Math and I are old rivals. The first time I recall not being able to do everything the rest of my class could do was in 3rd grade. We had to do simple math equations in our heads. I could do the single-digit ones with little difficulty, but when multiple digits were involved, it was just impossible. I couldn't keep the visual of the numbers straight in my head. I could barely keep them straight on paper. It was impossible. I remember feeling so stupid, I just couldn't do this.
My teacher was perplexed. I excelled in every other subject. She told me I was lazy and told me I needed to try harder.
I began skipping school. Yes, at the tender age of, what was I in third grade, 8? I began mastering the art of faking sick. My grades deteriorated rapidly. However, I still passed on to the 4th grade.
This is where things escalated.
This is where we began learning multiplication. I tried as hard as I could to remember the numbers. The numbers the numbers the numbers the numbers. They drove me crazy. I couldn't remember a number I was thinking of 2 seconds ago. I couldn't keep multiple-digit numbers straight. 23 became 32. 3,495 became 4,359. I didn't understand why I couldn't just remember my multiplication tables.
I remember writing them all down and reciting them for hours upon hours in my bed room. It's like it just wouldn't click in my head. My brain wasn't comprehending how 7 could become 49. How 6 could become 24. The only ones I was able to master were the 1, 2, 5, 9 (because of the fingers trick),10, and 11 tables (the easy ones for everyone else). This didn't even happen until well into 6th grade.
Through out middle school I struggled with my math. I resorted to having my mom do my homework and having my friends help me cheat on tests and quizzes. This didn't even help me. My math teachers always thought I was lazy. I didn't want to do class work, I would rarely do homework, I wouldn't participate in group work, I skipped class. It was never because I didn't want to learn, or because I was lazy. It was because I couldn't learn. At least not the way they were teaching me.
I would pass all my classes, except math. But it wasn't enough to bring down my GPA enough that I was required to repeat the grade. I just had to repeat the class. I took pre-algebra in 7th grade. I took it again in 8th. I miraculously passed, by the skin of my teeth, and was placed in Algebra in 9th grade. I failed that class.
In 10th grade I was sent to a psychologist because I was skipping school so much. It was determined that I wasn't just a problem child, I wasn't lazy, I wasn't bad. They discovered my learning disability.
They made me take an IQ test. I excelled in every part of it except, you guessed it, math. I was barely in 10th grade and they measured my English abilities to be at college level, and my math abilities at the 5th grade level. They had me take more and more tests, fill out questionaires, do puzzles, and lots of strange activities to test my coordination.
When I found out I had a learning disability, so many emotions went through me. I felt stupid, but I had felt stupid all along. I felt scared. I felt sad. I felt happy, because it was confirmation that this wasn't my fault... but I also felt angry.
I suffered all those years. All those years my teachers and my parents yelled at me for not doing my work, for not wanting to go to school. They'd call me lazy and unmotivated and told me I wasn't a good enough student. That I wasn't trying hard enough. When I knew I was trying as hard as I possibly could. Why didn't any one take the time to stop and realize...hey, she's a bright girl, why is it she's so bad in math? Why didn't anyone see that maybe it was something deeper?
But I realize, Dyscalculia isn't a well-know learning disability. I had never heard of it before, so I guess not many others have either.
This is why I'm writing this. I want people to know about this learning disability.
Symptoms
:
-Normal or accelerated language acquisition: verbal, reading, writing. Poetic ability.-Good visual memory for the printed word.
-Good in the areas of science (until a level requiring higher math skills is reached), geometry (figures with logic not formulas), and creative arts.-Difficulty with the abstract concepts of time and direction. Inability to recall schedules, and sequences of past or future events. Unable to keep track of time. Maybe chronically late.-Mistaken recollection of names. Poor name/face retrieval. Substitute names beginning with same letter.
-Inconsistent results in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Poor mental math ability. Poor with money and credit. Cannot do financial planning or budgeting. Checkbooks not balanced. Short term, not long term financial thinking. Fails to see big financial picture. May have fear of money and cash transactions. May be unable to mentally figure change due back, the amounts to pay for tips, taxes, etc.-When writing, reading and recalling numbers, these common mistakes are made: number additions, substitutions, transpositions, omissions, and reversals.
-Inability to grasp and remember math concepts, rules, formulas, sequence (order of operations), and basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts.
-Poor long term memory (retention & retrieval) of concept mastery
-May be able to perform math operations one day, but draw a blank the next!
-May be able to do book work but fails all tests and quizzes. -May be unable to comprehend or "picture" mechanical processes.-Lack "big picture/ whole picture" thinking. Poor ability to "visualize or picture" the location of the numbers on the face of a clock, the geographical locations of states, countries, oceans, streets, etc. -Difficulty keeping score during games, or difficulty remembering how to keep score in games, like bowling, etc. Often looses track of whose turn it is during games, like cards and board games. Limited strategic planning ability for games, like chess. << I'm banned from playing Chinese Poker with my friends for this reason. XD
So, there you have it. If you're a parent or a teacher and your child seems like she's lazy when it comes to math, take a second look.
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Comments (13)
well said. i read the whole thing and i've seen documentary videos about this particular type of problem.
Your story is like mine, but with a twist. In the sixties, girls did not have hyperactivity, which is called ADHD today, and no one knew about dyslexia. I make As and A+s in every subjuct in 8th grade, but I failed (67%) in spelling. I still have my report card. I had learned to read by memorizing the shapes of 1000s of words. It took me 3 years to learn how to spell 'area' because all the letters look alike. I still depend on spell check to communicate through writing. My hand writing is also illegible. I proofread every post 3 or 4 times to make sure I'm using the words I intended.
Yes, my English teachers said I didn't study. My high school physics teacher called me lazy. The assistant principle called me a trouble-maker. I would have thought I was stupid, except that in the 70s, high school students took IQ tests, and mine was the highest in the school. Instead, I thought I was the lazy never-do-well they called me.
It took having my own ADHD, dyslexic, dysgraphic child in 1998 to finally receive my own diagnosis and find a bit of peace.
@Alatariel40@xanga - my other child learned 3rd grade math in Jr. High.
Dude, i wish i knew about this in high school! ive had similar problems, and my problems would lead to laziness cus i hated math so much. i have almost all of the symptoms except for the inability to remember maps, im good at remembering locations and pics, just not numbers! i don't know why. I remember numbers when i need to use them a lot, like my social, but other than that they gvet mixed up in my head. I still don't know most of the multiplication table and i am almost done with college! I excell at English, on the SAT's I had more than double my math score in the verbal section. numbers just never made much sense to me. Do you know why this happens? what's different about our brains??
I hate math too! Your story sounds just like mine! I remember in kindergarten the teacher had a green triangle, a red square, a green triangle, a red square (pattern) and asked me "What comes next in the pattern?" and i said "a yellow circle?" I just don't understand math concepts sometimes...I'm not stupid,but I'm definitely bad at math and science.
Thank you so SO much for this. I bawled my way through math classes--especially in high school as I was made fun of by the teachers and the students. My parents thought I was lazy and I wasn't trying hard enough. After I graduated high school I went to Sylvan learning center to be tested on my math abilities and they said I stopped learning in the 4th grade. I couldn't afford for them to tutor me to a college level in math because they said it would take at best 2 years of being tutored 5 days a week. As I was reading your blog post it was like reading my own story--especially the parts about being tested and coming up with high scores in reading etc. I was reading at a college level when I was in 4th grade. I have NEVER been challenged enough in English or History or even Biology. Any subject other than that (any math, chemistry, physical science) I simply could not understand. I have always asked my mom (who is a teacher) if I have a learning disability because I could have sworn that I did but she has always said no. She still thinks I'm "scared of math". Now I want to go to college to get my major in history but I'm terrified of the college algebra I will have to take. Does anyone have a solution? I can't afford special tutoring.
Come join us at The Dyscalculia Forum :)
http://dyscalculiaforum.com
Nice post. I can definitely relate. My difficulties, like yours, began in 3rd grade. However, I didn't get diagnosed until age 26 (last year). In college, I barely scraped by with a C in undergrad statistics, and that was because we used a lot of SPSS, which does a lot of the calculating for you. My professor in my graduate statistics class, on the other hand, had us work out formulae on paper before we did them in SPSS, and she started to notice that I could never complete homework and ran out of time on tests. I was genuinely trying, but I had to check my figures over and over again, even when using a calculator, because I kept inputting things in the wrong order. She suggested that I get tested for a learning disability, and of course the results showed the characteristic of a severe contrast between verbal ability and performance ability.
Quite honestly, I think sexism played a role in delaying my diagnosis well into adulthood. In math various classes all the way up through high school, I had several teachers tell me that "math is just harder for girls," and that I shouldn't be concerned. Thinking back on all the frustration I experienced, it really bugs me that I could have been diagnosed so much sooner than I was.
Another confounding factor is that I have very advanced spatial/pattern reasoning. I have trouble with very simple operations that aren't in very predictable segments (10's, 15's, etc.), but I'm very good at object rotations, which for some reason seem to be categorized in the math/performance area.
aww, good post
keep doing what your doing, your not lazy or stupid so don't think that
i have trouble with math also, you aren't alone
Watching my fiancee with his college algabra is the worst experience I have ever had. He got have way through to midterms and failed for the 2nd time in a row. It's the only math he absolutely has to complete in order to get his degree. I'm great in math, so I try to help, but to no avail. Does anyone have a solution? This article fit him to a Tee. He has no concept of time.
So much of this resonates with me, except my troubles started earlier. I'd gone to a private kindergarten, where the focus was on reading and phonics, (which I already knew how to do and excelled at,) and they barely taught us to count to ten. So I had no idea what to do when, the first day of first grade, the teacher passed out a one hundred problem math quiz, complete with double digit numbers.
When I asked the teacher what it was, she acted like I was an alien, gave me a basic explanation of what the plus and minus signs were, then told me to do what I could. Then she acted disgusted when I couldn't figure it out.