While he spent his entire career drumming, that doesn’t mean it all comes easily to Larry Mullen Jr. Recently, the US percussionist revealed he has long struggled with dyscalculia—a learning disorder related to mathematics—that sometimes interferes with his ability to play.

“I’m numerically challenged,” he said in a recent interview. “And I realized recently that I have dyscalculia, which is a sub-version of dyslexia. So, I can’t count, [and] I can’t add,” Mullen added.

Doctors say dyscalculia is a learning disorder that affects a person’s ability to understand number-based information and math. Those who have this condition struggle with numbers and math since their brains are not able to process math-related concepts like those of people without this disorder.

However, it does not mean that they are less intelligent or less capable than people who do not have dyscalculia.

Even though the symptoms of this disorder usually appear in childhood, especially when children are learning how to do basic math, many adults have dyscalculia and do not get diagnosed. Doctors say those with this condition often face mental health issues when they have to do math, like anxiety, stress, and depression.

Those with dyscalculia are neurodivergent—a term that describes how no two people have the same brain, and everyone’s brain forms and develops in a completely unique way. For people with dyscalculia, that means their brain works differently from the brain of someone who doesn’t have disorders or conditions that affect how their brain works.

The condition affects:

Your eyes see the entirety of the math problem and send the components back to your brain for processing.

You use your short-term memory to hold onto the specifics of the math problem as you work on it.

You use this part of your brain to translate the symbols in the math problem into what those symbols mean.

You access this kind of memory to remember the process of how to solve a math problem.

This process unites all of the above, helping you solve math problems.

Apart from your symptoms that directly relate to your ability to do math, those with dyscalculia show emotional symptoms when faced with situations where math is necessary. Those include:

• Anxiety or panic attacks
• Agitation, anger, or aggression
• Fear
• Physical symptoms like nausea and vomiting, stomachache, sweating

What causes dyscalculia?

According to experts, in most cases it is not known why dyscalculia happens. However, since it is a learning disorder, it may run in families. However, more research is necessary to confirm this.

Experts do know that people with dyscalculia are more likely to have certain differences in some areas of their brain. These differences seem to indicate less development and fewer connections between brain cells in those areas. The affected areas are the ones your brain uses when doing anything that involves numbers and calculations. However, experts don’t know why these differences happen and how they influence this disorder’s symptoms.

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