How can someone with AS be good at math/spatial issues?

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i have a lot of visual-spacial issues, but i'm fairly good at math and science... likely why i'm in school for computer programming. in some ways, my visual-spacial issues are a good thing, since i've learned to compensate... i've noticed that i can do those things that you're not supposed to be able to do with one eye closed...

No, but it is for NVLD and many Aspies have it. http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/7/4/310 (have to scroll down some)



This is my problem.....my strength is in the liberal arts/humanities/social sciences, but I don't have the social skills necessary to get jobs in those fields



This is the best answer so far. Thank you for giving me a real answer instead of patronizing me.

Reading body language is completely separate from being able to deal with diagrams and pictures. They are just separate skills.

In any case, at the more advanced levels you do less with diagrams and more with symbolic manipulation. At a certain point, you simply can't draw things anyway. They are just too complicated. Also reasoning from drawings can be misleading, because the drawing is of a specific case, but you need to work with the general case.

For what it's worth, I'm really good at mathematics, but my visualization abilities are not very good.

There may be more variation in various intellectual abilities going from one AS person to another AS person than there is going from an AS person to an NT person. As I see it, people on the autism spectrum tend to be specialized thinkers whereas NT's tend to be the "jack of all trades, master of none" type. This actually fits in with the prevalence of savantism in people with more severe autism spectrum disorders. Savantism can be interpreted as a dysfunctional extreme of specialized thinking. I'm not saying no NT's have specialized intellectual abilities, just that there is a higher prevalence in ASD people.

Also, there's quite a lot of scientific an personal anecdotal evidence that interpretation of facial cues and body language doesn't occur the same way interpretation of other visual/spatial information occurs. In particular, interpretation of body language involves mirror neurons which are connected to both visual/spatial sensory interpretation and muscular/motor sensory interpretation. Small children learn to understand facial expressions and body language mostly through imitation. It is likely that difficulties in motor imitation are what lead to poor understanding of body language in some autistic individuals.

Yup. Believe it or not, when most people read a facial expression they do it by imagining the feeling they would get by imitating the expression. There is even physical evidence for this in the form of brain imaging. This process is very different from the process that goes on when one interprets a drawing or diagram.

It can be part of NVLD but not everyone with NVLD has that problem. Lots of people with NVLD have problems in one or two nonverbal areas and are fine on others. NVLD is a very broad term, it is as broad as saying "verbal learning disability" which could include dyslexia, but also several other conditions. Expecting everyone with NVLD to be the same is just as unrealistic as expecting everyone with AS to be the same.

I guess I was just thinking of my own personal situation and BEFORE anyone criticizes me for that, I posted this so that I could be better informed. I knew that many people on the spectrum were good at math/spatial/technical things....I was confused as to how. Some explanations given were quite valid. Others just seemed like an attack on me.

It may be true for other people that the skills needed for engineering or computer programming are different from the skills needed to understand nonverbal cues people give, but for me, they might as well be the same. It's all nonverbal to me and I'm just bad at anything that is nonverbal.

So in conclusion, let's just say that most people with NVLD meet the criteria for AS, but most people with AS don't meet the criteria for NVLD.

I agree with everyone who has said that reading deliberate, non-verbal signals is not at all the same as learning calculus. And it looks like someone beat me to it, but maybe the trouble is with dividing all skills into either verbal or non-verbal. It seems like "non-verbal" could encompass a lot of disparate skills that a person might or might not be good at.

I flunked my first calculus class twice, but eventually figured out how to 'translate' math-speak into something I could understand, and then got through the next 5-6 classes without too much trouble (lot of work; but no brick walls). And then majored in Physics and did ok.

The thing is, my VIQ is 35 points above my PIQ -- which is 92. (Admittedly, I've had some weird cognitive stuff happen, but my SAT scores (which precede the cognitive changes) have the same verbal/non-verbal pattern.) Maybe being able to manage math is not really a non-verbal (or verbal) skill. Or, maybe, sort of in the way that left-handed people's brains can have functions in different places than usual, a person can use non-standard parts of their brain to do math. Or maybe IQ tests don't test so narrowly what they're supposedly testing.

(I also have to editorialize a bit that I think that math instruction is usually bad. It's usually taught by "naturals" who can't understand why 'obvious' things could be hard, or explain their inner process for approaching problems because it's so intuitive that they don't realize they have one. So, I think there may be more people who think they are bad at math than are really bad at it. (Of course, some people may truly be bad at it.))

Aspies tend to be good at maths because they have brains which naturally systemise, or to put it another way one thing happens then another and another or to systemise this 1 then 2 then 3,
simple so far, on top of this autie minds tend to have convergent intelligence ie walking man slips
equals walking + slip = banana on floor as opposed to divergent intelligence walking man slips
equals what happened, is he drunk?

examples of math related skills ie
music- regular beat to time etc
poetry - 1st and 3rd lines match 2nd and 4th lines match etc
portrait painting - knowledge of symmetry, spatial awareness, geometric shapes etc
football - understanding geometric shapes , passing a ball between three players = triangle
four players a square etc (note: passing between two players creates a base line)
driving - spatial awareness and speed distance and time.
and so on.
maths is not exclusive to auties, but coupled with picture thinking elborate concepts can be discribed with math in a powerful way, a very autie trait.

Uh, not really. With good spatial skill tends to come excellent visualization. Most teachers who taught me geometry or any math related skills would do drawings or show by example how the rule applied. I never had to know how a teacher felt in math because it had no relevance to what they were teaching, an answer in physics doesn't depend on interpretation of emotions, it depends on application of the rule. Whereas in literature, a subject that's all about interpretation rather than application of a narrow logic based rule, that was a huge disadvantage not being able to pick up on facial cues. You're equating understanding visual logic information with understanding visual social cues, but it's not the same thing. The key part is the understanding, seeing and understanding being very different.

I can easily solve 'what's the missing 3d shape' puzzles. But 'what is that woman feeling?' puzzles, much harder since it's not about seeing the right things - I may in fact see every sign that to others are signs that she's happy. However the rules that dictate that those signs in this instance equal happy are more complicated and change depending on situations. For instance she may be so happy she's crying, yet crying is generally associated with sadness. While the rules that dictate what the 3d shape will be like are the physical rules of our universe and do not change (well, I suppose they could but that would be a really bad thing). The problem isn't seeing it, not for me. The problem is the interpreting. The problem is that math and spatial problems have simple logical rules that do not change. People's reactions and intentions have complicated illogical rules that change upon whim, personalities and emotional context.

Last edited by KBerg on 30 Mar 2011, 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I honestly don't understand how anyone could not be good at math. It comes so easy to me, that I can not fathom how people struggle with it. It's as easy as breathing to me.
Now if you want to talk about reading a fictional story and understanding the why it was written or what the moral of the story was, I'd probably fail out of second grade.

Each person has their own set of traits.

I have NVLD and I am horrible at all things technical and spatial ....but as others have mentioned not all aspies have NVLD.

I'm ok with math, but I excel when it comes to spatial thinking, I can look at a map and "see" it in 3D, as if I'm standing in the map. I can look at a 2d drawing and visualize it in 3D, I can "see" the object floating in front of me, I can turn it and look at it as if it's real, I can take it apart and put it back together in my head. that skill comes in handy when I'm laying something out, I can do a rough sketch and see what the final product will look like.

I've also always been very good with puzzles, I've never really come across one I couldn't solve, I was doing 1000+ piece jigsaw puzzles by myself by the time I was 5-6.

Math, science & music are essentially patterns. People with ASDs seem to read and understand patterns better, though in different ways and aspect, depending on their neurological configuration. They are generally more observant and spend more time alone and thus have a greater opportunity to study their interests.

Quote from 'The Ice Storm' seems appropriate.

Sandy Carver: [Sandy needs help with homework] Hey Mikey?
Mikey Carver: Yeah.
Sandy Carver: Geometry?
Mikey Carver: Sure, anything but this English.
Sandy Carver: How come your so good at Math, but not at English?
Mikey Carver: I'm not good at Math, just good at Geometry. It's like you now when they say you have 2 squared, you think it mean 2 times 2 equals 4, but really they really mean a *square*. Its really space, its not numbers, its space. And it's perfect space. But only in your head, because you can't draw a perfect square in the material world. But in your mind, you can have a perfect space. You know?
Sandy Carver: Yeah, but I just need some help with my homework...

I know you said "tend", but for the sake of other people: It's also definitely possible to have good spatial skills and terrible visual skills. That's pretty much the situation I've been in most of my life.

I'm not good at maths at all. In fact, I'm bad at it. Even maths on third grade level is too hard for me. I'm more on kindergarten level (or as us British call it, year reception).

Oh my god, I am dumb! But on the bright side, my spelling is good!