Questions on Down syndrome and Maths

Why is it important for someone with DS to learn maths?

Children and adults with Down syndrome need to understand maths to be able to live an independent life. They need to be able to deal with money, time, weights and measures and do simple calculations. Technology today can support them, like the rest of us, but a calculator is only useful if you know how to use it and can gauge if the answer it gives is sensible.

What are the key challenges?

The way maths is traditionally taught in schools weighs heavily on the use of memory… short term, long term and working memory. We know that Down syndrome is typically associated with a poor short term memory and therefore we need to adapt and develop new ways to teach our children to compensate for this. We know that visual memory is a strength and it is essential that we capitalise on this and use visual maths aids to support learning.

We know that our children are achieving more and more and, with today’s early intervention, they have the potential to keep pushing the boundaries. And as The Maths Mum® I have a professional and personal reason to help this to happen.

When should I start teaching maths to my child?

From birth! Honestly, maths should be an integrated part of life from the beginning. From the singing of nursery rhymes such as “One, two, three, four, five… once I caught a fish alive” to counting fingers and toes, from the learning ‘more’ as your first Makaton sign to understanding more and less. Mathematical words like big, small, slow, fast, tall, short as well as colours and shapes all form part of the pre-number skills needed in maths. It is never too young to start introducing these words and concepts… Would you like the big car or the small car? Which one is the red block? Modelling with things that you find in the toy box and around the house. Maths is based on the ability to be able to tell what is ‘the same’ and what is ‘different’ so it is always useful to point out things that are the same and things that are different starting with obvious differences such as colour and size but then looking at more subtle differences like spotty socks versus stripy socks.

What are some of the key maths milestones?

As a mum of a child with DS I understand that ‘milestones’ can cause much anxiety. Just like with gross motor, fine motor and speech milestones, your child is an individual and will be on their own development path. Within education, some children will flourish and some will be challenged, some children will love to read and others will be happier with maths concepts.

Key maths milestones include:

• Being able to tell if things are the same or different

• Being able to classify objects by colour, shape, size or type of item

• Counting

• Understanding one-to-one correspondence

• Cardinality - understanding that the last number counted is the total number… how many?

• Recognising numbers / numerals

• Understanding place value

• Simple addition and subtraction

There are many more milestones and within each of these milestones there are lots of ‘mini’ milestones. The key is to understand that maths is learnt by building concept on concept and therefore it is important to have solid foundations even if it takes years!

It is also important that other maths concepts such as size, shape, direction & position, time, money and measurements are introduced in practical scenarios that give children situational understanding. I always like to think of it as “what’s in it for them?” - if you can find a reason why understanding it will benefit them, then they will be more motivated to understand it. For example, ‘would you like a big or small ice cream?’ or ‘would you like to spend your £10 on one Paw Patrol figure or three LEGO mini figures?’.

Don’t shy away from maths - embrace it. Make it part of your everyday routine. The more familiar and comfortable our children are with numbers the more willing they will be to give harder concepts a go.

Should a child with DS follow the national curriculum like their peers?

All children are different and will have academic strengths and weaknesses. The speed at which they attain the maths milestones will dictate whether they can follow the national curriculum like their peers. Mainstreams schools typically follow a ‘scheme of work’ which the teacher uses to design the weekly and termly topics and learning. Examples of schemes include Mathematics Mastery, Maths No Problem, Power Maths, Shanghai Maths, White Rose Maths. Most of them use the idea that you cover a topic, leave it, come back to it the next term and review it and then come back to it again in the final term of the year and ensure the learning is consolidated and secured. That might mean that one topic is covered for a week each term.

The learning profile of a child with DS suggests that they benefit from repetition and therefore this method might not produce the best results. We know that, if we haven’t successfully transitioned the learning to long term recall and complete understanding, when we return to the topic we will be starting again from scratch. It is therefore important that we support children with DS with a differentiated curriculum to secure the building blocks via repetition whilst still providing variety so as to avoid boredom. And it is important to concentrate on the core milestones before advancing to more complex maths - it is important to secure simple addition and subtraction before introducing multiplication and division.

There are also topics within the national curriculum that will not necessarily be needed for ‘life’ - for example, memorising how many faces, vertices and edges a 3D shape. This is part of the KS1 curriculum and will take up important long term memory space however it is not needed in everyday life.