How can someone with AS be good at math/spatial issues?

Post Reply New Topic

Note: if a mod wants to put this in a different forum, I'm okay with it. I didn't know where to put this.

I've been wondering this for awhile and given that in last night's Parenthood (the tv show), Aspy child Max was revealed to be, as just about every autistic person in fiction ultimately is, a savant at math and science! Big surprise! I know Aspies with exceptional math/science skills DO EXIST, but I also know there are many who, like me, are terrible at these things. Now.....my question isn't why the media portrays us this way....the media is prone to stereotypes. I get that (though I am curious where these stereotypes come from...perhaps because the famous autistic people are always good at those things?). So here's my real question...

How can someone with Aspergers be good at math and/or technical things? I really don't understand it. First, let me describe my situation. I'm almost 28 and was only diagnosed with AS less than a year ago, BUT I was diagnosed with non-verbal learning disability (NVLD) as a child of ten or so. Back then, AS diagnoses simply weren't given. From the research I've done, most people with AS have NVLD, which makes mathematics difficult and leads to deficiencies in visual-spatial skills, AS WELL AS NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS. Even if an Aspy doesn't have NVLD, wouldn't the difficulty that virtually all Aspies have with non-verbal communication also make it difficult for them to learn math and science? These subjects, after all, involve a great deal of non-verbal learning. The person who can't read facial cues and body language will likely also have difficulty learning geometry or engineering because those are subjects that can't be taught purely in a verbal manner.

Sorry for the length. I know people are going to say "no two people with AS are alike" and THAT'S FINE, but I honestly don't understand how any Aspy could be good (much less a savant) at these things and I've laid out my reasons above, so please respond specifically to those.

We work hard to overcome difficulties. That's how.

I would guess that not everyone who has AS also has problems with math and visual-spatial skills, and that a difficulty with non-verbal communication does not imply difficulties with everything that would fall under NLD.

I guess I don't understand why anyone would expect everyone else to be just the same?

I am very good with numbers--I can adjust stuff using numerical readouts, which I understand is very unusual. I also work pretty well with pictures, which allows me to put stuff together, as well as understand geometry. I did enough math well enough to get me into the University's Math Honor society--one of the few engineering students to do so.

I sometimes am REALLY good at math and sometime brain dead. Savants tend towards very narrow areas of extreme competence. A math savant may be extraordinarily gifted in one form of mathematics and be unable to generalize that ability into other areas.

I think quasi-spatially, but I have a terrible time attaching the symbolic representations of formal mathematics to those thoughts.

It's a mixed bag. I suspect this variability is quite common among those on the spectrum.

There is a big difference between learning maths and knowing what someone is trying to say when they cross their arms in front of you for example. Personally I find it easier to solve the maths. I was very good at knowing the answers to maths equations without actually physically working them out back in the days when I did maths a lot (ie could look at an equation and know the answer straight away), yet never have I been able to actually figure what someone is trying to say when they cross their arms in front of me.

However, I am neurotypical as far as I know. But still the maths was far easier to learn than reading people lol

I guess I wasn't thinking of math so much as I was engineering or other technical fields. I can't for the life of me think how someone with AS would be good at that except for the fact that you're not around people

Technical manuals are written in English, I read them and remember them. My boss will ask me what the correct dip switch settings are on a circuit board that we haven't used in years and I can tell him. I'm a telecommunications transmission technician, the same position was called a field engineer at a previous company. There is some math involved and I'm the first to admit that I suck at math. I overcome that with experience, my ballpark figures with estimated measurements (based on previous cases where I did do the math) are close enough to an engineers precise measurements plugged into formulas that it doesn't even matter, this is particularly true when it comes to loss over distance for optical circuits. But when I look at circuits (a customer may get a t-1 from one place to another for example) I know I don't look at them in the same way as my co-workers. I look at them in a very narrow linear way, step by step, and I often pencil diagrams to real-world "visualize" the bigger picture as I'm troubleshooting a circuit with a problem. I'm a very good troubleshooter, the problems are almost always in the details that somebody else glossed over and that I can't gloss over because I always go through the details. It helps me to visualize equipment later when I can look at it in person and touch it (I feel every groove) and play with it a little. Stuff gets anthropomorphized a lot, "this guy (router) and this guy (digital cross-connect system) never seem to play nice together without the settings just so down in the nitty-gritty." "It doesn't like it when you try to change synchronization sources without going to free-running first!"

I tested average for visual-spacial skills during my diagnosis testing overall, but it wasn't a straight average across that testing. I scored very low on some tests and freakishly good on a couple. I wonder if my father forcing me to play sports growing up had anything to do with it. I had a lot of trouble fielding fly balls, but I was a good hitter. I couldn't dribble very well in basketball but I developed a pretty good outside shot. I was no good at catching or carrying a ball, but I was never fooled by ball-carrier's juking, I always went straight for him no matter what. One guy got really pissed off until the coach told him "Look, you can't fool a dumb lineman." I didn't much like that comment. Football was my best sport, I was big, strong and fast. I wasn't very coordinated, but I didn't need to be with what they had me doing.

That being said I probably would be better off with something more verbal, but most of those jobs require social skills.

Some people have stronger talents for that sort of thing. Autistic spectrum disorders are characterized by an uneven skill scatter with certain deficits being typical. Beyond that, many things are possible.

My thinking is fairly visual, and I can picture walking through just about any building I've been in and even imagine buildings for the sake of fiction or whatever. I can't imagine what it's like to not be able to work with visual-spatial things in my head, but I do not find it hard to imagine that other people have trouble with this same task.

Deficiency in math/technical capabilities is not a diagnostic criterion of AS.

To the contrary-
it seems that those who excel in highly-technical fields often have Aspergian traits.

I've always wondered how anyone could be good at math, regardless of their neurological condition. It seemed supernatural the way others could zip through complex math problems in their heads, while I was barely able to count things out on my fingers. I knew I was learning disabled in that area and they weren't, but it was still difficult to understand.

I SUCK at math but I have pretty well development visual/spatial ability. Considering I'm a girl, that struggles with math, my visual/spatial ability was largely ignored - people just didn't believe it was there becasue that is the stereotype.

If the Aspie brain is wired differently, it seems as if the specifics can get wired differently too. just because the right brain is dominant doesn't necessarily mean EVERY aspect of the right brain is 'super wired'. Maybe it's a case of the wiring intended for the non verbal communication skills were rerouted and double wired the math centers...

I work in high-tech now going on 25 years and majored in Math in college. I was never good at Math naturally but I do LOVE it. Same with Computer Programming. Neither of these things are my "strentgh" areas but, like anything else, they are areas that can be sytematically imrpoved. They both allow me to get completely absorbed in the details and I lose track of time and space in doing so. IMHO that is essence of life so I spend as much time as possible in this space.

I have superb spatial abilities as well-
I can back up a car/truck like nobody's business.
My dad, whom I take after and highly-suspect is the "source" of my Aspergers tendencies,
is the same way.
He's the only person whom I truly trust while driving, besides myself.

I'm really good at math, too, though it takes a while to translate it into principles I can understand.

I'm quite good with mathematics, actually. Then again, I'm not officially diagnosed, but the description fits me well enough for me to be certain about it.

Ironically, calculating the stresses on a architectural truss or creating a database query is far more constrained and less complex than a conversation around a lunch table with ten people. Maybe some Aspies do well simply because the scope of technical problems can be clearly defined. There are specific rules that are consistently followed.