Do boys with ASD really excel at math?

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BookwormSophie
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18 Apr 2015, 7:57 pm

Academically I struggle a lot. Maybe it's my Asperger's or maybe it's my ADHD. The point is, academics are not my strong point. But in movies and TV shows (which only ever represent men with autism,) boys with autism/asperger's seem to be academic geniuses. Is this a stereotype or is it generally true? I asked my mom about it and she said it is only true for boys, not girls. But she's hardly an expert on the subject.



will@rd
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18 Apr 2015, 8:07 pm

I almost didn't graduate with my High School class because my math skills are so bad. Flunked, Algebra, flunked Geometry, passed Business Math (how to balance your checkbook) by the skin of my teeth to get the math credit I had to have to graduate.

The rest of my grades were Bs and Cs at best, because I read so far above my grade level that what the class was doing was old news to me and I found it too boring to pay attention to. I always had a book in my hand and studied like mad - the things that interested me. The things the school system wanted me to learn were just too tedious and mundane to stay focused on.

Like a lot of Aspergians I can sound very smart when I'm talking about something that interests me, because I know a lot about those subjects. On things that don't captivate my attention, I'm as ignorant as the next person, but I don't talk about those things because I don't care.

There is the occasional AS math savant, but it's largely a fictional stereotype, just like Dustin Hoffman counting cards and toothpicks in Rainman.


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CWA
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18 Apr 2015, 9:48 pm

It just depends on the type of brain you have and how it works. I struggled with math in school. My daughter is a math genius. Both aspies, just different kinds of wiring.



DailyPoutine1
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18 Apr 2015, 9:51 pm

Well, I'm not the best but my way of "learning" maths formulas is kindof weird. i have to copy 2 or 3 of the same one in different situations and analyze them and link each segments of it like a puzzle, then I can do it super easily in almost no time by rushing my mind out of itself if I get to understand it



nick007
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19 Apr 2015, 1:34 am

I really struggled in math & in lots of courses in school but I have dyslexia & ADD on top of my Aspergers.


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EzraS
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19 Apr 2015, 1:38 am

Not this boy. But then again I have been diagnosed with having dyscalculia



Kiriae
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19 Apr 2015, 6:46 am

<- ASD girl with excellent math skills.

I tend to mistake "+" and "-" when copying equations and do stupid errors such as "6+7=15"(attention related) which I have to fix later because I realize something is off with my answer.
But I never had any problems with math other than that. Straight A. I intuitively understand the methods of math problem solving. Math was my special interest since I was 3 year old.



MrBear
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19 Apr 2015, 6:30 pm

I am a male and absolutely loathe math. I am great at arithmetic but am not so great beyond that. I can fathom abstract concepts in other disciplines but not numbers.



NobodyKnows
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19 Apr 2015, 7:55 pm

I was a mix: painfully slow and error prone when solving problems, but quick at turning a worldly problem into an equation.



Rocket123
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19 Apr 2015, 8:21 pm

I have no idea about others, but math was easily my best subject. I actually enjoyed doing math homework problems (probably, because I used to do my math homework while watching TV).

Unlike most kids, I used a pen (not a pencil) when doing math homework and taking math tests (partly because I hated the mess that erasers made and partly because I seldom made math errors).



gaz34
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19 Apr 2015, 9:48 pm

I wish I was better at Maths so I could learn to do graphic programming for games but I suck.



r2d2
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19 Apr 2015, 11:57 pm

I was terrible at math - It was in Social Studies that I was the little professor.


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halleluhwah
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20 Apr 2015, 12:17 am

I'm ok at math (750 SAT), but i find it really boring. In grade school, I was always much better in the literature and social studies classes. Unsurprisingly, philosophy became my major, and the humanities is a big special interest of mine.

math is kind of annoying because it usually has to be applied to something and it just doesn't matter that much. philosophy's supposed to be an end in itself (the telos of human existence, and of reality as a whole according to some thinkers). I'd rather work out the meaning of life than play with a bunch of arbitrary abstractions.

but then, i can see what's sort of romantic about it, because it pops up everywhere, and you get all the patterns, and the dopamine rush that comes with solving one problem after another. There's also something kind of fun about writing proofs, I guess, because there's a combination of creativity and rigidity that I can appreciate, even if it's not really my thing. It's like mad libs or something.

I do kind of hate upper-division math also, because they expect you to use certain ideas that they don't adequately explain until three courses later. like, they'll tell you how to use it, but not what it means, and after a while, it starts to feel like you're just following a bunch of rules that make no sense, or applying a bunch of forms with no content or something. then it just starts to feel like a mess



Last edited by halleluhwah on 20 Apr 2015, 12:36 am, edited 2 times in total.

AbleBaker
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20 Apr 2015, 12:23 am

MrBear wrote:
I am a male and absolutely loathe math. I am great at arithmetic but am not so great beyond that. I can fathom abstract concepts in other disciplines but not numbers.

Yes, I was very good at arithmetic but when it came to the real mathematics I was completely lost.



BookwormSophie
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20 Apr 2015, 1:10 pm

Kiriae wrote:
<- ASD girl with excellent math skills.

I tend to mistake "+" and "-" when copying equations and do stupid errors such as "6+7=15"(attention related) which I have to fix later because I realize something is off with my answer.
But I never had any problems with math other than that. Straight A. I intuitively understand the methods of math problem solving. Math was my special interest since I was 3 year old.


So jealous. I still count with my fingers :/



LupaLuna
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20 Apr 2015, 1:22 pm

I managed to have excellent math skills. but even in spite of being good at algebra and calculus. there is one big thing always plagues me in math, and that knowing when your counting numbers. do you start at 0 or 1. for example, when looking at the size of a data bus that's 8 bits wide. they number the data bits 0 thru 7 and not 1 thru 8.