Possible Dyscalculia

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I suppose that I can put this post here; I think that this post is at least a bit relevant to Asperger's.

Anyway, I am a mathematician -- specifically, I am a type theorist, but I used to be a set theorist, and I have a bit of a history with mathematical analysis. As one might expect, I also have Asperger's.

I have always struggled with arithmetic; as an example, after being held after school pretty much every day, I was never actually able to do long division. I understand the idea just fine, but doing the work seems to be all but impossible for me.
Similarly, I cannot do even basic mental arithmetic. I regularly screw up simple addition problems.
Also, when we had dance stuff in the physical education classes in grade school, I could never learn the steps, but I am pretty clumsy, anyway.
When I count things, I make errors if I do not completely focus on counting.
I recently tried to use a pen and paper to compute a pretty simple derivative, but I kept misreading my own handwriting, transposing things, and being annoyed by the "d/dx" notation*.

These things might seem familiar to anyone who is aware of dyscalculia.

I think that I might have dyscalculia, but some of the descriptions induce a bit of doubt in me.
As a specific example, "mathematics dyslexia" does not seem to fit my situation. As a type theorist, I think about pretty much everything in type-theoretical terms. When I was a set theorist, I thought about pretty much everything in set-theoretical terms. Clearly, I am at least somewhat competent with mathematics. Replacing "mathematics" with "arithmetic" in the descriptions of the symptoms yields a pretty good description of my history with this sort of problem, though.

Does anyone think that an evaluation would be worthwhile?
Can I rule out dyscalculia?
Does anyone have any other thoughts on this situation?

*Single-order differentiation is a function from the unary operations on reals to the functions from reals to the disjoint union of the unit type and the reals, damn it!

It's definitely worth looking at.

Grandin talks of 'pattern thinkers', 'picture thinkers' etc. and how she as an autistic person can have extreme difficulty handling information presented in a way her brain isn't wired for.

I can identify. As a tech geek, if you give me an algorithm presented as a big block of code in text, I can visually scan it and work out what it does, often within minutes. But if you give it to me as an architecture diagram, I simply can't process it; it's overwhelming.

Oh, I have otherthoughts. I like how you put that.

As a project for fun, or maybe for spite, or both, I have been looking at my local school system against my state (Virginia) and the US in five different time periods: 1972, 1980, 1992, 2004, and 2023. The specific time periods are just because I found good social data on these time periods so it was convenient.

One of the things I have been looking at were IEPs. Who gets them and why.

At my kid's elementary school, 26% have an IEP for dyslexia, dyscalculia, or dyspraxia. 4% of Virginia students have an IEP for those things. Children of color are twice as likely to have an IEP for one of these things as white children, which does not sound natural to me. Culturally, children of color should be less likely to have IEPs of this nature. I think diagnoses for these rare disorders are being given out carelessly.

You may have dyscalculia. But I think this issue has already been swollen out of proportion to the point where it has no functional meaning. Personal interest would be the only reason to see if you really have dyscalculia, and probably your own research would be more accurate than a "professional" diagnosis at this point. If you are a mathematician you will not be taken seriously. Why would you do a thing that is hard? (sarcasm)

Actually, I would like to go through the Horrible Pain of getting a PhD, and a diagnosis might facilitate getting accommodations.



As a mathematician, I am bound by solemn obligation to be kind of a clown, anyway.



"I must do what I must do, and I do, though I know better."

I probably should have written "single-variable" or "monovariate" instead of "single-order".

I will have a talk with my physician. Ideally, the talk will occur sometime soon.



I saw a relevant TED talk. I remember that a lot of the stuff made may say "ehhhhh...", but I think that this idea has merit.

Also, I appreciate your anecdote, even if I start swearing a bit when I see large blocks of source code.
Granted, I do like Haskell and Agda.

Welcome to the possible Dyscalculia club!



It's a cool club I promise.

Although I was definitely not expecting this thread to start with "I am a mathematician". I can't relate to that part.

Personally, for me, mathematical dyslexia or numerical dyslexia fits quite well. I have issues what you'd expect of dyslexia (struggling with left and right, accidentally skipping lines, numbers switching around) but I am average at spelling and I mix up the order of numbers significantly way more often than words (words only happen when I'm really tired, not concentrating or sleep deprived to the point of hallucinations).

I've given up on getting a diagnosis. Growing up it was always "you're faking it for attention!", "it's just maths anxiety" or "you don't seem like the type to have a learning disability" or my least favourite "but you're good at other (unrelated) things so clearly you don't have it".

I did not expect to see a mathematician writing about discalculia either. But I share something in common with you - I never learned long division either. I was supposed to learn it in Year 6, when I was 11. But I never got past the first step.

Later, when I went to college, I was supposed to learn quadratic equations. So I did in a funny way, knowing the answer while not doing any of the working out. To pass, I had to do the working out. So I quit.

Arithmetic is difficult, imo. Your brand of mathematics sounds difficult, too.

Thank you.





How would you define or otherwise characterize mathematics? Are you thinking of high-school stuff?

High school maths is all I got up to. I can't fathom your type of maths, I've never seen it or done it.