Maths?

[Propinquity]

Hi all,

 

I am interested to know of other Aspies experience of Maths? personally maths was a dreaded experience and even written down I really struggled.

I took much longer to learn simple times tables and adding up I could never do in my head. I even had trouble learning to tell the time on a 12 hour clock

My prime example is Long division, I know a lot of kids struggled with this, but if my mother and I practicsed long division for a couple of hours, by the end of it I understood the rules and could work out sums on my own. The next morning however It was like I had never seen it in my life and was back to my previous state of complete and utter incomprehension, which understandably was confusing for my mother. The only aspect of maths I ever enjoyed and felt I learnt was Algebra.

 

Another difficulty I had was accepting there was various ways to do a sum, if I was shown a different way it confused me and I couldnt cope with the change in method. This always confused and frustrated all my maths teachers, but I have read some Aspies have a real knack of understanding mathss I just wondered if everyone else could give me an insight into their experiences?

 

thanks!

[caci]

Our son is 11yrs old (PDDNOS) and sounds like you. With practice he can follow a pattern and do "sums" by following the pattern but really does not understand it. He has learnt a few times tables, but can not use the information in any way.

 

Like you, the next time he tries the same type of sum he seems to have to relearn how to do it.

 

He also struggles with the idea of there being more than one way to work out an answer.

 

Telling the time is another mystery to him, but he does understand the basics (today, tomorrow, before after) which apparently some people can't grasp. He will often ask how long until tea, and if I say 15 minutes he will then need me to back this up with something like that's how long it is from when the Simpsons starts until he first adverts.

 

You are certainly not the only one who finds maths challenging !!

 

 

[bikemad]

My son hates maths bigtime and struggles daily with it especially his tables.....his teacher is putting into effect one to one for him with maths cos he struggles so much.

[jb1964]

Hi,

 

Yes my daughter was pretty much as you say - not good at 'mental' maths, times tables, clock faces, or anything that gave items in relation to a question, ie. Tom has 4 apples, 2 pears, if he buys X etc = and also struggled with understanding how something could be worked out a different way. However, algebra she picked up straight away and found it easy.

 

Take care,

Jb

Edited October 16, 2009 by jb1964

[Martin Howe]

I really struggled with maths in primary and early secondary school; I could always learn things that were "axiomatised" but so much of primary school education in the 1970s was taught by example with no attempt of explanation before example nor - times table apart - rote learning of things that could not themselves be broken down. I could never get long division because it required instinctive single-digit or small-scale arithmetic, especially as we were taught to use the least common denominator to begin with - an extra computational step, compared to just multiplying the denominators, that just complicates things and should really be an optimisation once the method has been learned at all.

 

Breakthough in 3rd year of secondary school: a couple of 5th year kids (15/16yo age group) took pity on me and taught me during a lunch break - they were then surprised how easy I found it once it had been explained logically. If we'd been made to recite divide, add and subtract tables as well as time tables in primary school, things would have been much easier.

 

No idea how kids are taught primary school maths nowadays, but parents of AS kids who can do algebra but not arithmetic should consider this a possible reason why.

[KezT]

just to show another side - DS is very good at maths and loves doing it:)

 

When he was 4 & 5 the stupid school he was in put him down as gifted & talented in maths (I told them that a) he wasn't and they were using it as an excuse not to look into his problems....). Now his school just says he is verfy good at it - a couple of years ahead of his peers.

 

Except in shapes apparently - which he has difficulties with......

[julie1]

my son who is 14 has always struggled with maths, time,ect. He was always bottom of the bottom set with the teachers not really knowing how to help him. Then in sept he started at a new school with just 7 children in his maths set. he has come on so much from a predicted grade of G to maybe an E in just a couple of months. Ihad a chat with the maths teacher who explained that to much emphasis was placed on learning x tables ect, when actually my son is more able with a higher level maths. anyway we just keep our fingers crossed and keep praising our son for his efforts, what else is there to do. Iam pleased to hear that other ASD children struggle with maths i thought he was the only one. We were always told that ASD people were good at maths. and when i say pleased dont get me wrong i dont want other children to struggle its just i thought he was the only one.

[hsmum]

Hi,

 

My son (10) hated maths and apparently had no concept of number until about a year ago. Good quality support and an excellent maths teacher has meant that my son is now working at about the same level as his peers and he will even do maths homework. He still says he hates maths.

[Sally44]

My son at age 6 knew all his number bonds, but could not name any of the numbers. So he was using his 'pattern recognition' skill, which is very good. But he could not explain his reasoning or the concept behind the 'pattern' he could recognise in numbers.

Now he is age 8 and still has to use his fingers to do sums. He cannot do it mentally. He is now adding 3 numbers together. First the children are taught to put together the two number bonds to make 10 and then add on the third number. My son can do this. But he always falls down on the 'language' side of maths. And as you say, if they start to show a different way of adding up he is sure to become confused. Or if there are 3 numbers to add together and two of them don't add up to 10 will confuse him. There is a lack of flexibility and of being able to apply knowledge learnt into similar yet slightly different scenarios. All very common in ASD from what I see and hear.

So after this holiday I want to speak with his SALT about this because I feel that if we could tie together his learning so that he learns the mathematical process/patterns, along with learning the meaning of the language, whilst also learning the accompanying maths symbols that he might tie it all in and it make some sense.

The reason I feel this might help is that during the harvest festival production at school, my son had learnt a song. This is the first song he has ever sung even thought his immediate rote learnt auditory memory is good. The reason I think songs were previously too difficult for him is because songs are abstract, they are 'words' without any visuals to fall back on. So for the play they learnt a song which they song to accompany a short play which all his class joined in on. Because of this I feel he has tied in the visuals of the play with the words of the song. So I feel that something similar could be achieved in numeracy.

But it is very frustrating for me to see his 'potential' and keep trying to find ways of bridging the 'information' or 'connection' gaps that he has so that he can use, apply and demonstrate all the information he has.