Math Learning: Visual‑Spatial Processing & Working Memory

🎧 Episode Show Notes

Math Learning: Visual‑Spatial Processing & Working Memory

In this episode of the PHPS podcast, we continue our three‑part series on learning differences with Leda Owens of the Housson Center.

Together, we explore how visual‑spatial processing and working memory influence math learning and why some students may struggle with math even when they are trying hard. Dr. Owens helps us better understand the thinking skills behind math, how challenges can show up in the classroom, and how thoughtful instruction and support can help students build confidence.

🧠 What We Discuss

• How visual‑spatial processing supports understanding numbers and solving math problems
• The role working memory plays in holding and organizing information during math tasks
• Signs a child may be struggling with these skills
• Why “more practice” doesn’t always solve math challenges
• Instructional approaches that help reduce cognitive overload in math learning
• How teachers and families can support students as they build confidence and problem‑solving strategies

📚 Resources Mentioned

• Dyscalculator – A calculator designed to support students with dyscalculia by reducing cognitive load and making math tasks more accessible.
• Leda Owens – Learn more about Dr. Owens’ work supporting students with ADHD, dyscalculia, and executive function challenges through the Housson Center.

🌱 A Message of Encouragement
Dr. Owens reminds families that math struggles are often connected to underlying cognitive processes — not effort or motivation. With the right supports and instructional approaches, students can develop strategies that help them succeed and feel more confident in their learning.

🎙️ Coming Next
In the final episode of our learning differences series, Dr. Owens returns to talk about ADHD and executive function, exploring how attention, organization, and regulation impact learning and what supportive environments look like for these learners.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome back to the PHPS Difference Podcast and to our three-part series on learning differences.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

In our last episode, we explore dyslexia and dysgraphia. Today we're focusing on another area that can be challenging for some students: math learning.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Specifically, we'll be talking about visual spatial processing and working memory, two cognitive skills that play a big role in how students understand numbers, solve problems, and organize their thinking. Joined by Dr.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Leah Owens of the Hausen Center, a licensed professional counselor who supports students and families navigating ADHD, math differences like dyscalculia, and executive function challenges. She's also an ADHD Certified Clinical Services Provider and leads the Parenting the ADH Child workshop. Dr. Owens, we're so glad to have you with us on the PHPS Difference. Hi.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

This is great to step outside of my office and join you guys for something different. So I'm happy to be here. We're glad to have you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

To start us off, can you help us understand how visual spatial processing and working memory support math learning?

unknown 1:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think the relationship between early language development and how that progresses and makes predictions about reading and writing is so much more understood than early developmental, visual, and motor differences and how that impacts math. So what you've already kind of spoken to is that math, like a lot of learning, is a complex learning process that involves different cognitive processes like visual spatial processing and working memory. So maybe we can just first start by defining those two cognitive areas. That would be great. And I can kind of expand on things that parents might see to help them understand, like, okay, this might be a challenge for my child, and then we can kind of narrow in and talk through how that impacts math. Does that sound good? That's helpful. Yes. So yeah, so visual spatial processing is the ability to perceive, analyze, and mentally manipulate visual patterns, which just means this is how we understand how things relate in space and how visual information is organized. So in general, if we're having difficulties in this area, it might look like having trouble with puzzles or Legos, especially when they're following a model. These kids can have trouble copying drawings or shapes. They might have difficulty organizing their materials, so like keeping their backpack organized or their room organized. We also might see it in how they judge space. So, you know, they might look a little clumsy by bumping into things or misjudging where things fit. In the classroom, these students kind of tend to tune out visual details in their world. So that means if a bulletin board has changed, these students don't always pick up on that detail. They also can struggle to copy notes from the boards or have messy handwriting or perhaps lose their space in reading or skipping lines. So related to math, we can start seeing how this impacts them by their ability to kind of recognize numbers and patterns on number lines. They also will overlook math operations, so like the addition or subtraction sign, if there's changes in that visual detail, they tend to overlook that. So they might just continue to perform the same operation that they had been performing. Busy mass sheets can be really overwhelming for them. And you know, it might come as no surprise that once we move into like geometric concepts and we're involving rotations, that can be really challenging for these students to grasp. And then the alignment of numbers, this is another kind of big thing, is that when we have, you know, a ones place and a tens place, um, those students can kind of miscarry their numbers or align their calculations wrong. So then they come to an incorrect answer. And it also extends to time and money concepts. So um just their ability to visualize the passage of time and calculate time and understand how money is represented when you use that.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

That's really interesting, and I think that um understanding that and hearing you say that I'm sure there are many parents and educators that could identify students that they're seeing that in, and um, whether they've been identified or not, that's just a really interesting way of explaining it.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, and I think, you know, you mentioned some of the signs, what you might see whenever I was I was listening, being a former third grade teacher and fifth grade teacher, I think of a lot of kids struggle with some of those concepts, but how do you kind of know that, okay, this is not developmentally typically what a third grader struggles with? How do you know that maybe it's something to look into a little bit more deeper?

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yeah, well, I I think that's a good point because just because kids make errors in certain things doesn't mean we have a learning disability.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

I think of regrouping and some of those concepts are really challenging.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Or long division, right? Done done. Yes, yes. Absolutely. Like there are going to be different areas that are challenging for all students. But when you're seeing the things I've just mentioned more clustered together, that's an indication, right? It's not just this one isolated aspect of math, but it it is coming from all these different angles. And I think if if you're a teacher or a parent that says, you know, I am noticing that this is more challenging for my child, and I'm giving intentional effort to pay attention to kind of where the breakdown's happening and support that student, and then it still continues to happen, right? That can be another indication that, okay, perhaps I need to be a little bit more aggressive with how I'm supporting the student because the traditional methods haven't served the student as well, right? And that's kind of how we start differentiating is this response to intervention. Um, you know, are we closing that gap quickly or we're starting to make progress, but progress is still slow? Right. The discount coolia has a prevalence rate of somewhere between three and eight percent, which means about one out of every 20 students. That's at least a kid in our traditional classroom. So while it's less understood than other learning differences, it certainly still exists. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah, and uh just listening to you say that, thinking about practice and how uh we approach math, it's so much about, oh, more practice will fix the problem. And so if we're thinking about a child that truly has a spatial learning difference or a math learning difference, practice may not be the solution. And so um, how do how do parents understand this and and kind of learn more about why more practice isn't the solution to the problem necessarily?

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Yeah. Well, let me say that practice is only is is only effective when the student understands the underlying concepts and strategies being used. So while additional exposure is beneficial, you know, simply doing more of the same can only create frustration and sometimes really reinforce the errors that they're creating. So effective math practice is going to include targeted instruction, you know, modeling these strategies, pulling in multi-sensory components of learning and opportunities to build on the conceptual understanding that they already have rather than just repetition alone. Right. So it requires some kind of adjustment to how we're supporting the kids. Um there's a pretty new great resource for our students with dyscalculia called the dyscalculator, dispelled DYS, just like in the in the name of the disorder. And what these um what these individuals have done is is taken the interface of a calculator, and instead of using it and organizing it like a matrix, they have the numbers in order of what uh of their quantity. So it goes from zero in a straight line all the way to nine. And it has these cool features where it obviously has the numerical representation, but it has the word written out below it. Same thing for our symbols for add plus divide. Um, it has that written out below and you can modify it. So I think it comes where it says add, but if plus is something that you tend to use more, you can modify it and write plus. So it's just like a really cool technology. It's an app that you can, it's$10, I think, that you can spend. And it just tends to make so much more sense for these kids in terms of understanding number relationships and using calculators appropriately.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, that's an interesting tool we may have to explore. And we'll put it in our show notes too. Yeah. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Good, good, good. If you guys are okay, I'll circle back to the other cognitive process of working memory because that's another big part of math learning. That working memory is obviously a significant aspect of learning that's required of students. So working memory's ability to temporarily hold on to information and then use it to complete a task. So the classic example of a working memory challenge is trouble following multi-step instructions. Right. So go upstairs, grab your shoes, come back down. And it's like, what where did we lose? Right. We lose each other in this way. Never come back. They never come back. Or they come back down with this really great creation and not the shoes. Yes. So yeah, that's that's a good example of how parents might say, okay, perhaps this could be a working memory challenge. But parents can also start looking out for am I having to repeat myself really frequently? Um, or they need reminders to get through the same routines every day. It's not something new. This should be something that they um, you know, are familiar with. Do they start task, but then they quickly forget what they're supposed to do? Um, do they have trouble recalling recently learned information or struggle to follow conversations that have a lot of details? And sometimes we see that in how quickly they can get through tasks because if they're having to kind of recheck their work, re-remind themselves where they are in that process, it can really kind of delay the efficiency with which they approach task. And specific to math, um, we see it in terms of losing track of steps. So, you know, we pretty quickly move in math to multi-steps, right? Math is cumulative, it builds on itself. So these students may forget the um intermediate results in multi-step equations or have trouble keeping track of the relevant numbers that they're holding in their memory and not quite ready to use in the relationships that those are gonna serve later in the problem. And we see it in their retrieval of math facts, right? So math facts are just um those basic operations that we want committed to memory because it's gonna free up cognitive resources for other more complex tasks that we're gonna be requiring of them, you know, in third grade, fourth grade, certainly, and on.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yes. Just even as you're explaining all of that, I'm thinking of just the cognitive load that it takes, and especially with some of our students. Do you have any ideas or types of instructions or supports that teachers or parents even can can help with carrying that burden or that load for students?

SPEAKER_02 11:26

I'm wondering how many people just heard the word math and felt like felt like they had cognitive overload. Right. It just evokes such a like oh, like teness for some people. Um, but the good news is that absolutely there are just minor modifications we can make in instructional approaches and minor accommodations in the classroom that can really make a world of difference for these students. So a few ideas in terms of instructional supports could be incorporating models and using concrete materials to teach how we conceptualize quantity. So again, you know, you want to bring in just multi-sensory. So instead of just talking through it and kids are having to create these mental images of what's happening, demonstrate it with materials hands-on, right? Kinesthetic, bring them into the process and let them manipulate pulling items in, removing items. It also could help. So if our kids really do have kind of more significant visual spatial processing, it might really help them to have a step-by-step written instruction. So they may prefer to have it written out in terms of language. Graph paper is our friend, grid paper. They make fancy colored grid paper that we can use, and that helps with alignment. Because if a kid understands the concept, we we want their test and their grades to represent that knowledge that they have and not be impacted by what we sometimes can perceive as just carelessness with how they've aligned their work. So that's an easy thing to bring in and allow kids to use. We can break problems into smaller steps. So that's a good working memory strategy for just instead of, hey, here's all of this information, I'm gonna kind of tease it apart and give you a little bit at a time. Um, we can reduce the items on the page. So instead of having 20 back-to-back items, I might rewrite it and I have 10. And so just that visual field helps some of those kids not be as overwhelmed. It can look like providing a reference sheet on um on our assignment so they have something to review. Um, so those are like a few things that we can do that I think make the world of difference.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Those are all good reminders, just like a simple number line that they can use as they're adding or subtracting, just I think it helps a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Well, along those lines, like so dyscalculia is the word that we use to describe a math disorder, right? So we have dyslexia that describes um differences in how we learn, we have dysgraphia that describes differences in how we write and communicate in writing, and we have dyscalculia to describe differences in how we understand math. It is much less understood than the other two. Um, and so we know what these students, they they don't tend to create that mental imagery of the line, like those of us that don't have that same struggle do. And so moving up and down, understanding the relationships, inverse patterns, like they can do three plus two equals five, but as soon as if you immediately give five minus two equals, it takes a little bit of time. Yes. And a lot of times they have to count up, right? So they'll start at two and then they'll count up until they get to five. So that that's kind of a classic sign.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

That makes sense. It does. Um, so when when we think about families that are navigating these challenges with their children around math and wanting to help them feel reassured and feel like they are supporting their child in the best way possible. Do you have any advice or thoughts that would make them feel more confident in their child's path and growth in math?

SPEAKER_02 14:58

My first advice is recognizing that a learning challenge in one area does not define your child's overall ability or potential. And that that's really important to keep in mind. It is. Um We also can be reassured that there are effective strategies out there that, as we've discussed, are easy to incorporate and little shifts in our approach can make diff big differences in how these students progress in this area of learning. Um, I also want to maybe just end with the fact that kids are really resilient. Right. And many of these students use what we call compensatory strategies. And that just means little workarounds for their areas of challenge to ultimately get to their goal. Um, so yeah, just allowing kids to demonstrate their resiliency. And um, you know, I think we, you know, we impress other people with our strengths and we connect with them and our weaknesses. And so I just think these imperfections that we see and weaknesses can really be points of connection if we allow them to be. It's really lovely. I know.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

We all need to remember that as adults and as children and celebrate once they when they get it. And you know, use their strategies. Yes. Well, thank you so much for helping us better understand the skills behind math learning and the ways that we can support students at school and also at home. And thank you so much to our listeners for joining us for this episode in our Learning Difference series. And be sure to tune in next time as we wrap up the series with a conversation about ADHD and execute executive function.