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Hello and welcome to the What in the World is Dyscalculia podcast.

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Although this time we're adding some video and we're going to see how this works.

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We'll try to put in video plus just some audio in the future.

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I'm Dr. Honora Wall.

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I am a little under the weather today.

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Hopefully we'll get through this episode without an issue from being under the weather.

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But the What in the World is Dyscalculia podcast is brought to you by Educalc Learning.

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At EducalcLearning.com we bring a variety of training resources online and in person

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to educators.

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We also have books, some other free resources on our website, EducalcLearning.com and an

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expanding line of online math courses for students with Dyscalculia or other types

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of neurodivergence.

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You can also get information about Dyscalculia and neurodivergence at www.thedtri.org.

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The Dyscalculia Training and Research Institute is a 501c3 dedicated to raising awareness

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and changing the lived experience for people who have Dyscalculia.

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So usually when I'm under the weather I like to take some time off, get some extra sleep,

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make a lot of soup and get past it.

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But right now I have a lot going on.

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I have a lot of projects, a lot of deadlines to meet.

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So I need to push through by meeting those deadlines even though I'm not feeling 100%

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as the great Kenny Rogers once told us.

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You got to know when to hold them but you also have to know when to fold them because

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both things happen in life.

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I want to use that as the basis for this podcast because speaking of knowing when to hold them,

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knowing when to fold them, you've also got to know when you can get away with a falsehood

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and when you cannot.

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So I'd like to bring you a tale of two 504 meetings.

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These are both true stories.

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They both happened this month and they both happened in a fairly large city in a pretty

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large Midwestern state.

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I have a student I've worked with when I first met the student they were in fourth grade,

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just got their Dyscalculia diagnosis, were two years behind in math, quickly got

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them up to speed.

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They are still doing grade level work now in ninth grade taking algebra one and physics.

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They're on the honor roll and they like to stay there.

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Most of our work at this time is the occasional, hey, there's a test coming up, a little confused

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about this one part.

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Can we have a 30 minute session?

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Of course.

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The regular part of our work is they're a military family.

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Hey, we've got a new school, new teacher, new district, we've got a new 504 meeting.

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Can you sit in and help us educate this new teacher, this new school, this new team?

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Absolutely.

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And this year's 504 meeting we knew was going to be pretty tough because we had already

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gotten some comments from the math teacher about how accommodations might be fine during

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classwork and homework, but why should they also be used during assessments?

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So we knew we were going to have a lot of educating to do for this child team.

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And we did.

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It was kind of a, I don't want to say a rough 504 meeting, but it was a learning experience.

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We had to really educate the team on what Dyscalculia is, how it shows up in the

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classroom, why the accommodations are important and necessary at all times and what those

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accommodations should be.

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If you want to know more about what we said, we created a fact sheet and it's on either

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one of the websites, Educate Learning or the DTRI.

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You can grab that for free.

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You can print it.

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You can email it to your school, to your colleagues or your teachers and help get some information

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out there.

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So at the end of that 504 meeting, we did get the accommodations that we wanted.

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We got everything written the way it needed to be.

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And we had some, I thought, pretty good discussion about the history of Dyscalculia, what

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it is, how it works and accommodations in general.

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And we made sure that the 504 did not mention modifications.

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Modifications are different and they are not appropriate for students with Dyscalculia

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They don't need less work or fewer problems.

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They don't need modifications.

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That's a very specific term in education.

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Please do not let anyone put that on your IEP or 504 plan unless you also have an MID

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diagnosis, mild intellectual disability, which really doesn't happen with Dyscalculia

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Very rare to have those two things overlap because they're entirely different.

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So that's my first 504 meeting story.

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The second 504 meeting I was not a part of.

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I probably am going to start working with this family, but it's not a student I've worked

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with before.

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Same school, same grade level, same classes, same school-based team as far as the counselor

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and the teachers are concerned.

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This student has a similar diagnosis, dyslexia ADD.

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Once you get that type of neurodivergence, you can pretty much assume there's going to

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be a lot of Dyscalculia overlap.

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When you look at the neuropsych evaluations, you can look to see did the person administering

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the evaluation look at, sorry, did they look at math specifically?

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Did they give any scores in math?

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Were they looking for that kind of diagnosis?

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What did they say about it?

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Did they put Dyscalculia?

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Did they put Math Learning Disability, MLD?

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Did they say specific learning disorder in the area of math?

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It's all different ways of saying water, agua, H2O.

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It's all the same.

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Even if not, if the person has some pretty decent math scores on that evaluation, there's

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a lot of crossover in different types of neurodivergence.

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So we can use similar accommodations even if the prevailing issue is not the math learning

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disability.

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Well, the family goes in to have the 504 meeting at the same school with the same team.

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And that was after our meeting.

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So they had all of this information.

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The team told this family they couldn't really do anything, that the accommodations that

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were appropriate for the math class were not going to be allowed during testing by the

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district.

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It wasn't something they could offer.

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And the classroom testing and state standard testing was the best way to measure learning

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anyway.

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And really what the student needed to do is try harder in math class.

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And that's all they could do.

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Okay.

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I've worked in a school.

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Quite a few of them.

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And if you're listening and you're in education, you've worked in a school, we all know that

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parents talk and we know that parents at the same grade level are going to talk.

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And if they have the same classes, they're going to talk.

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And if a bunch of students need 504 meetings and 504 plans, they probably know each other

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and they're going to talk.

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So if you're going to refuse to have a decent conversation about accommodations, and if

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you're going to refuse to offer the right kind of help to a student, and if you're going

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to rely on a falsehood like, well, the district doesn't really say we can even do that.

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So then you probably shouldn't have that conversation with a parent when just a couple

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of weeks ago, you had an entirely different conversation and gave entirely different accommodations

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for a different family.

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You got to know when you can get away with saying a falsehood and when you really cannot.

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Frankly, I was very surprised to hear about this and a little discouraged because I thought,

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man, that first 504 meeting, they might have gone through that meeting with us and given

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the family the accommodations they needed, but it doesn't sound like they really heard

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or believed in what we were saying.

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I'm not sure if they read any of the follow-up information and research articles that we sent,

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which is discouraging.

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It's also discouraging to know that so many students, not only in this state, I've got

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them all over, so many students have to fight so hard to get the help that is federally

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protected, the rights that they are supposed to be given as far as accommodations are concerned.

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Just a lot of awareness we've got to do out there, a lot of educating teachers and schools

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and admin teams about what's appropriate and what isn't.

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I know there's a lot of confusion out there and I know there are still a lot of teachers

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and school teams who don't know what Dyscalculia is and they're not even sure if it's

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real.

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It's new to you, but it's not new.

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We've had Dyscalculia show up in research articles since the 1930s.

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It's been a big part of neurology, a big part of psychology, and it is now a growing part

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of education research.

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The articles are out there.

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Do a Google Scholar search.

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Go to my website.

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Go to any of the other websites for the other experts in the US and you can read them for

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yourselves.

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You don't have to take my word for it.

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Go to your own research.

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It's right there.

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Read the published peer reviewed articles.

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If you don't have time for that, you're looking for something a little faster, then you can

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go to a trusted website like either of mine or Dr. Schroeder in Texas, Becky Lord.

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There's quite a few of us who you can talk to across the country.

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There's more experts outside of the US.

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The UK has a lot more research and is farther down the road than we are.

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So there are places where you can go get this information and find out what the right accommodations

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are.

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They're not hard.

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Using the right support tools that depending on grade level could be a multiplication list

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or a calculator, having a list of notes during assessments because we want the memory trigger

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in Dyscalculia.

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The parietal loses math information over time that includes basic facts.

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It also includes steps and procedures and it can also include time, money, place, value,

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which are always shaking.

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And even an upper level math, it can include, okay, wait, which one's perimeter, which area,

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that's when I, okay, look really quick at the notes.

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Get that trigger.

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That reminder, the student still has to then complete the work, apply those formulas in

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the right setting and do the math.

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But they just need to help some help getting past that initial barrier of not knowing for

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sure what to do, which is super common with students who have different types of neurodivergence.

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Extended time, not fewer problems, but extended time.

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So being able to show math mastery should be on the person's time clock of when they

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can get the work done.

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If we don't give extended time, then we're really saying your work is only valid when

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I choose to accept it.

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And it's within these 20 minutes.

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And that's all you get.

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And if you can't do it when I want it done, then I guess you can't do it at all.

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That's not actually true.

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So let's give extended time because that's an appropriate accommodation.

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And there are a few others that I usually recommend based on a student's visual spatial

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skills or working memory capacity, processing speed.

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That's when we're really getting into the rabbit hole of the details of a neuropsych

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evaluation.

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If you have questions, comments about any of that, please go to either one of the websites

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that I've talked about, educalclearning.com or thedtri.org.

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If you are looking for other resources, you just want to make sure that those websites

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don't just say, hey, we work with students with learning disabilities.

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No, I need for them to really prove that they know what they're doing.

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And that means they're going to mention leading researchers.

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That means they're going to have links to some other outside articles.

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That means they're going to talk about the specific differences between dyscalculia,

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dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, ADHD, high functioning autism, and that they can talk

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about how those things are related, where we have either a dual diagnosis or at least

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just overlap in the field of neurodivergence.

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But the information is out there.

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You can get it.

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Tons of free stuff on both of those websites.

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And you can always email me, honora@educalclearning.com or honora@thedtri.org.

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You can find out more information in these podcast episodes.

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I'm also on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

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So anywhere we can get the information out, we try to.

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We can have a support group, the teacher's dyscalculia support group page on Facebook.

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And that is a public group you can join.

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So to recap, if you're going to tell parents incorrect information, don't do it in the same

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school where you just had a conversation with a different parent in the same grade level

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and gave them different information because parents are going to talk.

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The information is going to get out there.

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And if you do get educated on dyscalculia, which we all have to be educated, none of

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us are born knowing this information and there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, here's something

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new.

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I should probably get some professional development on it.

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Then use that information for all of your students, not just for the families who are

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fortunate enough to find some help.

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These rights are federally protected for a reason.

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They apply to everyone and they should be given in an equitable fashion.

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Okay, that's the end of my soapbox for today.

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I'm going to go have some chicken soup.

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Dr. Honora Wall, thank you for listening to the What in the World is Dyscalculia podcast.