Are we ALL math whizzes?

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"I dislike math, mostly because I don't understand it."

This. ^
Maths was quite a cause for concern for me at school. I was briefly put into a "special class" for maths lessons in primary, but only spent about 3 weeks there before I was taken out to struggle on my own.

I improved a bit in college.

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I am not naturally inclined towards math for several reasons:

1. I'm crap at sequential thinking, rote memorization, and anything with too many *&$% rules (which is how math was taught to me).

2. I learn primarily through relationships and associations and, for some reason, math is the only subject which is isolated from all other subjects. It's only in upper-level science classes that they begin to try and "connect" mathematical concepts to anything else where it had hitherto been just numbers for the sake of numbers Recently, I've been reading books that explain the history, philosophy, and cultural implications of math and I'm beginning to understand it much better now that it's being explained PROPERLY.

3. Abusive teachers/parents. When I didn't pick up math as quickly as other subjects, I got screamed at. My father would throw my text book across the room, break my pencils, and holler at me for making "stupid mistakes." Teachers would force me to stand at the black board in front of the class until I "got it right." I shut down for many years. Since I was good at other subjects and soooo mature for my age, the only possible explanation was lazyiness.

4. I was sick with chronic bronchitis for most of my early childhood; therefore, I was barely even in class for much of elementary school, so I missed a lot of early instruction.

Thankfully, in my college classes, I've managed As and Bs for my algebra classes, mostly because the aforementioned problems are no longer extant.

Yeah, I love maths and am good at it. Particularly Mechanics. I can just kind of see the way the numbers fit... I'm also kind of obsessed with pi and prime numbers.

X-filesgeek,

Your experience sounds like mine. Teachers weren't so bad, but couldn't understand how such an intelligent (if strange) boy could not learn these things. Parents? AWFUL beyond belief.
I got to Geometry eventually in High School but dropped it after one semester. Had problems with depression at that time, didn't help. However, college placement tests, including the GRE had geometry questions on them, & I found them absurdly easy.
It took me an independent trip back to college after I had my BA before I could master college algebra. That is as high as my math skills got.

Sincerely,
Matthew

My maths is quite good but not excellent though.

The only time I ever enjoyed math was in College. Funny thing there is it's the only time I ever enjoyed English to. It was at that time I had a math teacher who showed us how to do the problems. But that time though it was to late I grew to hate math because most of my teachers wanted me to do it there way and I never understood there way.

They made it more confuessing to me then they should have. Even when I did start to understand it and figure things out on my own I was told not to do it my way. For me I liked history and reading because in both cases it ment I I could just read and did not have to hear someone tell me to do it there way.

I wish my teachers would have just let me do math my way when I figured things out and not there way I may have gotten to enjoy math a lot more then I did.

Part of the problem to is once I figured out the answer it came down to me having to write the problem out. Problem there is I suck ar writing which is why I also did not enjoy English. Again there it took until I was in College and I had any English teacher that told the whole class that the English book was a waste of time and did not really teach you anything about you're own mistakes. Same went with my math classes.

I excelled in the mathematical/arithmetics part of WAIS, but as far as math grades go, I'm a B to B+-student.

As we know, all Aspies are math whizzes, great in bed, and our flatulence smells like Irish Spring.

Everyone is different, Aspie or not. Though as far as stereotypes go, being thought of as a math whiz isn't a bad one.

I REALLY REALLY HATE MATHS and definitely prefer other subjects. When I was pretty new to the world of Aspergers a lot of the books I read about it mentioned maths geniuses. I despaired because I thought I was even weirder than I already was! Thankfully I have since found that having AS is not a free ticket to an amazing maths skill.

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I hate math and like English.