As with one-to-one interventions, several digital interventions have also proven successful in children with generalized math learning difficulties. Räsänen and colleagues have found that games such as The Number Race and Graphogame-math can improve performance on number comparison tasks in children with generalized math learning difficulties.Several digital interventions have been developed for dyscalculics specifically. Each attempts to target basic processes that are associated with maths difficulties. Rescue Calcularis was one early computerized intervention that sought to improve the integrity of and access to the mental number line. Other digital interventions for dyscalculia adapt games, flash cards, and manipulables to function through technology.While each intervention claims to improve basic numerosity skills, the authors of these interventions do admit that repetition and practice effects may be a factor involved in reported performance gains. An additional criticism is that these digital interventions lack the option to manipulate numerical quantities. While the previous two games provide the correct answer, the individual using the intervention cannot actively determine, through manipulation, what the correct answer should be. Butterworth and colleagues argued that games like The Number Bonds, which allows an individual to compare different sized rods, should be the direction that digital interventions move toward. Such games use manipulation activities to provide intrinsic motivation toward content guided by dyscalculia research. One of these serious games is Meister Cody – Talasia, an online training that includes the CODY Assessment – a diagnostic test for detecting dyscalculia.
The numerical ratio effect is observed when individuals are less accurate and slower in comparing pairs of numbers that have a larger ratio (e.g., 8 and 9, ratio = 8/9) than a smaller ratio (2 and 3; ratio = 2/3). A larger numerical distance or ratio effect with comparison of sets of objects (i.e., non-symbolic) is thought to reflect a less precise ANS, and the ANS acuity has been found to correlate with math achievement in typically developing children and also in adults.More importantly, several behavioral studies have found that children with developmental dyscalculia show an attenuated distance/ratio effect than typically developing children. Moreover, neuroimaging studies have also provided additional insights even when behavioral difference in distance/ratio effect might not be clearly evident. For example, Gavin R. Price and colleagues found that children with developmental dyscalculia showed no differential distance effect on reaction time relative to typically developing children, but they did show a greater effect of distance on response accuracy. They also found that the right intraparietal sulcus in children with developmental dyscalculia was not modulated to the same extent in response to non-symbolic numerical processing as in typically developing children. With the robust implication of the intraparietal sulcus in magnitude representation, it is possible that children with developmental dyscalculia have a weak magnitude representation in the parietal region. Yet, it does not rule out an impaired ability to access and manipulate numerical quantities from their symbolic representations (e.g., Arabic digits).