ADHD & Dyslexia: Memory Overload | Times Tables Games

Working memory is the mental workspace your brain uses to hold and process information in real time. When a child is doing a multi-step problem or being drilled on their six times table under a ticking clock, they are asking their working memory to do several things at once: retrieve a number fact, hold it, apply it, remember where they are in the problem, and manage the emotional stress of being watched and timed. That is a heavy load for any child.

For children with ADHD or dyslexia, working memory capacity is often already reduced or less consistent than in their neurotypical peers. This is not a character flaw or a sign of low intelligence. It is a documented neurological difference. When you then layer maths anxiety on top of that, research suggests the available working memory shrinks further still. The child is not being lazy. They are cognitively overwhelmed before they have even written down a single digit.

When I looked into this more carefully, what stood out was how often the trigger is not the maths itself but the format. Rapid-fire oral drills. Timed written tests. Public performance in front of classmates. These formats demand that a child decode a new testing environment, manage social fear, and do the maths simultaneously. For a child with an already stretched working memory, that is simply too much happening at once.

Traditional times tables methods rely on repetition under pressure to force recall. The logic seems reasonable on the surface: practise enough and it becomes automatic. But this approach assumes a working memory that can keep pace with that kind of loading, and it assumes that anxiety will not interfere. For children with ADHD or dyslexia, both assumptions often fail.

What tends to happen instead is a cycle. The child struggles under pressure. They feel embarrassed or panicked. That emotional response takes up cognitive space, leaving even less room for the actual maths. They perform poorly. They begin to believe they are bad at maths. And the next time a times table test appears, the anxiety arrives earlier and harder, before a single question is asked.

From the schools and parents we speak to at XTables Champions, this cycle is one of the most common things we hear about. A bright, capable child who has essentially been conditioned to associate times tables with shame and panic.

As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, "We kept meeting children who weren't struggling with the maths itself. They were struggling with the situation they were being asked to do it in."

Here is what the research points to, and what I find genuinely encouraging: when you remove the unfamiliar testing format and the social performance pressure, children with ADHD and dyslexia often make real progress. The maths was not the barrier. The cognitive load of the whole situation was.

This is the thinking behind how XTables Champions approaches things. Rather than presenting times tables as isolated drills, the platform wraps them in game formats children already know, Snap, Connect Four, Bingo, Guess Who. Because the child already understands how the game works, they are not using working memory to decode a new system. That cognitive capacity stays free for the actual number work.

The Show Me How visual breakdowns are particularly worth mentioning here. Instead of asking a child to hold a calculation in their head and retrieve a memorised fact simultaneously, the visual support externalises part of that load. The child can see the structure of the problem rather than having to hold it all internally. For children with working memory difficulties, that shift is not a shortcut. It is genuinely good pedagogy.

Timed competition is removed from the core experience too. Children can play at their own pace, and progress is tracked through an analytics dashboard that parents and teachers can actually use. For SENCOs, there are specific flags built in to help identify where a child is struggling and why.

If you are supporting a child with ADHD or dyslexia who is hitting a wall with times tables, a few things are worth considering straight away.

First, examine the format before you examine the child. Is the practice method adding unnecessary cognitive load? Can you reduce the number of things the child has to hold in their head at once by using visual supports or familiar game structures?

Second, take the time pressure off wherever possible. Timed drills are not a useful diagnostic tool for children with working memory difficulties. They measure anxiety management as much as they measure maths knowledge.

Third, look for signs that the child knows more than they can demonstrate under pressure. Many children with ADHD or dyslexia have a genuine grasp of number relationships but cannot access that knowledge in high-stress, fast-paced testing conditions. Giving them a slower, lower-stakes way to show what they know can be genuinely revealing.

If you are a SENCO, a class teacher, or a parent of a child with ADHD or dyslexia who is struggling with times tables, I would genuinely encourage you to get in touch with us at XTables Champions. We are a small, founder-led team and we talk to schools and families directly. We are not here to give a sales pitch. We want to understand what your child or your pupils are actually experiencing and talk honestly about whether what we have built could help.

You can reach us through xtableschampions.com. If you are based in the Midlands or elsewhere in the UK and are looking for SEN-friendly maths support for your school, we would love to hear from you.