I've mentioned before that I'm dyscalculic. It is something that barely affects me, something I don't really notice because I've never been able to do maths normally, but sometimes is thrown into sharp relief by other people's *normal* perception of numbers and maths.
I can't keep count, out loud or in my head. If I am trying, I'll lose track incredibly quickly. I can't keep track of sequences either, in video games or whatever.
If you asked me to count how many things were on the floor, I can't do it by sight, I have to silently count things out in my head.
I cannot do simple maths. Any calculation I do mentally has to be broken down into the smallest component numbers and added together like that - 8+5 becomes 8+2 is 10. 10+2 is 12. 12+1 is 13. It takes me as long as it took you to read that in your head to calculate. I cannot do division or multiplication in my head, unless it is a multiple of 2, 5 or 10. I have never been able to remember my 7 or 8 times tables, despite being taught them by rote in school. Percentages make sense as long as they are something out of 100. When it starts being (for example) 13 out of 33, I can't do it. Decimals make no sense at all.
I cannot 'total up' shopping in my head in a supermarket, or other shop. I will sometimes think I've been overcharged or short changed, when I haven't, simply because I can't work out mentally how much I *should* have spent. This can also lead to me spending FAR too much money in shops, and is one of the reasons I shop online, where I can see EXACTLY how much I'm spending.
It takes me forever to work out how old someone is from their birthdate. When I worked in the NHS, every January, I would memorise the age someone should be from the year they were born, so I didn't have to work it out every time.
I can't tell my left from my right. At all. I have a huge, hooked scar on my right arm which gives me a visual cue, but I still can't remember. My boyfriend laughs because he'll ask me at a junction whether we're going left or right and I have to look at my arm to tell. I now just point. It's easier.
I have rubbish depth perception, which makes judging distance difficult by sight anyway, but I have no real concept of how far a mile, a kilometer, a yard actually is. I can tell you one centimetre, but not six. If I am navigating a journey (I don't drive, and with the problems I have with my vision plus number related problems, that's probably a good thing), I navigate by landmarks and places, rather than road numbers and junctions. This has been known to make people incredibly frustrated. God forbid you ever ask me directions in the street - you'll never find where you want to be! I also can't read maps very well, and have to turn them to my orientation to get a sense of where I am.
But I'm not stupid. As far as my literacy goes, I'm way above average (ahem). It's almost as though my arithmetical brain stopped developing and concentrated on my literate brain. I'm sure it's more complex than that. I can do algebra (with a calculator) because I see it as a letter puzzle, rather than numerical. It is logical, in a way that regular maths is not. I've never considered that I have a learning difficulty - though some of my teachers have done - because I have no problems learning anything else. At school, I struggled with chemistry and physics, because of the need for maths in working out formulae, and I do worry that when I begin studying anatomy in October, this will become a problem. But I will cross that bridge when I come to it!
Some of the problems associated with dyscalculia in young children remind me very much of myself as a small child, and of my eldest son as he is now. He's barely grasped numbers yet, and may be the complete opposite to me (his father is borderline dyslexic, with an excellent grasp of numbers). We shall see!
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