Dyscalculia

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my family sometimes ask whats 0 add 5 just to tease me and i really have to think because i cant seem to do mental arithmatic, i have to separate them then speak the numbers out loud.

i wonder if this is the same thing as mixing up numbers ? when i type i often get the letters in the wrong order like AND would be ADN, THANKS would THANSK ect

I do not have this at all. I think in numbers. I have always been very good at math although it takes me longer to do it in my head than most people and I make far too many careless mistakes. I try to use formulas and equations to explain things I cannot comprehend very well, like emotions.

I don't know. I have trouble with advanced maths, like 7+8x-5y(3+6)-2=, but I don't have trouble with basic math like addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, fractions and percents.

I have wondered myself if my problems with mathematics are in fact just an issue of my working memory being poor. Ultimately it doesn't matter. I don't think there is any special help for either issue.

I am almost certain that I have dyscalculia, and likely dyslexia, and possibly dysgraphia. I also have several symptoms of dyspraxia.

With dyscalculia I have a very bad judgement of the passage of time: for example, what happened 24 hours ago to me feels like 2 or 3 days, or what's really one minute feels like 5 minutes. It's very annoying. >_> I am also very bad at estimating measurements of any kind. I have pretty much every symptom; I can't even do something 36 + 27 in my head easily. I enjoy math, but am horrible at it.

Even this is true for me:

My dad is an extremely good engineer.

Both my parents are very good at math. My Dad is in the sciences and can do all sorts of higher order math that looks like a jumble of letters and numbers arranged architecturally inside brackets and above lines. Nothing that makes any sense to me. My Mom has a humanities education so she never learned higher order math but she can do arithmetic quickly in her head. She'll figure out some problem in her head while I'm still rummaging around in my purse for my calculator. When I was a kid, it infuriated both of them that I was so consistently bad at math and they always had to go to teachers' meetings to discuss my poor performance. They were both sure that I must have inherited their math abilities since I had inherited so many of their other traits- inlcuding some that these days would be considered AS-ish although nobody in the family fits the diagnostic criteria. They thought that I was secretly able to do this math but didn't out of sheer stubborness (since I was stubborn about other things). It was rather like many posters have described about their interactions (doing it on purpose!) but just about math.

And now it seems I may be so catastrophically bad at math because they are both good at math. It's ironic, really.

Query to those who know they suffer from dyscalcula:

How are you at logic exercises and puzzles which are not primarily numeric in their content?

Thank you for any information.

ruveyn (F84.5)

Funny you should bring that up. I do very well with those. This was a complete bafflement to my teachers and my parents since they assumed the two skills were actually the same skill. It made no sense to them that I was unable to do multiplication as anything other than a very long column of addition problems at the side of the page. And I was unable to do division as anything other than a long string of subtraction problems. I literally top out at any math that goes beyond + or - and have been able to do slightly higher order math (higher than 2nd grade level ) only by converting into + or - and even that must be done on my fingers or on paper (on a calculator, now that I'm an adult and nobody says "cheating").

One day in 7th grade, the math teacher handed out what she called "a different kind of math problem". It was a set of logic problems set up as stories. If Bob is friends with Sue but not with Ed and Ed is friends with Ralph and Bob but not Frances who is Matilda friends with? (I know that's not a real problem, but you get the idea.) I flew through those at rapid speed and got them 100% correct. The teacher gave me another set. Again, 100% correct very quickly. Had I been in Special Ed, she might have been able to capitalize on that stength and use it as a window to teach me other types of math. But alas, it didn't work like that. Instead it just stayed some sort of weird anomaly and simply convinced my math-literate parents that I was simply being stubborn all the other times.

To this day, my ability to figure out logic problems and puzzles is in inverse proportion to how much math(or at least numbers) they contain.

It was never black and white for me. I could do all kinds of logic proofs, but had/have a hard time with word problems; loved basic algebra and modern algebra, could do the proofs, but couldn't do discreet math proofs; intuitive feeling for modular systems (the base twelve clock is an example) but can't remember items on an agenda to save my life...

Is that dyscalculia?

Wow, I wish I'd had help in college. I wanted to be a math major, but ended up in art and Women Studies - wanted to get a phd in math, but couldn't do the differential geometry class - none of it! So I got an mfa...

My father is the same way, and was a mechanic for the air force. He can design and build any engine/house/piece of furniture, but can't do basic math...

Is it just me, or are we more likely to admit that this is possible when it's a dude, but when it's a woman, more likely to say, "She just isn't good at math"? I know my father struggled as much as I did, but when I wanted to work on the engines, or go into the air force, I was always discouraged by others, they literally wouldn't teach me how to carve, drill, build... Even though I could blow everyone else out of the water when it came to spacial reasoning.

What's up with that? Maybe it was because of my stunning personality ;D

I have severe problems with numbers. I struggle with very basic maths. Simple addition,division etc are beyond me. Numbers really stress me and confuse me a lot. I do art and I grid canvases it stresses me a lot as I constantly make mistakes and see numbers that aren't there. I have the exact measurements written down that my gf did for me but even with this I still make mistakes. Dyscalculia is something that more attention should be brought too as from my experience it is well recognised.

Quite the opposite - I'm whiz at math. Part of the reason I became an engineer.