Children and adults subject to Dyscalculia never-the less tend to be of normal intelligence, but often present an uneven picture in their results on intelligence tests. Their problems reflect not emotional issues but difficulties in mentally connecting with specific types of thought processes.
Not only automatisation difficulties but also linguistic difficulties may be involved with dyscalculia. The latter may manifest as difficulties in understanding numbers as a concept. Although possibly being of high intelligence, such a child may have only a limited understanding of either numbers as such or numerical symbols. Another form of dyscalculia involves planning difficulties that lead to the child’s failure to carry out computations effectively. The child has difficulties with following a clear strategy in solving arithmetic problems, losing track of his/hers mental position among the fundamental mechanics of the mathematical problem, sticks to strategies that are dysfunctional, or gives up on strategies that are correct and becoming passive. Dyscalculia may also be based on problems with visual perception that lead to difficulties with tasks involving logical thinking as well as in carrying out computations. This is often encountered in children who have difficulties with learning to read an ordinary clock and understanding how the position of the hands is to be interpreted.
Difficulties with mathematics generally are associated with the child having general problems with learning, in the area of mathematics as well as others, learning tending to take longer than normal. A child of this category is usually best helped by being allowed to work at a slow pace and by being given simplified learning material. On intelligence or aptitude tests such children tend to score on the low side but the results are all at about the same normalized level. There is thus a kind of consistency in their level of performance, also on a day-to-day basis. General consensus agrees that these children simply need a bit longer to learn.