People highly skilled in math, I'd love your thots

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This is the weirdest thing ever. At least to me.

Look at my 7 year old daughter and ask her what 6+7 is and she gets this paralyzed look, looks down at her fingers, then whispers to herself as she counts it out. Much like I do. She does horribly on her simple math facts quizzes. She cannot add or subtract single digits by rote. She can't remember them. The fact that it is timed makes it worse, even though she gets twice as much time as anyone else in the class. More actually. Everyone else gets 2 minutes. She gets 5.

The other day I heard her arguing with her brother about something and she whips out: "But 24 plus 37 is 61! So you can't be right!"

I actually had to pause and think quite hard about whether or not she was right. I wish I had enough fingers to do ALL math problems. But, alas, she was right.

I stopped and I said "XXX, how do you know 24+37 is 61?" "Because it is." "OK. So what is 16+27?" <very slight pause> "43." "Why can you add these numbers so quickly, but you can't do your math facts?" "I don't know."

Has anyone else ever seen this?

It reminds me of a kid in my class in HS who very clearly had AS, though no one knew it at the time. We would be taking a math test, and if he was made to "show his work" he would go into a fit of rage. Because he couldn't. He knew the right answer, but he could not "show" how he got it.

Can anyone give me any insight?

She can quickly figure out that

24+37 = 61
and
16+27 = 43

but not that 6+7=13?

If so, that's weird. One would think you need to know how to do the last to compute 16+27. It's a "part" of it.

Last edited by qawer on 16 Mar 2013, 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

My point exactly. It is weird.

She shows no signs of being a genius...though she is smart.

Although you may be on to something...maybe she has her own internal way of doing math that gets "messed up" when she tries to overlay the method she was taught in school? Does that make sense? Maybe in a timed test, the pressure is overriding whatever her own way of doing it is.

Maybe you can teach her by using objects for example you have 6 smarties, add 7 smarties and count them. It is confusing why she can add larger numbers though.

That makes sense. It happened to me. I used to just look at a maths question and know the answer, but now I can do nothing of the sort :/.

Though it is very possible that she just gets anxious when it's school work, and this throws her off. <---This is much more common.

I had the same problem your daughter has, and for me it was caused by the way my teacher taught math. Even though the answercame to mind immediately, my teacher MADE me count it out on my fingers, which made me nervous and fearful. To this day, when I am calm it is automatic, but under pressure my skill goes to nothing.

I was fortunate, since my mom had been a math teacher and had shown me long before that calcullating in my head the way she did was perfectly acceptable, so tests d7d not faze me.

It is perfectly possible that your daughter is profondly gifted in math even if she does not shoe the same talent in other areas. When I took the Weschler, I blew the top off the math section and one other part but did not score that way in any other parts.

You should have her skills assessed. The school may well be unknowingly holding her back.

I had the same problem your daughter has, and for me it was caused by the way my teacher taught math. Even though the answercame to mind immediately, my teacher MADE me count it out on my fingers, which made me nervous and fearful. To this day, when I am calm it is automatic, but under pressure my skill goes to nothing.

I was fortunate, since my mom had been a math teacher and had shown me long before that calcullating in my head the way she did was perfectly acceptable, so tests d7d not faze me.

It is perfectly possible that your daughter is profondly gifted in math even if she does not shoe the same talent in other areas. When I took the Weschler, I blew the top off the math section and one other part but did not score that way in any other parts.

You should have her skills assessed. The school may well be unknowingly holding her back.

I'm gifted at math. I don't see a problem. I taught my 4 yr old niece some math. She doesn't have Asperger's, but she's probably going to be gifted. She is better at adding more "complicated" expressions too. I think that the school system sucks. They try to teach you math all these different ways but some people learn differently. I know I do.

A lot of people with Asperger's have uneven skills. I wasn't good at math until I hit university. Mostly because I thought it was boring and never tried. Math is so amazing. Math is so much more than addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I definitely don't have savant skills...and you don't need them. I think some aspies have a natural talent for math, which is useful for harder maths. Abstract reasoning and logic are so important.

Do you remember what the argument was about? I would guess that perhaps your daughter had some sort of extra incentive to be correct or maybe the situation she was in removed certain thought processes that would normally hinder her.

I personally find I am way more comfortable with complex math problems: i.e. I know the rules and can solve problems, but when it comes to simple calculations like 6 x 7 I have to think about it and doubt myself much more: often I prefer to convert things like 6 x 7 into what appear to be more complex problems but in my mind the components are simpler so the entire thing becomes simpler [e.g. 6 x 7 = 6 x 6 + 6 = 36 + 6 = 30 + 6 + 6 = 30 + 12 = 42]. It probably seems wierd but I can do those more extensive calculations more quickly than I can convince myself that 6 x 7 is 42. I do often need to count with my fingers. Certain simple calculations are in fact just memorizations, and sometimes I am stressed enough to question these memorizations. I had a meeting with a supervisor a few months ago and they were calculating the number of months for something and I had to think about it for so long that he looked at me strangely and started counting them out for me naming off each month. I was just stressed and he also thought I was being antogonistic because of it, but really sometimes the simplest of mathematical problems can confuse me or slow me down when there is just the fewest of other thoughts or emotions in my head. Give me a calculator for the basic math and I can get straight A's in University Calculus, Algebra, Matrices, etc: all courses that I took for fun. The more complex the problems the more the simple math stops bothering: it's like I'm focussed on the bigger issues of the problem and so the smaller calculations end up being done more naturally almost subconsciously. For me I suspect it's a memory stress issue: the more complex the problem, the more focussed I am on the problem because it's more enjoyable so there is less stress or room for doubt.

You might try this: ask your daughter to do the follow. The next time she is taking a math test and finds herself having problems answering a simple question that she thinks she should know, ask her to think about and write down what non-math related thoughts or emotions she is thinking about or having at the same time instead of answering the math problem itself. (Just do this for one of the problems, not all of them!) If ever she writes down any words at any time she was thinking at a minimum about what you told her to write, so it will be clear that she is also thinking about other things than the math problem in front of her. This would probably mean that her mind is not completely focussed on the task at hand so she may be having many types of thoughts causing her stress in these situations, even if she herself is not completely aware of them.

Sorry for the length: I like math problems, and your problem about math problems peaked my interest and got me thinking about myself too.

When I don't use caffeine or are not on meds for long periods of time, I can sometimes multiply up to three digits in my head. I can "see" the number as steps. When I get change, I can "feel" the correct answer; It comes instantly. It feels like spatial shapes, even though I'm DEFINITELY NOT A SAVANT.

Last edited by bizboy1 on 16 Mar 2013, 10:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

If I had to do 6 + 7, I would instantly know the answer. I guess I could also compute it as 7 + 7 -1, 6 + 4 +3, or something...I would have a hard time doing it with my fingers...f**k that. LOL. She probably uses her intuition!

It is interesting you say that. I HS, I hated math so much I wanted to just quit all together. At the time, I was planning to major in Art, so math past geometry seemed senseless to me. The math teacher spent a good deal of time trying to convince me that I WASN'T bad at math. He'd set me up with all kinds of abstract reasoning and logic puzzles and I loved them and did well, even though I couldn't do math. Maybe if I would have stuck with math longer, I would have gotten better based on what you say. I took the bare minimum requirements for math in college and parted ways.

She was screened for the G&T program and did not make the cut-off. It appears she is going to be monitored by her teachers going forward, though for possible inclusion later. The school sent me a letter about it and I didn't pay much attention to be honest. They did say that she would get "enrichment" in math, which based on her inability to do simple calculations I thought meant remediation, which is fine with me. But now that I think about it more, my son is getting remediation in math and they call it "enhancement." I'll have to follow up with the school because I think maybe she is going to be pulled out for advanced math, not remedial math.

You know, my dad (undx aspie with genius IQ) can add, say, a string of 5-7 2-digit numbers pretty much as fast as you can say them. I remember as a kid he once told me how he did it, and it was not through using conventional math. He seemed to have his own "method." Maybe she just has her own method, too. I'll talk to her teacher about it and she what she thinks. The school has been fabulous with supporting both of my kids, so I am confident they will do what they can do to help her.

if I could plug in to her brain, I wouldn't be surprised to find that this is extremely relevant to what is happening.

I'm going to quiz her a few more time on 2-digit numbers, and if she continues to do them well in her head, I am going to ask the school to stop the timed math facts tests. I understand that the method of repetition is probably helpful for the vast majority of the kids and I am sure it helps most people. But now I am starting to wonder if I developed a math phobia because I was taught math the wrong way for me because, like I said, I do good with abstract reasoning and logic. But throw simple calculations into it and my brain freezes. I don't want her to develop a math phobia over something as simple as math facts, ykwim?

And I don't know what the argument was about, because it was the argument that caught my attention, not what was happening before. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was either derived from minecraft or some home-made version of pokemon meets yu-gi-oh meets the fantastic anime characters that my daughter draws that she and her brother then "play" with by making up games.

I really love hearing how gifted people think. I think it is one of the most fascinating things. Keep up the stories!

I hadn't heard of that before. It's so bizarre because she's essentially doing the same operation, just carrying a 1 after.

One mental trick I do is to take away from the 6 however much is needed to "fill up" the 7 until it hits a 10. From there it's just 10 plus whatever remains of the 6, in this case 3. So 13.

She probably sees the numbers as quantities or shapes, and puts them together to get the sum.

I am guessing that she has been taught "how to do math", and that when she uses this procedure it is not as natural for her, and she has to count on her fingers.

It's just a matter of how she thinks, which happens to be different from how most people think and so isn't particularly compatible with the way most people are taught. Hopefully she'll learn to integrate her talent for (visual? mental?) addition with the stuff she learns at school.

I can't do rapid mental math, but I'm a natural at the logical aspects of math, starting with algebra. My history in math class is pretty weird: I found it much easier to learn to do calculus than to memorize the multiplication tables.