I wonder if the fact that as a child I had problems with multiplication, maybe some relationship with my Asperger Syndrome?

[Pawelk198604]

 I have Asperger even if I was  kid I was suspected (wrongly) that I have ADHD 

I could not learn the multiplication table, which was required in my country, Poland I can not do it until today, and I am almost 33 years old   

I often flunk math  

I could make calculations, but only with the help of a calculator. 
I remember once from boredom I started playing with a calculator and started to add numbers to each other. 

The teacher saw it and asked what I was doing? 
I apologized to him, and I said I was just having fun. 

This teacher said that I was just doing the Fibonacci sequence, do not even know it, and that I would not put crap on him, that I do not know mathematics, because from what I see it could be quite a good mathematician xD 

One of my friend who is also having Asperger advised me to learn to programming in Python, that is the easiest programming language to learn. I bought a course on Udemy and start to study, but I'm afraid that I'm too old  

 

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20190124084232AA3Yh98

Edited January 24, 2019 by Pawelk198604

[Steel]

25 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

One of my friend who is also having Asperger advised me to learn to programming in Python, that is the easiest programming language to learn. I bought a course on Udemy and start to study, but I'm afraid that I'm too old  

You're never too old to learn new skills.

[Pawelk198604]

18 minutes ago, Steel said:

You're never too old to learn new skills.

Thanks  

[Xd the great]

If you have Asperger, you are most likely a talented autistic person. Do what you like.

[lajoswinkler]

47 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

If you have Asperger, you are most likely a talented autistic person. Do what you like.

Absolutely wrong. You were taught that by the entertainment media and it's a blatant falsification of the pathological reality of this congenital disorder. Specially talented and genius people are not prevalent among such people.

[Val]

Moved from Science & Spaceflight as it seems more like a request for advice on a personal matter.

Edited January 24, 2019 by Val
Translation

[Snark]

13 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

 I have Asperger even if I was  kid I was suspected (wrongly) that I have ADHD 

I could not learn the multiplication table, which was required in my country, Poland I can not do it until today, and I am almost 33 years old

Asperger's is a condition that affects the ability to understand and process social interactions and nonverbal communications. It has certain behavior patterns that are commonly associated with it.

But other than that, it has nothing to do with who a person is.  Folks with Asperger's have plenty of variation in the same things that the general population has variation in:  they may be nice or mean, smart or not, brilliant mathematicians or innumerate, musically talented or unable to carry a tune-- they're just people, like anyone else.

To my knowledge, there's no particular correlation between having Asperger's and, for example, mathematical ability.  They're separate things.

There can be a certain amount of self-selection.  People with Asperger's often have trouble dealing with people (the social-interaction thing), so they may be attracted to professions or pastimes that don't depend heavily on that.  For example, I work in the software industry, which is disproportionately populated with Aspergian types.  That doesn't mean that Asperger's magically conveys computer programming ability-- simply that a person who happens to be both Aspergian and highly intelligent might be more likely to be attracted to something like software engineering, rather than some other profession that involves interacting with people more.

It can be a problem in one's life-- particularly if one grows up in an environment in which there's little understanding or awareness of Asperger's as a thing:  people can end up treating the Aspergian as "just weird", which can cause social ostracism, anxiety, etc.  On the other hand, if one is fortunate enough to be in a supportive environment-- one that doesn't stigmatize based on social skills, and/or provides opportunities to the positive aspects of the condition, such as the ability to focus and concentrate-- then it can actually be an asset.

Bill Gates seems to have done all right for himself.    But I suspect he would have been a miserable failure as, say, a marriage counselor or a therapist.

There's nothing inherently negative about Asperger's.  It's not better or worse, it's just different.

It just happens to be a tiny minority of the population (considerably less than 1%), and the symptoms of the condition are often not recognized or understood by most people, so it's easy for it to lead to unhappiness when people get stigmatized as "weird".  It's great to spread awareness among the population about it... but I suspect that as a practical matter, as with any small minority, the onus is always going to be on the small minority (e.g. Aspergians, in this case) to figure out coping mechanisms and strategies that allow them to get along with the majority.

[Bill Phil]

Possibly. But more than likely no.

Mathematical ability is somewhat based on how one thinks. I used to be awful at math. Over my school years though I managed to change my thought processes, and got pretty good at it. Certain parts of math are easier than others and certain parts are harder.

I think I may have had trouble with the multiplication table as well. But there are patterns and other things to take advantage of. Even now I don’t have it all memorized. Not much of a reason too.

[MaverickSawyer]

As someone who has a clinical diagnosis of Aspergers, I second Snark's post. There's precisely ZERO correlation between the two. There is, however, a very well documented link between Asperger's/Autisim spectrum disorders and social interactions.

Personally, I have enormous difficulty in catching the nuances of communications like body language and the subtle shifts in voice tones that people use to convey a surprisingly large amount of contextual information, which leads me to taking things literally on a rather frequent basis. It also means I often send conflicting messages, as I don't really know what messages I'm sending using the same nuances. Combine that with a susceptibility to sensory overload when I'm stressed, and things can quickly become overwhelming, ad I don't handle those situations well.

That said, I've been able to adapt to it, and most of the time you can't even tell that I'm not neurotypical. But there are times where it does rear its head, and it can make life miserable for me. Good example would be two days ago in lab. My group was assigned to perform a particular maintenance procedure on an aircraft, and I fully understood what was involved. However, my teammates were confused by it, and I had a great deal of difficulty communicating with them, simply because my brain is wired differently, which when combined with my very different experiences, meant that I simply lacked the ability to express myself in a way they could understand. I wound up getting the instructor involved to help me by, for lack of a better term, translating for me.

[Orc]

Hi all

 

As someone who has:

(a) a Clinical psychological disorder (or disease or condition or whatever you want to call it, just don't call it a disability),

(b) someone who suffered with multiple difficulties during my education.

(c) Is now working in a post semi-related to education

 

I not so humbly suggest that ""learning difficulties'" are largely the result of low quality teaching. Either they're just lousy teachers, or they're passing time until their dream job becomes available, or they're filling a teaching post so that they can work at their real passion which is coaching sport (very few professional school coaches in ZA - my experience with teacher/coaches is that they are poor teachers and even poorer coaches). OR they got an otherwise useless degree at University and have taken a teaching post to make payments on their student loans. Or they're just complete, utter psychopaths who have no business being outside of a padded cell, let alone being responsible for the education of vulnerable, impressionable children. I had a couple of those during my time at Primary School (first seven years). If I had let their expressed opinions of me dictate the course my life was to take I would have ended up as a human crash test dummy, or a yard technician, or hobo. Fortunately I had some teachers who were really just Angels in Disguise and managed to instill different values in me.

 

As for the OP's question / comment about learning Python: I would not say its an easy language to learn, but it is certainly easier than some of the offerings out there. I had a lot of fun with: https://inventwithpython.com/#invent

Learning to use any programming language is an exercise in patience (with yourself and with the compiler or interpreter) and curiosity. If you lack those then you will struggle, and even fail. 

 

Anyway,

 

Regards

Orc

[MaverickSawyer]

Orc has a darn good point on teacher quality. I didn't really notice it until I hit the community college level, but there seemed to be two types of teachers: those who were there because they liked to teach, and those who were there because they couldn't get a job anywhere else in their field. Math, however, added a third type: those who were there because they didn't care where they worked so long as they got to play with numbers. Those were depressingly common at calculus and above.

[Bill Phil]

31 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Orc has a darn good point on teacher quality. I didn't really notice it until I hit the community college level, but there seemed to be two types of teachers: those who were there because they liked to teach, and those who were there because they couldn't get a job anywhere else in their field. Math, however, added a third type: those who were there because they didn't care where they worked so long as they got to play with numbers. Those were depressingly common at calculus and above.

Yeah. The social problems brought on by aspergers and the like can also lead to troubles in learning, or perhaps not. Depends. It’s difficult to generalize since it’s not the same for everone.

Teacher quality is certainly important. But that would be the case regardless of whether or not the student has that type of mental condition.

I was diagnosed with Asperger’s and I still have trouble with a lot of social interaction. But I’ve also learned to deal with it in most cases. Probably has nothing to do with my math skills or my (apparently) good public speaking skills. Those had to be developed and cultivated, like all skills.

[MaverickSawyer]

Absolutely. Like I said upthread, I've got a pretty good handle on my (for lack of a better word) symptoms, and most people don't realize the difference. It's not related to learning at all.

[Barzon]

I'm autistic, and have ADHD, and the County Council had to give my school a real kick in the butt, after I had a meltdown, and they temporarily kicked me out! That was 2 years ago, and the teachers have much improved! Back then I seriously doubted I would even last into Year 9, but here I am.

[Bill Phil]

24 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Absolutely. Like I said upthread, I've got a pretty good handle on my (for lack of a better word) symptoms, and most people don't realize the difference. It's not related to learning at all.

I wouldn’t say it’s not related at all. Learning in a school setting is a series of social interactions and having trouble with social interactions can lead to learning abnormalities. Even so the relationship isn’t a strong one, and many people are able to overcome the issues they faced.

[Orc]

Greets all,

 

Re: Math Teachers, there are definitely the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but there are a precious few who teach Math for the Love of the Subject. I was blessed with one such teacher who began every lesson with the Phrase: "Maths is Beautiful." Often wrote it on the chalk board in big letters. He was an awesome Physics and Chemistry teacher too but his Passion was Math, and maybe theater, but Math always took first place. 

Anyway, 

Regards

Orc

 

 

[Pawelk198604]

On 1/25/2019 at 7:57 AM, Orc said:

Hi all

 

As someone who has:

(a) a Clinical psychological disorder (or disease or condition or whatever you want to call it, just don't call it a disability),

(b) someone who suffered with multiple difficulties during my education.

(c) Is now working in a post semi-related to education

 

I not so humbly suggest that ""learning difficulties'" are largely the result of low quality teaching. Either they're just lousy teachers, or they're passing time until their dream job becomes available, or they're filling a teaching post so that they can work at their real passion which is coaching sport (very few professional school coaches in ZA - my experience with teacher/coaches is that they are poor teachers and even poorer coaches). OR they got an otherwise useless degree at University and have taken a teaching post to make payments on their student loans. Or they're just complete, utter psychopaths who have no business being outside of a padded cell, let alone being responsible for the education of vulnerable, impressionable children. I had a couple of those during my time at Primary School (first seven years). If I had let their expressed opinions of me dictate the course my life was to take I would have ended up as a human crash test dummy, or a yard technician, or hobo. Fortunately I had some teachers who were really just Angels in Disguise and managed to instill different values in me.

 

As for the OP's question / comment about learning Python: I would not say its an easy language to learn, but it is certainly easier than some of the offerings out there. I had a lot of fun with: https://inventwithpython.com/#invent

Learning to use any programming language is an exercise in patience (with yourself and with the compiler or interpreter) and curiosity. If you lack those then you will struggle, and even fail. 

 

Anyway,

 

Regards

Orc

I've never had programming before, except for the turbo pascal, which once was one of the subjects in the middle school computer science class.
I thought that maybe I will try to learn Python, a lot of aspergerian ,I can program so why not me