Is the stereotype that people with AS are amazing at math...

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Diamorphine
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12 Aug 2011, 8:49 am

true? (ran out of space)

I have AS but I've always sucked at math. I can do basic math (addition, subtraction, etc) with no problem, but when it came to high school level algebra, I didn't get it at all. No matter how many times it was explained to me I never got it. The only reason I managed to pass algebra 1 and 2 in high school was because the teachers felt so bad for me they bumped my grade up from an F to a D.

I was always great with everything else, but I just can't figure out math.



SadAspy
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12 Aug 2011, 8:53 am

I'm bad at it too, but I was diagnosed with non-verbal learning disability as a child (long before I was diagnosed with AS).



y-pod
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12 Aug 2011, 8:53 am

I'm pretty good at math, but I was better at other subjects. So for me it's not true. One of my sons loves math and is good at it, the other one can hardly keep up. It's probably not exactly related to ASD.


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12 Aug 2011, 9:12 am

I can only do basic math... only some of the time... guess I break that stereotype 8)


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ScientistOfSound
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12 Aug 2011, 9:28 am

I'm terrible at math.
I'm extremely good at music and writing/english however.



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12 Aug 2011, 9:34 am

It's one of those issues that only seems that way, possibly because of a few relatively famous examples of mechanistic savants and that stupid "Rainman" movie. I've always been good at math, but I really didn't understand algebra and trig until I was 17.

It's one thing to go through the mechanics and get the correct answer, it's quite another to understand why the answer is correct.


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Gedrene
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12 Aug 2011, 9:35 am

No, it isn't. It's neutral.



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12 Aug 2011, 9:49 am

I have got my own "theory" with that since lately.
I am a visual thinker and like concepts to be, well, visualized... - I take anything tangible, graphs, 3 D models, experiments.
Once things become 'abstract' (not less real, just abstract, :D), I am lost, don't give me the 4th Dimension and space-time, I will have nightmares trying to figure it out.
The best example for how "good" at maths I was is this:
In grammar school we were taking a maths test and we were asked to write down one of the bog standard formulas and explain it.
Well, I had forgotten the darned formula, but could remember everything else about it and wrote it down in my descriptive visual way. I described a mathematical formula with a page of text by remembering what I had understood of its function during class.
My maths teacher said he had never seen anything like it and gave me 50% of the marks for it, :lol: .
He was also the one that bumped into me a year after we left school at the train station and asked whether I was studying maths now - being the stupid literal ass I am, I stuttered that I wasn't and he must have forgotten how horrible I used to be at maths, He just cracked up and said, no, he hadn't ...



StevieC
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12 Aug 2011, 9:54 am

without blowing my own horn, i am good at math to do with calculating interest or area etc - or working with voltages/impedance/inductance etc. however, math to do with finding x on a graph using f(x)= some pointless crap etc... my brain just goes: "WTF?!?"

the stereotype is probably as true as the one that says Asians are good at math... it's just a stereotype...


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pollyfinite
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12 Aug 2011, 10:01 am

I loved math, did best in math than other subjects.


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TPE2
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12 Aug 2011, 10:01 am

I read somewhere that, in average, aspies are worse at math than the general population.

What probably happens is that, if an aspie is good at math (or probably in anything), he will be very good; and, because being very good at maths or hard sciences is more visible than in soft sciences / humanities, an aspie genius will be more easy to recognize in that areas.



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12 Aug 2011, 10:25 am

I was very good at math when I was interested in it. Now I'm not and I've forgotten nearly everything. Also, I've developed some sort of math phobia so I panic if I have to do math. Sure, when I was at school and interested in math I still panicked during exams (my mind would go blank, forgetting things I normally remembered perfectly well + I cried hysterically) and so did worse in them than I did otherwise, but that was entirely exam-related...now I avoid any math...which sucks because it's probably making me dumber.



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12 Aug 2011, 10:30 am

I've never heard that stereotype. I've heard "Aspies are either very good at math or writing but not the other".

Both are stereotypes. They're true for some people not for others.

Personally, I want a PhD in math, have a bachelor's degree in math, but was considered one of the strongest writers at my [engineering] college. However, I cannot write fiction at all. I love to read fiction, but can't create stories.



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12 Aug 2011, 10:33 am

Math was always my worst subject in school.


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12 Aug 2011, 11:18 am

I am terrible at math...I was ok at it until 5th grade but anything beyond that I really do not understand, its nothing to do with not spending enough time on it or not paying attention I really don't get it. But yeah this was never recognized so I might have to talk to the disability department at the college and see if there is any way around math if they can determine I am not going to learn it.

I feel like my brain+math=incompatable.



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12 Aug 2011, 12:13 pm

I was, and always will be, poor at maths. I was in the lowest maths set at high school, and I was so bad at maths that I had to be singled out and taught one-to-one by a special needs assistant. I had to miss other lessons because of it.

But saying that, I've never been very good in any other lessons either. I was only put in the higher set for English because I was good at spelling (I remembering knowing how to spell ''argue'' at the age of 6, which is a hard word for a 6-year-old). Funny, I knew how to spell before the other kids, yet I was quite delayed in reading :? .

The story of my life seems to be that I enjoy things but still aren't good at them. Ever since I was 4 I really loved swimming, and it was my favourite session in school, and I always went with my family too. But I could never swim. I first lifted my feet off the ground and swam when I was about 11, but even from then I've never been a stronger swimmer, whereas most other people who I know have learnt to swim at as young as 2 or 3 years old.

I'm a strange one. :cry:


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