Finger Counting

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I still do this, even at 49. I often hide my hands when doing it in public. I'm terrible at math: I get very anxious, angry, and even hot when I can't solve a problem. I feel like I'm about to scream. I recently tried taking a math class through my union, to challenge myself. I got so frustrated that I left after three classes (and due to ppl doing math out loud instead of on paper or in their heads quietly). I need to be able to visualize math, whether on my hands or on paper.

I have a M.S., and passable ability in 4 languages etc but can't solve fractions.

There is some recent research by neuroscientists that finger counting should actually be encouraged in children.
https://jnc.psychopen.eu/article/view/85/html
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/a ... ss/478053/

But the there is research that finger counting in adults is a sign of math deficiency, and the findings ring true for me

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00254/full

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf

this got me wondering about how ASD ppl process math problems. How many of you use your fingers and/or need to visualize math?

I count on my fingers a lot. Then I lose count and have to start again. I think a lot of people do it, so I don’t try to hide it.

Whats wrong with counting on your fingers? Im great at math and I still do it all the time lol

I count on my fingers a lot when doing math if I'm not using a calculator. I have dyscalculia thou

I do it too.

I’m terrible at math, in high school I took special ed, things were easy for me, I had regular classes too, Spanish, Typing, Cartoon classes, science When I was a senior, I took regular classes, I was terrible at math & History was Pretty Bad, very thick book. I got bad grades in math, I keep getting Ds, I still math, I used have a chart of X tables. Now I count on my fingers, I used the calculator too to see if I’m right.

When I count my money, I can lose count, well it’s smart to find the exact amount, but this happens when I have money in my wallet.

I use my fingers to count as well. Also, my brain has a rather annoying tendency to randomly start counting backwards without me fully releasing. Unfortunately, when I do I can't remember where I got up to before I started to go in the wrong direction.

However, I have figured out a life hack of sorts. Let's say we have the number 247. I could say two hundred and forty seven, or two-four-seven. For some reason, if I say numbers by the latter method I'm less likely to start absentmindedly counting backwards by mistake.

Why? I have my suspicions. One possibility is that two-four-seven is recognised by my brain as an easier pattern, so it pays more attention and prepares for what's next. I had a lot of difficulty as a child to process that two hundred=200, and two thousand=2000. So when dealing with large numbers, I enjoy sounding it out. Helps with counting. I'm also less likely to forget what number I got up to. My brain doesn't like dealing with the words hundreds, millions, and thousands.

If I'm copying numbers down, I will also sound it out to myself. At my student accommodation, we have to enter a code to do laundry. Taking it one number at a time rather than as a collective helps. Otherwise it becomes a case of (for example) "Did I say it was 49, or 39? Was it 93? No, can't be the first, where did I get the four from? Was the four really there, or was it a three?"

Anyone who knows me is aware of how bad I am with numbers. I can't really hide it, since it'll probably crop up one way or another. At this point I am almost certain that I have dyscalculia. No official diagnosis (yet?), but it has been noted by professionals that my visual processing is poor.

I should add that I had a resource accommodation that allowed me to use a calculator(none of the skewls I went to had special ed classes). The calc came in handy & gave me an advantage when doing problems that involved negative numbers. I could type the negative in as a negative & then follow the rest of the steps for the problem instead of knowing if I change the negative to a positive, subtract it, add it, or whatever. I got a graphing calc cuz my best friend had one & he had DLed some games on it off the net. We were able to link our calcs together by a wire & I could DL the games from his. I didn't have net to do it myself. I played games like Tetris & PacMan a lot. I still have Tetris on & occasionally play it still. It's kinda like using an old game-boy that you DL much smaller games too. It gave me something to do after skewl while waiting for one of my parents to pick me up & I played games in classes too. It also helps me with math because I can see a few problems written out or I can see a few of the steps I've taken when doing more complicated problems. It comes in handy when playing RPG games cuz I can compare stats of a few different weapons, armors, pokemon, ect. I can add each one together & see which has the max & weakest stats & I can look at specif stats side by side. It's alot easier than writing all that down. The graphing calc I have is a TI-86 which I think it still being sold. They're kinda expensive or were when I got mine about 20 years ago but well worth the cost for me. It can go through 4 triple-A batteries fast if you play games a lot that have a lot of graphics but they're a small extra cost.

Anyways... getting back to math, I did well in business math but only passed algebra-1 cuz the teacher curved my grade. I failed every single test but I aced a group project cuz the other two did all the work cuz I was completely lost. I did OK in pre-algebra for most of the year because I just did the opposite of whatever the problem was to figure out the variable instead of working it out in steps. Another kid was in both algebra classes with me who's also dyslexic had the exact same problem with it I did. 1ce the variable was used 2wice or there was more than one, we were completely lost. We just could not grasp what to do. The sad thing for him was that he had to take summer skewl cuz he failed algebra-1 but my grade was curved so I passed. He was better behaved than me not that I had major behavioral problems in class. I'm not sure why I passed when he didn't except that it was plainly obvious I had lots of other issues; Aspergers issues & a low vision disorder so maybe our teacher felt more sorry for me or didn't think I had the potential to learn any of it whereas he did IDK. His grade was curved so he passed it in summer skewl. Getting back to business math, I feel that was alot more practical for real-world stuff & I could understand it a lot better. It counted as an elective instead of a math credit for some reason. I almost didn't take it cuz of the math aspect & might of took home-ec instead. I have various disabilities that would of caused me to majorly struggle with home-ec thou. Some of the seniors who were taking business math at the time I was a jr & was selecting course for my senior year talked like it was easy & very practical for everyday life stuff. I just wanted to take the easiest courses I could cuz I was certain I didn't wanna go to college & I never regretted that decision.

I use my fingers a lot when doing mental arithmetic, and ideally, I'd always write the problem down and solve it on paper.

It might seem paradoxical, but I'm a decent mathematician in the abstract sense - I use and refactor equations all the time in my computer coding, electronics, and sound processing design; including such things as complex numbers and some differential calculus. But I'm hopeless at arithmetic with actual, concrete numbers. As soon as I need to carry-over a digit, or remember the value of a half-way step, I get completely lost without some kind of physical reference. I can work out the code to pick out the frequencies in a sound-wave, but I can't keep a tally of how much I'm spending when I'm shopping for groceries to save my life.

I can do this too, instead of saying 1,550, I can say 15 hundred & 50. When I’m on my bank website, I can only count the first two numbers like 15 in 15 hundred instead of 1,550, that is easy for me so my money won’t get to 2,000.


Mine either, I cannot count to a billion, that toooooo much overload.





In my last apartment building, I had a code for the back gate to go to the dumpster outside near the outside parking lot, once I locked myself out, I had a code in the front of the building too.
I can count my fingers when I figuring the months too like I can get mixed up with 5, like 5 = May.