Maths

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I opened DD's math book the other day (she just started on a new one).
The first thing I see is lots of bright colours.
Then I see the geometrical shapes that are filled with those colours.
My mind then registers the green is a triangle, the red a circle etc before I have even read a letter on the page.
I want to read the letters but my eyes are drawn tot the colour and shapes first.
There other cartoon-like things on the page too.
And then I spot the big blocks of text.
Eventually I spot the fractions that she is supposed to work on!
It was weird because it was the first time I actually realized how the layout and content affected me in the way it did.
It caused flashbacks to my own school days. And my favourite maths teacher whom taught us to think in apples, pears, baskets and cake (for fractions).
And it made me realize that DD might just be a copy of me when it comes to maths. That she can do it but has restrictions.

Then I went googling and found this:

So if HFA children of average intelligence get this overload of visual input would it not interfere with their abillity to problem solve?

I'm not NT myself and have always used visualisation to help me solve maths. Abstract maths are beyond me as I can't visualize them. With a lot of trouble i managed to learn ratios in later life albeit for no other reason than to make oil/petrol mixtures for 2-strokes Percentages are the same, I can do basic ones that I need in life (like VAT, supermarket offers come to mind) but I would never do them for the fun of it.
When I do try to get an understanding of abstract maths it hurts my brain. Technically impossible but it feels real enough, it feels like my brain gets knotted. Like the pathways that carry my thoughts are blocked. With formula I get lost in notation symbols.

My gut feeling tells me DD is clever enough to do the maths expected of her. And possibly that her maths books are just overloading her system. She has to use the maths book as it is school issue. I feel I should challenge their choice of learning material as I think it is not constructive. But have my doubts as to how constructive it is to expect her school to give her other learning material. I could insist on 1:1 maths sessions which she now gets for language but wanted to throw it out here first as it gives me time to think over any replies. The next meeting with the family worker is next week. She is the liason between school and me as the woman allocated to deal with this type of stuff at school doesn't speak English enough for me to easily express myself to her.

Some people who homeschool have mentioned their children do better with math curriculum that are less visually busy. I think Singapore Math might be one, but would have to go back and look.

What country are you in? Is your daughter doing poorly in math as currently taught?

I'm in Belgium.
She is falling behind more over the months with her maths to the point I no longer feel her school is getting the best out of her.

What grade is your daughter in or age?...I am in the US...not sure how it would match up in Belgium. How nice though about Belgium...my husband is 1/2 Belgian.
My daughter is on the spectrum and has a NVLD profile of strengths and weaknesses. Very high in reading, writing, etc...her math is low enough that she has a specific learning disability in math. My daughter also has visual-spatial difficulties which contribute to all of this.

Geometry and shapes have always been the worst for my daughter. It's even hard for her to copy shapes exactly like a teacher would want her to. I would say if your daughter's school will offer her 1:1 help and it is available, I would definitely ask for it. Tutoring 1:1 is the very thing that has proved to be of great benefit to my daughter. Now, my daughter still didn't do so well in the higher level math, even with a tutor, but the tutor helped her from failing at least and it helped my daughter to feel more confident in the classroom.

Moved from Parents' Discussion.

Thanks for moving...

Suppose it is the wider question that is bothering me.

Take a line. To a mathemathical minded person that is a 180degree gradient. But to me it is just a line unless I visualise it as a piece of string with a default setting of 90 degrees. I will mentally move the string and apply my cake maths so 1/4 being 90, makes 1/2 180 and then add the degrees as an afterthought. The default setting of 90 is what I use as a starting point, a left-over from my school days.
A lot of the time with calculating time will I work with a mental picture of a clock.

Anyone else experiences maths like this?

Why would anyone bother to learn about degrees rather than radians. Degrees are a waste of time and it is better just to learn radians as radians are actually useful. Radians fall into your logic above more as you split the circle into 0, Pi/2, Pi, 3Pi/2 and 2 Pi.

Many people visualize math.
Visualization is commonly used as teaching method in math.
Math books are full of pictures showing math concepts.
Old textbooks like 1970s may be better if visual clutter is a problem.
They usually have cleaner presentations with simple, black and white line drawings and page flow is like:
picture
text
picture
text
instead of pictures and text all jumbled up on the side with colorful boxes around blurbs and unnecessary light bulbs decorating side notes of no importance to math.

In my schooldays we had to learn about degrees. All to do with angles more than circles.
I remember axioms and the way I had to learn them parrot fashion but beyond that I had no clue as to what I was parrotting. Never got to the circle and Pi. I left school at 15 in the end because I was considered to clever to drop a stream and didn't see the point in carrying on.

The school system lets people like you down all the time which is quite sad. I would be as bad as you if it wasn't for my own inherent ability in math and logical thinking. The school system needs to be redone as it has let a lot of people down.

I'm dyscalculic, so doing maths is impossible.

Definitely dropping it next year. Extra credits rule!

When I first enrolled in community college I had to take placement tests for reading, writing, and math. Did fine on the first two but I placed into remedial math, essentially high school algebra.

When I graduated from community college and transferred to a four year university, I ended up majoring in pure theory mathematics.

My point being, these things aren't set in stone. A few years' growth and maturity can make a world of difference.

Degrees allow for the concept of "measure of an angle" to be introduced independent of the concept of "ratio". This has educational applications (you can start teaching geometry before you cover division in arithmetic) as well as practical ones (it's a lot easier to teach a near-illiterate conscript how to navigate by map and compass if the compass doesn't scare him away with fractions)

Augh. Stop. As if numbers weren't enough, terms are even worse.

Can't see it happening though. DH understands maths and DD knows maths is important but she has no real interest and prefers languages on the whole.

The visual layout of a curriculum has MUCH to do with the ability to comprehend the material, if a student is sensitive to visual overload.

I know this because I homeschool my kids, and we have had to get rid of certain curricula that were too much visually. Either they contained a wall of words for pages on end, or they had too much clutter in terms of colors and figures. Simple is better.

It is not a matter of smartness. One can be smart, yet get lost in a sea of visual overload.