Not only students struggling with mathematics disorder: Five percent of the population suffer. Some people learn thousands of results auswendig.Neulich Verena was in the bakery and had a happy experience. The 29-year-old had ordered two rolls, and then said, “Just. That’s € 9.30 Verena thought: This can not be, how expensive must it be a sandwich? She did something she had never done before. She said the saleswoman, “That can not be, 9,30 €. But I have only two buns. “And of course, had Verena right. “Before, I would have easily paid because I could not think of anything less than the number,” she says.

Earlier – that was before their therapy. Since a half years Verena is now a week to her therapist and is doing something against their mathematics disorder. In professional circles it is called dyscalculia – Experts estimate that at least five percent of the population are affected.

If a student weak in mathematics and brings home the mark 5 times, one can not speak automatically by a computer malfunction. “When is dyscalculia it is the fundamental misunderstanding of mathematics and bring these children already in the first class,” says Inge palm.

She works at the Association of dyslexia and dyscalculia (BVL) and is responsible for consulting and training. “If the child looks into his math book, then it’s as if we open up a Chinese book. Lauter characters that tell the child anything. For them, math is like a foreign language they do not understand. “

So it was time for Verena. Even in preschool, they realized she was different than their peers. “There were three pear and four apples, the teacher asked: How much is it? And the other kids knew right away: That’s seven. I could not understand why this is so. “It did not kill her weakness, she learned by heart the result.

And not only that in the course of their school days learned by heart Verena thousands sums to build bridges or donkey took her fingers while counting to help. Still in high school she had secretly under the bench, giving 23 +3. “I recently read the verdict, mathematics is an asshole ‘- that’s exactly the feeling that I had during school hours.”
Would a tutor Verena helped in this difficult time? “If a student can learn in the early school years, add, subtract and multiply, and then suddenly has difficulty with fractions, then helped him with tuition,” Palm says.

“But in a child with dyscalculia tuition’s no good. If parents and teachers do not recognize a dyscalculia, the whole future of the child is built. “While it’s smart, it get beyond primary school a wrong recommendation for secondary school. And lurking in the training also many dangers.

Palm tells of a young woman who has been dismissed after a few weeks as a paralegal. She sought out her boss always the wrong folder, because the numbering of the document number mixed up the numbers.

According to Palm it is particularly difficult to reach adults with a mathematics disorder yet, “because they often live in social isolation. They can not play an important cultural technique of our society. Thus they can not find work, earn, therefore, no money and have therefore not possible to pay for a therapy. And that Fatale is: The longer they delay the problem, the more difficult it is to treat “.

Verena is the best example, however, that it is never too late. Because she was told during the school year from all over again, she was too stupid for math, or because the parents were apologetic in protection with the words “Math is our daughter,” she grabbed even more ambitious. “I wanted to show it all,” says Verena. She went to university and studied business administration.

What sounds like a joke, for some researchers not so surprising. Thus, the neuroscientist Brian Butterworth wrote in a recent study in the journal “Science” that adults are very good in geometry, statistics and computer programming with a strong mathematics disorder may.

In Verena’s life, this imbalance in their skills well to create bizarre situations. By day she works as an economist and has to do mainly with tables and pie charts, but if it after work in the shoe business is and before a rule is where there are 20 or 30 percent off a pair of shoes, then it starts to spin. The seemingly simple arithmetic operations like addition and subtraction are then the most difficult.

Verena that suffers from dyscalculia know their employer, so they would not call it its full name. “It is a pity that I can not stand with first and last name in the newspaper, but I’ve already heard how colleagues have blasphemed on dyscalculia and to say, who it was, but stupid.”

Even if her boss would understand, Verena is convinced that her then no difficult tasks would be reassigned. “If you have a business economist familiar with dyscalculia.”

The good news is that the mathematics disorder is treatable. “It can even be therapied perfect,” says Palm. “It is important that parents react immediately if they notice that the child has major problems.”

And that can show itself in kindergarten. Has the teacher in one hand and 30 gummy bears in the other ten, the child should be able to say spontaneously, in which hand are more. Children with dyscalculia can not. You have no idea to hide behind that set of numbers. They often can not read the clock.

Palm tells adults it were no different, if not treated. “They stand at the checkout and the cashier asks, ‘If they had small 15 cent”, they are so totally overwhelmed?. “

Verena also was often overwhelmed and wondered since preschool, what may not agree with her. Only two years ago they could be tested for dyscalculia. As the result was positive, she was relieved on one side, but disheartened because they thought a therapist could not help her anyway.

Fortunately she was wrong. After a half years of therapy in Mathematics and learning Therapeutic Institute in Dusseldorf, they can not just expect better, “I have much more confidence.”

Palm advises: Parents should not hesitate a long time suspected dyscalculia, and immediately a therapy institute. Confirmed the suspicion, then be a two-year treatment of silver bullet.