What is Dyscalculia?

As with Dyslexia, this it's technical and largely impenetrable definition

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Dyscalculia is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which

can lead to a diverse range of difficulties with mathematics. It will be unexpected in

relation to age, level of education and experience and occurs across all ages and

abilities.

‘Mathematics difficulties are best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category

and they have many causal factors. Dyscalculia falls at one end of the spectrum

and will be distinguishable from other mathematics issues due to the severity of

difficulties with number sense, including subitising, symbolic and non-symbolic

magnitude, comparison and ordering. It can occur singly but can also co-occur with

other specific learning difficulties, mathematics anxiety and medical conditions.’

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And the simple version.

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Dyscalculia is a long-lasting problem with understanding numbers, leading to various maths difficulties. This issue is unexpected for a person's age and education level and can affect anyone. It is a severe form of maths difficulty, impacting number-sense and can occur alone or with other learning issues and conditions.

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Basically, the brain processes things in different ways making it difficult to work with numbers, for example someone may see a number as no more than a solid lump. A six may appear simply as a non-negotiable thing rather than two lots of three or three lots of two or six individual parts but the approach to learning is the same as for Dyslexia. 

Assessment to identify specific learning difficulties followed by teaching strategies that specifically target those difficulties.