Any other Aspies who are crap at maths here?

Post Reply New Topic

This is how I approach mathematics and problem solving too. It can be difficult to calculate with numbers alone. Addition is misleading, the temptation can be to answer 22 when asked what is 2 and 2? Or perhaps I am just an idiot.

It is possible to draw a picture out of a written mathematics problem and reach the correct solution through the image. For example, I would not know how to begin answering this question:
"A frog is at the bottom of a 10-meter well. Each day he climbs up 3 meters. Each night he slides down 1 meter. On what day will he reach the top of the well and escape?"
The picture that can be drawn to answer this question can be viewed here:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/math/p ... tml?page=1

This different example uses quite simple drawings, but has a bibliography for ideas on further reading.
http://www.scarsdaleschools.org/elemmat ... rticle.pdf

DeLoreanDude: Do not worry about your Mathematics GCSE. Allegedly Edexcel awards a point if you show how the answer was arrived at, even if the answer itself is incorrect.

ViatorRose, I never knew that, thanks... Me feels better

No, I do that too. I could even see 2 and 2 as 2 and 7. I often confuse numbers.

Wow, that's great! When I sat an IQ test I wasn't allowed to work math problems out on paper, so I visualised me working out the math problem how I would on paper in my mind. Although, if I worked that frog problem out in my mind I'd have a massive headache.

Most people who think they are bad at math are actually just not taught Math properly.

Math is dominated by NT males of a particular personality/brain type. So they all teach Math in a particular way -- this is a sort of Math culture throughout the world as Math is dominated as an academic subject by a tradition that arose in Western Europe after the Renaissance. In that tradition -- which is is a spiritual and intellectual one embodied by the Age of Enlightenment -- mind is separate from body, a mind-body split introduced by DeCartes and his "I think therefore I am". The notion that mind exists separate and apart from the body -- that the having of a thought was the center of a thinking being's existential presence -- led to a strain of thought in Math and Philosophy that is pretty schizoid compared to Eastern Religions, which are more integrated in mind and body in everything from spiritualism to religion. What I'm getting at is that what is taught as mainstream lower Maths is actually a narrow but highly formulaic way of thinking about Math, that is only natural for those kinds of heavily frontal male neurotypicals who standardized the teaching of Math in western culture. In particular, people who can split mind from body (or so they think) and think in a heavily left-brained way free from interference from their somatic intellectual processes. Our tests are all based on this formulaic, narrow Math thought culture.

Anyone else -- women, autistics and people with atypical brain processes -- are then though of as "bad" at Math. The only people who are "good at Math" are those who can create and maintain an artificially schizoid split between mind and body and think in a vacuum. People who don't can't escape their senses and mind-body interactions, i.e. "somatic intellects" like women and autistics, are then said to be "bad at Math". In fact, many talented Aspergers and autistics have great Math talents, but the only ones who make it through the system are those who have some atypical Math savant flair that makes them a shoe-in and causes people to make way for them.

Most Aspergers would be as good at Math as they are in any other subject -- probably better. What you have to do is learn how to read Math in a way that makes sense to you. I.e. don't just go to lecture, but read the book yourself, go online, and then try to figure out what it means to you. How it makes sense and feels natural in your brain to think about that thing that you are working on. That helps take it out of the narrow formulaic system in which Math is taught (optimized for a particular type of NT brains). You have to understand the concept and ideas in the way that makes sense to you, first. Then learn how to translate what you understand into the rituals and language that the Math teachers are trying to drill so dogmatically. Just remember that what they are trying to drill into you is a narrow, schizoid way of thinking about Math.

I think it's ridiculous that Mathematicians describe Math as a "universal language" and speculate on how aliens from different lifeforms might do math. These are the same people who claim that women and 80 percent of the world "can't do Math". If people whose brains are almost identical to their own "can't do Math", what makes them speculate that any other creature int the universe can?

It's not you, it's the system. Everyone does Math, even animals. Most people just don't talk about it in the same way Mathematicians talk about it.

I am changing my college major because I can't pass the math requirements. My old degree required Triginometry, the new one only College Algebra

Oh, and Math teachers tend to be prejudiced, especially about women and people who think like autistics. They don't think they are prejudiced, but the kind of prejudice they practice is to approve of those who perform like the men -- the NT men -- so they embrace female and autistic Mathematicians who are able to think and work just like themselves. They then look down on women and autistics intellectually, who don't fit their view or speak about things the way they are trained to notice. So they like the women and autistics in Math who are like themselves, but women and autistics in Math who perform best when they are thinking like left-brained NT anti-somatic males are very few in number.

Yeppers...that's me. Anything beyond adding, subtracting, multiplying and basic division I can learn, but I have to use it on a regular basis to make it stick, constituting a VERY forimidable hurdle if I want to study infectious diseases.

That's why it's important to show all your working and how you arrived at your answer.
Lots of the marks are for showing clearly the correct steps for working out a problem.

Don't forget the units and state clearly if you've rounded numbers.

Draw diagrams too if it helps.
Annotate the geometry diagram that you're given (if you're permitted).

Showing your working helps you figure out the problem too.

I've always shown my working: I'm not a living calculator!

The only time when you can't show your working is during mental arithmetic batteries.

Mental arithmetic is something that most people could probably train for: it's a question of knowing the right "short-cut" techniques.


Sorry, but I've found that these little things have helped me get better marks in Maths.

Thanks for the tips!

I hate mental maths, I don't think I'll ever be able to do maths questions in less than 5 seconds, it's mad, how anyone can do it is beyond me!

I've never understood why math and logic are lumped together. I'm a very logical person, but anything to do with numbers throws me for a loop. It was only years after giving up on college that I realized that what little ability I had to do math depended on visualizatiion. I can't memorize numbers, rules, formulas, etc, so anything that depends on sequential operations is impossible for me.

I think this is because dyscalculia is comorbid with AS; the sterotype of being mathematical and Aspie/Autie relates to those who are non-dyscalculic

I have always been overwhelamingly rotten at math...and I didn't want to be...I really wanted to understand and be good at it....it just never worked out that way...

I am pretty sure I have dyscalculea.

Same here, except that I didn't always WANT to be any good at it

Logic is fundamental to doing proofs. If, then, contradictions, converses, negations, etc.

Three always means 3! If you said 10, it would make more sense. 10 can usually mean eight, ten, sixteen, or two. So what is the other kind of person?

I suck at math.