Dyscalculia - Or Why I'll Never Be On Countdown...

[Katherine Birkett]

OK - here's some info from someone who had a mathematical age of just 8 years 4 months when entering secondary school, and didn't pass middle tier Maths GCSE until the age of 19:

Dyscalculia, or numerical dyslexia causes me problems with even the simplest mental arithmetic. I cannot visualise a sum in my head whatsoever. As soon as the numbers are up in my head, they start falling down and I can't remember where to put them back once my brain's found all of them again. They'll go in the wrong places. Being linguistically gifted, I am red-hot property in Countdown's letters games and conundrums, solving them quickly. However, when Mr Maths arrives after the letter games, I get flustered and hit the buffers. I need extra time to 'recognise' (that is differentiating between 5 and 8, 10 and 100, 25 and 75, 6 and 9, all numbers which I will frequently mis-read), write down and 'get comfortable' with the numbers Rachel puts up on the maths round board. Even then, it wouldn't be enough for me to get the right answer in 30 seconds, not when I am having genuine difficulty multiplying 14 by 3, which I STILL can't do in my head. And when I see the 75 come out I know I'm well and truly screwed. Everything needs to be written down in order 'to lock it in place', stopping the blessed numbers moving around and falling away from my brain circuitry. When I DO get a numbers round right, it's the sweetest euphoria imaginable, even if it's one of the 'bleeding obvious' ones.

When you have Dyscalculia, NO NUMBERS ROUND IS EASY, NO MATTER HOW OBVIOUS IT IS TO OTHERS.

Incidentally, I still count on my fingers when doing addition, am very dependent on a calculator and actually panic if I haven't got access to one. At school, I could do the equation or whatever when I was in the classroom but as soon as I got outside it, I began to forget parts of the process to get the right answer, or I'd do all the sequences but in the wrong order. By the end of the school day, I was back in the confusing fog again. And algebra? Forget it. The difficulties presented themselves in every aspect of my life imaginable. I played the flute in the school orchestra, but I always had difficulties keeping in time with the other people around me because I needed extra time to work out the musical equations i.e. how many semiquavers were in a minim for example, while remembering how many beats in a bar. As dyspraxia affects my co-ordination, I needed to retain some active mental processing to remember the fingering sequence. I barely managed it and used my perfect pitch to cheat a bit and improvise a simpler melody.

Shopping's always a big headache. I find it very difficult to work out how much change I am due or I will over-spend. I will always try and hand over a note rather than stand there for years getting the exact amount with cash. There have been a few instances when I have failed to notice I've been overcharged. Or, I'll hand over my debit card even for a three-item purchase. I remember the 4-digit pin number in a 'visual' way. If for example, my PIN was 7745 (it isn't), I'll split the number into 2 lots of 2 numbers, and picture them as a significant event in the years of the 20th century. 77 would be the death of Elvis, and 45 would be the end of World War 2, so I'd visualise Elvis Presley collapsing, then hearing an 'all clear' siren as he falls to the ground. If I can commit that image to my brain, I can recall it very easily.

Directions can be a problem. I have a very poor auditory memory, and forget a lot of what's been said to me whether I like it or not. The part of the brain that deals with this is very underdeveloped with me. If someone gives me an aural sequence of directions, I'll probably remember the first 2, then forget the rest. This is very much like my difficulties with solving equations. Or, I'll remember 2 separate, non-sequential directions from the instructions but they might be step 3 and step 7! Again, I resort to my visual memory to get round this problem. I simply memorise the layout of city centres either with road atlases or through Multimap before I visit. As a child, I memorised the whole motorway / main road network of the UK. I have since added the London Underground to that 'memorised networks' list, along with the railway network of the UK. Using bus and train timetables used to be a problem, but I now write the numerical times down, along with a drawing of a clockface with the hands on so I know that a train or bus is coming when the hands are in a certain configuration. Sometimes I'll take a small egg timer with me so I can get the feeling of how many minutes have passed, as keeping track of time is another eggshell some Dyscalculics have. Once I get the 'feeling' for the passing of time I can be reasonably punctual. I work solely with the 24-hour clock as I have difficulties transposing the 12-hour clock to times after mid-day. A 24-hour clock is seamless and smooth as it goes from 1 to 24 in a single transition. It doesn't reset itself halfway.

I enjoy watching darts on television, but I'll be buggered if I'll ever be as quick to work out the doubles, trebles and checkouts as fast as the players! I do play a bit myself, but need a lot of support in the scoring department! Still enjoy trying to get all three darts into the scoring areas though, which is harder for me anyway because of my dyspraxia again. Oh, and to round off my having Dyscalculia (not diagnosed until fairly recently) and Dyspraxia, I also have Asperger's Syndrome. There is a lot of faulty wiring in my head!

Am burbling on now.... if you have any further questions then I'll be happy to answer them.

[Kirk Bevins]

And when I see the 75 come out I know I'm well and truly screwed.

Why? If you can memorise your 4 digit PIN by pictures, can you not think of pictures to help you remember that 75 x 4 = 300?

[Katherine Birkett]

And when I see the 75 come out I know I'm well and truly screwed.

Why? If you can memorise your 4 digit PIN by pictures, can you not think of pictures to help you remember that 75 x 4 = 300?

I think it's panic that skews my brain when that number comes out..... can you help me with that? I remember 1975 as the year Jo Brand had a swimming accident (she explained all in an early episode of Room 101), so I am able to remember 75 by visualising Jo falling into a swimming pool.

The complication arises from being unable to make a bridge to the 4 from the 75 and the resulting 300.........

[Charlie Reams]

Welcome! An interesting and frank account. Female Aspergists are rare in the wider population, but probably not around here, so you should fit right in.

PS Is dyscalculia the same as acalculia? The latter would be better for obvious reasons.

[Ian Dent]

I suffer from this to some degree. I managed a C at GCSE Maths through bloody hard work in preparing for the exams. However, even a simple multiplication like 7x9 will take me a good 7 seconds to get right in my head. Which is too long to take out of 30 seconds for the more complicated solutions.

[Michael Wallace]

Interesting. Although I don't see why that would stop you ever being on Countdown (at least from the perspective of winning). Say you lose the numbers 30-0 (which is the worst case scenario), then you can regain 10 from the conundrum, which leaves you only needing to get 20 points from the letter games. That's (most likely) only three rounds out of 11 (two if you get a 9), which seems fairly doable for someone especially good at them.

I suppose if you were self-conscious about having to declare nothing on the numbers rounds every time, then that's something, but I think you'd stand a fairly good chance of winning a few shows, if your word skills are good enough.

[Jon Corby]

Why would a vampire stop you being on Countdown?

[David Williams]

I'd be interested to know what you (and others) are like at remembering faces. I've heard there's some sort of inverse relationship with maths skills. I'm absolutely hopeless. I don't particularly forget people's names, I simply don't recognise them. I couldn't do an accurate photo-fit to save my life.

At the other end of the scale I was once approached by someone on a campsite in France, who asked if I used to use a particular bus-stop. I had, occasionally, for about six months fifteen years previously. He said he remembered me although we'd never spoken. I bet he was lousy at sums.

David

[Michael Wallace]

I'd be interested to know what you (and others) are like at remembering faces. I've heard there's some sort of inverse relationship with maths skills. I'm absolutely hopeless. I don't particularly forget people's names, I simply don't recognise them. I couldn't do an accurate photo-fit to save my life.

I'm the same, although I don't know how much of that is due to my bad eyesight.

[Craig Beevers]

And when I see the 75 come out I know I'm well and truly screwed.

Why? If you can memorise your 4 digit PIN by pictures, can you not think of pictures to help you remember that 75 x 4 = 300?

I think it's panic that skews my brain when that number comes out..... can you help me with that? I remember 1975 as the year Jo Brand had a swimming accident (she explained all in an early episode of Room 101), so I am able to remember 75 by visualising Jo falling into a swimming pool.

The complication arises from being unable to make a bridge to the 4 from the 75 and the resulting 300.........

So is it possible to use your memory as a substitute for doing calculations?

For instance a lot of people will know straight off that 12x12 is 144, a lot of the time that answer will come from memory not from actually calculating it in their head. Similar sort of situation with times tables - with repetition it becomes a memory recall exercise. Even with letters and anagramming it will eventually become an exercise in memory recall if you practice hard enough.

[Ben Wilson]

I'd be interested to know what you (and others) are like at remembering faces. I've heard there's some sort of inverse relationship with maths skills. I'm absolutely hopeless. I don't particularly forget people's names, I simply don't recognise them. I couldn't do an accurate photo-fit to save my life.

I'm the same, although I don't know how much of that is due to my bad eyesight.

Curiously I'm exactly the same way, I can't put together names and faces at all, which is hugely embarrassing at times when it comes to organising Scrabble tourneys.

[Michael Wallace]

Why would a vampire stop you being on Countdown?

oh Jon, you are the living end?

edit: found it

[Gavin Chipper]

Why would a vampire stop you being on Countdown?

They eat your blood. It's not exactly going to help.