The math mystery: How we discovered my daughter has dyscalculia

Laura Jackson thought her daughter’s struggles with math were just a normal part of school — until tears, anxiety, and frustration revealed something more.

After a long journey, Laura discovered her daughter has dyscalculia. So Laura worked closely with experts and used targeted strategies to support her learning. Today, her daughter is excelling in algebra and geometry, building confidence, and learning to become her own advocate. 

• Read: How to help your child with math

• Listen: Math anxiety and dyscalculia

• Read: Discovering Dyscalculia: One family’s journey with a math disability (by Laura Jackson)

• Read: Dyscalculia: from Science to Education (by Brian Butterworth)

• Explore: Emerson House Center

• Laura's website: Discovering Dyscalculia

Laura Jackson: So I'm starting to feel Mama Bear desperate, that we can't keep going on like this. And now I've found a whole center and a group of people that are teaching these kids and having great success and writing books on it. Don't tell me we can't do this, you know?

Jessica Shaw: Today on the show, one mom's journey from struggle to expert. Laura Jackson lives in Washington State on an island near Seattle. When her daughter Emma was born, she didn't have a clue what dyscalculia was.

So, as Emma struggled with math worksheets in kindergarten, she didn't worry about it. Same thing in first grade. She thought, I have a bright kid who's doing well in school, for the most part. She was even getting pulled out of class for extra support, but nothing was working. And the older Emma got, things worsened. Laura was lost.

Welcome to "Everyone Gets a Juice Box". I'm Jessica Shaw. Today, we're going to look at how Laura took matters into her own hands and pulled Emma from a situation that just wasn't working for her and set her up for success.

Laura: It was third grade where I started to get concerned. So, it was those Friday multiplication drills, and we would work on them all week, and she could not get past — it was the same drill every week, and they would see how far they could get in a certain amount of time.

She would have tummy aches going in on Fridays, not wanting to go to class. And she could not get past the one — maybe she could do some of the two times tables, but mostly the zero and the one times tables she could do. And it was the same the whole year through.

And we were doing flashcards, and she was crying at home. So, this is when I was like, something's up. Yeah. She's not tracking what's happening. And she, in third grade, came home and said, "Mommy, am I stupid?"

Because she was looking at all her peers at her table, and they were just, you know, as the year went on, getting better and better and getting all through those things. And she was doing the after-school program, she was doing the pull-out groups during the day, she was working with me on the weekends, and she could tell something was up.

And I could tell, too, something — something's not tracking. And I don't know what it is. I had never heard of a math learning disability. So yeah, that's where we were.

Jessica: I mean, what do you remember that moment — tell me about that day when she came home and said, "Mommy, am I stupid?" Because that's a heartbreaking moment for a parent.

Laura: Yeah, it still — it still is a hard moment. And I remember her teacher saying she's trying probably 10 times as hard as the other kids in the class and just can't do it. She's very determined. She was just really wanting to master it.

And that was heartbreaking as a parent because I was a good student growing up, and so I had all kinds of baggage, I'm sure, about expectations about what that looks like. And then you see her wanting to do really well and just can't. Like, just can't do it.

Coming home with classwork and, you know, no one wanted to sit down and do it. It was just a beast to try to get through. It was very confusing. I would say just really confusing.

Jessica: So, were you kind of sitting with her — I mean, I know there's always, as with everything, when one of our kids is sort of struggling with something — they do their work in school, and as a parent, you're sitting with them in the evening and just kind of, as you said, maybe you're running flashcards or maybe you're sitting and trying to explain something.

05:54 How a conversation with a friend led her to discover dyscalculia on Understood.org.

Laura: Yeah. It was very confusing before we had a diagnosis and even after having a diagnosis. Because just because we had the diagnosis didn't mean at that point that I had this, "Oh, that means this kid needs to learn this way."

So, it was confusing, just all the traditional ways of teaching where it was tears. I remember my younger daughter looking at my older — we were doing flashcards, and I said, "Four plus two is what?" And she says, "Six." Not because she's memorized but she worked it out.

And I said, "Yes, so now we have six, what is six take away two?" Blank stare. Shaking. And my younger says, "Why is sister upset? Why is sister shaking?" Like, just she was confused too as a younger sister. Something's happening here that is not good, you know?

And I had frustration. I, honestly — it's embarrassing to say — but I was thinking things like, she's not trying hard enough, she just needs to focus, or we just need to get through this. Really, at that point, unaware of what her situation was and how it felt for her to struggle.

Jessica: How did the diagnosis come about?

Laura: Yeah. I was having lunch with a friend, and she had raised two daughters, and so she was, I don't know, 15, 20 years ahead of me. And I was telling her — she was checking in on my girls because she was close to them, knew them — "How are they doing?"

And I'm like, "Man, Emma's really struggling in math, and I don't know what's going on, but I'm starting to get really concerned." And she tells me, "Oh, I have a math learning disability, and I really struggled to get through college."

And I thought, a what? You know? And then we kind of moved on, we talked about other things. And as soon as she left — this is ironic that this is with Understood.org — but I grabbed my laptop, I Googled "math learning disability," and Understood.org's website popped up.

And it wasn't a very robust site on dyscalculia at that point, but there was a math learning disability and the other name for it was dyscalculia. And it described my daughter exactly. Struggles with time, struggles with addition and subtraction, not being able to read a clock, not understanding measurement, not being able to count backwards.

And I remember just staring at the screen like, whoa, what is this? I had never heard of it. I had never even heard of a math learning disability. And I thought to myself, how can you have a learning disability in math? Isn't it just pretty straightforward?

You know, so I was — it was a big learning curve. I was checking out every book at the library — there was, I think, two of them at that point. I was having to read online because I couldn't find anything. I was just — I went deep dive trying to find everything.

And I really had to push the school to get a school evaluation. Because she was a bright student, she was doing well in most her classes, and in their mind she wasn't struggling. But I knew something was up. So, it was a real battle to get a school evaluation.

Jessica: How could they have thought that she wasn't struggling when you said she was getting services, she was getting pulled out? But was it — is there sort of a threshold, I mean, of you need to be doing quote-unquote this badly to be able to get evaluated? I mean, what was that?

Laura: I think the fight — how we kind of got it pushed through — it was actually another parent who said to me, "Did you know that you are the one that can request a school evaluation?" Because I was kind of waiting for them still, you know, to suggest it.

And I said, "No, I didn't know that." She said, "Yes, you have to put this in writing, and let me help you write that." She was also helpful in letting me know, "Hey, did you know that if — if your student has been receiving instruction and extra helps and there's no improvement, that can be a trigger to get you special education?"

And so, it was hard to prove that she was two years behind because at this point, by the time we got a school evaluation, it was fourth grade. But we could prove she has been getting extra help since first grade and she's not making any improvement.

11:58 Specialized math concepts from UK experts

Jessica: Laura felt like she was fighting Emma's school all by herself. It felt lonely. And then another parent suggested that they get a private evaluation for Emma. And then finally, the school relented when Emma was set to start fifth grade.

Laura: They enrolled her in Special Ed. They said, "Okay, we'll give you some help." And I thought my job is done here. We're moving on. But the Special Education teacher, as wonderful as she was, she had never heard of it and didn't know how to teach for it.

So, she and I were working together. Both of us were searching online. We were sharing books with each other — "Hey, I found this program, let's look at this program. Okay, how about this one? Have you looked at this book?"

And really nothing happened that first year. My daughter had pull-out help. She built a good relationship with the Special Ed teacher, but because she didn't know how to teach her, nothing was happening.

Jessica: Are you losing your mind at this point, having to essentially volunteer teach?

Laura: Yeah, I was overwhelmed. I thought, how could — this is way more — it's a way bigger project than I imagined. And I didn't have space and time for that. And it was — it was very frustrating.

So, that was the rest of fourth grade. And then all of fifth grade. Same thing, I don't think my daughter learned a single thing all of fifth grade in math. Despite pull-out help, they didn't know what to do with her. They were just giving her worksheets and, you know, doing a little workbook together.

And then in sixth grade is when we had a move to a smaller town. And this next school district offered her a pull-out math class with a group of kids five days a week. And I thought, jackpot. This is our answer. Like, Special Education for a full class five days a week.

And within a couple weeks, my daughter's anxiety was back in a huge flood. She hated going to class. The stuff coming home from class — and by this point I had been reading a lot of books and finding a lot of resources out of the UK on dyscalculia and working with students with dyscalculia.

And all the stuff coming home was not lining up. And I started then — took on the job of working with the Special Ed teacher. "Hey, things like — my daughter would come home with 100 math problems on a grid sheet."

And I said, "Hey, instead of doing this, would it be okay if I played some math games with her for 30 minutes every day after school? Or would it be okay if we just cap her work time at 20 minutes because it's taking us 20 minutes to do two problems?"

Because my daughter's in tears, her anxiety's through the roof. She doesn't know what's going on with her. And she was drawing, trying to draw out how to do things, and she had a little figure she would draw. She called it "Dyscalculia Master," and it was a little figurine with a cape.

And whenever she would get overwhelmed, she would draw this figure on her sheet. And then she got in trouble because her worksheets were not clean and tidy. They wanted clean and tidy notebooks, and my daughter had drawings on hers. And so, there was just so much that I thought, this — this isn't working.

And by this point, we're three years in. We're going into sixth grade. And my kid hasn't learned any math. And I — I was like, I've tried the smaller school, we've tried all these things, we've tried the tutors. I had looked into all these tutoring companies, and none of them knew how to teach a kid like this.

So, at this point, I had been finding these experts in the UK. And so, there was for me this, "Okay, I know there's actually a way forward here. We just are not able to find anyone who — who can do this where we're located."

So, my favorite researcher of the UK is Brian Butterworth, Emeritus Professor at the University College London. And so, he had written a couple books, "Dyscalculia Guidance," and then he also had "Dyscalculia: From Science to Education".

And so, in one of his books, he had been working with Dorian Yeo, who's since passed away, who was an educator working with students with math learning disabilities and also kids with dyslexia, who that also impacts math in its own way.

And so, I was reading them. And then there was another expert, Jane Emerson, who with Dorian Yeo had opened up a center teaching these students in London. So, I was reading their books. And they were connected with someone named Ronit Bird, and so I was reading her books.

And the basic message was: there's this really developmental early numeracy that these students do not grasp. And so, you have to go back and really address that developmental, kind of innate sense of number that we — most people are born with before you teach anything else.

And then as after you kind of gain that back, then you have to just kind of keep that in mind as you're teaching, that some of these ideas — Brian calls them — they don't understand numbers as groups or sets. So, the idea of fiveness. What — what makes five five in quantity? The quantity of five.

And so, and then you continue working that way using a lot of multisensory tools, which is gaining popularity here. Really explicit exploration of numbers. So, we're not just doing things with symbols on the whiteboard, but we're experiencing what it means to put five and five together.

Jessica: So, are you working with her at this point kind of every night doing these things? Is the school involved at all? Or are you just like, alright — like you guys, I can't. I'm going to — we gave up on the school.

Laura: I just — with — I was suggesting to the teacher, you know, trying these different things that I was learning, and they were not open. And she said, "We cannot do that." And so I said, "Well, we cannot do your class anymore."

Jessica: What is that — I mean, tell — my head is exploding right now. When — when you know how your child can learn and the teacher says to you, "We can't slash we won't do that," what is going through your head at that point?

18:58 Success in high school math and becoming an advocate for others.

Laura: I mean, I'm — my daughter's 12 now. So, I'm starting to feel Mama Bear desperate, that we can't keep going on like this. And now I've found a whole center and a group of people that are teaching these kids and having great success and writing books on it. Don't tell me we can't do this, you know?

Fortunately, the state I live in allows you to partially homeschool. So, Washington State, and all that is, is you fill out a form and you say my child will not be attending math class. So, we're in middle school and it's first period. So, all we did was I said first period math will be at home every single day, and then I'll drive you to school.

Jessica: And so, was what — what was your final straw?

Laura: It was really with that back and forth with the teacher, when the teacher said, "We must have clean and tidy notebooks, no you cannot do games instead of math worksheets." The other thing that was happening was I knew the importance of multisensory tools.

And this might have been the final straw. I said to my daughter — she was saying she was having trouble working something out — and I said, "Would it help to get some of the tools they have? I know they have them in the classroom because it's in a Special Education classroom."

She said, "I've tried that, but she said I asked the teacher if I could use them. And she tried to tell me I didn't need them. And I asked if I could use them anyway. And then I had to go — I had to walk to the front of the classroom, I had to get them from the teacher's desk, and I had to walk all the way back to my seat, and everyone was looking at me."

Well, yeah, at sixth grade. I think that was when I was like, this is not only you not learning math, but this is harming you emotionally in the classroom and creating some trauma and some more anxiety that we don't need.

And I'm not a teacher by trade, so I was pretty desperate that I was willing to take on the schooling because I didn't know where else to go. And it was really a last resort.

Jessica: Did you ever feel like, am I going to be able to do this?

Laura: Oh yeah. Yes, yes, I was. I actually reached out to some of the experts and I had some email conversations with some of these authors. And at that point, there was a dyscalculia network that was getting started.

And the Emerson House Center had gone online because of COVID. So, that whole switch with COVID suddenly made getting resources for me so much easier. So, I paid for some tutoring sessions for myself with Rob Jennings, and he was at the Emerson House at that point.

So, I got help for myself. So, when I would get stuck, I'd be like, we're working through this book and I don't know why, but this next concept I just don't know what to do. And he would say, "Okay, I want you to use this other book."

You know, he did a little evaluation with her to see what she was getting, what she wasn't getting. So, I got help for myself. I wasn't just totally out there on my own, although it did feel really lonely.

Jessica: Did you notice a shift quickly? I mean, how fast were you like, oh, it turns out these experts are actually right and if you teach in this way, there will be a different result?

Laura: I mean, probably a couple weeks. We were doing it every morning. And I basically said to her, "I don't know what I'm doing and we're just going to follow these books because apparently these people do know what they're doing and we're just going to explore it together."

So, I took myself out as like the expert mom teacher and I just was like, "Let's try this together. Like, we have got to find something that connects for you." So, she was into it and we also had conversations because her peers were like, "Where did you go? Why are you not at school?"

And that was hard. She wrote a letter in my book. There was a younger child a couple years down the road, and he was really having trouble with doing this babyish math, right? And she's like, "Oh, I remember feeling that way. Everyone's at school doing positive and negative numbers and I'm at home with beads trying to figure out how to make 10."

So, we had that emotional difficulty. But I remember there was one day we would sit in the family room and we had a coffee table, and we'd work around this coffee table together. It was just a nice space. It was clean and there was a lot of light. And it was important to have just a good space to do this hard work in.

But I remember she said to me, "Mom, I love doing math this way with you at home." And I about fell off the couch. I was just like, I can't believe my kid who's hated math, who's asked me if she's stupid, who's had so much anxiety, is telling me she loves doing this. I don't even love doing it, you know? But I'm — we're just in it. We got to figure this out.

Jessica: Laura homeschooled Emma through sixth, seventh, and eighth grade math. Three years of mom as first period teacher. Then Emma told her mom that she wanted to go to high school for the full day. So, Laura talked with the school.

The Special Education teacher looked over what they'd been doing at home, and it had only taken Emma through fourth grade math. Still, she wanted to try. So, the school got Emma into a smaller classroom within the public school along with some other accommodations that let Emma do math in her own way.

Laura: My daughter ended up acing Algebra and then she aced Geometry the next year, and she was helping her peers. She would come home — we were both shocked. Like, I had no expectation. I just thought, we got to get through it, it'll be long nights with lots of homework at home, but it wasn't.

She would put on her headphones, she would draw out the problems, and something about that really early numeracy understanding helped her through those more difficult concepts. She then understood what she was punching into the calculator, not just punching something in.

Yeah, she couldn't do those basic calculations, but she understood the concepts of what was happening. So, yeah, she's doing really well. She has a 4.0, is graduating this year. And I couldn't be more proud.

She's become her own dyscalculia advocate. When her friends are struggling, she's like, "Let me give you a little question here. Let's see — let's see if that's your dyslexia tripping you up or do you have dyscalculia? Have you ever heard of that?" And everyone's like, "No."

Jessica: What was it like for you when she brought — I mean, the first time you saw a report card with a 4.0 in math or the first time she brought home a math test with —

Laura: We were both shocked. Like, she and I were just like — she would come home and be like, "Mom, I'm helping so-and-so in math," or, "I got an A on my test. Like, it took me longer but I got an A." You know? And I was — shock might be the biggest thing, you know? Because I didn't even expect that and that wasn't an expectation.

But also excitement of, there's a way to help these students that are full of anxiety, that are really struggling. And validating their experience and I think getting curious about what it is instead of forcing them through, "This is how you do it." It really changes things for them and it can be so empowering.

So, I know that everyone's story did not turn out that way. And that's even more than I would have ever imagined, but there are so many stories of students getting this early help and it really transforming their school experience and then beyond.

Jessica: Emma's 4.0 got her into her top-choice college with a scholarship, and she set to begin this fall. Laura's published a book on her experience called "Discovering Dyscalculia: One Family’s Journey with a Math Disability". And she works as a dyscalculia specialist, helping people through the stress and the many unknowns of a math learning disability. Quite a journey from not even knowing what dyscalculia was. Thanks for joining me, and I'll see you for the next episode.

Thanks for listening to "Everyone Gets a Juice Box". Our show is hosted by me, Jessica Shaw. It's produced by Cody Nelson, and video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jesse DeMartino. Briana Berry is our production director and Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

If you have any questions for us or ideas for future episodes, write me an email or send a voice memo to podcast@understood.org. This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson.

Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.