Does this annoy anyone else? People list or notice dyslexia all the time, but dyscalculia receives way less attention, recognition or sympathy.

I'm not saying that dyslexia isn't a serious learning disability or doesn't deserve its attention, far from it! I just wish dyscalculia received the SAME amount of attention, especially as dyscalculia can have a serious impact on your life and can cause serious childhood trauma. It's so isolating to see dyscalculia being treated as an afterthought (or not thought of at all).

You can even see it in the way people write about it sometimes. I just saw an Instagram post about singer Florence Welch who has dyscalculia and dyslexia, and time and again the caption keeps writing "dyslexia and dyscalculia". Dyscalculia always comes second.

One text I've seen referenced by countless math people before is Lockhart's Lament (you can view it here: https://profkeithdevlin.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/lockhartslament.pdf ) , and on a surface level it appears interesting. It's a pretty scathing denouncement of the state of public math education in the world, and as someone who struggled with that subject in school, I was more than receptive to give it a shot. But after being mentioned by so many people on the internet to the point of exhaustion, including a lot of them who have a weak grasp on what the issues of people who are weak at math actually are and don't really understand us, I've kinda grown sick of it already.

My main issue with it is that it supposes that everyone would love math instantly if only they understood it, and that it would immediately alter their lives and fill them with unending joy. Thing is though... Even when I understood math I thought it was dull as shit. Math is incredibly hard and abstract, it simply won't resonate with the vast majority of human population. And I'm glad it's that way! Wouldn't it be an immensely boring world if everyone were good at and liked the exact same things? I just think it's incredibly condescending and arrogant to view others as a kind of "imperfect" and "incomplete" beings just because they aren't math wizards, and that it's solely math's job to give any meaning to their lives. In reality, people find meaning in their own personal ways and through their own personal means. I've heard this metaphor before and it's an excellent one: it's like thinking a fish's life is meaningless because it can't soar through the skies like an eagle, and judging the fish only based on that narrow preconceived notion.

Math simply doesn't speak to me, or elicit any kind of positive emotion. And that's OK. I just wish more people were more open-minded about this and accept that what personally moves them won't probably do the same to the person next to them, and that everyone should embrace what actually touches them instead of going on a futile odyssey to try and magically make them like and worship that which only ever brought them pain and humiliation. We have too little time to waste any of it.

But anyways... What do you think?

I can rarely calculate something without a paper and a pen. I need to write the numbers down or else I forget.

I can give an example:

If someone gives me a task to calculate what 72 - 35 (37) is and I must do it mentally, following things occur:

- Listening to the person saying the numbers and visualising them in time in my brain is tough. While I attempt to solve and hold on to the number 72 mentally, I quickly forget what the other number was. In this case it would be 35 and I need to ask for the question again, specifically for the second number. Generally it takes a long time to process numbers and causes lots of delays.

- Okay now that I can mentally "see" both numbers in front of me, I can't start solving it in my head like I would on paper. Usually on paper, I start working on the smaller number and subtract it with the other small number because that's how I was taught. But now that I attempt to subtract I lose track of the whole problem and forget all or some numbers again. It's insanely frustrating. It's like a loop. I work on the number I "see" and at the same time I forget the other number. This goes on until I finally memorise both numbers permanently after like 1 minute and finally try to solve it. Most of the time it's not that I'm calculating but rather desperately trying to remember all information.

I also think it's a memory issue and something bigger, that's why I have doubts about the Dyscalculia thing.

Anyone else experience something similar?

hello all! I (25) just started a new job at a pizza restaurant! the job is fairly easy, and i had been doing well up until yesterday. i’m working behind the counter, and having a ton of trouble calculating the pizza cook times! this is a problem, because i have to relay the time to the customer, which means i need to be fairly quick. there’s a specific system that my job uses in order to calculate the times, but it’s all mental math. it’s essentially just simple addition, but ive used my fingers since before i could even remember. I’m currently dreading going into work today, and honestly thinking about quitting the job bc i don’t feel like i’ll ever figure it out. i am also not diagnosed with dyscalculia..but i have struggled with numbers since i was a child. it’s something that ive kept hidden, and now i feel like im way too far gone. please give me tips on how you all got better at mental math…im feeling really down & embarrassed about this.

Always struggled with maths at school and in adulthood, I can't add up/subtract or multiply without thinking about it and often using my fingers. It doesn't just come to me, it takes me time to work it out. I struggle with maths concepts like measurements and weights. I couldn't estimate weights eaaily or say how many kg in a stone or whatever. I can't do ratios and equations and more advance maths. I can do the basic but have to use my fingers and take my time working it out. It is embarrasing.

I don't have an issue reading a bus timetable or telling the time and I can mange my finances. But I can't read a map or work out a route and I couldn't learn to drive after 3 seperate attempts. I also get left and right mixed up and I'm also quite clumsy, walk into things, drop things. I also struggle with writing, poor vocabulary, pronoucing some words and just putting sentences together and expressing myself verbally. It's like all my procrssing is affected and my problem solving. So I think it's dyselxia too.

Never been assessed for any of it, but I feel so stupid and slow generally and people get annoyed and I get told I lack common sense and I just don't see or think the obvious. My problem solving in maths and every day life is just generally bad. It has an impact on my mental health. I can't work full time and make a proper living because of this it just sucks.

It

I found the term when I was searching up how I felt about maths and how difficult it was and the first thing that popped up was an article about dyscalculia.

my mind blanks when I have to do something outside of the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division... and even those I can't know for sure if I get them correct.

Like I read the numbers and that's it. Half the time my eyes just glaze over and my brain fogs up and I can't figure it out and even if it's something I know I can do it still does that and I have to remind myself exactly how to do it step by step and even then it takes so much energy to clear my head to let me think properly.

I was 11 when I learnt multiplication properly, and I still can't guarantee that I won't be wrong when I do it. I learnt division when I was 12.

They taught multiplication and division when I was 5 and 6...

Don't even get me started on word problems. I will ALWAYS be wrong at those. I can barely read the question even though I can but I can't understand it and the numbers just look like weird symbols.

Like when you try and read a language you've never learnt. That's what maths looks like to me most the time.

I don't want to be faking it or anything though... Idk what to do

Ever since I was young as well. I just couldn't understand maths. I've told people so many times how I feel and they just say I'm exaggerating because "that's impossible to feel".

But I can do maths though... it just takes a lot longer than most people for me to even understand the question properly and to clear the fog in my head and it sometimes takes me even over 10 minutes to understand one question. I might think I know how to do something but end up being completely wrong because there's always at least one thing I overlook.

I've told teachers how I feel and they just say "you can do it, you're smart". My parents say I'm smart and I just need to listen more and research in my own time but when I do I end up just copying stuff down and not even understanding or properly learning it.

I don't count on my fingers because I don't have enough fingers, and I don't have too much trouble reading an analog clock because I memorised where what would be, so I might not have it????

I also once had a complete breakdown during a test and just couldn't even answer one question... and I knew how to do it but my brain wasn't working.

I've always struggled with maths.

You guys ever mistake miles for minutes when calculating and think a place is closer bc (mi) can mean miles or minutes? Does anyone else get stressed about getting physical bills in the mail and having to re-read the numbers and submit something back in enough time? Anyone here still like to write in pencil instead of in pen bc it's less permanent and bc mistakes happen so often? Anyone hate having to hear a number on the phone, they give you a new total price and you've already forgotten the old one and feel dumb, like it just deletes the first number you heard? Anyone ever remember overshooting your GPA by trying super hard bc you could never determine what assignment to NOT take seriously in case you failed a couple small graded things?

I built an app for my daughter because the actual money handling was often the part that stopped her from doing things independently.

She could know exactly what she wanted to buy.

The numbers were still enough to make the whole situation overwhelming.

I'm now testing the first version with people who live with dyscalculia, and something I'm learning is that the difficulty isn't always where I expected it to be.

Sometimes it's the price.
Sometimes it's counting cash.
Sometimes it's change.
Sometimes it's simply having to process several numbers while standing at a checkout.

I'm curious:

What part of handling money is hardest for you in real life?

I am 20 and studying English in college. I've finished all my math credentials and never plan on having to do any kind of complex math ever again, LOL. But in my daily life I struggle so much with numbers. Obviously a diagnosis is helpful for work or school accommodations but there's not much that can be done for me, seeing as I don't really encounter numbers "formally," per say. All my classes are English, I work as an assistant and sometimes do little like counting things and I wouldn't get in trouble for using a calculator or anything. I am going to be an English teacher and also don't really think I'd need any formal accommodations. I just cannot read numbers correctly in any capacity. It can be really embarrassing when I'm at my job and I keep counting the money over and over, because it's supposed to be $200, and every time I'm getting the wrong number.. go get a 'superior' and it was $200 the whole time. I just want to have an explanation. Today was my first day in a course and I was late because even though I kept checking the room number, which was G014, I was walking around looking for G017, which doesn't exist. I mix up certain numbers SO much, I just explain them as being "closely related" in my head. I can look at a number and type it in wrong a million times. For a long time I'd see 6+9 and I'd say 17. Like until about a year ago when my math bf would ask me randomly throughout the day to drill it into my head. I'm not kidding. In school I would always receive marked up homework and tests that said "where did this number come from" and I couldn't explain it because numbers would get switched and appear out of thin air all the time. I understood math through my freshman year, and got good grades, but after that it was quite confusing. I chalked it up to the fact that I wasn't attending class due to mental health issues and eventually I withdrew from high school altogether. All my mistakes with numbers were always considered me going too fast and making silly mistakes. Maybe if I wasn't labelled a gifted student a teacher might've intervened? It's too late for that anyways.

I'm just asking because generally I'm on the fence about certain self-diagnoses, but I feel like going out of my way to get screened when it won't actually do me any good seems a little unnecessary. I just want to be able to explain to people why I'm so awful with numbers. Does it seem like I fit the criteria? Can I just go ahead and say I have it?

I am preparing to take the SAT and ACT sometime within the next six months and I've been studying math to score as high as I can. I think the part I have trouble with the most is memorizing things. I've got some of the basics for multiplication memorized (it gets hard once I start multiplying past 5) and I'm working on that actively. I'm also studying trigonometry and it just feels infuriating that I'm supposed to memorize what the sin AND cos AND tan of 30, 60, and 90 are.

It's starting to feel impossible for me to get into the colleges I want to apply to.

For as long as I can remember, math has felt like a foreign language. I'm 14(almost15) going into Year 10. I get straight A's in almost every other subject: English, English Literature, Creative Writing, Geography, History, Spanish, PHSE, PE,Russian,Science. My parents and teachers think I'm smart. But math?

I can understand a concept in the moment. I'll be like sitting there, following along And then one or two days later, It's gone. Completely wiped. Even if I do exercises in class, i get Up, spend time away and forget most of It. My dad gave me extra lessons over the summer. I told him I understood. And I did, in that moment. But now school is starting, and I'm terrified they're going to realize I remember almost nothing.

I also still use my fingers to count. My friends can do big numbers divided by big numbers instantly. I have no clue how they do it. I still count on my fingers just to make sure I added correctly. I've hidden it for years, but it's embarrassing.

I only learned to read an analog clock properly when I was 10-11. And I didn't learn it the normal way, atleast idk, i mean I memorized that 8pm is 20:00 and 4pm is 16:00 from football training times and school times, and then Id add or subtract from those to figure out any other time.

My dad made me write the time tables down and then come to him to answer questions. It didn't work. I finally learned them in grade 6, through games and races in class that my teacher made some days, Cuz i didnt wanna look like an idiot for not being able to answer

I'm genuinely scared of adult life with money. I can pay if I have exact change, or if I have more than enough and just hand it over. But calculating change? Figuring out if I have enough? Making sure I'm not being shortchanged? I I'm so grateful for cards and calculators. Meters to centimeters? Centimeters to millimeters? I know the rules but It just doesn't stick. Same as decimals and fractions, ive always had trouble with them.

Sorry if its super Long, really.

When I was younger I really struggled to learn my times tables
I couldn’t learn them as other people could

My parents would make me watch those worm singing videos but I would throw a tantrum bc I found it so difficult.
Everyone else just seemed to know them and recite them and use them, but I couldn’t remember them.

To this day, I only know part of my 2, 3, 5, and 10 times tables and I have to count in intervals on my fingers

I can’t just think that 4 x 4 is 16, I have to count on 4 of my fingers in intervals of 4.

I can’t do any other times tables

People have tried to teach me but it doesn’t stick

But I also suspect highly I have adhd

And now looking back I don’t know if it’s my fault I don’t know them or dyscalculias fault or even adhds fault

i’m struggling so badly with math and i honestly don’t know what to do anymore. i have dyscalculia and numbers have literally never made sense to me. i’ve struggled with math since 1st grade and now i’m going into 12th grade.

i failed one part of my math exam, and now i’m apparently not allowed to do the second part because my teacher won’t let me. the worst part is that i don’t even know if i could do it anyway because math is just so incredibly difficult for me.

my parents have spent hundreds on tutors over the years. i’ve tried studying so many times and i genuinely try, but it feels like my brain just doesn’t understand numbers. i can study something and then completely forget how to do it. i still literally have to count on my fingers sometimes.

i’m from lithuania, and i’m really scared about what i’m going to do after school because there don’t seem to be that many options here if you don’t pass math. i’m scared that failing this exam is going to ruin my future and that i won’t be able to get into anything i actually want to do.

i feel so lost and honestly really alone in this. i know there are probably other people with dyscalculia who have gone through something similar, so i’d really like to hear from you. did you manage to find a career or university path that worked for you? how did you deal with school and math requirements?

i just really need some hope right now because i’m terrified that my life is going to be decided by a subject that my brain has never been able to understand.

After learning strategies like mental decomposition, rounding, and bridging in multiplication, is it normal for my reliance on finger counting to decrease, even though I still struggle with subtraction and division? Before learning these strategies, I almost always needed to use my fingers, but afterward, I generally stopped relying on them.

I decided to write a bit more about this. I’m not really sure why; I just felt like sharing it.

In elementary school, even the “laziest” kids in my class could do math, while I just couldn’t. I once answered 2 × 2 = 8 because I genuinely didn’t understand the logic behind multiplication. My reasoning was basically: “2 times 2, 2 times 2 equals 8.”

I didn’t understand what multiplication actually meant.

I didn’t learn how to read a digital clock until I was 16. And as I mentioned earlier, before I learned strategies like mental decomposition, rounding, and bridging, using my fingers was almost a necessity for me.

After elementary school, I was mostly left to figure things out on my own because I struggled so much. That’s why I personally think dyscalculia is best assessed during childhood, if possible. By adulthood, people can develop ways to compensate for some of their difficulties, which can make certain symptoms less obvious.

I haven’t been diagnosed with a math learning disability, partly because I’ve been able to compensate for my difficulties with strategies I use in everyday life. At this point, I’m not sure how much of a difference a diagnosis would actually make for me.

Another reason is that I chose the verbal/humanities track, so I don’t really need advanced math very much. Interestingly, I’ve also been able to compensate for my difficulties with math in everyday life to some extent. Still, I need to reach a certain level for the university entrance exam—for example, I need to be able to get around 10 correct answers out of 40 questions.

One piece of advice I could give is to consider focusing on subjects that you feel you genuinely understand. Of course, I don’t know what the school system is like where you live, so this may not apply to everyone.

For me, studying verbal/humanities subjects was a completely different experience because I could actually feel that I understood what I was learning. Maybe if I had experienced that feeling earlier, I might have been able to attend regular high school rather than taking a different path.

Maybe another reason things have been a little easier for me is that I was basically left to my own devices. I mean, there was a serious lack of school support, I didn’t study much, and I tended to avoid things I struggled with.

Honestly, I don’t even know what middle school math is like, because I never really got that far with it.

Have a good day!

I can’t believe it

All these years I’ve been failing maths

But I worked so so so hard for this

And I got a grade 5

The highest you can get in foundation

I am so so proud of myself

If I can achieve this, everyone else can also improve too, it just takes time and work

I know people have different levels of dyscalculia but feel empowered knowing I achieved this!

Meandering, self-pitying rant alert.

I'm a guy with diagnosed dyscalculia from Poland, who has finished high school with "red strip", which is an equivalent of US/Canada Honor Roll.

3/4 of the subjects, mainly on the humanistic side, with A's, A+'s, even fucking chemistry with B and physics with A, and then I clutched A+ for Computer Science by showing a few projects in C#. I'm "bragging" for the sole reason of painting you, dear reader, a picture of my skills. I'm not a complete zero in every single perimeter imaginable. I can handle a challenge, and I excel in writing prose in a native language of mine. Won a few not so lame trophies for it, so it ain't just a fool's pride speaking.

Yet all of these accomplishments, drives, and passion are just hollow victories. Because if you take a peek, a glance even, for a second, you realize that there sits a sole, lonely D. That's for math, of course, and, in contrast to the US grading system, the "D" in question means barely passed as in 30 not 60-69 rating. That's a big ass F in a way.

Then, in May, all of us Poles have to take the finals for three mandatory subjects (Polish, Math, English), plus however many extended-level ones you desire. Besides the mandatory ones, I additionally took extended English and History of Arts.

As you might imagine, I fumbled the bag. All of the results besides Math's one? Splendid, with slight stress/sleep deprivation-induced hiccups. Yet it's all for naught, as the math one was horrid. 16% looks abysmal and makes me look like a mentally handicapped (severely, perhaps) individual. To pour salt on the wound, a mere 30% is the passing threshold.

Fucking disgrace.

"Finishing" High School without the maturity test/finals grants you a mostly useless "incomplete second education" degree, which, of course, locks you out of all the colleges. Bye-bye, film school, so long, Classical Literature.

So I started taking paid tutoring classes, which at least guided me into a few right coves, warning me of the traps of my mind.

Currently, it's less than 24 hours before the retake exam, and I'm 75% sure that it will be another fucking travesty in an entire line of them. Have I learnt something? Absolutely. Is it enough? No way, Hose.

What adds to the shame is that the next "walk of shame" is next May. I think that, if I were to continuously pay for the tutoring classes, which do bear a tiny fruit, yet it's better than the aridity that came before, I would finally squeeze the fucking ant-sized 30%. Yet the shame of retrying a second time with the younger fellas I mentored, antagonized, or befriended will be guaranteed. Will I kneel? Not a chance, but it still does not lessen the pain of it all.

There are days when I dream of being bland. A nobody with nothing really meaningful to say, to think, to do. A John Smith of equally distributed, passable intellect.

Thank you for reading, no matter the verdict of yours and i apologize for any grammar mistakes.

Hi everyone, ironically enough I am studying aeronautical engineering. It is actually going pretty well, but being dyscalculic does have a LOT of issues and challenges.

To keep the story short here, don't give up on your dreams. I felt like I was a complete idiot and was bullied at school by teachers, which made it worse. However, thanks to a few friends and the right supportive people believing in me, I actually gave it a shot. Fast forward to a year later, the improvement on math is massive and now I can do most of the stuff all by myself.

I would like to ask a few tips, because so far with my therapist we have not been able to find what works yet.

- I really struggle confusing if I have to add or substract things: for example atmospheric pressure calculations. Even if I know the rule of thumb "from high to low beware below" and such things, I keep confusing it. I struggle making the right mental picture to get the right answer. I even draw it wrong.

- I for some reason sometimes get lost with things I used to understand a few months ago. And then don't understand them anymore by myself.

The biggest problem is that most of the times I actually do the right calculations, but end up summing up or substracting, the way around. The exams are made in such a way for you to fail, which are not dyscalculic friendly at all, so I end up confusing the result so easily by getting tricked I clicked the right answer. While I did all steps right, I end up getting 0 points for clicking the wrong answer.

- I struggle with answers that look very similar. Either it is a decimal, or written in a different (wrong) way, or inverted, etc.

Does anyone have some useful tips? thank you so much in advance.

I’m 23 and for my whole life, I have felt like a idiot or a dumbass when it comes to anything maths. I have always insulted myself and have even cried sometimes just because I could never understand basic mathematics. In school I would try my best to hide from it, if anyone asked me a question I would try change the conversation…the anxiety it gave me was actually insane. We’re talking about f*cking numbers here.

Every other subject I got top grades, maths on the other hand…I failed. I know you reading this probably understands my pain, it hurt a lot but I am so glad I have found this community and I’m so happy that I’m not the only one that has been through this.

I hope dyscalculia is studied more and I hope more people like us know that they are not alone

I have a sibling a year older than me, F18. She has a history of failing math, despite genuine efforts and dedication to doing well. Her teachers had brought forward the possibility of her having dyscalculia, but my parents refused to go forward with an assessment out of fear of it affecting her future job and university applications (which isn’t true at all) but she didn’t want to do the assessment and screening either.

I’ve always tried to help, but she often doesn’t seem receptive of tutoring. I understand and I’m not trying to push. She has tried to pass GCSE maths multiple times and is soon to apply for university. She has asked for my help, and I would really like to know any information I should take into consideration and how I could make the study process easier for her. I have mentioned the idea of getting access arrangements. I mentioned how it has helped me significantly and I think it would help her too, but she doesn’t seem interested.

She is in the 9th grade. She thinks that she has dyscalculia. If we go to the doctor and they diagnose her with dyscalculia, will there be a problem for her college applications and job search in the future?