Impact of Math Ludo on Skills in Students with Dyscalculia

This study evaluates Math Ludo, an original board game developed in a graduate educational games course, as an intervention for students with dyscalculia. The game combines dice-based navigation, numerical station challenges, and peer interaction to target arithmetic operations, number magnitude understanding, sustained attention, and mathematical anxiety. Using a small-N, mixed-methods case study design grounded in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities and Self-Determination Theory, the researchers worked with two first-grade students aged 6 to 7 who had clinical diagnoses of dyscalculia. Participants completed fourteen one-hour sessions over seven weeks in an inclusive school in Tehran, Iran.

Quantitative results from the KeyMath-3 assessment showed gains of 42 percent for one student and 58 percent for the other from baseline to post-intervention, with improvements sustained at a two-week follow-up. Non-overlap of data between baseline and intervention phases reached 85 to 90 percent, and arithmetic computation and number magnitude measures showed similar upward trends. Teacher-recorded observations indicated a 51 percent reduction in math-avoidance behaviors, a 60 percent increase in peer learning interactions, and a 65 percent increase in task engagement duration. The authors attribute these outcomes to multimodal reinforcement, error normalization through chance elements, and progressive difficulty scaling aligned with the Zone of Proximal Development.

The findings rest on a sample of only two participants, with no control group, which the authors acknowledge limits generalizability. They recommend larger, longitudinal, and controlled studies to validate the intervention's effects.