Best private MS/HS with Dyscalculia

[Anonymous]

I’m the 9:00 poster and this year our child is in a small remedial class at a private school. Last year was still a bit of a mess with COVID (kids grouped in cohorts, with no separate math level classes for middle school), and before that we were in public. I worry she’s slipped through the cracks a bit, though we recognized she was struggling with math in 6th grade and did get outside help from a tutor.

Child has always been a very strong student and excels in language arts/reading.

[Anonymous]

So you can get a psychoeducational report. They basically test intelligence ( WISC) and then they will do a specific math assessment also ( think ours was FAM, Feiffer assessment of Mathematics) if there is a wide difference ( usually 2 standard deviations) for example general aptitude 120, math skills 85-90 then they may diagnose as dyscalculia. They will recommend accommodations and you may be able to use them on standardized testing especially in HS.
It varies on when this is diagnosed because of severity. Severity can also led to various outcomes. For example my child isn’t going to be in calculus, it’s fine with us.

You will need to take the lead in this, the schools won’t be able to remediate. So find a good tutor, improve the base knowledge to the best of your child’s ability, set realistic goals. Use accommodations to work around areas that can’t be remediated.

[Anonymous]

Following this as I have HS senior whom we finally had assessed this year. He has strong grades and actually just got into a competitive college early decision. But he works SO hard to get his grades, like hours of studying and multiple tutors, and math has always been a particular challenge. The FAM results came back at 4% of grade level. The doctor suggested we don't need to do anything different at this stage since he's unlikely to take much math in college. Tests also confirmed moderate ADHD.

Since one of the PPs asked about higher-level math I can share our experience. He has been a year behind the normal track in math because we bumped him down in MS, but generally got As in honors classes in MCPS. As a senior he's taking precalc and AP Stats to boost his college app prospects. Tons of outside supplementing to make sure he is absorbing the material, but he's got an A and a B.

And to state the obvious, I really wish we'd pursued this when he was younger - every time we asked a teacher or counselor about his grades or struggles, they would say he was careless or just needed to work harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the specific process for testing and diagnosing a child with dyscalculia? Honestly wondering about our kid who struggles tremendously with math concepts and has a very poor number sense. It’s still a challenge despite outside tutors for extra help. She’s in 8th grade and I worry about high school because she just can’t seem to retain foundational concepts to build on for more advanced math. It almost like math is a foreign language she can’t seem to comprehend.

When did parents here recognize there was a problem and in what grade was your child diagnosed?

This was exactly what we were experiencing with our daughter. Her 4th grade teacher pushed us to get her tested. I don't even fully understand dyscalculia but I struggled with math even through college and I was in the most remedial math classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be highly unlikely ( practically impossible) to find a general education math teacher that knows the intricacies of dyscalculia. The only place that you will find that in the DC area for middle and high school is at Siena. However if your child is not dyslexic that school won’t be a good fit for her/you.
I have a child in public school with dyscalculia and it’s alarming the lack of knowledge surrounding it. Ultimately we decided it’s the best place because of the social aspect, community, extracurricular. We have a tutor but the hit to her self esteem in an environment where the LD is not understood is a real concern. Unfortunately, there isn’t a good option.

Good to know. She is currently at one of the well known private schools. She is athletic and has a lot of friends at school. Because her social life is so important to her, I worry that if we have to move her to a more specialized school it could be detrimental to her emotional well being. I am hoping she can just gut it through high school math. Based on these posts it doesn't sound like there is a perfect fit of a school out there that we are missing.

[Anonymous]

DC is in high school. Dyscalculia diagnosed in Kindergarten. Please do not fault yourself. This disorder was only ‘discovered’ in 1990 by Brian Butterworth at U of London. The trick here is to help the next generation (one way is to give to the Journal of Numerical Cognition). Dyslexia was discovered in the 1920s and look how many dyslexics fill our prison systems… look how many public schools IGNORE dyslexia. As a professor told us — a dyscalculia school is probably 30 years away given the state of dyslexia remediation.

You will NOT find any school that truly ‘gets’ this. DC was accepted into a noted dyslexia school (dyscalculia is comorbid with dyslexia) but even they felt they could not fully ‘support’ student. (Basically get a tutor). 50,000 grand a year and they STILL were — get a tutor. There are a LOT of charlatans out there but all is not lost.

You will need to get a tutor who focuses on multi-sensory methods. ASDEC is a decent start and they are in Rockville. Read the book Learn Better by Ulrich Boser — your child needs to basically understand how the hardware of the brain works - so they can work on compensating. Avoid places like Arrowsmith Program that claim to have cognitive science behind them — but never truly publish any negative reports — so they can expand their expensive program to schools. Stick to following folks like Dr Eden at Georgetown who is moving into dyscalculia research (she is the foremost expert on MRIs imaging and dyslexia). Stick to solid Tier 1 curricula (Jump Math from Canada is excellent)

You can advocate all you want but a place like MCPS does not have smart enough people in the organization to even begin to tackle this complex issue. Flat out truth. In fairness to them we need more cognitive research. So stop listening to neighbors who argue you are ‘wasting your money’ in private school. I believe smaller class size helps students who fit these profiles.

Public school is NOT better for disabilities — frankly an IEP is an expensive piece of paper. No more, no less. We did public school (left in disgust) homeschool for a year, private school and then a small public — and its working with tutoring three times a week. I wish you all the best of luck!