Dyscalculia

[Oz67]

I am doing early math in Khan Academy, I am trying to improve the severe feature of Dyscalculia, I don't know if I will be able to go to complex math in the future, but I will try my best. Sometimes, I felt like cutting math, but that is not a healthy mindset. I failed early math most of the school years, and at some point felt like quitting, but I started to try again.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I thought I had dyscalcula, then, at the age of 40 I discovered Statistics and Statistical Design of Experiments. I found that I understood uncertainty and the math made sense.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Everybody has their strengths. I never liked languages, must admit I was good at both math and languages. interpreting what a certain piece means drives me nuts. just give me the rules, Not interested in what the writer meant. Probably why I never listen to music lyrics.

 

[Slime_Punk]

Ooo, this one hits close to home!

All throughout school, I sucked at math, never saw any use in any of it, and basically thought it was just something that weird people did on the weekends or something (pardon my previously narrow world-view, I was (and still am) a bit of an idiot!).

Fast-forward many years, and I found myself learning to code and actually having to work through some of these lessons I've disregarded throughout the years; the very language that we've built (or discovered, which is highly debatable) in order to observe and understand the universe was right at my fingertips (Math, not specifically code).

Anyway, have you ever tried learning some basic skills like this? I find that it's such a useful environment to test out math problems, physics, probability and so much more. Plus, Python is super easy to learn (even kids do it!).

 

[Shevek]

I learn math by trying a problem with single-digit numbers, so I can see easily if it makes sense, doing it two different ways. I got hung up for quite a while on the notion of squared numbers because nobody thought to use the example of estimating tile for a square floor. I always prefer a real-world problem of some interest to me than just number juggling. Once I am confident in a formula I plug in the real numbers to get the answer I need.
There's two parts to math - the logic, and the calculating. The calculating has gotten very easy, so it is easy to focus on the logic. Still, it gets tedious, so I found that the fun way was to take my notes in BASIC, so I can just plug in numbers for what I'm doing instead of looking up stuff.

 

[Progster]

I tried Khan Academy just for fun a few years ago, but couldn't do complex algebra and gave up on it. The problem was not understanding what I was doing wrong, or why the answer was wrong. At school I was good at geometry, but couldn't do the more advanced algebra questions.

 

[Oz67]

Ooo, this one hits close to home!

All throughout school, I sucked at math, never saw any use in any of it, and basically thought it was just something that weird people did on the weekends or something (pardon my previously narrow world-view, I was (and still am) a bit of an idiot!).

Fast-forward many years, and I found myself learning to code and actually having to work through some of these lessons I've disregarded throughout the years; the very language that we've built (or discovered, which is highly debatable) in order to observe and understand the universe was right at my fingertips (Math, not specifically code).

Anyway, have you ever tried learning some basic skills like this? I find that it's such a useful environment to test out math problems, physics, probability and so much more. Plus, Python is super easy to learn (even kids do it!).

I am learning math from scratch.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I learn math by trying a problem with single-digit numbers, so I can see easily if it makes sense, doing it two different ways. I got hung up for quite a while on the notion of squared numbers because nobody thought to use the example of estimating tile for a square floor. I always prefer a real-world problem of some interest to me than just number juggling. Once I am confident in a formula I plug in the real numbers to get the answer I need.
There's two parts to math - the logic, and the calculating. The calculating has gotten very easy, so it is easy to focus on the logic. Still, it gets tedious, so I found that the fun way was to take my notes in BASIC, so I can just plug in numbers for what I'm doing instead of looking up stuff.

My issue with math was the memorizing.

 

[Oz67]

My issue with math was the memorizing.

Me too.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I tried Khan Academy just for fun a few years ago, but couldn't do complex algebra and gave up on it. The problem was not understanding what I was doing wrong, or why the answer was wrong. At school I was good at geometry, but couldn't do the more advanced algebra questions.

what they don't tell you every branch of math is like a different language with slightly different grammatical rules
logic is the only commonality. Incidentally boy did Kurt Godel skew with the mathematicians.

 

[Oz67]

what they don't tell you every branch of math is like a different language with slightly different grammatical rules
logic is the only commonality. Incidentally boy did Kurt Godel skew with the mathematicians.

That makes sense.

 

[Outdated]

I am learning math from scratch.

One of the ways a lot of children have their maths lessons reinforced is by playing games that require them to do simple maths in the head for the sake of scoring.

One that instantly comes to mind is a dice game called Zilch. Most dart board games and many card games also encourage you to improve this skill.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

unfortunately, I never play games even as a child. Could have become a good euchre player if I remember what was played, I just can't bother, silly game.

 

[Oz67]

I pass early math, but with a little bit of trials errors, it's a bit frustrating though.

 

[Oz67]

I have severe feature of Dyscalculia and some tendencies of Dyslexia.

I failed math most of the school years, but I kept relearning the same early mathematics, but still don't get it. At some point I quit doing math for some time, and felt like, it's pointless, but then I started learning math again, but with some trial and errors, but I passed at the end.

I feel bad for quitting math, because it can seem like I refuse to learn math and making up excuses, but failing early math for most school years is not normal at all, and I am way behind compared to most of my peers.

I started to try to learn math again from scratch, although I am not sure if I will be able to do complex math in the future, but I can try to do complex math in the future.

 

[330]

 

[Slime_Punk]

My thoughts on the issue might be dead-wrong, but sometimes I think that even if we're disadvantaged (as long as it's not a very severe intellectual disability, which would probably involve no need or desire to learn math concepts anyway), we can still learn basically anything we want.

The caveat, at least in my brain, is that learning will be slow and you'll obviously have to put way more into it than your 'average' peers; they'll skate on by compared to you, but some will also flake out, drop out, and convince themselves that they can't handle it, because some of that is seemingly embedded in human nature.

But even if it takes you 10 years to master what it took them in a year, are you any less disadvantaged, or are you simply more disciplined, more focused, or dare I say better off due to your disadvantage regardless, because you broke through the walls that most people would've given up on? At that point, I'd argue that you're actually a secret master, because you overcame every obstacle in your path and nothing can really stop you anymore.

Just some food for thought, because I've been there. In fact, I am there, and I'm keeping the focus strong because I can overcome anything, even if it takes me 20 years to do what non-ASD, non-ADHD people can do in 5 minutes.

---

Picture this plot twist: in 5 years, some average person who wants to get into math and become as good as you asks you how you got started and then blurts out, "Wow, I could never do that; I have dyscalculia".

 

[Wolfnox]

Repetition helps.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I had trouble learning math myself. It just confuses me and for years everyone thought that I was being stubborn and lazy and refusing to learn it because my mind would shut down from all of the confusion and stress building up inside my head and I’d freeze and needed to stop just so my mind could start up again. Turns out this was just part of my undiagnosed Asperger’s and that I was being taught math in ways that my mind couldn’t comprehend. The only math I was ever good at doing and could learn normally was geometry because I used to do a lot of origami. I can still remember some of the geometric formulas to find surface space and volume. Physics was the only lab science that I could handle as well because of its connection to geometry. I’m not an expert at geometry but at least I am able to handle it better than I could with Algebra.

 

[Oz67]

When I told some people that I have severe Dyscalculia and that I don't know how to do most basic math and that I don't know how to do Calculus even, some of them think that I am using that as an excuse for not being good at math. I had failed math most of my school years and it's not just me being only bad at math, and I still don't know how to do most basic math as a 22 year old and that is not normal. I tried explaining that to them, but they didn't listen.

Some people think that everyone can learn math, the question is if they understand that when you reach a limit before Dyscalculia manifests.