The dyscalculia thread.

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I don't know if I have dyscalculia, I have heard that it's typical for those who do to mix up the symbols for plus, minus, multiply and divide, but I have never had a problem with that. I've also heard they fail simple maths but can be good at some forms of advanced maths. It's the opposite for me. I can do simple arithmetic, it's the advanced stuff (above 5th-6th grade level, starting from fractions and onward, although I can do fractions I am allowed to make them into decimal point numbers) that I don't understand.

I'm also lousy to remember formulas. I have trouble remembering them from one to the next, to say nothing of from the last time we did those problems. I might be able to do a problem if I can use the formula slavically but I don't understand what I'm doing, and I can't turn the formula around unless I can slavically use it like U= R*I.

I was behind in elementary school, and I nearly flunked in junior high, but I was given a passing grade for my effort. It certainly wasn't due to my math level!
I never stood a chance to make it through high school. My understanding of maths, chemistry and physics is way too poor.

For everyone here: http://www.wolframalpha.com/.

Type in question or equation and it gives you either the answer and a ton of extra information... or you need to play around a bit.

And hurray, more mathematically challenged people

My brain seems to freeze, like a computer, whenever I try to do maths that goes beyond a total of 4 digits. I get stuck in a loop that I can't break out of.

So I use the internet I know i cant do maths and i cant learn it(tried SO BLOODY HARD!), so I use other tools.

This is a common point that I tend to come across when overhearing or stumbling upon discussions on common core maths, that students understand the how but not the why and what exactly they are actually doing by applying a certain formula.

I remember opening up my GCSE maths paper for the first time, and there were so many formulas and terms which just didn’t make any sense, it felt like I was staring at a foreign alien language. A part of me was almost tempted to raise my hand and ask “Excuse me, but is this Klingon?”





Welcome to the club, we'd offer you a T-shirt but we only take card payments because we don't want to work out any potential change.

I hated physics with a passion. All those formulas, a condescending teacher, and questions I just didn’t care about. On the plus side, I did get to show up my teacher one time and that was satisfying.

A friend of mine once jokingly called me a “high-functioning version of Joey Essex” because some of the mistakes I made in maths were not too dissimilar to ones which Joey Essex famously made.

I promptly told my friend to never compare me to Joey Essex ever again.

Although, there is a theory that Joey Essex is actually quite smart (or at least smarter than he lets on) and he just puts on an act for entertainment value because he realises that acting like a dumb reality star sells...

Personally, I think there could be some weight to this theory, there are times where he seems to break character and shows skills which seem to contradict how he typically acts. Hmm...



I was also behind academically in Primary school, I remember on the last day of year six our class was given work sheets to fill out, and I was the only one to receive a sheet which was intended for receptions (four to five-year olds). At the time I was ten years old.

Mental maths tests used to fill me with a sense of dread because they didn’t even allow us to write workings-out, we had to rely solely on figuring out the answer in our minds. This was to encourage route memorisation, but I struggled with remembering numerical/mathematical information which was frustrating considering the fact that in general I have quite a good memory.

It was almost as if I had hit a mental wall and couldn’t figure out a way to get over that obstacle. So, as an attempt to get my mark up on these tests I would secretly write notes and workings out on my right hand (I’m left-handed) which I hid under the desk, pretending to rest my hand on my leg, that way I could figure out more answers. Whenever the teachers weren’t looking I’d write on that hand and slightly glance at it every so often, making sure not to look too often in case it drew suspicion.

By doing this I managed to get my score up slightly, but not by much. The main danger of using this method was the possibility of getting caught, I always made sure that I wiped off any pen just before our test ended.

Thankfully, I was never found out and managed to get away with it.

I mainly did this because a part of me knew that without doing so my score would be worse and I disliked reading out what my typical score was, but if I just gave a fake score to the class then when my teachers saw what my actual score was then they might expose me or ask me uncomfortable questions, so I just found it easier to secretly write workings out because I didn’t want to risk those possibilities. Although at times even when I used notes I ended up with an embarrassing score that a few people laughed at.

Overtime, I got quite used to using certain techniques as an attempt to hide the fact that I was struggling because I worried about being made fun of. After a while it became second-nature, but as I got older it became harder to hide.

My teachers tried a variety of techniques to teach me maths, they even tried a multi-sensory approach. I used to get number-bond cards to bring home and practice with, the idea being that they would help me improve my overall number sense.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any extra time or help in my SATs because my Primary school judged that on the basis of a issuing a rather basic general intelligence test, which apparently I scored above average on (not sure how I managed that ) so therefore I didn’t qualify.

Sometimes my maths teachers would get confused, because there were times where I actually scored higher in areas which were deemed to be more difficult. Granted, I didn’t do much better because I still scored an overall failing grade on both.

My mum brought up the possibility of dyscalculia to my maths teacher during a parents evening meeting, and my teacher disagreed. She shook her head, pointing out the fact that I had been doing surprisingly well on attempting some of the higher tier work.

“Now, I’m not saying she’s a maths genius or anything, but recently your daughter has been making considerable progress with some of the higher tier work, so personally I would disagree with the prospect of her having dyscalculia” she replied.

Interestingly, the teacher in question did later bring up the fact that I have difficulty with basic arithmetic yet seemed to be under the misinformed impression that the fact that I was scoring well on the more logic-based questions which went beyond simple maths somehow disqualified me from the possibility of having dyscalculia.

My tendency to mix up symbols and write numbers in the wrong order wasn’t considered that out of the ordinary because a fair few people in my maths set did the exact same.

When I started College however, it was brought up and my maths revision tutor called me out on this in front of the class and called me careless. She questioned if I was really trying and told me to pay more attention to the board.

During a visit to an exam officer, a woman suggested that I had maths anxiety and that just lacked confidence because according to her it didn’t make any sense for me to read numbers the wrong way around if I wasn’t also having that issue with letters.

Although I do find that I sometimes when I’m sleep-deprived I can have a higher tendency to read words and sentences incorrectly.

I remember one time when I was really tired and I came across a poster that said “Planet Earth is blue” but initially I read it as “Piggy blue Earth”. Generally, though, I’m alright with words.

I'm wondering if "maths anxiety" could be the issue.

But then, I also sense something neurological going on, at least somewhat akin to dyslexia.

^^^^^It is also likely that the maths anxiety stems from the extreme difficulties with math and past experiences.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you there, Stampy. I've done tests in the past which have shown that I score within the 1st percentile on visual processing, which means that 99% of people who took that same test did better than me. This is partly why I think something neurological might be going on.

An exam officer got me to read two sheets of paper, one with letters on and another with numbers. Then I had to do a different test where I put crosses across circles on a page, as quickly as I could but also as accurately as I could so that the lines for the crosses met in the middle of each circle.

Later when she gave me feedback, she said that I was slower than most to read out both the letters and the numbers. Which is interesting considering that I am quite a fast reader when reading in my head, and I don't believe that I'm that slow when reading out loud, but the tests suggested that my brain seems to take longer to process and make sense of visual information than most.

I've struggled with maths from quite a young age, so understandably I can get a bit anxious when it comes to solving maths questions. Sometimes that anxiety can turn into frustration. It took me considerably longer to understand certain concepts such as time than it did for the other kids around me, and as a result I was sometimes teased for it.

Even in year 7 I had a bit of difficulty with time, and I remember asking a receptionist for the time and she told me that there was a clock behind me so I could just look and see. I stood there awkwardly for a while, trying to figure it out and she glanced at me looking puzzled until she finally asked "Are you not used to that style of clock?", I gave a murmured response and she explained it to me and told me what the time was.

I always felt embarrassed in those situations, because I knew that it was expected of me to know those things at that age, but I had fallen so behind on my maths and couldn't seem to bring myself to remember that type of information, it was almost as if my brain was trying to sabotage me. That's how it felt, anyway. I found myself getting in awkward conversations, because sometimes I would have to call home and we weren't supposed to use our phones so I'd have to go to the office and ask to use the phone and then I'd have to try and remember the phone number.

Sometimes I'd ask them to look it up on the system, but they told me that I should know it. Yet, I had tried to learn it before but I always seemed to forget somehow. That's why I found it impressive when people could remember a bunch of different phone numbers on the top of their head, whilst I couldn't seem to remember any.

Interestingly, I was tested on my ability to remember numbers and I actually scored quite well.

How can this be? You may wonder. I think it's because the test involved me listening to an audio tape and repeating the numbers a few minutes later. People tended to ask "How can you not remember your home number? You've probably written it down loads".

Whilst that's true, I don't tend to learn it that way. My brain doesn't remember a number sequence by writing it down multiple times, but it will learn it if I repeat it out loud to myself.

If someone says a number out loud and expects me to remember it later on in the day, I am more likely to remember it then if they handed me a piece of paper, got me to write it down several times, and then later asked what it was.

Personally, I think that it is likely that my ability to process and remember auditory information is much stronger than my ability to make sense of visual information. I consistently impress people by my ability to know many different songs word by word.

One time, during an art exam I got up unexpectedly because at first I thought the clock said 1:15 (which was the time the exam ended), but then I realised that didn't make any sense because it was an analog clock and the 1 and the 12 seemed to have switched around, so the 1 was at the top and the 12 was below it. I looked again and the 12 was back at the top, 12:15. I sat back down and wondered if I was losing my mind.

I was diagnosed with "math disability" (which I think is the same thing) as an adult and trying to get my GED. I had all the symptoms as a child but they were just passed over as being "lazy" and "unmotivated" or "not applying myself" because apparently being good at one thing automatically makes you good at everything else too. I also come from a really conservative family that truly believes learning disabilities are just an excuse made up by the government so people can get away with being "lazy".

Tried the Panamath test, scored rather low... below 10th percentile on both accuracy and response time. Am not surprised, I've known for a while that my visual processing skills are rather slow.

Informational video about info graphic design I watched in class: "Try to figure out how many 7's there are in this set of numbers. *pause* Struggling? How about now? *makes the 7's slightly larger and they shake side to side slightly* Drawing attention to the 7's makes them stand out more, so now you can do the task with ease.

Me (internally): I mean, I'm still finding it difficult but I think I counted eight there and I-

*Video moves on*

Me: Guess I'll just go with eight then. It's a good thing I'm not being tested on this.

I got to pre-algebra before the sh*t hit the fan. I have definitely forgotten anything beyond basic addition and subtraction. I never could do word problems of any type.

Same here.

I have numeric dyslexia. It's especially bad when I come across two figures like this: 13.4 / 31.4 (or something like that). I also confuse +/- and almost flunked a major assignment because I'd left out one minus sign. I suck at business because all the numbers you have to look at on the spreadsheet overwhelm me.

It doesn't matter to me that I'm not a maths brain. What I don't like is how society seems to value maths brains over language brains. A person who can barely talk or write but has great numeric intelligence can become a billionaire. An excellent speller with crappy maths skills? Yeah, good luck building a house out of your used books...

Agreed! And when I hear those nerds whining about how they're not popular like jocks, I see red. I don't care about that nonsense, but I'd love to have a natural skill that'd earn me cash.

I fully suspect this is why Microsoft was born.