Dyscalculia: Identifying and supporting students with special educational needs

Approximate read time: 15 minutes

The House of Lords is scheduled to consider the following question for short debate on 4 June 2025:

Baroness Bull (Crossbench) to ask His Majesty’s Government what provision is in place in schools for identifying and supporting students who have special educational needs, particularly dyscalculia.

1. What are special educational needs and how are they recognised in schools?

A child with special educational needs (SEN) has a learning difficulty or disability that makes it harder for them to learn compared to children of the same age and which necessitates special educational provision to be made for them.^[1] This will be different from or additional to the provision normally available to children of the same age. A child does not need to have a medical diagnosis for a condition to have SEN.

SEN may fall under one or more broad areas of need:^[2]

• Speech, language and communication: children with speech, language and communication needs find it difficult to communicate with others. This may be because they have difficulty saying what they want to say, understanding what is being said to them or they do not understand or use social rules of communication. Children with an autistic spectrum disorder, including Asperger’s Syndrome and autism, are likely to experience difficulties with social interaction.
• Cognition and learning: children with learning difficulties learn at a slower pace than their peers, even with appropriate differentiation. These can include moderate, severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties. In addition, ‘specific learning difficulties’ (SpLD) affect one or more specific aspects of learning and include conditions such as dyslexia (affecting reading), dyscalculia (affecting the understanding of number-based information) and dyspraxia (affecting physical coordination).
• Social, emotional and mental health: children may experience a wide range of social and emotional difficulties which manifest themselves in a variety of ways. These may include becoming withdrawn or isolated, as well as displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour. These behaviours may reflect underlying mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, self-harming, substance misuse, eating disorders or physical symptoms that are medically unexplained. Other children and young people may have disorders such as attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder or attachment disorder.
• Sensory and/or physical: children with vision impairment, hearing impairment, multi-sensory impairment and/or a physical disability may require special educational provision because their disability prevents or hinders them from making use of the educational facilities generally provided to their peers.

The Children and Families Act 2014 provides the statutory basis for identifying children with SEN, assessing their needs and making provision for them.^[3] There are two main forms of support:

• SEN support is provided in pre-schools, schools and colleges. This can take a range of forms, including extra help from a teacher or teaching assistant, working in a smaller group, or a child receiving extra encouragement in their learning.
• Parents and others have a statutory right to request that a local authority assesses whether a child requires more support than is available through SEN support at their school. Education, health and care (EHC) plans provide a formal basis for further support where this is needed, including for example assistance for a child’s placement at an independent special school.

The Department for Education notes that around 1.67 million pupils in England had SEN in the academic year 2023/24, comprising 18.4% of the total pupil population.^[4] Of these, around 1.24 million received SEN support (13.6% of all pupils) and around 0.43 million had EHC plans (4.8% of all pupils). Speech, language and communication needs were the most common type of need for those who required SEN support in schools.

The government has issued statutory guidance for organisations that work with and support children who have SEN or disabilities.^[5] This includes detailed guidance for headteachers, governing bodies and school staff—including designated special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs)—on identifying SEN in schools.^[6]

2. What is dyscalculia?

There is no settled definition of dyscalculia, but it is generally understood as a specific learning difficulty in which people with the condition experience a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding and working with numbers and quantities.^[7] Dyscalculia differs from other learning difficulties in maths due to the severity of difficulties with number sense, including subitising (being able to instantly perceive the number of items in a group without needing to count them one at a time, for example recognising the number of dots of the face of a dice), magnitude comparison and ordering.^[8]

In 2018 the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) put forward the following definition of dyscalculia:

Dyscalculia is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding arithmetic and basic number sense. It may also affect retrieval of number facts and key procedures, fluent calculation, and interpreting numerical information. It is diverse in character and occurs across all ages and abilities. Dyscalculia is an unexpected difficulty in maths that cannot be explained by external factors.

Mathematics difficulties are best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, with dyscalculia at the extreme end of this continuum. It should be expected that developmental dyscalculia will be distinguishable from general mathematical difficulties due to the severity of difficulties with symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude, number sense and subitising.^[9]

In a rapid evidence review on dyscalculia published in 2020 by the Government Office for Science and the independent Council for Science and Technology, Professor Diana Laurillard and Professor Brian Butterworth provided examples of numerical concepts those with dyscalculia find difficult to understand.^[10] They said those with developmental dyscalculia:

• had no intuitive understanding of numerical structure: for instance, they may know ‘8’ is composed of 8 ones, but not that it is also 4+4
• find the base 10 structure of the number system or even the decade structure to 100 difficult to understand: for instance, 39 represents all the counting sequence ones that it takes to count up to 39, but it is also nine more than 30, and one less than 40
• will fail to meet the early learning goals for numbers, including counting back from a given number, doubling and halving, and some may even fail to give ‘one less than’ a given number

The report further noted examples of the difficulties those with dyscalculia may experience in their everyday life. For example, struggling to tell the time, dial phone numbers, count money, budget, tip, and understand distances.

As with dyslexia, dyscalculia is not recognised with a medical diagnosis through assessment under the NHS.^[11] Instead, the condition may be diagnosed in schools by SpLD assessors. The SpLD Assessment Standards Committee, a representative organisation for professionally qualified diagnostic assessors, issued guidance in March 2025 in which it recognised dyscalculia as a sub-category of a SpLD in mathematics. The guidance said:

In dyscalculia, the most commonly observed cognitive impairment is a pronounced and persistent difficulty with numerical magnitude processing and understanding that presents in age related difficulties with naming, ordering and comparing physical quantities and numbers, estimating and place value.^[12]

The Dyscalculia Network, which describes itself as a not-for-profit community interest company run by volunteers to support and advocate for people with dyscalculia and maths learning difficulties, has estimated that “approximately 6% of the population suffer from dyscalculia”.^[13] Academic literature on the subject has estimated dyscalculia could affect around 4–8% of children, though maths anxiety generally is thought to affect a much greater percentage of the wider population.^[14]

3. What is the government’s policy on supporting students with dyscalculia?

The government does not recognise an official definition of dyscalculia.^[15] It also does not hold a central estimate of the number of school-aged children who may have received a diagnosis.^[16]

In December 2024, Baroness Bull asked Minister for Skills Baroness Smith of Malvern a supplementary oral question on whether the government planned to require maths teachers to learn about dyscalculia in initial teacher training. Baroness Smith replied that “all teachers are special educational needs teachers”.^[17] Baroness Smith wrote a letter the following month in which she explained this was why “high-quality teaching is central to ensuring that pupils with SEND are given the best possible opportunity to achieve at school, including those with dyscalculia”.^[18] She added the initial teacher training and early career framework (ITTECF), to be implemented in September 2025, contained “significantly more content related to adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND”. In addition, she wrote the framework “deliberately does not detail approaches specific to particular additional needs, but what makes the most effective teaching for all pupils, including those with SEND”. Baroness Smith concluded that responsibility for any further professional development for teachers rested with schools:

Adaptive teaching already underpins the ITTECF, with providers and schools able to design a curriculum which is responsive to the needs of individual contexts, and where a classroom teacher needs additional support for children with an individual need, this will be provided or commissioned by the SENCO in their school. Beyond the ITTECF, decisions relating to teachers’ professional development rest with schools, headteachers, and teachers themselves, as they are in the best position to judge their own requirements, such as providing support for children with dyscalculia.

In February 2025, in response to a series of parliamentary questions from Baroness Bull on dyscalculia, Baroness Smith provided further information:

Schools (and further education colleges, sixth-form colleges and 16–19 academies) are required to identify and address the special educational needs (SEN) of the pupils they support and, in the case of mainstream settings, to use their best endeavours to make sure that a child or young person who has SEN gets the support they need. All schools should apply the ‘graduated approach’ that is outlined in the SEND code of practice, which means identifying a child’s needs, planning appropriate support, implementing that support and reviewing it regularly to ensure it continues to meet the identified needs. Through this, schools should develop personalised approaches to supporting the unique needs of individual pupils.

High-quality teaching is central to ensuring that pupils with SEND are given the best possible opportunity to achieve in their education. To support all teachers, we are implementing high-quality teacher training reforms, which begins with initial teacher training and continues into early career teaching and through to middle and senior leadership. These reforms are designed to ensure teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed, including those with dyscalculia.

All mainstream schools must have a special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) who must be a qualified teacher, or the headteacher, working at the school. On 1 September 2024, the department introduced a new mandatory leadership level national professional qualification (NPQ) for SENCOs. The NPQ will play a key role in improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND by ensuring SENCOs consistently receive high-quality, evidence-based training.^[19]

In March 2025, Baroness Bull again asked Baroness Smith whether the government planned to increase awareness of dyscalculia among new teachers. Their exchange was as follows:

Baroness Bull (Crossbench): My Lords, dyscalculia is the learning disability that most people have never heard of, yet its prevalence is the same as dyslexia, and indeed its impact on educational, employment and health outcomes are very similar. The prevalence rate means that one child in every classroom has dyscalculia, yet the minister will know that the Department for Education has no official definition of dyscalculia, nor is there any guidance at all for parents, carers and educators on the website. When will the government address the incredibly low awareness of this high-impact condition by including reference to it in initial teacher training so that young people get the diagnosis, early identification and support that they need and deserve?

Baroness Smith of Malvern (Labour): I know that the noble Baroness has not only raised the issue of dyscalculia with me but, in doing so, drawn attention to it more broadly. The approach that is taken in initial teacher training is not to specifically identify particular conditions because […] the best-quality training for mainstream teachers is in the type and quality of teaching that will enable them to identify needs and to enable children to make the best progress. Where really specific support is needed, that should be commissioned by the special educational needs coordinator, within the school or externally. I feel reasonably confident that SENCOs understand the sort of issues that the noble Baroness is raising, but ensuring that information and best practice are available is clearly an important part of the work that we are doing.^[20]

4. Could the government do more?

In their 2020 rapid review on dyscalculia, Professor Diana Laurillard and Professor Brian Butterworth noted that dyscalculia was less studied than other specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia:

Relative to other SpLDs, dyscalculia receives limited recognition within the wider education support system and lacks the same level of funding and research interest. In 2000–10 in the US, for example, dyslexia received 46 times as much funding as dyscalculia for twice the prevalence. In the UK, between 2010 and 2020, the Wellcome Trust funded dyslexia by £3mn and dyscalculia £1mn; UKRI 2005–2019 funded dyslexia with £107mn and dyscalculia £23mn.^[21]

They made a number of recommendations, including for the government to “re-establish official recognition for developmental dyscalculia”; to “increase funding for developmental dyscalculia research to match that for dyslexia, which has a similar prevalence and impact on education and employment”; and to “develop online courses, webinars, and support sites to provide collaborative professional development on all SpLDs, which are often not covered adequately in training courses”.^[22]

Baroness Bull is among those who have called on ministers to introduce a requirement for maths teachers to learn about dyscalculia in initial teacher training to improve awareness about the condition.^[23] In an article published on the Politics Home website in March 2025, she wrote:

Perhaps the biggest challenge for dyscalculia is the almost complete lack of awareness among policy makers, educators and communities. A 2008 Government Office for Science report recommended that because of its low profile and high impacts, dyscalculia should be raised as a government priority. In the intervening 17 years, little has changed.

There is still no government definition of dyscalculia, scant reference in educational policies and no relevant guidance for dyscalculics, parents or teachers on the Department for Education website. Hansard records a mere 20 mentions across both Houses.

A 2023 survey of UK teachers found that 42.8% were ‘not familiar or slightly familiar’ with dyscalculia, compared to 15.7% when asked about dyslexia. This is extraordinary, given that there is at least one dyscalculic child in every UK classroom and numbers and quantities feature in all subjects, not just maths. And yet without a statutory requirement for teachers—even maths teachers and special needs teachers—to learn about or to identify dyscalculia, it’s hardly surprising.^[24]

5. Read more

• Baroness Bull, ‘Dyscalculic children have been let down for too long’, Politics Home, 3 March 2025
• National Audit Office, ‘Support for children and young people with special educational needs’, 24 October 2024, HC 299 of session 2024–25
• House of Lords Library, ‘Special education schools and colleges in England: Policy and challenges in the special educational needs sector’, 16 October 2024; and ‘Special educational needs and disabilities: Government support’, 29 November 2024
• House of Commons Library, ‘Special educational needs: Support in England’, 17 January 2025
• Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, ‘Support for neurodivergent children and young people’, 24 October 2024; and ‘Special educational needs and disabilities’, 1 April 2025
• Government Office for Science and Council for Science and Technology, ‘Current understanding, support systems, and technology-led interventions for specific learning difficulties’, 12 October 2020, pp 75–99
• BBC News, ‘Dyscalculia: Do Rishi Sunak’s maths plans add up for everyone?’, 19 April 2023; and ‘Dyscalculia: Parents call for maths learning difficulty support’, 12 October 2023

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This briefing was updated on 22 May 2025 to include a reference to a journal article containing survey results cited in a quoted source.

Cover image by Markus Krisetya on Unsplash