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perpetuumobile
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11 Jun 2016, 10:25 am

Hey! So I'm still new, and not yet medically diagnosed, but I've been thinking about Aspergers and my highschool times lately. I was wondering if this maybe has to do with Autism, and/or if some of you are experiencing the same: I was always excellent at maths, at logical and abstract thinking (analysis, formulas, systems...) BUT I had massive problems learning multiplication tables, in primary school I was only able to do basic calculus only after A LOT of practice.

Everyone thought I was just rebellious, because in highschool I became VERY good at maths, I was in a maths, informatics and physics orientated class (8 hours of maths, 5 of physics and chemistry each, 4 hours of informatics per week). I was very good at maths but still could not calculate properly (good with letters x,y,a,b,etc. though). Today I still struggle with basic calculus, dates, numbers in general, price of clothing/objects, and telling the time (analog clock). So, dyscalculia but excellent at logic and abstract formulas anyone?



mjc27
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11 Jun 2016, 8:11 pm

Hello there, I haven't done any maths using formulas for a long time given my age. The last time I did when I was in college and I can say I'm good in math. The problem with me I suck in adding in succession. Most of the time I end up using my fingers "secretly" when I'm in a hurry. I can't process for example 47 + 9 seeing I need to add other numbers afterwards. I don't want to be caught doing that especially the time when I reached college.

I'm not good with dates. As for reading the time, there's a period in my life when I'm struggling with it. Now, not much. But I can say there are seldom moments when I try to read the time and I can't process it in my mind.



naturalplastic
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12 Jun 2016, 4:56 am

Am kinda the opposite. Good with numbers but not good with advanced mathematics. When I try to call up my algebra from my school days on aptitude tests I hit a brick wall at certain kinds of basic equations.

But at work when we count the inventory of grocery stores by "quantity and price" no one but I seems to be able to handle concepts like "three for eight dollars". Everyone else goes to pieces trying to figure out what the price of one item is if its "three for eight dollars". To me its like breathing to instantly think "that means $2.67" , and then to start to adding up all of the stuff on the shelf into my auditing machine at 2.67 a piece without missing a beat.



C2V
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13 Jun 2016, 9:19 am

I'm completely fascinated by math, the conceptual side of it, but numbers - I once came across the term Dyscalculia which fits in perfectly, as I transpose even simple numerical sequences. If something is written 64277, for example, I'll read 24677. They say its related to dyslexia (no problems for me with words however) and what a surprise, it's a developmental disorder.
I'm very interested in learning the higher functions of math, but every teacher who ever tried to teach me anything in this field insisted I could never understand advanced math unless I could grasp the basic "building blocks" you're describing, such as superior skills in arithmetic.
But then, I once read the account of a mathematician who had a strange paralysing fear of numbers - he could grasp higher mathematics conceptually that few others could, but completely panicked when asked to split a restaurant bill. I wonder again if this is one of those areas of autistic inconsistency, such as people with misophonia who love composing music, just do so wearing earplugs.
Would there be a way to learn higher math without sweating the small stuff through numbers ???


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milksnake
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13 Jun 2016, 6:31 pm

Yeah, you don't need arithmetic to do advanced mathematics, I can do tensor calculus but can't do my 3 times table, if you can think about it visually you really don't need to worry about the numbers, they become volumes and shapes and you can use programs such as matlab to do the numbers for you.



Unfortunate_Aspie_
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13 Jun 2016, 7:18 pm

C2V wrote:
Would there be a way to learn higher math without sweating the small stuff through numbers ???

HOLY s**t I REALLY WANT TO KNOW THIS!! ! 8O

I CONSTANTLY make stupid mistakes in maths. Like, I am that will get something wrong a whole problem wrong because I forgot a minus sign - I've always been terrible at writing down the problems properly and I'll skip steps that kind of thing.
I did physics and high level maths and at first I was bad at it, but I discovered much to my amazement- once the math got abstract enough less reliance on formula/or alegebraic manipulations suddenly I super f*****g "good" at it and enjoyed it immensely. the only thing that tripped me up were words that people used- like if it is was all lecture and no slides or all described by paragraphs and little visualization. It creeped me out when one of my profs was just a little bit more visual... I went from dumb as a sack of bricks at this stuff and having to work for hours at problems other people finished in like 1 hr to suddenly being top of the class and explaining to other people. The only difference was less words and more abstraction and pictures haha- and multivariable and after were my FAVORITE subjects- life changing.
I was always better at understanding the concepts but then would get bogged down in the equations or small tiny tiny bits- which is weird cause I usually like that stuff. Also, I don't really understand or know what dyslexia is like, but I would visually lose track of the digits and stuff. Weird things like keeping a super neat notebook and clean page (like literally if it was cleaner) I would "get better" at it. What does that mean though!

I literally had the exact problem you are talking about- and I NEVER NEVER EVER understood it or what it means!!
I would loooooove an explanation.
I figured it was some kind of learning disability, but I don't know what!!
What's the name of the account you mentioned? It's not a real person right?



INTPnarwhal
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14 Jun 2016, 12:09 am

Ooh, me! That's me! I'm somewhat discalculaic and have a bad number sense, but I love abstract, complex formulas and similar styles of thought.