Memorizing terms.

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This is the topic for those Aspies with Memory difficulties. Which may mean a different issue entirely, ADHD, a learning disability or whatever.

I have an extreme difficulty memorizing terms. I think I am good at understanding and solving problems, especially coming up with creative solutions or looking at something from a different angle.

But when it comes to memorizing terms and vocabulary and specific things... it is clear that I am working with a deficit here. It goes beyond just not memorizing it, my mind seems to not even regard or reject terms if they don't make sense in my head. And this sense has to almost transcend words. It's almost an intuition and not memorization.

The problem used to just come up in my grammar studies. I intuitively know how to use the language, but when it comes to defining and knowing the terms for all these things... it requires great effort to begin to know the terms used. Past participle, gerund, present perfect, infinitive... etc these words hold very little meaning to me, they are not the words that come to mind when I think of the things they represent.

It has come up in Math, a subject I'm interested in and am pretty good at, but new Greek letters come up... new concepts that are called different things. Remembering all the past proved results and being able to use them. Mentally I have a very hard time keeping up. Which is frustrating, up to a point I'm great at the subject. Thinking through a problem and mentally coming up with Mathematical ideas... I love that stuff.

The worst now is foreign language. I read and learn new words, but it just does not stick in my head. Words I've been hearing for the last 6 months, I still don't remember. This has really has put myself in a remedial track for learning a language, since I need a foundation of words to jump start learning the language... otherwise I'll just keep slipping. It's like I'm just barely treading water... and I can't get anywhere until I've mastered a basic set of words.

Largely though, the frustration comes from intellectually understanding what's going on, but without having enough memorization to fully realize what I know. I work best when I'm given all the information needed... and am just told to play with what's presented to me. In German, the language I'm trying to learn, I know the grammar well enough. I know how to form a sentence and where to put verbs and which verbs to conjugate and much of it... but with out the memory for the actual words of the language... I keep on feeling frustrated. I feel smart and stupid at the same time...

I guess this is more of a rant than a discussion... and I don't know how much this is a problem to others... since it's not really AS related. But of all my problems, this is at the top of my list... and no amount of training seems to help it. I'm cursed to be an intelligent person with an extreme inability to obtain knowledge.

...Or how 'bout an ability to retain the wrong kinds of knowledge?

I'm quite adept at memorizing useless trivia about the various things I study independently. Yet while I'm near the top of my class, my long term ability to remember proofs is actually quite poor.

I'm excellent at learning rules and procedures, but particular facts dissociated from their system for some reason baffle the heck out of me. Of course for maths it is an unusual case: there isn't really so much a thing as a fact per se; the proposition cannot be separated from the system. To use a theorem, I oftentimes need to re-prove it to myself. Systems make sense; theorems don't really.

Well, for me it sometimes helps to associate a movement/guesture with the term (or on syllable level) or if something is in a certain order to attempt to bring it into a melody. But of course whether it can help you, I do not know. There are three kinds of learning: by what you see, by what you hear and by what you do. Maybe you are using the wrong technique?

I don't even know what way I learn best. In a sense, I learn best by understanding the whole system from the top down, as pictures and experience, not words or facts.

When I was teaching myself music theory, I got very frustrated with all the terms that seemingly meant the same thing. Let's say 7th chords, which were actually 4 note chords.... but in terms of semi-tones and the distance between them notes it could be described as something else. Now I understand it all, visually... I can use the terms if I need to. Because I know how they all relate to each other. But if someone sat down with me and just told me, these are 7th chords... I would forget them the next day.

I did very well in Calculus II, but if someone asks for help in that subject... I would basically have to reteach myself much of it first. Especially all the series related stuff... I have retained very little specifics. And what specific knowledge I do know is blurred... I forget the details and just remember a few key ideas. Worst is when I remember the right details to the wrong idea...

No one expects me to have problems like this. Since I can reason at a high level, they just assume I can plug along and should be able to retain this information at least at an average level. But it's really not the case, the areas I excel in in I do so because I can reason and build up my knowledge base on the spot. Any time there is brute force memorization has been a dreadful experience.

You're not alone Pugly...

I've been told it's my ADD/HD, but I never remember things I'm supposed to like special terms, etc., just like you.

For school, I just keep in touch with my instructors about the progress I am making with my work.

During exams, I seem to be able to recall words by the way they look... if that makes sense.
It's especially easy if it's a multiple-choice test.. I just remember that for the problem described, there was this one word that looked like.... THAT ONE! ... and hope I'm remembering it all correctly.

Math! ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! I love playing with math and even helping kids at my daughter's school work on their problems (actually I did this in elementary and junior high.,.. not at her high school).
But when the kids or the teacher started in with those WORDS... I would get lost right away.

I wish I had some advice for you.
Have you gone to your student counselor? You are in college.. yes?
I agree that there seem to be plenty of folks who see how smart we are and then assume we learn and comprehend things just like they do.... WRONG!

They then like to accuse people like us of not 'trying hard enough', or 'only doing the work when you want to'

I have similiar issues and I have one word, or is it two?

Flashcards! You can get hundreds of them in the large size for a few dollars.

Here's my process, I hope it helps:

1. Read BEFORE class, and take notes on reading
2. After class, review class/slide notes
3. Make flashcards (Q & A format) from book and lecture notes
4. Review ALL flashcards for each class every single day if possible (it only takes 15 minutes per class, once you start to accrue the knowledge). Say the answers outloud, or in your head but as if you were being asked them in an oral exam. Think about what the topics mean and how they are applied.

If you can do this, there won't be any need to study for quizzes or exams, because you are essentially studying every day + doing homework, sample problems, etc... That's how I got through multiple high-level math classes. As you keep reviewing your cards, you will start to fly through the stuff you already know. Of course, you still have to do the example and homework problems to learn how to apply the knowledge.

I had a few key flashcards for each section, that's usually plenty because the sections are small and concise. For example, in Calc I, you might have a card for the basics of evaluating limits towards infinity, another card for simplifying logs, another card for basic derivatives, etc... I had the question on the front, and the answers on the back so I didn't have to go flipping around to look things up. I also had page numbers or lecture slide numbers, so I could flip to an example quickly without wasting any time.

Good Luck, it might not work for everyone, but it certainly works for me. But in a foriegn language, you may end up with just too many cards, I'm not sure how my card system would apply.

I had, and still have, a VERY VERY hard time learning stuff that I'm not interested in. I know this is sort of a tangent because this topic began with not being able to memorize something outside of "intuition"; but I think what I'm talking about is somewhat pertinent.

Before college, I never cared about high school. I made the honor roll in secondary and primary school and the beginning of high school, but after that I just lost interest. It's just hard to keep your focus when you aren't interested in something and probably even harder when you have a developmental disorder like ADD, any PDD's, OCD, etc..

Anyways, what I do for subjects that I'm not interested in is re read them and re read them, since I don't mind the reading. I make the material as familiar as possible until I don't even have to think about it and it pretty much becomes a part of me.

I learned this from Isaac Newton. Why not learn techniques that masters used to help you study, right?

There are plenty of ways that people learn material, i.e. lots of shortcuts, you'll find yours; whether it's through the help from people here at Wrongplanet or through your own searching or elsewhere.

Hope you find something here.

i think a lot of HFA's struggle with this. i certainly noticed it when i took up guitar. i'm mostly self taught so for years when i read guitar magazines i couldn't tell you what a hammer-on, a pull-off, an arpeggio, or a pinch harmonic were but if someone were to do one in front of me i'd go "oh yea i've been doing those for a while".

my advice? don't try reading the terms endlessly to memorize them. instead, record yourself or someone else reading off the definitions. hearing it used in general human conversation gives them a much more natural feel and thus they're easier to learn.

Yesterday I had some major issues in my programming class.

One of these issues deals with remembering what certain terms mean and how I use them.

Here's an example...

In ALICE (the learning program we're using), they have what are called Parameters and Variables.

It has taken me all semester to really understand what these basically are, and I didn't do it by reading the book over & over, or by listening to the instructors.

I had to visualize with pictures what each word was doing.

Parameters... I picture the word parameter moving from one place to another but remaining the same.
Then I think about a parameter being used by the computer... a Method (another term I struggled with ) uses these parameters and can talk with other Methods using parameters.
So, I picture a method calling out to the parameter, the parameter walking over and working with the method, then another method calling this same parameter, and the parameter walking over to that other method and working... but not changing.

Variables... same basic idea as the parameter... it is called upon by methods to come and do something.. but in the case of a variable, it changes each time it does something. Say a program asks the user "How many times do you want this object to _____?", then the user inputs a variable like.. 1, or 2, or 3 times. After the command has run, the variable discards that number and wants a new one. If it is called by a different method, it asks the same question but has no number.


I can't just remember the definition... heck!... I can't always remember the name, so I'm going "Well, I just put in this thing here..." instructor - "A variable", [i]me[/u] "... and then when I click start, this other part acts upon....".
Anyway... this was the only way I could figure out what these terms meant and how I could use them in my program.
Visualizing this way can often help me understand better than rote memorization.

Same thing in Algebra... while other folks can remember that when they see a particular problem in a particular form... they then use this particular formula... I have to be able to SEE what that formula is doing to the problem.
Used to drive my former wife CRAZY when she would try and help me with my algebra homework... she eventually gave up totally!
her - "When you see a problem like this one _________, you use this formula to figure it out."
me - "But why does the formula work?"
her - "I don't know... it doesn't matter... just use it when you see a problem like this one!"
me - "But I can't remember it like that. I need to understand what's going on and why that formula works on that type of problem!"
her - "No.. you JUST HAVE TO REMEMBER to use THIS formula when you see THIS type of PROBLEM.... ARRRGGGHHH... I GIVE UP!"


Same thing at work... there are medical terms that everyone seems to know and that I have been working with for many years, but they just don't stick in my mind and I get caught making up names for them.

Frustrating, yet it can be fiendishly fun ... me -"Take that respignurator and attach it to the..."
them -"What is a respigna whatchamathing?"...
me- "you don't know what that is? It's one of these!",
them -"Oh, you mean a clamp?",
me- "Jeez! You new guys... just can't keep up on the new terminology huh?"
them - walking away confused

Did you try flashcards?
I use them to memorize vocab in my German class and ace every quiz cuz of them.