jumpingjacktrash:

neurowonderful:

gothiccharmschool:

brainvomit:

In case you didn’t know, October is learning disability awareness month! Also, you probably didn’t know I have one, since the general reaction I tend to get is “you don’t /look/ like you have a learning disability”.

That’s partially why I made this, because people seem to think you’re branded with it on your forhead when in real life it’s not like that at all—In fact, that mentality is probably what hurt my academic career for so long, because people with Dyscalculia often excel in other areas! I remember a lot if teachers/classmates/my own parents telling me to ‘just try harder’, because to them it seemed like I wasn’t applying myself. Dyscalculia is also not a ‘popular’ learning disability that’s talked about, it’s a pretty common occurance for me to have to give an explanation to others who think I’m ‘lazy’, so I figured this is a little educational as well as personal.

Those with Dyscalculia have trouble with*:

•Counting, estimating, and measuring. •Learning math facts (like addition, subtraction, multiplication, ect). •Problem-solving skills. •Concepts of time and navigation (scheduling, telling the diffrence between directions). *Among other things, but those are the most common.

●Here are some Dyscalculia resources:
•Learning Disability Association of America- [ldaamerica.org/types-of-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia]
•National Center for Learning Disabilities- [ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia/what-is-dyscalculia]
•Dyscalculia.Org

●Think you have Dyscalculia? Test yourself (Don’t self-diagnose, bring your results to your parent/school counselor/therapist and discuss further testing)
•[cohenkadosh.psy.ox.ac.uk/test-yourself/are-you-dyscalculic]

I did not know that Dyscalculia was a diagnosis that existed until a few years ago. Once I knew, it felt like I was aiming a flashlight back at my school career, finally able to see some things clearly. Ask me to read a novel and write a term paper overnight? Sure, no problem. Ask me to do a times table? Blind, near-sobbing panic. 

Even now, if I have to do basic multiplication, if it’s not something that had a song from Schoolhouse Rock, I … I’m not sure I can do it.

I wish I had known that I was dyscalculic in middle and high school. And my one year of college. And the entirety of my life. Yeah, I just wish I had known dyscalculia was a thing so I could have understood my brain and not have beaten myself up over it so much. I’m happy I know now, though!

Also, in my experience, being labeled “gifted” while at the same time being neuro-atypical and undiagnosed really does a number on your sense of self. 

i’m autistic, and when i’m overloaded i can lose my ability to process numbers. i also lose speech processing during overload, and since high school is stressful and classes are taught verbally, i used to go into a death spiral where if a particular class bumped me over a certan stress threshold i could never learn anything in that class again. i wasn’t diagnosed back then, and got a lot of the old “you’re so smart we don’t know why you can’t do this” crap.

like, thanks guys, i was there when you gave me the iq test, and it would be really great if folks could occasionally mention the ‘official genius’ thing in some context besides refusing to help me when i can’t do something. just for variety.

anyway, i failed algebra 1 twice. i just. could. not. do it. i was in danger of not graduating high school because i couldn’t complete my math credit, despite a B+ average in everything else. and after far too much of the ‘but you’re so smart’ crap, some bright spark in the school counseling office had this brilliant idea: “hey, jesse aces all his science courses, and physics counts for a math credit, so how about we have him take AP physics on a pass/fail basis?” i was thrown into this advanced class in an entirely new field in the middle of the semester, new teacher, new book, no clue what was going on — and i did fine. because it was science, and i knew i was good at science, so my stress threshold never tripped and i didn’t go into the death spiral. i passed and graduated, and after the final the teacher took me aside and told me i would’ve made a C+ if i’d been being graded, despite having missed the first half of the class.

i’m not trying to make a point about anyone else’s dyscalculia, btw. just felt like telling a personal story about learning disabilities.