Interventions for adult DD should target both number-specific core deficiencies and domain-general skills while incorporating preserved skills¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The review recommends that intervention methods for adults with DD are likely to be most effective when directly targeted at observed cognitive core deficiencies, including both number-related skills (number magnitude knowledge, enumeration/subitizing, fact retrieval) and number-unspecific/domain-general skills (attention, working memory). Effective interventions should also incorporate preserved and well-established skills that can compensate for deficiencies, so diagnostic assessment should identify both deficits and preserved skills. The review stresses that without an empirically driven conceptual framework, intervention efforts remain unscientific and nonreplicable.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Requires a conceptual framework incorporating core deficiencies and associated processing difficulties before intervention development

Constraints¶

• No controlled and systematic intervention studies have been reported for adults with DD to date, so recommendations are extrapolated from child DD literature

Target Learners¶

• adults with developmental dyscalculia

Target Learning Goals¶

• numerical magnitude knowledge
• enumeration and subitizing
• arithmetic fact retrieval
• attention
• working memory

Related Strategies¶

• Design innovative, age-appropriate interventions for adults with DD targeting cognitive, numerical, social, and emotional dimensions
• Future research should develop sensitive diagnostic marker tasks and use neurostimulation to identify causal structure-function relations in adult DD
• Use intensive practice of counting procedures in primary schools to strengthen and preserve future adults' arithmetic abilities

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Liane Kaufmann, Michael von Aster, Silke M. Göbel, Josef Marksteiner, and Elise Klein. (2020). Developmental Dyscalculia in Adults: Current Issues and Open Questions for Future Research. Lernen und Lernstörungen, 9(2), 126–137. https://doi.org/10.1024/2235-0977/a000294