I feel like I'm wasting my time. (dyscalculia)

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There have been times where I have been unable to get to a clock, or my problems with time have been unrelated. For instance, one time at school I accidentally did two PE sessions when I wasn't meant to.

You see, I was in English and I went to PE because I thought the lesson was over since I heard the bell, so I went to PE and was told my class wasn't there, so a teacher let me join their class.

I found out later the reason my class wasn't there was because I was meant to be in English and the bell was the late bell, not the end of lesson bell, and I should have figured that out by looking at the clock but my brain was just in auto drive so I didn't think properly.

There have also been times where I have messed up on telling the time correctly.

I was under the impression that most people had a better understanding of time than that, since the majority of the people around me can tell up to an hour or so without a watch, but then again I might just be hanging around math geniuses or something.

[quote= "naturalplastic"] They call it dyscalculia because it stops you from calculating. So how are you at actual arithmetic?

How are you at doing math in your head?

Do you have trouble figuring out what the price of one thing is if its "three for two dollars"?[/quote]

I cannot do mental maths. I have to write it down, otherwise I forget where I was in the equation, and what I was doing. Often I end up with a completely wrong answer. My basic arithmetic skills are lacking, I often make silly mistakes.

I would only be able to work out the price if I drew a picture of the items and wrote down calculations, I could not do it on the top of my head, at least probably not without making some mistakes.

[/quote="naturalplastic"] I know a guy who is both dyslexic and has dyscalclia. When he talks about childhood memories he has to stop and ask me "how old are you when your in the forth grade (or whatever grade in school he is talking about)?".

Do you have trouble with things like figuring out how old you were when you are at a particular grade in school? Or making change with money? Or with knowing how many hours it takes to drive 600 miles at fifty mph?[/quote]

Yes, I tend to ask how old I was at certain times. I often remember what was said, what I saw and how it felt, but place names, people names and when the event occurred can be slightly blurry in my mind at times.

Yeah, I can mess up in change, and usually prefer it if others work that out.

Speed times distance equals time, correct? So 50 times 600, hmm, 5 times 60 equals 12, add on another zero for 600, 120, then possibly another for 50, so 1200. But 1200 hours doesn't seem right so maybe if I converted that to minutes.

1200*60= well 12 times 6 would be 72, so 72000 or 7200?

Nope no idea what to do at this point.

72 hours? Nope that doesn't seem right. Dammit.

So the calculator tells me 7200/60= 120.
So maybe 120? No damn that's higher. 120/60= 2.

Is the answer two hours?

Yep.

Even in my lay opinion you have obviously have dyscalculia.


FIY: if the journey is 600 miles, and you are going fifty miles per hour then...well that would be 100 miles every two hours. So it would be six sets of two hours. So it would 12 hours total. That's probably how I would solve it in my head.
Like most adults I just think about it without thinking about how to think about it. But if I were teaching children I would say that it would "distance divided by speed". 600 miles divided by 50 mph.

Admittedly that wasn't the response I was expecting, I thought you might say 'Ah, this proves you can do maths, and that this proves that all of this is simply math anxiety!' like several 'professionals' have done when talking to me. Most don't even know that dyscalculia is a thing that exists.

Is it bad that I have only just got 'speed times distance' stuck in my head? I'm 18 and I have been trying for many years to remember that but for some reason I had a tendency to forget that rule.

I'm aware that most people don't have to take the steps I do when working out maths, it's just how my brain is, these 'shortcuts' as it were just don't seem obvious to me, whether that makes me stupid I don't know.

So wait, it was 12 hours then? Damn I must look like an idiot now. It's hard trying to get support when it seems like barely anyone knows what dyscalculia is, I just get labelled with maths anxiety.

If only I had done 600/50 instead of 50/600 maybe I wouldn't have messed up so much. Ugh.

Update: I'm going to send an email to the University asking about a generalised learning disability test, dyscalculia, and what their disability support service covers. I'm not too hopeful as I'm used to being messed around by the system, but this is as good an attempt as any.

Hopefully they'll be able to get back to me and something can be arranged, I doubt it though- these things just got forgotten and teachers lose interest. Wish me luck anyway.

Another update: I sent the email! Now I just got to wait for a response back.

okay, writing an e-mail has the advantage, that if you get a response, you have a response in writing. so you and the school can refer to it as official.

it is easy for someone to ignore an email though.

what you could do is look up on the school's handbook of rules, the school's official policies.

I looked into the rules and conditions before I sent the email, even quoting them at times in the email I wrote. It stays that students may be entitled to a free assessment under some circumstances, so I made sure to ask about the assessment terms (what kind of assessment, who it applies to, ect).

The website offers three ways of contact, phone, email and drop-in sessions.

Once I sent the email, I got an automatic response back saying that it may take up to five working days to get a response back from the support team, which makes sense because it's a busy time for all regions of the University, especially those in charge of administrations. If I don't get a response after that time, then I could try either a drop in session or a phone call (or a phone call to arrange a drop-in session, you get the point).

Update: I got a reply back! Good news, the University does offer free assessments for dyscalculia, however in order to qualify I need to fill in some forms, and get verification from my course tutor that the course has significant areas of maths.

What happens now is heavily dependent on how my tutor responds, if they confirm that there is significant maths involved, then I will qualify for a free assessment. But if I don't, then they will refer me to external services that can test me outside of the University, however such an assessment can cost from £300 to £500.

I will fill in the forms and keep you all posted on what happens.

Yet another update: I've filled in the forms and I have had a reply back, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do until I've had a drop-in session with the University. I am wondering if I should leave this till the beginning of term, or if I should see if I can get a drop-in session before term begins.

With the lack of a substantial amount of maths involved in the course, it looks like if I want to have any sort of assessment done, it will have to be outside of the University- this is unfortunate as this means if I want to go through with this then I will have to pay the fee. I'm starting to wonder if there's any benefit to obtaining a dyscalculia diagnosis at this point.

Currently, on the dyscalculia diagnosis chronicles: Well, I have been at University for quite a few weeks now. This Friday I have a talk on learner contracts and disability support to attend, hopefully while I'm there I will be able to talk to the staff on the support team and perhaps discuss my potential learner contract and figure out what kind of evidence they need from my tutor, hopefully after this I'll be making some progress again.

Stay tuned for more updates! If you want to, that is.

I was required to take calculus for some stupid animation prerequisite, and I don't recall succeeding on any of the tests, Ds and lower, and I cheated on the homework. It would have taken me 7 hours to do the homework by myself or with a tutor, and I spent long hours wanting to slit my wrists copying answers. I still don't know anything beyond algebra, and I'm undiagnosed and under government maths standard, so I've always wondered whether I was dyscalculic or not. My brother could be good, but never listens in school. My sister is really good ironically, but she hates it. She's in dentistry now, and tries to avoid it.

Well, I'm getting close to being put on a waiting list now. So that's certainly some progress. I emailed my University's help-desk, and hopefully in a few days they will reply (and if all goes well, I should end up on the 12 week (or sometimes more) long waiting list).

Update: The help desk just told me to email my tutor about it, so I guess that means some more emailing now. What joy! (Sarcasm).

Going to apply for private testing soon.