other, their children and their teachers.
"There's probably so many other kids out there that have dyscalculia and people don't know how to identify it and help them ... Let's just talk about it, and not make it a dirty little secret."
• The Speld conference ''Deciphering Dyscalculia'' is being held in Wellington on October 7-8.
ADVICE FOR PARENTS
• Get tutoring for your child if you can, and try to do maths games with them at home. Use physical materials such as counters and other items to sort into groups, and write numbers on card and put them sequentially on the floor for your child to walk alongside and count up and down. Board games and card games are also good for increasing number familiarity. Cooking from recipes and measuring is also good.
• Chanting times tables goes in and out of fashion in the education system, but repetition is vital for those with dyscalculia. It's important children have an understanding of what multiplication means, i.e., they know 4 x 5 means four lots of five, rather than just memorising a meaningless answer, but once they have grasped that concept, repetition is vital. Practise your child's times tables with them, either verbally or in writing, whatever works best for your child. Also try Alan Walker's book Memorize in Minutes. It uses rhyming stories to form a mental picture of times tables and is recommended by many parents.
• Go online to find out more, and talk to your child's teacher. Some parents find doing homework set by the school at home with their child turns into a damaging battleground. Discuss this with your child's teacher.
• Tell your child they are not stupid, remind them of their strengths and that many successful people have faced adversity and learning difficulties. Knowing everyone's brains are wired differently, that there are lots of other children with similar learning differences and that they are not alone is empowering for children.
• Remember this good news: the brain can change. Early identification and intervention will help children acquire the mathematical skills they need to achieve success at school and beyond.
• For more information about dyscalculia, go to www.aboutdyscalculia.org/
• To find out more about the Ministry of Education's inclusive education resources, go to www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/
• To find about the Speld NZ ''Deciphering Dyscalculia'' conference, go to www.speld.org.nz/events.aspx
