How are you with reading clocks?

Post Reply New Topic

I hate that too...someone says "Quarter to." then you have to ask "Quarter to what?"



I have the same problem...I try to practice with an analogue clock, but my watch died, and I took the batteries out of my wall clock because I can't stand the ticking.

It certainly didn't help that in third grade, my teacher realized that nobody had taught me how to read clocks...so she sat me down and had me do some Apple ][ programs to try to learn, but I never really did completely get the hang of it. I always have to sit and stare at it for a while...and I'll go "Oh, okay, it's 5:45." but then I have to remember that the big hand isn't pointing at the 5, it's still working its way there, so it's actually 4:45.

I think if I had a clock that had digital hours and analogue minutes (with the fives already multiplied), that would be perfect, to have the best of both worlds.

I have no problems with clocks infact my nickname is called the bird lime which is a cockney rhyme slang for time.

I've always been pro-analogue, finding the analogue face much more aesthetically pleasing than digital. It also gives a visual sense of proportion in how one moment of time in the day relates to another. It's like a pie chart of the day, or at least for half of the day. That is my one objection to the design; I think that the analogue face should have been designed with a single daily rotation, corresponding to the daily rotation of the earth upon its axis. At least that is the hour hand explained. I always had more difficulty with the minute hand as a kid, unable to understand why 1=5, 2=10, ............................11=55. With hindsight I can see the hands as gears on different ratios but it would have been sensible to have had concentric rings of numbers for the 2 hands, putting 1-59 in smaller characters on the outer ring for the longer minute hand.

Anyone on the spectrum who has an aversion to the analogue clock face should think of it as a slowly spinning object

By the way, I too instinctively convert digital time into a visualisation of analogue. I could not have done that without analogue familiarity and I believe that my sense of how times relate to each other would have been all the worse for it.

my son has a lot of difficulty unless it's a digital clock.

I have problems with visual processing so yeah, I'm very bad with analogue clocks. I see all the details sort of jumping out of it and it takes me some time to put them together and see "the big picture". once I can actually see the thing I have no problems reading it.

I do that too!

Yeah!! ! That's what I do. I tend to count the hour as the number that the big hand is closest to. I think it would be more useful if the hand didn't move until the hour changed then it could jump to the next number.

I'm not really great with time. I have a watch, but I just get confused with 'past' and 'to'. Digital time's fine.

I was taught to read clocks in kindergarten. We were told that it was very important to learn. So we learned how to count by fives to figure out the minutes, and then we were told we would never need to know how to do it because we have digital clocks. I never got good at it, and I'm still really slow at reading them. For a while I had completely forgotten which hand was which and had to relearn.

Twelve-hour analog clocks are poorly conceived anyway. I'd prefer decimal time.

no, not good at telling the time at all,, i have to have a couple of goes first. Also can never even guess what time of day it is (I once slept for over 24 hours and had no idea I'd missed a day) I have to timetable in my head things I need to do otherwise I'd be late everywhere, plus because I don't accurately estimate time passing can't deal with disruptions etc....yes. Like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, i'm always hurrying, and stressing about lateness

Anyone else have the sense of time thing too?

I'm fine with clocks, and I seem to want to be more precise than most people about the time.

In the early 1970s, not long after decimal currency was introduced in the UK, there was a feature on a tv news programme in Northern Ireland about how time was going to be decimalised next. A jeweller was brought into the news studio to demonstrate his range of analogue decimal clocks. It wasn't until many years later that I found out that this had been shown as an April Fool story!

I guess so. Mine doesn't seem to be too severe because it doesn't get me in trouble but I say things to my husband sometimes like "Yeah I've been waiting here for 10 minutes!!" and he'll laugh at me and tell me it's only been 30 seconds or ect.

So I do have some trouble gauging the passage of time. I have clocks in like every room of the house or else maybe I would get in more trouble due to bad timing.

I;m horrible at reading analog clocks. I think mine largely has to do with anxiety, because my mind freezes up. I start thinking too much about how long it might take me and freak out. But I have the anxiety because it does take me longer to read than many people.

I saw someone group that with the ability to read maps. I am awesome at reading maps. I am also really spatial and have no issues with the size of hands. I can't really say what it is that trips me up. I supremely hate clocks without numbers.

clock in every room? me too! I think I need a special time keeping dog, cos even with all the clocks I'm not on top of it. (and isn't horrible that all the ticking is out of synch, it bothers me when I'm trying to get to sleep)

I'm excellent with reading clocks. Digital or analogue, 12 hour or 24 hour.

I do have trouble with digital clocks though, that show just numbers on an LSD display, rather than hands on a dial. Particularly alarm clocks - typically they'll have red numbers on a display. Nothing to do with reading the time. I just get a little shock or jolt when the minute changes. You never know quite when it will and I actually find the sudden change difficult and it gives me a little shock.

I have a little trouble with analog clocks, in that it takes me a second or two to read it. Kind of embarrassing when someone notices me studying it, though.