Is it normal for Aspies to not be so good with math?

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SyphonFilter
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11 Nov 2012, 3:42 am

"Aspies are geniuses at math" is only a stereotype. In reality everyone's different. Some of us are good at it, some average, some not so good. Me, I'm in the "not so good" group. Ask me to do mental math involving multiplication or division and you might as well downgrade me to the "worst".



madnak
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11 Nov 2012, 4:20 am

I'm reasonably good at math (much, much better than average), but I doubt that has anything to do with Asperger's.



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11 Nov 2012, 9:29 am

I'm absolutely rubbish at maths. Even the relative basics, it wasn't until I left school and used them in the wide world that they made more sense. At the basic stuff I am probably OK but anything even slightly more complex and my brain freezes.


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Last edited by whirlingmind on 11 Nov 2012, 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

howzat
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11 Nov 2012, 9:54 am

Some are good at maths and some are not good at it everyone is different really.



Joe90
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11 Nov 2012, 10:00 am

I am extremely below average with maths. When I was at school I was on the same intellectual wavelength in maths as other kids with learning difficulties were.


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11 Nov 2012, 11:53 am

It's really strange because I used to be great in math up until the 7th or 8th grade. After that, math became my worst subject.



XFilesGeek
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11 Nov 2012, 1:02 pm

XFGeek + math = :wall:


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whatamess
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11 Nov 2012, 2:11 pm

lol XFilesGeek, that is pretty good math right there...hehe...



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11 Nov 2012, 3:25 pm

I was extremely poor at maths as a child - actually, the poorest in the class, while at the same time way ahead of the others in reading and writing. However, as a teenager I did quite well at it. I think it was because I had a great maths teacher in high school who made the subject interesting for me for the first time, and like most people with AS/ADD, whether or not I can complete something depends a whole lot on whether I find it enjoyable or not!

I also found as a kid that being in a quiet environment helped me where maths was concerned. I think that in my case it wasn't so much that I was awful at maths (though it certainly looked and felt that way), but that maths required more concentration from me than other subjects did. Therefore, while I was able to cope in a noisy classroom environment for subjects I found easier, for maths I needed somewhere quiet where my concentration would not be interrupted. That's probably another reason my high school performance was better, as we were mostly graded on homework there.

I do think the environment can have quite an effect on people with ASDs, so check if anything going on around you is affecting your concentration.



Rascal77s
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11 Nov 2012, 4:08 pm

I just want to say that many people on the spectrum have a very good number sense but the methods used to teach math don't work for them. The sequential steps taught to solve problems screw many of us up because we don't go through the same steps in our head. I have seen this brought up on multiple ASD forums. I still can't do basic arithmetic and algebra the way taught in school. I also do horribly where grades are based on showing proof although I can come up with the right answer in my head in a few seconds while people are fiddling around with their calculators. Some of us are good at math some aren't but I think many of us end up thinking we're bad at math because the methods we are taught just don't work for us.

Do a bit of googling if you are curious and you will find that the western methods of many forms of math are not the only methods. I was looking for something on youtube about a year ago and saw a link for vedic math. I clicked on it out of curiosity and was really surprised because it was much closer to how math works in my head than the western method. I think western education fails a lot of children, especially autistic children.