Trouble with math

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I have a question that maybe someone would be kind enough to advise me on. I was diagnosed with discalculia years ago. I'm 44 now. I would still love to learn enough basic math to make life easier. Does anyone know offhand if there are some good tricks or self help books that could help? I am helpless at simple geometry for example and I have some sort of problem with accurate number sequencing as well. For some reason, I was better at easy algebra although I could not explain why with words. Is it even possible to improve this at my age?

Lae, I was diagnosed with a "learning disability involving computational arithmetic" several years ago. I'm 42 now. I haven't heard of any device or method that can assist other than using a calculator.

I also have problems with rhythm. In fact, I don't think that I can even hear rhythm. I was a third year English Lit major and the prof had all the students go up to the board and place a mark where the rhythmic emphasis was in lines of prose. I couldn't do this if my life depended on it. The prof practically spit his contempt at me. He said, "Well you obviously speak with rhythm, so therefore you must be able to hear rhythm." At the time it was a great mystery to me, I just felt like an alien from another planet. After I got my diagnosis for LD I was told by somebody, forget who now, that the ability to follow rhythm uses the same skills as math. Do you have trouble with rhythm?

I've also been having some trouble with math, and so you're not alone. I think that parts of the reason why I have trouble with some parts of math is because I have trouble visualizing the result, and I've heard that we have this "one-way thinking" problem that involves some of us not being as capable as others to think of another solution for some things. I'm not sure if that is true for everyone, but I've learned by far that it's always best to do your best to think outside the box, and it's much better to learn with pictures. Most of us aspies think in terms of the visual and not so much as verbal, and in math classes teachers tend to teach with lots of verbal methods. I also learned that the CliffNotes books for algebra and geometry has worked well for me, since they give you multiple ways to solve problems, not just a single solution. It also shows pictures and examples, as well as answers to all of your math questions to the quizzes that they give, as well an explanation for almost every step of each problem. Anyways, I hope that my advise helps and that you get help with math.

Thank you both. And yes to the rythm question. I couldn't follow a rythm to save my life. And I think I will look into the CliffNotes books as well. Even a little improvement would help in daily life, and I hope to do it mostly on my own because I have to go very slowly so it has always frustrated people trying to help me. Maybe I can teach an old brain some new tricks. Anandamide, that teacher sounds like a real jerk.

Math was okay for me during high school years, but I've started noticing problems when taking algebra. I still've managed to pass all math courses with a C, so I was never truly worried about it. Most of my problems were in applied math.

When I was in school, I used to count using my fingers. I remember some teachers trying to break me of that, but it never worked. It was just easier for me. I don't recall ever memorizing times tables, unless there was some sort of pattern I could notice, like 5's and 9's were really easy. 6's and 7's and 8's seemed to be the hardest.

I also remember hating to borrow in subtraction ... for some reason, that was just hard for me, especially if there were zeros involved. Carrying over in addition, however, was no problem. I have since learned to add and subtract from the left to the right, and not from the right to the left, so then it became easier, because borrowing is no longer utilized. Multiplication was quite easy for me, but division was sort of confusing. Overall, though, I've learned to manage all of this without any problem, and I can divide really long numbers without a problem, quite quickly nowadays.

I can not calculate in my head. I need to write it out and see what I'm doing, or I get confused, for some reason. I can, however, count change with fairly good ease.

- Ray M -

I have to write out almost every step because I can't hold numbers in my head for any amount of time.

I have a great memory for numbers, what you should do is have a partner say the number sentence, and have you repeat it. If you get it wrong then the partner should repeat the sentence, otherwise you should try to memorise it; who knows you may want to have that person quiz you over it.

I remember some testing that involved repeating numbers back. I did badly. But I'm willing to give anything a try that might help. Thanks.

i'm bad at at math because i'm dyslexic and i cant write very ast i mean kindergardeners pace but i did learn my math all the way to algebra by doing everything in my head i havent learned geometry because theres to much writing involved i learned all my math in one year of high school thanks to my teacher that didnt make me write anything out i would tell her verbally but i dropped out of high school anyways because i couldnt pass anymore without writing and the strain from the other students was to much

That, I had no trouble with at all. I think that is where I got the highest score on a verbal section of an IQ test, since everything else was said to have been below average. I sort of did higher on the performance end. If I got the digit span wrong, my verbal IQ would have been much lower. This is supposed to not be aspie, after all. Something's weird in my head, like they don't know how to diagnose me. Like, it confused a person that I did so good on the digit span and poorly on the rest, like I was some sort of like freakish statistic.

- Ray M -

You should try this one program called "Math-U-See"
http://www.mathusee.com/

I am bad at math too. But hey- one of my favourite science is physics! I think I am interested in the practical end of it you know the theories, not the math equations.