Not All Autistic People Are Good At Math And Science

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Every time someone says that ALL autistic people are math geniuses, I want to STRANGLE them. I struggled with dyscalculia and instead of getting help, I got told I was lazy or unmotivated. I was really only good at zoology.

I never was allowed to take physics or chemistry because apparently one need to be very good at math in order to do them.

Grandin has only her experience and education to draw from. Not knocking it, just that there is so much more.

I can only learn in patterns. I can't get something AT ALL until I finally see the pattern. Much of this is unconscious. But when I struggle, its when I can't find the pattern. I didn't figure this out until about a year ago. I knew I had a long lag phase in learning, but didn't realize it was due to needing to absorb the pattern, then bingo I have it.

Not all of chemistry is math oriented. I teach basic organic chemistry courses that use very little math skills the majority of the time. There are some exceptions when dealing with calculating reagent amounts and percent yields of reactions, but those are simple add/subtract/multiply/divide problems. Much of organic chemistry is being able to remember how functional groups work with each other and how they can react in certain conditions. Many students who struggle with the math in general chemistry love organic because it barely uses those skills. If you are a visual thinker, organic chemistry can be easier to learn than other areas of chemistry. The catch is that you have to get through general chemistry before one can usually understand organic chemistry.

Teaching the higher level organic spectroscopy courses is a whole different situation. It is math intensive no doubt about it. We had to sometimes show our students how to apply La Forier transforms to the Free Induction Decay (FID) of NMR data to get the spectra into a readable format. I also had to break out the linear algebra skills (matrices) to teach crystal field theory transforms when discussing X-ray diffraction patterns of single crystals. Not for the weak of heart if you hate math...

On Gradin’s scale, I am extremely strong visual/strong logic/weak verbal thinker. I am also very good at science, math and history. Guess you can partially blame me for the stereotype of this topic.

My brother and I are both probably on the spectrum, and we were pretty much the opposite in school. He was extremely good at math and science, but I tended to struggle in those subjects and instead was very good at reading, writing, history, and foreign language. I remember high school geometry being the worst for me. I didn't even do too bad in algebra, but I came close to getting a D in geometry.

My mother always told me I could never become a veterinarian (my special interest my whole life basically) because I wasn't good at math. I gave up even trying in school after she told me that. I later volunteered at a vet's office (behind my mom's back) and told one of the vets about it. She said there was some math, but it was mostly organic chemistry. I think my mom just didn't want me becoming a vet because it was something she wanted to do as a kid and she never pursued it. She hates to be corrected and is obsessed with her dogs. If I was a vet, I'd have some cred when I "corrected" her.

I'm not sure how to describe my abilities. While I'm not entirely competent in higher math, my "practical" math skills are pretty strong. I've outperformed my peers in quiz-bowl type challenges where mental math was required with word problems. My math grades in high school were A's and B's, although it took me two years to finish Algebra 1. Then again, I was very good at math in middle school. In seventh grade I worked through my entire math textbook in the space of a month, but when pre-algebra was introduced the following year, my grades plummeted to C's. The more abstract and formulaic it becomes, the less accessible it is to me.

I'm semi-decent at science. I got A's in high-school, but that wasn't hard with the content I was given. I prefer learning about antiquated science most of the time - ether, Lowell's canals, pseudo-meteorite sightings (the precursors of today's UFOs).

Math has always been a hated subject of mine. When I had my Aspergers assessment they told me I had a learning disability in math and I don't doubt it. If calculators didn't exist I'd be stuck up the river without paddles....and broken arms lol

I'm not terrible at science just the math oriented parts. I don't really have the particular investigative mind for a lot of it but I wouldn't say I was bad at it. I did well with things like ecology.

Now that I've read this, thinking about the future scares the Hell out of me. I don't feel that I deserve to die. I feel that future autistic lives need to be protected, not erased. I feel that every life that's conceived is a gift from God. Everything that's conceived starts out as a Sweet Pea.

probably has to do with iq.. it does make some more focused, or I mean less distracted.

even if ur good looking , say, knowledge slowly drains your energy away ..



the more u know about this world the more u will know that knowledge is esoteric and folly in its whole realm,

it's where god pretends to reside.. its a place god makes love with the devil but they don't want you to know..

My math skills are atrocious, and I'm most likely dyscalculic. But I excel in art and literature. I think art and literature come easily to me because those two things are extremely visual while math isn't. (When I read, or am thinking up an idea for a story, it's like I'm watching a movie in my head. When I have a concept for a drawing, I can see it in my brain.)

I'm kind of a mixed bag when it comes to this stereotype. I have always been scientifically minded, but I have always struggled with math due to my NVLD. I am both a very visual learner but impaired by visual-spatial tasks. As a learner, I need both pictures and words. Show me a picture/diagram without a written description, and it goes over my head. But explain something very complex in words alone, and I won't fully get it, either.

When I took the WAIS, which is how I was diagnosed with NVLD, even the neuropsychologist was baffled by me. She said how her group had never seen anybody like me before. When timed on visual-spatial tasks (like Block Design), I was in the 50th percentile. But when I wasn't timed (like on Matrices), I was in the 90th percentile. I am able to understand visual-spatial concepts and higher-level math if given lots and lots of time, but I fail when I have to do these things in a normal amount of time. We had several take-home exams in organic chemistry, and that's how I passed, because I would literally spend hours making the models and figuring out the stereochem.

The worst for me, by far, is classical physics. I could never do the math for any physics class, but I do conceptually understand modern physics for whatever reason. But Newtonian mechanics? I fail miserably at that. I don't even get it at a common sense level, without the math. And the worst math for me is trig. Which is used a lot in classical physics. The only math I'm good at is algebra (how I was able to get by in science), and even calculus uses some algebra. But trig was completely visual-spatial, and it just eluded me. I hated the unit circle and stuff.

I do so wish that I were a genius at math/physics, because there are lots of areas in science that I will never truly be able to understand. It angers me that none of my teachers in school caught my NVLD. I think that I could have made much bigger strides had I been diagnosed early on.

Yes, organic chemistry is important in all forms of health care careers, be it animal or human based. You have to be able to understand how drugs function inside the body and that is basically organic chemistry. There is also biochemistry, but that is mostly the study of how the chemical processes within the body work. If you do not understand organic chemistry concepts, the biological processes will not make much sense.

Do not give up on your dream of being a vet. It can still happen with hard work if you put your mind to it. Check out some of the local schools if you are still interested in that career choice. I hate when some parents try to squash their kid’s dreams no matter how old the kids are. I had relatives that tried to do that to me years ago and they did not win that round.

In the group I've been with only a few people have any interest in either. Most of the time people on AS can display highly analytical thinking or have direct speech, which is often mistakenly associated with the same kind of speech scientists/mathematicians use to express their ideas.

Someone who likes sports will talk about sports. Someone with AS who likes sports as a special interest will talk about sports the way a scientist talks about data.

I have something similar. If a field on its own is too inconsistent I get confused. If there are too many "exceptions" then I struggle with understanding any underlying concepts. Even more importantly, I do best where there is a lot of consistency in terms or where language is formalized.

I was rubbish at maths, I find it hard to remember the method and my memory can’t deal with all the steps at once. I managed to scrape a GCSE C grade to go to college. Science I got a B grade which is what I was estimated.

The biggest shock was getting an A in English language, my spelling and grammar isn’t fantastic but pulling apart a discussion in writing is something I’m okay at. And debates, in the right situation I can put passion into something I want to talk about.

My favourite subject was art, got an A* and have a talent for drawing. Started with being able to replicate life on paper but evolved into dragons, dinosaurs and animals. But these were my favourite things as a child so I think I’d developed a good memory for visual things, which helped me to develop a good imagination.

I am regretting falling into graphic design because of the interactions with people and customers (which to be fair I get out of, think my colleagues understand) and the high stress deadline driven work. Also not a fan of greed and capitalism in general. Long term goal is to find a new career that suits me.

Linguistics-oriented Aspie here. I like languages, writing, and I do like science but specifically biology and earth sciences, as opposed to the more technical sciences.