Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia

Post Reply New Topic

Is Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia common in autism?

I'm dyscalculic. There are many on the forum who are also

Me too. It sucks. I can do things like identify which is more or less, and have some memorization of things route (like some multiplication tables from school) but beyond that, I even have problems with change. I use a bank card for everything because I can't work out the numbers.
I've wondered if this could be remedied for ages now. There is a lot of assistance available for dyslexic and illiterate adults to learn, but seemingly none for math.
I find it interesting and would like to learn, but my brain just won't do it, it's like it just skates over the information, and won't penetrate.

Similar to myself. Dyscalculia is hugely overlooked as a learning disability. It's almost non existent.

There are many areas in which I excel at but anyway that's never been math. Also, I'm a very clumsy person. Whenever I pay someone a visit I try to stay away from fragile objects, pets and everything for fear of messing things up.

That's one bit of the Asperger's discussion that I never get it: for me, a diagnosis should be relied upon consistent and universal patterns of behaviour. What we have instead is a disorder diagnosed upon things that may or may not occur, moreover, they can be the extreme opposite among two different people.

Maybe one day this will be figured out but sometimes I have the impression that we are dealing with many different kinds of disorders.

I also have dyscalculia.

I left school being able to add and subtract (which is always much more difficult than adding) within 10, and being able to recognise greater and lesser quantities. I can also count (recite numbers; they don't actually mean much to me beyond a certain number). That was pretty much it, and this includes not being able to read an analogue clock, having much of a sense of the passing of time, or being able to read maps. I am in my 30s and I have since gained a general understanding of what things like multiplication and division mean, without being able to put them in practice. Because of all of this, I was not able to graduate secondary school. Now, I have found ways to make my life work without these skills, but they still aren't there.

Can it be remedied? Maybe sometimes. I had extra and remedial maths classes for the duration of my school "career", both before and after the dyscalculia diagnosis, and this merely caused me a lot of anxiety — it did not add to my understanding of maths. I am pretty sure that my brain simply lacks the capacity to process maths, or something would have "clicked".

Dyspraxia (physical clumsiness) is frequently associated with Asperger's; in fact, Asperger himself noted it frequently in the original studies. It's not a requirement of the modern diagnosis, though.

As far as dyscalculia, the stereotype is the reverse: that people with Asperger's are great at math. That's not always the case, though. Personally, I was always pretty average at math.

To sum it up, from what I've read, dyspraxia is more frequently associated or correlated with Asperger's than dyscalculia is, but neither are required as part of the diagnosis, nor does having Asperger's mean you cannot have either of those conditions.

Yes, it seems to be, as we have several people, here, with EACH----if not, BOTH.

I have Dyspraxia (not in the clumsy sense; but, in the uncoordinated sense), and Dyslexia (more-so in speech [ie, spoonerisms] than in reading - Dyslexia is also, seemingly, very common, amongst us).

With the dyscalculia thing, I also often transpose or mix numbers in a sequence up. For example a sequence that reads 34356, I will often read 34536. It makes doing things like reading phone numbers difficult - I have to concentrate on each specific number individually, forgetting the others in the sequence or I'll mix them up, and often write them down. If dialing a phone number, I have to cover the other numbers and just reveal each number as I go, or I'll mix them up / transpose them. I don't have this problem with letters / reading at all, only with numbers involved.

Me too! I can remember and understand numbers as "sounds", and then somehow translate them to the corresponding number symbol, but only in a set order. For instance, if someone says "seventeen", I can remember that exactly in that format (written out as a word), but punching it into a phone or ATM machine is a different matter. Sometimes, people rattle off phone numbers in this format: "four-hundred-and-thirty-two-six-ninety-two" or something, and I absolutely can't translate that into dialling that number. It has to be individual numbers. I rarely use my ATM card, preferring to simply go into the bank and take out cash. When I did, the other day, the card was eaten because I couldn't remember the PIN code. I knew what numbers it contained but not in what order. Also with bus numbers, which usually have two digits where I live, if someone tells me to take an X-number bus, I often confuse it with the one that has the same numbers the other way around, such as 73 and 37.

Personally, I’m possibly dyscalculic but as far as I know I’m not autistic. However, having said that, I do show some symptoms of autism- namely sensory things. Currently I’m in the process of trying to get a dyscalculia diagnosis, hence the possibly part.

One of my biggest fears about that is that my inquiry into testing will go ignored or simply forgotten, I will have to figure out who my University tutor is first, because I have to get some kind of proof from them that my course has at least some kind of maths involved (otherwise the testing is not free, and I will have to be referred to have it done privately).

For anyone that has undergone the testing process for dyscalculia, what’s it like? I’m curious. I rarely hear about people who actually have a diagnosis, and I can understand why- I’ve been trying to get a diagnosis for quite a while now, it’s not easy.

Yeah, I feel the same way. There’s so much support out there for people who struggle with reading and writing, but when you struggle with maths all you get is “It’s just maths anxiety” or “You are just stupid and will never amount to anything in life without maths, maybe if you tried a bit more you would do better”. I really hate this attitude that some teachers have of “just trying harder”, whenever someone says this to me I just feel like swearing at them.

I hate people mistaking me for being simply lazy, when in fact I’ve worked really hard at maths and often pushed myself to achieve because I knew it was a weak point for me. But all I get in return is continuously bad grades and nagging teachers, it’s frustrating. I remember times where I would get maths homework and I would just breakdown and cry in frustration at myself. One time I threw a biscuit at the wall in frustration because of maths, and since then it’s become something of a joke among my friends.

A common misconception is that I hate maths, which isn’t true. I just find it frustrating because my brain seems to work in a different way to others, and even when I put the work in and try a bunch of different methods, I just end up forgetting the information. It’s like my brain is marking all my mathematical knowledge as spam and deleting it straight after doing an equation, as if it were a faulty email server and maths were a bunch of important emails being incorrectly marked.

Sometimes it can feel like my brain is trying to sabotage me. I wish dyscalculia was more well-known and that there was more help available, because I do want to learn, but clearly with my failing grade in maths I’m going about it the wrong way. At times, I wonder why I’m even bothering seeking out a diagnosis when so few people know what it is, or even seem to care. I guess it’s just easier to point at dyscalculic kids and call them stupid and accuse them of not trying when some really do try yet still fail much to their dismay.

It was in secondary school, for me. A relative happened to read about dyscalculia (which was even less known then, of course, though the phenomenon was described rather a while back in the scientific literature) and immediately recognised me in the description. She then went to talk to the person who had been giving me remedial maths classes to tell them about what it was. That person read up about it, thought it might fit the bill as well, and the school arranged for a person who diagnoses such things to come to the school to test me.

We had several conversations about maths-related things and he had me do various maths and related exercises. He screened me for dyslexia, which I very much don't have, at the same time. He then sent a letter with the diagnosis into the school. This resulted in me being granted extra time on maths tests. After that, I also no longer worked with the same person who had been giving me remedial classes, but was sent two people who weren't on the school staff to work with me. This happened two or three times a week and always during classes I actually liked rather than during maths lessons, to my annoyance. The kind of work I did with these people was more appropriate but still didn't teach me any maths.

There are some dyscalculia-related materials out there now, notably those produced by Ronit Bird.

Yeah, this is me, TOO----'cept, it's due to my Dyslexia, because I transpose words, as well, but NOT letters (that's very strange / interesting to me - that I transpose numbers, but not letters - I almost ALWAYS say my phone number, the wrong way; and, my house number, TOO).