Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Careless mistakes...LD or something else?

My DD9 has been known for years, by both her teachers and us, to often make careless mistakes in math. We've always thought that it was due to boredom, or rushing through her work, etc.

However, part of me is starting to wonder if there might also be an underlying problem. Often, when this happens, DD is convinced she did a good job on the test/worksheet/etc, and that she was very careful and took her time. She is a very self-aware child, and I believe her when she says she did her work carefully. Which is why I am starting to wonder if there is something we are missing. She definitely understands the over-arching concepts extremely well, but something always seems to go wrong in the details.

Some examples of her common mistakes:
- solving the problem on a separate sheet of paper, but not transferring correctly to the answer sheet (example, the solution she gets on her scrap paper is 8,414...but she writes 8,144 on the answer sheet).
- lining up numbers correctly when solving math problems.
- leaving out key words when reading a word problem (each, more, etc)
- not understanding when to use +, -, x, or / in a multi-step word problem. (*we don't see this one as a careless mistake, but it is an area of math that is a constant struggle)
- place value in general can sometimes be very difficult for her. Such as remembering what 60 hundreds equals.
- she consistently gets confused with missing addend problems. But if you switch it around to another form, she's fine (ex. X - 28 = 432 will often stump her.)
- she struggles tremendously with picture patterns, like the kind that are on the Cogat. When she was younger, she took a really long time to read dice without counting the dots. She still counts the dots sometimes, actually.

On the other hand, she is fantastic with logic puzzles. LOVES them. And her automaticity is quite good. She had a much easier time becoming fluent in multiplication facts than addition and subtraction.

When she had her IQ tested, she was exceptionally high in both working memory and processing speed.

Over the years, there have also been some things that may be a visual-spatial weakness that we've noticed. She has difficulty with jigsaw puzzles (and gets frustrated and gives up on them quickly). Maps can seem like a foreign concept to her. Same with mazes. She hates word find searches (she can never find the words) but loves crossword puzzles. Things like that.

Anything that sounds to you could be a signal of an underlying problem? I'd hate that for the last 3 years what we've thought as careless mistakes might be something else. :-( Or that there is an underlying LD that has been masked by her giftedness.

I was all set to say, "Sounds like my DD and I, don't worry," until I got to the parts about misalignment, place value, and visual-spatial weakness. Because overlooking or making mistakes on the small details but nailing the concepts is typical of people with visual-spatial strength, who would also be more careful of alignment and understanding of place value.

What level of math is she working on, and how are her grades?

It is hard to say without observing your DD directly or having an idea of her level of ability as regards perceptual reasoning, verbal reasoning or visual spatial skills. Having exceptionally high working memory or processing speed wouldn't prevent the types of difficulties you described. Actually, if this weren't a gifted forum, I would automatically say that the difficulties you described are mostly age-appropriate and developmental. In general, understanding over-arching concepts extremely well is a long ways from mastery of those concepts and the ability to consistently and correctly apply same.

Assuming that her relevant abilities (PR, VR, VS) are very high, frequent occurrences of transposing numbers, improperly lining up numbers, and misreading/omitting keys words may be signs of mild issues related to dyslexia/dysgraphia if other signs are present. In the absence of other unusual circumstances, the other four types of mistakes suggest a lack of developmental readiness to me. I have no professional training so take my post with a grain of salt; incidentally, those were the types of abilities on which our district GT office tested DS at age 7 to conclude that he can be SSA into a compacted 3rd/4th math class. For example, your missing addend problem is elementary algebra, which they try to introduce in mid-elementary to enrich and stretch students. Number value was one of the key ways teachers assess mathematical understanding. Similarly, the ability to translate multi-step word problems into the correct mathematical equations evidences mastery of concepts as well.

If she is very gifted in PR, VC, and VS, then I am more inclined to think that your DD may have been deprived of strong teaching in math and she is one of the kids for whom strong teaching is critical.

I took the liberty of scanning back over your past posts, and saw that, in her early testing, while verbal and fluid reasoning are MG, and the CPI indices (WM & PS) are closer to HG, VS is merely age-appropriate. This is a pretty striking relative weakness in VS of 2 to nearly 3 SDs relative to the other indices. I understand that it was of ambiguous significance at the time, but you now have many years of IRL data to support its clinical significance.

In combination with your functional observations of years of struggle with aspects of math and various visual skills, I would certainly wonder about an LD affecting visual spatial/perceptual skills. This is not incompatible with strengths in logic and mathematical reasoning. (Note that FR was in the GT range.)

Some strategies that can be helpful:
-work math problems on graph paper, to help with alignment and spacing of numerals
-have her highlight operations according to a color key, prior to beginning calculations. (To draw her attention to the correct operations.)
-highlight key words in word problems, perhaps with the same colors used for the corresponding operation symbols.
-using visual frames/masks and guides, to screen out extraneous images when focusing on a specific problem or task.
-using a brief self-monitoring checklist for reviewing her work for common errors before turning it in. (I use 3 questions with my children: did I answer the question? does my answer make sense? do I have the correct units?) Hers may be different, and may even change from time to time, as she masters different skills. (e.g., did I use the correct operations? did I transfer my answers correctly to the answer sheet?)
-verbal mediation of visual spatial tasks: pair concise verbal directions or cues with visually-oriented multi-step tasks, so that she can use her strong verbal reasoning and memory to support weaker visual spatial skills.

You can try the modmath app. It was developed by a dysgraphic/dyslexic. My oldest is like this. He can do the math and then loses it on the arithmetic. Additionally, DS has to continue to advocate for himself so teachers can restore points that were marked off for sloppy handwriting.

I have a DD who is diagnosed dyslexic, is probably dysgraphic, and increasingly seems some kind of dyscalculic. Your description above is very, very familiar. For math disability in particular, what hits me as red flags are the items that suggest a problem with number sense and spatial orientation, like the dice and maps, and missing addends. Your DD seems to do well on anything she can mediate through words, but struggles with the purely symbolic stuff.

And I would also note that my family has demonstrated to me that you can hide a world of deficits with really high working memory. Which is not actually a good thing when it comes to identifying LDs.

So my totally non-professional, two-cents worth: you have enough flags here that it would be worth investigating. However, you really want some one who is very used to 2E, who will dig deep into underlying cognitive processes, and not be fooled by grade-level output powered by that working memory. Like struggling with number sense enough to visibly affect addition, but managing multiplication (conceptually harder, but finite to just plain memorize). You don't want someone who would start with achievement testing and conclude "nothing to see here" without looking any deeper.

It's also worth taking a look at what kind of curriculum your DD is using. There is lots of research that shows that the most popular curricula - spiral, inquiry/ discovery based - are tough on many kids but lethal for kids with math LDs. What kids with LDs need most is something coherent, explicit, and systematically building on previous concepts mastered in depth. Which is exactly what spiral/ inquiry approaches don't do.

I assume you have but if not get vision testing. Not just acuity but tracking focus etc. Puzzles and dice are hard work if you have double vision etc. I suppose this is less likely since you haven't noticed reading issues but worth checking.