The short answer? Countdown timers and competitive leaderboards are not neutral features. For many neurodivergent children, they are actively harmful. And right now, a growing number of educators and psychologists are saying exactly that, loudly enough that the EdTech industry really needs to sit up and listen.
I've been reading through recent discussions in special education circles, and what strikes me is that this is no longer a fringe concern. SENCOs, educational psychologists and classroom teachers are increasingly documenting specific, observable harms: children freezing up, refusing to engage, or developing what researchers are calling "maths avoidance" partly because of the tools that were supposed to help them. The pushback against hyper-gamified maths apps, particularly those built around timed challenges and public rankings, is becoming one of the more urgent conversations in inclusive EdTech right now.
At XTables Champions, this sits right at the heart of why we exist.
The Problem With "Engagement" That Relies on Pressure
The dominant logic in many EdTech products goes something like this: children are motivated by competition, speed, and visible rewards, so build the app around all three. And honestly, for some children, some of the time, that works. But for children with ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, autism, or significant maths anxiety, that same design can tip quickly from motivating into overwhelming.
When I looked into this more carefully, what stood out to me is how specific the harm tends to be. A countdown timer does not just create urgency. For a child whose working memory is already under strain, or who processes information at a different pace, that ticking clock creates a stress response that actually *degrades* the very cognitive function you need for maths. The child is no longer thinking about multiplication. They are managing panic.
Leaderboards carry their own particular weight. A child who consistently sees their name near the bottom of a class ranking is not being "motivated to improve." They are being shown, repeatedly and publicly, that they are behind. For children who already carry shame around their learning, that can be genuinely corrosive.
The research direction here is clear: psychological safety is not a nice-to-have for neurodivergent learners. It is the prerequisite for any learning to happen at all.
What "SEND-Friendly" Actually Means in Practice
This is where I think the conversation needs to get more specific, because "SEND-friendly" can become a vague marketing badge if we are not careful. From the schools we speak to in our early conversations, what teachers and SENCOs are actually looking for is pretty concrete.
They want software where a child can attempt a question without a clock making that attempt feel like a race. They want progress to be visible to the child in a way that feels encouraging rather than comparative. They want mastery-based progression, meaning a child moves forward when they have genuinely consolidated a skill, not just because they clicked fast enough. And they want the experience to feel calm. That word comes up a lot: calm.
What we keep hearing is that many of the most widely used maths apps were simply not designed with neurodivergent children in mind. They were designed for engagement metrics, which is a very different brief.
As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, *"We built XTables Champions because we kept seeing children who weren't struggling with maths itself, they were struggling with the way maths was being presented to them. That felt like a solvable problem."*
What Schools Should Actually Be Auditing
If you are a SENCO or a class teacher reviewing your school's maths software, here is the practical question I would start with: does this tool give a neurodivergent child a genuine chance to succeed, or does it structurally advantage children who are already confident?
Some things worth looking at closely: Is there a timed mode that cannot be turned off? Is performance displayed publicly or comparatively? Does the app have any mechanism for acknowledging effort and progress independently of speed? Is there guidance for teachers on supporting pupils with maths anxiety specifically?
These are not complicated questions, but a lot of popular tools fail several of them. The fact that a product is widely adopted does not mean it was designed inclusively. Volume of users and suitability for SEND pupils are two entirely separate things.
Including SEND-specific criteria in any EdTech audit is not just good practice for your neurodivergent pupils. It tends to surface better, more thoughtful software for all your children.
The Mastery-Based Alternative
Mastery-based learning is not a new idea, but in EdTech it is having a genuine moment right now, and for good reason. The core principle is simple: a child builds secure understanding of one concept before moving to the next. Progress is measured against the child's own previous performance, not against their classmates.
For times tables specifically, this matters enormously. A child who has truly internalised their 3s and 4s and knows them calmly under no pressure will carry that knowledge forward. A child who has clicked quickly through a timed quiz and scored well may have no durable knowledge at all, and may still freeze the moment the context changes.
XTables Champions is built around exactly this kind of approach. The goal is for children to actually know their times tables, and to feel good about knowing them, not to have survived a speed drill.
Talk to Us About Supporting Your SEND Pupils With Maths
If you are a SENCO, a class teacher, or a school leader thinking about how your current maths software is serving your neurodivergent pupils, I would genuinely love to hear from you. We are a young company, we talk to schools directly, and those conversations genuinely shape what we build.
Get in touch with the team at XTables Champions through our website at xtableschampions.com. Tell us about your pupils, your current challenges, and what SEND-friendly actually needs to look like in your context. We are listening, and we would be glad to show you what we have built with exactly these children in mind.