Improving Number Sense?

Post Reply New Topic

Are there any practical ways to improve one's number sense, especially if one

• Has a poor spatial working memory.
• Has stronger verbal than performance intelligence.

?

Do puzzles. Do exercises in math text books. Do numerical puzzles. Do geometric puzzles. Practice makes perfect.

ruveyn

Moog recently posted a link to some software designed to exercise one's working memory. That may help somewhat. Puzzles are also a good idea. Spend some time playing with Legos.

Programming. Complex tasks require to to be able to recall the entire program of the top of your head, and to have a strong spatial sense of how you are going to organise and manipulate your data. Some tasks, like composing matrices upon each other, modular arithmetic on matrices, and storing your data in unusual matrices (I like matrices ) need strong spatial visualisation. I never enjoyed puzzles, because they don't do anything. I find it more fun to use maths to approach real problems, which makes it easier to get the "intuition" than using math in a vacuum.

All this coming from someone with a higher verbal than performance intelligence, and subaverage spatial working memory (improving, though).

Play 3D video games. Particulary 3D platfomers.

I program for 8 hours a day and my working memory is still terrible.

I find that stimulant drugs are by far the most effective treatment for this problem.

I found practicing complementary numbers helpful. I know that's a bit basic for most, but it helped me.

It's curious - I have no problem with this and can easily visualise what every part is doing, the relationships with other parts etc. The whole thing "lives and moves", fully functional, in my head and I can examine or change various parts of this mental model easily - yet my numeric ability has always been appalling.

Do you mean caffeine or something stronger?

mental maths isn't that important, so long as you can do maths on a pc. one of the better hint I saw lately was:

7 * 114 = (7 * 100) + (7 * 10) + (7 * 4)

= 700 + 70 + 28
= 798

I'm on Concerta (extended release methylphenidate), but I think Caffeine does help to some degree.

That's prescription though. Not all people are eligible to receive prescription stimulants, and I would be extremely wary of using any stimulant stronger than caffeine without a physician's approval and monitoring.

Caffeine has actually never done anything for me. It's weird; I never built up a tolerance for it (I don't even drink soda, so my usual caffeine intake is basically nil) but two cups of coffee when I drink them have no discernible effect on me.

True. Stimulants are not for everyone, but for people who are significantly impaired by working memory deficits (as I suspect many aspies are), the benefits of stimulant therapy can be well worth the risks. I for one can simply not succeed in school or work without them. For some of you, it could be worth at least discussing with your doctor.

That is weird. Two cups of coffee gives me a really uncomfortable feeling (if I drink them within a few hours). I have never really experienced discernible positive effects from Caffeine. It may have something to do with the fact that I have been taking DNRIs for years, so I have a tolerance to the increased dopamine levels that Caffeine somehow induces. Caffeine is all negative effects for me, but there is data to suggest that it improves memory function in most people.

The night before my finals I would drink two litres of diet coke (the caffeine equivalent of a litre of Red Bull). I was able to study for sixteen hours straight, with perfect retention; anything I looked at, I would know the next morning. I felt like I had a hangover afterwards though

Improves short-term memory, the studies said back when I cared. Which is enough around exam time, but not a life time.

By "number sense" do you mean being able to do math in your head?
Or do you mean sensing how things compare to each other?
Or both? Or what?