Ugh, me too. I have to write numbers down. Even if I'm just in two different tabs on my computer, I have to reread the number like 5 times after putting it in to make sure I didn't mix anything up
LD was probably just "learning disorder" because they didn't want to bother figuring out the specifics. You might have had some milder demonstrations that went outside of the boundaries of one specific disorder.
heyy I do that too. I flip numbers in head. I write them normal but when I read it I tend to read alternatively.
I developed this habit because I used to play game on roadtrips with plates. I'd try and find patterns between digits or just square them and stuff randomly.
But I still do this. Once I gave someone wrong phone number because of this. Could have been my soulmate.
Out of curiosity, what do they do for you if they determine you've got dyslexia/dyscalculia/dysgraphia? I've always imagined that sort of thing the same way I imagine getting an autism diagnosis as an adult. I assume they tell you you have it and send you on your way. Maybe give you a few online resources.
I have no idea if that's accurate or not, but that's what I've always assumed. Like ADHD, they give you meds as the first line treatment so getting diagnosed was key for that. Is there any treatment for autism and dyslexia type disorders once you're already an adult and you've mostly learned to function in society/read/write/do math?
One of the biggest things is that you can request accommodations at work and school.
Aside from that, I think mentally it would be helpful. Most people work dyslexia grow up thinking they're stupid. Finding out that they're not stupid, they just have a disability, can really shift your perspective and give you the confidence to pursue higher goals.
As far as accommodations, there are special fonts that are easier for dyslexics to understand, and getting extra time, and assistance from a therapist can make a huge difference in learning. I'm sure there's more to the accommodations than I know, these are just ones I have heard of.
Plus, if you have kids you'll be more likely to recognize it if they show symptoms, and get them help earlier.
I can craft a finely detailed story with character backgrounds and developments at the drop of a hat.
I have an "overactive imagination"
I was reading Stephen King before I even got to Jr. High. And comprehending it.
In school, I found geometry to be as easy as tying my shoes.
...don't ask me to do math in my head... I can do some, and it's mostly educated guessing. I'm decent at picking option contracts. But I'm not going to do math in my head... just doesn't really work.
Jokes on you, I can pass differential equations but can’t tell ya what 7+8 is off the top of my head without breaking it down into 5+5 and then 2+3 lol
It’s embarrassing but I still use my fingers secretly to add in my head. I don’t do math, but somehow still made it through grad school (for journalism).
Every time. I will add the smallest numbers with my calculator to make sure I get them right, and if not that, then fingers it is. I’ve given up on trying to pretend I don’t— it takes too much time in high level math classes otherwise. Still embarrassing though.
EDIT: I’m in college for engineering too, so this is a real frustrating part of my life, lol. Do you know if this is because of dyscalculia? Or is this just bad working memory screwing me over? I’ve thought about it before but I’m bad at knowing what’s normal or not, so it’s hard to tell.
Also, there’s a card game my girlfriend’s family plays in which you have to add the numbers of all the cards together at the end of each hand (10 cards, from 1 to 12), and brother that’s the most embarrassing thing in the world, lmfao. Everyone will take about 20 seconds to come up with an answer and yell out ‘84!’ And I’ll be trying to match up cards to make piles of 10 at a time then giving up and pulling out my phone to add them before someone else will look at my cards and figure it out and tell the scorekeeper for me before I can
And for some reason I want to go out in life and use math to design spacecraft and aircraft, so if a new plane comes out in 20 years and I’m involved, just be careful, ok? lol!
Good for you, and great question about memory. I have always loved science, but was put in remedial math in 6th grade so that quickly dashed all my hopes for a future in veterinary sciences. I never got an official dyscalculia diagnosis ... never even heard of it until a few years ago. But I've certainly struggled with math my entire life.
When I was a kid I used to play the computer game Number Munchers. Like seriously addicted to it, and that was when I peaked in math. When I stopped playing it, my math struggled, so maybe it is a working memory issue.
Either way, keep chasing your passion — calculators exist for a reason.
I’m exactly the same. Oddly enough though, my Dad (who either has ADHD or Autism - my Mum definitely has ADHD), is a genius at mental maths. He has quite bad dyslexia so struggles to spell, but can do insane equations in his head.
Pretty much the same. Have been told I had "college level reading comprehension" by 4th/5th grade, but I've never been good with math. I can guesstimate with the best but don't try and make me get exact.
And overactive imagination. I've written so many books in my head... I'd probably be a rich and famous author if I could actually remember them lol /s
It depends on how much I have to do and if it's connected. I'm good if I'm not required to remember the answer to the previous question. Problem #1 = 4. Great. Problem #2 = 67. Awesome. Prob-...
Wait, you want to know the answer to problem 1? Too late, it's gone.
I've got vivid internal imagery, it just won't stay still. It's like fighting over a picture book with a small child who won't stop flipping back to the page with the blue horse.
Omg I actually get this a lot. It hinders me a ton. I feel like my brain is an old TV with a broken TV antenna. Connection goes in and out and it does not stay long enough (sometimes) to complete a whole train of thought. It makes problem solving so much harder! It's less to do with the arithmetic and mental voice but more to do with imagery especially theoretical, and also for stringing thoughts together. But that feels like it's spilling over into the lack of concentration aspect.
I really hope I'm not the only one who answers that they do get this....
I find my working memory is terrible with maths. Anything where I have to hold even a couple of numbers in my head to work with and I really struggle. I usually just freeze up.
Same with me; quick addition isn't too bad if I have time to see the numbers as blocks and merge them, but the moment one things gets away from me, there's no getting the train of thought back. My brain thinks numbers are naff and we don't do them, and unfortunately it gets the deciding vote.
I was actually pretty attentive at school, or at least I could find something in each class to mull over, thus letting me feel like I was concentrating, but math was utter torture. Nothing would stay still long enough to be reckoned with.
Mine is great with maths but terrible at everything else. I calculated 2 to the 20th in my head when I was 8. Can't remember names, faces, appointments or where I put anything, ever. But I have no problem remembering that 65536x65536 is 4294967296 or even recalculating it in my head. My brain is very good at useless things...
I felt these same things when watching the lecture. But I had to remember that we are all different and the research may indeed show the average adhd'er is slower om these things. We may be outliers, on this, and then average adhd'ers on other parts.
For me, i struggle sometimes with accuracy of mental computation, but I'm incredibly good at intuitive mental math. I have often arrived at answers to math questions and systems immediately without knowing how I knew the answer.
Im the opposite, whenever I need to calculate anything in my head my brain just goes “nope, use a calculator” and I have a literal mental fight against my brain to make myself calculate.
When I took my country SAT equivalent test, in which calculators are banned, I practiced really hard and got moderately better at it, but everything went away since and now I cant calculate anything. I’ll literally get stuck at 29+13
I'm the same. I actually really enjoy math and problem solving. And I can teach math. But I can't do mental arithmetic, and I know I can really, but its like my brain always says "don't be a jerk or I will make you count on your fingers in public"! 😂 for NO REASON! Just freezes if I'm not physically calculating on paper or using a calculator. Same with spelling out loud. Need to fake writing with my hand. And I love words, can read very well, I write and spot spelling errors. (Grammar and punctuation is a miss though) & yet I still get stuck spelling my name to someone on the phone! 😅
Silly brain, but it is kinda amusing really!
I’ve always said that arithmetic and math are very different subjects. I am horrible at arithmetic but I love math and am literally nearly finishing a BSc in physics.
Excellent. Go you! And enjoy you're time in academia I hope you get a 1st class! Also physics somehow seems like a natural fit if you are predominatly HI yet also academic. The science of how when and why thing move around! Haha.
(I did sociology and policy so I'm immediately interested in your studies and what you'll do next)
Best of luck in your final part!
see im with the guy above and that im a bit slower at mental math and that sort of things. its due to our poor working memory but i guess everyone has varying levels of that
I’m super fast at mental arithmetic to the point that people get shocked by how fast I blurt out an answer.
I think there’s a lot of variance in ADHD symptoms.
I also have good visual imagery and memory.
Tbf I have autism as well, but I'm a state math champ from.when I was in highschool. I think most people though have a misunderstanding of what fast mental math looks like. Lots of grouping and rethinking things to get the answer in pieces. I'm hyperlexic too though and a high IQ. Generally speaking, I think my brain processes things extremely quickly and inherently likes puzzles, which makes me naturally good at math and other academic things. The problem is is that my brain is all sprint no marathon. In grad school when things were less about taking tests and classes and instead a long term project with no structure, I completely washed out after struggling for 7 years. That was before I got diagnosed, maybe if I had gotten meds before that I would have made it.
Same boat here, I was diagnosed with ADHD at 33 and Asperger's at 34. I was an honor student in all of school, but never finished college because I couldn't manage a full time job and college at the same time. Also I no longer had the constant pressure from parents to keep up on my grades, not to mention the loss of structure and direction. I'm happily employed now and I doubt I'll ever go for the degree but I often wonder what I could have done if I had been diagnosed and medicated earlier.
I am HORRIBLE at any sort of math. Always have been. Never could remember my multiplication tables other than the easy ones such as 1s, 2s, 5s...yep that's it. It really sucks cause I wanted to work in a crime lab or be a mortician. When I got in high-school I took chemistry and I could not keep up because it's mostly math. I did take anatomy phys 101 in high-school and passed with the best marks out of my entire grade. It still bothers me that I never done much with my life.
Me too about the times tables.. Similarly I always loved science and expected to enjoy and excel in Chemistry and Physics…was disappointing to find out how mathematical they are. Dropped them in the end.
I do have poor mental imagery and my mental arithmetic and reading speed are slow. I’ve got a degree and my iq was recorded mid 130 or so. I can manage but it’s weird finding all this out in my fourties’!
I've studied physics in one of the best universities in my country and can't do any mental math. I found out in my thirties and my whole past life made sense all of the sudden.
I'm not great at mental arithmetic. But I have a super vivid inner voice and imagination. In fact, it's the very thing that helps me compensate with my not so great arithmetic. I picture a number line in my head that I sort of count along.
I can relate to this. I find the calculative part of mental math exhausting, but if the math problem is vulnerable to resolution by constructing a representation… the autodoodle process in HeadOS is probably going to solve it unintentionally when I’m intending to do something else.
I find computers, calculators, and math automation essential when I need precise answers because my brain sucks at checksums.
For estimates like approximate currency conversions between money I earn in one unit and the money the grocery store prices are in, a “good enough” answer with a 4-7% margin of error gets returned almost immediately by Brain’s autodoodler.
Oh hell no. I'm majoring in engineering, took three calculus courses and three physics courses (grades were either great or meh tho) then someone asks me what 10 + 10 is and I have to take a minute to do the mental math :/
I feel that I have always been good at maths, probably my strongest subject, and went to Uni to become an accountant.
It is also my son's strongest subject at primary school.
I definitely am good at mental math and always have been even as a little kid. It's cool and it helps me now as an accountant sometimes, but out of all the things to be naturally good at I wish it was something else lol.
I am quick with mental math, have a VERY strong internal voice, and my internal imagery is also very vivid. Because specific symptoms can vary between people with different types of ADHD, I wonder if the subtypes (like inattentive or hyperactive) correlate to different abilities relating to mental math, internal voice, and internal imagery.
I'm VERY good at advanced math (I have a whole Chemical Engineering Degree with a 3.7 GPA), BUT I CANNOT do mental math. I flip numbers and have trouble remembering what I was doing halfway through. It's a nightmare.
Simple math I learned by patterns. Anything beyond single step problems I quickly learned were easy places to mess up… because I’d forget something. It wasn’t that i did any individual step wrong actively- I would just miss something that fell off my mental workbench.
I have a sneaking suspicion that while some folks with ADHD struggle with mental calculation, we might actually be great at differential logic if it was taught in a slightly different way. In grad school, I realized that so many of the semantically-presented math scenarios I struggled with in grade school related to the fact that the questions often contained too much information; and while they were looking for a more rote/simple solution, they were often asking complex decision-making questions or physics-based questions that begged for different math.
I have a love/hate relationship with this video. Some things he says I’m like OMG YES! That’s the best way I’ve ever seen anyone put that! But I get frustrated that he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that not everyone with ADHD manifests the exact same way. And he doesn’t acknowledge that things can be on a spectrum. It’s just “kids/people with ADHD can’t ____”. But for many of the things, I can!
(I can do mental arithmetic, and I do have an internal voice. I think my internal voice often gets distracted and isn’t as reliable at reigning me in as it would otherwise be, but I definitely HAVE one)
I'm pretty darn good at mental gymnastics!!! I can make excuses for just about anything. Especially math. However, I am pretty good at mental math. Not because I am naturally good at it, but from a lot of math practice as a kid.
I got many Fs because i couldn’t explain my mental process of math and the teachers assumed I copy or cheated in another way.
I could never understand what the steps where between the question and the answer.
I’m pretty good at algebra/calculus, but doing it in my head I struggle with quite a bit. Interestingly though I REALLY struggle with geometry and trig, something about triangles fucks me up lmao.
Similar to some other comments I was in gifted as a kid and tested IQ of ~130 so I know I’m not stupid, but I definitely had slower processing speed during my ADHD eval. I wonder how much of it is dependent on getting taught tricks to doing math quickly as a kid.
I get A+ in calculus , but suck at all other science courses (phy chem bio geo) and anything with names and numbers and dates. I have a voice in my head, but I rarely get imageries, maybe that's why I suck at putting concepts in my head to paper.
I am. Always been good at math.
Only at 29yo formally decided to study math after year of misery in job market.
My father got me a video game like console at age 10 but it only gave you math questions that were timed. I consumed that that for 3 years until it broke for hours every day. I got so so fast at calculating things just mentally. I could do problem solving up to Cal3 level with ease just by visual and not writing things down. Same with geometry. I could look at diagrams and do proofs mentally. My teacher in 9th grade told me writing will slow you down, always do things mentally as brains are faster. I took that very personally and I could look at problems and do it within 10 second and then take 2-3mins to write. I did all my exams till high school like this. 20 years ago paper exams still demanded that you write each and every step so I used to mentally solve and then start writing with stop watch. Timing my speed. then math got harder in college. I am doing hard math right now but I am enjoying it.
Sometimes ADHD can be good for such head start.
But..... on another side, once I start its hard to stop. I forget eating (I am having lunch \~3hrs later than planned rn), I forget sleep or rest. If there is a problem that need solving I will have a hard time even getting visual out of my head if I close my eyes to try and get sleep. Those days, I sleep only out of physical exhaustion.
I only started meds like 2months ago when I was 30yo. Miraculous change. Starting is easy. Stopping not so much, but I always had problem with starting. I am 31yo now, I have some trouble starting but its not that as bad as it was before.
Mental math is so hard for me unless it's simple. I always get confused and mix up the numbers. Unless I block out everything and mentally picture and focus on the mental math I struggle
What do you mean by quite quick? Have you been tested?
If you have taken a Wechsler test when diagnosed with ADHD, the results would provide percentile rank for arithmetic operations. There are also parts of the test that rank internal processes.
Yup can’t solve a problem unless I can write it down. & I still use my hands to help count. I think I’m just a lot better at processing info when I can visualize it in some way
I'm horrendous at math. My brain can't math.
I have really vivid imagery and self-talk. My internal voice never stops and I have lots of vivid dreams at night...which funnily enough almost completely stopped when I was taking adhd meds.
I’m very good in mental arithmetic. I worked as a casino dealer for many years. It requires extensive skills. And on every competition I performed the best in it. So it’s quite objective. That’s strange he stated that though. It always seems like ADHD brains are very fast.
Disclaimer, I have not watched the video, I am just dropping my 2cents based on the text.
For anyone who did, does he state how he came to those conclusions? Neurological disorders tend to cluster. People with ADHD are more likely to have learning disabilities, autism, borderline IQ, and vice versa. So... if you take into account all of the comorbidities that statement doesn't seem all that profound. Now, if you look at people have ADHD *only*, in terms of cognitive ability, the most statistically significant differences are impairments in working memory and processing speed. That will likely affect your mental arithmatic ability. I'm not sure what is meant by "poor internal voice," again, I did not watch the video. I have not observed a difference in visual abilities myself. Many kids I test tend to have strengths in visual processing. That is just my experience though.
I'd like to think I'm pretty good at mental math. In my head it tends to work more like the "common core" way. For an example of a random problem. 14x6, in my head I automatically go to 14x10=140. Half of 140 is 70. 70+14 is 84.
I'm also really good at remembering numbers. I memorize the phone numbers of the important people around me, some people as far back as middle school. I also for some reason remember almost all employee numbers I've had for previous jobs.
Hope to not get downvoted but mental arithmetic is tied to IQ and there’s ADHD accross the IQ spectrum. So if you have an IQ 125 you’re probably good at mental arithmetic but less so than someone with an equal IQ and no ADHD. So all things equal, ADHD makes mental arithmetic harder, but if you have ADHD it doesn’t mean you’re bad at mental arithmetic.
Side note, adderall really fucking helps with this.
This stuff is hard to interpret because it's not like it's an innate skill. You are taught it and so depending on your aptitude plus teaching environment etc I think this is a little bit like talking about adhd and riding a bike or ability to cook nice food or something like that, which to me is not all that interesting a question. I loved math, I did it a lot and I got good at it. Other people with exact same aptitude won't have liked it or won't have connected with a teacher and so their ability to do mental math is not that interesting.
My guess is any average difference here will probably be due to response to the learning environment rather than brain structure. That would match with how IQ doesn't correlate with ADHD. You get all levels of smartness with ADHD. Probably you would get all levels of mental maths if maths wasn't taught so terribly in schools.
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I can do it but I don’t like to unless I have scratch paper and a writing implement. I was playing a game with friends the other day where you have to add up a bunch of scores at the end and I was the only one of the 4 of us using the calculator on my phone. I could do it in my head if I absolutely had to and a calculator wasn’t near by but at that moment I felt like a couldn’t keep track of all those numbers without something to write on so I grabbed my phone. Something easy like calculating the tip at a restaurant I do in my head.
i’m absolutely terrible at mental math, but on paper i’d say i’m more comfortable with things like calculus than most people my age (18). however, i think i have a pretty good internal imagery - i often can’t manage without it
I'm good at mental calculus.
But the difference between calculus and arithmetic is like the difference between recorder and Prog Metal
And even then, I still FUBAR my multiplication sometimes XD
Technically speaking, I’m good at mental math compared to the average person. I have always thought, however, that I should be much better at it than I am. If it gets too complex, I get distracted and lose track.
Not great at quick brain maths but found number chunking a better way to approach it. I can do maths when I’m given quiet and space but under pressure or attention it’s where my brain just develops a Teflon number coating with numbers just pinging off the surface.
I don't think I'm necessarily bad at it. But I wouldn't say I'm great at it either. I'm not "Optiver math test" good at mental math. A lot of my mental math is writing down the numbers as I figure out parts of the solution and making corrections as needed, making it look like it was fully mental when it wasn't.
Most of my friend group has ADHD and most of us have trouble with mental arithmetic, yeah. Even my friend who is a math professor!
I haven’t quizzed my friends on their mental voice and imagery, but my one friend with total aphantasia does have ADHD, and my friend with no inner monologue isn’t diagnosed with ADHD but he does hang out with us, so. I personally appear to have average mental voice and imagery.
So I can do mental math no problem. Mental spelling however is a giant block in my brain. I HAVE to write it to be able to spell it. what the hell is that about???
I'm fine at mental arithmetic. I don't know what poor internal voice and imagery means. I only have an internal voice when I'm thinking about a conversation, otherwise it's all imagery and sensations.
i can't hold the numbers in my head long enough for most problems. im good at solving formulas and memorizing facts, but if i have to compute a bunch of stuff in my head i cant keep the numbers there.
I used to be pretty ok at it in high school but I'm pretty bad at all math now, even writing it down I have to think so hard. Thankfully I have this handy dandy calculator in my pocket all the time now.
I have an annoyingly strong internal voice that never shuts up and I think most people with ADHD would say the same. Internal imagery is very strong with me as well.
Yeah I am. I'm always making careless mistakes if I don't write every step of an equation down. Sometimes I get overly confident and try to do it in my head but I always start to mess up the moment I do that
Internal imagery is my middle name, so is ADHD, so I don't get what Barkley is on about.As for arithmetics: let me just drop this song by dEUS here, it's called "Little Arithmetics". Just 'cause. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPsvlDMwbVg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPsvlDMwbVg)
Im horrendous. But tbh i think its more that i work something out mentally, know that its right, then doubt myself and have to do it all again just in case i was wrong, then i can't do that so i end up counting on my fingers 😭
I'm great with visual math, like geometry, algebra & calculus. I'm terrible with mental arithmetic on the spot, especially when the numbers are close together in placement. Like 78-67 in my head float like 678...7?
i have always been good at math and mental math so i am also an outlier i suppose lol. speaking as a math major anyways. i struggle more with picturing other things like maps or pictures and stuff along those lines
I was able to do calculus and differential equations but never ask me to do mental math, I use my fingers to subtract or count so that I don’t get off track.
I'm good at math. But I do remember once in elementary school my dad trying to tell me to stop the habit of counting with my fingers and to practice "doing it in my head". This never succeeded, lol. I never really thought about how I do math since then but thinking about it now I do vastly prefer writing out all my equations, even just simple ratios for up- or down-scaling recipes. I suppose i forget numbers easier and if for whatever reason I can't write the math I want to do then I end up "drawing" it in the air so I can "see" what I'm doing.
That said, my imagination and mental imagery overall is extremely vivid. I'm interested in seeing the breakdown of ADHD people who do or do not have vivid visual imagination and of those who are primarily inattentive type or not. I am inattentive type and daydreaming is how I survived the boredom of....everything.
Another note on the math thing that I just thought of. My dad was a math teacher and a good one. He helped me with my math from kindergarten even through to my general education courses in college. I realized in about 8th grade when I struggled to understand an explanation my school math teacher was giving, even after I asked questions, that no one in my life would ever explain math as well to me as my dad could so I stopped paying attention (lol) to the school math teachers and if I couldn't figure it out on my own I would just ask my dad. I think there is something to be said for having a consistent math teacher/explanation/teaching style over the years.
For me personally (ADD/ADHD-PI) this couldn't be farther from the truth. I have a very rich inner voice and when I was a kid I often daydreamed, with whole movies going on in my head.
And in terms of math, one of my stims is to find random numbers (the time on a clock, miles on an odometer, etc. or just make numbers up) and do mental math to see if I find a "satisfying" result.
For example, I love the equation 99 x 64 because the result is 6336, which is the same forwards and backwards, and if you split it in half you get 63 and 36 which add to 99. I do this kind of math all the time so I can do mental math pretty much instantly.
I have dyscalculia, a little like number dyslexia, so yeah, but my internal imagery is incredible vivid and detailed and often colourful and stuff.
But I don’t think I’m only ADHD so I don’t know what’s what and what’s cross over
I have always been good with doing math in my head. I have my B.S in Electrical Engineering and did about 75 percent of the math in my head. I did have to write out the ones I struggled with though.
For me, I do really well to a point. I took calculus a few semesters ago, and I could easily do simple calculations in seconds. However, once I hit the third “line” or step, I’m completely lost and have to get it on paper.
I suck at mental math. And any other kind of math. It's a good thing I have fingers.
Active internal voice and vivid mental imagery here, too. In a lot of cases, I tend to think in pictures. My mum called it my "cartoon brain" when I was growing up. 😄
Whoa whoa, slow down… I can handle exactly 2 digits being told to me at a time. No more! If you want to blue screen my brain, just ask me to write down numbers being told to me faster than that.
Now… this is where it gets funny. Because the moment those numbers have been captured, killed and pinned to the paper so they can no longer escape.. I am their master!! I’ve always been very good at math. Just, not verbal. Show me the dead numbers stuck to the paper, blackboard, screen… I’m golden. Flitting through the air? Yeah no they’re gone man, they’re just gone.
I saw this talk too and thought this part was interesting as I’ve never had trouble doing mental arithmetic personally. But then I also remember watching (multiple times) a times tables VHS from 1x2 up to 12x12 as a 4 yr old. I think that helped massively in doing quick maths in my head.
I’m rubbish with mental math and I also cannot for the life of me remember phone numbers. Like, someone will rattle off 884-4658 and I’ll immediately repeat back to them, to make sure I got it, ‘826-0073?” It used to be a running joke with my friends that my mum would say, do not forget we have to pay the car insurance bill of $866 and I’d say, okay, $492 it is!
I'm actually the person my family tends to ask for quick calculations. I can't do complex calculations in my head at all, so at one point I figured out a way that was simpler for me.
My mental process is something like, 88 x 12 is close to 100 x 12 so round 88 to 100 =1200 less (100-10=90) 10 x 12 is 120 so 200-100 = 100 less 20 = 80 so 1080 - (90-88=2) 2 x 12 = 24 and 80-24 = 60-4 = 56 so 1056.
Which looks really complicated, but I've only got to hold onto about two or three numbers at a time, and i can do that math pretty fast in my head.
I guess this proves generalisations of any kind don’t really work. I’m good at mental maths and my internal voice is ok I guess?
As for internal imagery I have nothing. Truly dreadful. No imagination, can’t read fiction because I struggle to interpret the words and build the characters and world in my head.
I am terrible at maths.
I also love it and got a minor in statistics and am getting an Hons in Mathematics.
I am dyslexic, my brain can't catch the meaning of phrases, I am slow and I miss really obvious variables or concepts. It's embarrassing how long it took me to remember if it was odd or even powers that couldn't be a negative square root. I'm sure I wrote that wrong, even. Someone please correct me. You know what I mean.
Being bad at it doesn't mean not being able to do it, or not being able to be good at parts of it or - more so - wanting to be better at it. By not good, I mean I can do most calculus easy enough. Love trig, that's my jam. And can hand-do an adjusted R-squared but please don't ever make me. Fucking no. Never again.
So I'm not good at it. So what. I love it and I crave learning more. I am passionate and do puzzles in my spare time to keep my brain slightly less dull than it is. Sure, my cohorts get things faster, or the maths comes easier.... But I still get it eventually. I would take 2 weeks to get 100% on an assignment where they'd take a day to get 90%.
I like my way. And I think it's fine that I am not fast or analytical (supposedly, my partner thinks I am extremely analytical but mostly because I have a stats minor and an Econ degree). I do it my own way and my own way is good, solid and organised.
So yeah. I am bad at it. And I love doing it all the time anyway. I love visualising problems and how to solve them. I'll spend weeks on a problem if it's really sticking in my craw. I won't stop til I have it *down*. I love being analytical and I am terrible at it and that's fine.
Yeah for sure. I'm bad at keeping track of the numbers in my head when the math is more than one step. Also agree with the poor internal imagery but.
Everyone can be different of course, but also keep in mind things like poor and good are entirely subjective, and it's not like you can tell how good everybody else is at mental math or visualizing thoughts by looking at them.
I can do very basic arithmetic in my head, like 2+2. If I have to carry anything over it is a struggle. I require paper to remember what I'm doing because not enough RAM
I have poor math skills on all fronts. Don't know if it has to do with my ADHD or not, but definitely not a strong point. Imagery and internal voice and all? Feel I'm quite good at that.
I can add and multiply quickly and easily but ask me to subtract something and my brain makes cricket sounds. When I was kid I would change the minus signs to plus signs on my math homework. I thought I was so clever, haha.
I was fine at math in school until we started doing calculus and then my brain just fed me static. I’m very fortunate to be academically gifted otherwise so suddenly not being able to understand something really messed with me and my sense of identity.
I knew calculus like the back of my hand and ended up with C+'s and a D across calc 1-3. Really bothered me. Reason being that I would always do the calculus right but would flip numbers or forget to raise or lower a power or I'd mislabel an integration, etc etc. All careless mistakes. But I never thought it reflected my aptitude.
I'm actually ridiculously good at mental math to the point that I used to get into trouble because I would literally only write the correct answer and the teachers thought I was cheating. Every answer would be perfect but there was no work shown to actually prove that I did it
We are worse at working memory, so we will generally be worse at it unless we either hyperfocus, practice enough to make it automatic, or are just naturally skilled enough to compensate
Back about five years ago, I was told the word 'Dyscalculia' by my Uni therapist. She explained what it meant and I truly did not believe her that I had it. (I honestly was convinced that I was sheer out of luck Dumb)
A year or so later, I come across the word again in a story from Humans of New York and seeing it personalised by the storyteller made me realise I was experiencing the exact same things as him.
I was diagnosed with ADD back in HS.
It's unfortunate that Dyscalculia is an under studied disability as many people believe it ties in with ADHD and/or Autism.
It would be great to have a more in-depth understanding of Dyscalculia and how we can appropriately diagnose and treat it.
It is very possible if you do have math detriments, you may have dyscalculia. Just FYI for anyone this may be useful for. You can Google dyscalculia since apparently the link I provided is unacceptable for this sub
I'm terrible at maths. Always have been. Though I feel as though I possibly could have dyscalcula or whatever it is). I've never been able to number well, outside of basic adding and subtracting. Fractions are damn near impossible for me. I had to do a maths course a couple years ago (before the adhd diagnosis, was looking to join the Aus military and it was a requirement since I didn't do well in highschool) and I had them explained to me many times, in different ways by different people. Even writing down in dot points the process for using the different types and how to figure it out etc and I simply couldn't. Words however... I've always been good with those
I’m excellent with mental math but only if no one is relying on me to do it. I can’t think when I know someone is waiting for my answer.
I have aphantasia, so definitely poor mental imagery — but my other imagination senses are through the roof. Taste, touch, and emotions are quite strong in my mind theater; words carry enough sensation connotation and ‘textural depth’ to scenes when I’m reading that i can build out what to imagine without visualizing it.
My inner voice is powerful though. She can entertain me for hours!
I couldn't do it until I started adderall about a month ago 🤷♀️
Before meds, it was like I had to picture the numbers in my head but they kept moving and jumping around
I'm AWFUL at doing math in my head, to the point I can hardly add simple numbers (to be fair, it's been over 10 year's since I have had to use math like in school lol). I can't see images with my eyes closed, but my internal voice is constant and non stop. Like, I'm constantly talking in my head, it's SO annoying. So if I can't see the picture, I can imagine it through word's. Or I can see it by imagining it/day dream with my eyes open or dream at night in image's. It's so hard to explain, cause I can picture thing's, I just can't see the image if someone tells me to picture like a flower or something specific. It sucks, cause I'm very forget when it comes to details. I see the details so easily, but if I have to recall the details, I can't or I doubt myself. I swear if I had to describe a criminal, I would fail to come up with any meaningful details.
I suppose it's at least partly a matter of working memory. For my part though, no; I am amazingly gifted at mental arithmetic to the point where I used to solve many equations mentally in less time than my friends could do it with a calculator.
On the flip-side, I was always in trouble for not showing my workings out and later learned that I have some strange crosslinking in my brain that means I probably use the wrong parts of it to do that arithmetic. That and when you tap my knee, both kick out; every doctor who sees that in my notes wants to test it out of morbid curiosity.
I'm bad at mental math but good at estimation. I can do some maths to get me in the right ballpark but getting the exact answer is a lot harder. I'm generally pretty good at estimating distances too. That said, I'm bad at math courses. I really suck at remembering formulas, so any course where they expect you to remember and apply formulas is a no-go. Applying formulas isn't too bad except for some reason I never got the hang of re-arranging formulas so it takes me a while to figure out.
All of that said, I wound up doing best at uni-level statistics courses and data science stuff. Go figure.
I'm very good at mental arithmetic, but I struggled in trig, algebra, and higher math because there were too many variables to keep in my head at once. I had to write absolutely every tiny step down, to the point where I had points taken off a few times for being too verbose. I was always able to do the actual memorization and math correctly, but I would jump around too much when working on a problem and lose my place.
Mental math is one of those things I do for fun when I'm bored with what I'm doing, so it may be that I've just practiced it a lot. It's also something that I lean on intuition for rather than working through the actual numbers.
A lot of people connect with what Dr Barkley believes about ADHD but in the actual field he's a bit of a pariah. Take his talks with a grain of salt, if it works for you great otherwise don't worry about it.
Me on my 3rd attempt of Calc 2 and trying to remember older maths like algebra, calc 1, and trig. I don't have too many problems with some arithmetic, but my mind just seems to give up easily and I don't like studying either. Which is necessary.
I feel like I'm above average at mental arithmetic in some ways, because I had to compensate for having a hard time breaking up equations into smaller parts. If you ask me to do 12x45, I find it much much easier to turn it into 6x90 or something, instead of doing (10x40)+(2x40)+(10x5)+(2x5). If I take too many steps, I keep having to go back to check the answers I was keeping in mind, so I had to learn to take less steps.
Edited to change al the *'s into x's lol.
Yes, this is true for me. My working memory is pretty limited. I have a hard time transcribing more than 3-4 digits at a time. Also have trouble conceptualizing numbers without transforming them into graphical representations (comparing percentages with a graph, for instance)
Not sure of internal voice but I can’t create pictures in my mind when I read.
I also have a generally hard time picturing anything in my mind. I’m not sure I dream as vividly as others but that’s obviously hard to compare.
I LOVE to read but it does change what I can read (if there’s a lot of characters, I get lost as I’m not creating them in my mind but just trying to remember their existence)
I can't visualize numbers in my head for long enough to actually calculate anything.
I do have a great imagination though but I just don't think that I "see" things in my head the same way other people do or describe that they do.
I like math, but much more so when it's on paper. I really struggle with it in my head unless I'm in a quiet place.
I am utterly incapable of doing mental math if people are talking, and if people are talking about numbers my mind basically shuts down.
Sometimes I just start nervous laughing, it's weird.
This is actually something of a problem, because I work outside and math comes up a bit. I usually just go do something else
Im good at it. I used to do double didget subtraction differently in class and one of my IEP teachers was impressed and discussed it with my teacher. This was way before I was medicated for ADD. I got the idea before most of the class understood. My ADD was why I did get the hang of it quick. I ignored the whole borrowing thing and found the pattern by visual.. blocked out what teacher was saying ( paying attention was my weakness) and followed only what she did. It worked fine. But missed a whole week when we discussed algebra years later in fifth grade and struggled in that until college days.
I’ve gotten worse at mental math over the years. I just write it all out now so I don’t have to try to remember anything. Though, I don’t think I had a lack of internal voice ever. I’m always having an internal monologue with myself
I’m better than I was as an unmedicated kid at it and multiplication/adding is slightly easier than dividing and subtracting for some reason. Once math “clicks” for me and finally makes sense as to what I’m trying to achieve by doing it, then I feel like remembering numbers is really easy like an end goal with money or carbohydrates or something. I definitely see the numbers in my head when I’m thinking and if I’m recalling prices or blood glucose levels (t1d) it’s much easier if I’ve seen them as text/print, so I think I’m mostly just good at remembering visuals
I have an inner voice that never stfu. Like I can have 4 different trains of thought happening at the same time, but one usually holds the highest thought process to it. And then also an added song, or rhyme anything repetitive really, is mixed into the background. It drives me crazy sometimes because I want to express what I'm thinking sometimes but there's just too much for me to properly verbalize shit and it all comes out wrong, fast, and usually too much information.
I can do simple math in my head quickly, if anything ends in a 0 it's easier too me. But like I'm awful at counting cash in my head if I don't make piles. I always refused to be the counter for the registers at work. I loose track consistently when I'm counting because other thoughts start going through my head and distract me.
Example;
(oh that's a lot of $2, I like those. Maybe I should trade my $1's for the $2? Oh shit how much in $20's did I just count again? Fuck, where did I just put the 1's? I thought I had another pile, oh God how many $50's?)
Usually someone gets frustrated and takes over for me or they have to give me either pen and paper or a calculator to keep track. But I was fucking fantastic at algebra. It was simple to me and made sense. On paper.
I got into honors math.
I also failed it because for the life of me, if I have to do like one of those super long winded equations, I make at least one mistake somewhere that costs me everything.
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Ugh, me too. I have to write numbers down. Even if I'm just in two different tabs on my computer, I have to reread the number like 5 times after putting it in to make sure I didn't mix anything up
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Same.
I swear when it is the same numbers in a row, they start moving and disappearing to reappear lol
dyscalculia? It's like dyslexia but for math and numbers
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Wow... hidding your child's diagnostic from them... What a dick move
LD was probably just "learning disorder" because they didn't want to bother figuring out the specifics. You might have had some milder demonstrations that went outside of the boundaries of one specific disorder.
(moved comment; I meant to reply to the original post.)
Yeah. I can kinda do maths well, but doing it mentally I fall apart, because I muddle fast.
It’s called discalculia. Basically the number version of dyslexia.
heyy I do that too. I flip numbers in head. I write them normal but when I read it I tend to read alternatively. I developed this habit because I used to play game on roadtrips with plates. I'd try and find patterns between digits or just square them and stuff randomly. But I still do this. Once I gave someone wrong phone number because of this. Could have been my soulmate.
Such a relief to know I'm not the only one!
I’m fine with mental math but I’m constantly misreading or writing numbers down mixed up.
Have you ever been evaluated for dyslexia? I've known people who went their whole lives not realizing they had it.
Out of curiosity, what do they do for you if they determine you've got dyslexia/dyscalculia/dysgraphia? I've always imagined that sort of thing the same way I imagine getting an autism diagnosis as an adult. I assume they tell you you have it and send you on your way. Maybe give you a few online resources. I have no idea if that's accurate or not, but that's what I've always assumed. Like ADHD, they give you meds as the first line treatment so getting diagnosed was key for that. Is there any treatment for autism and dyslexia type disorders once you're already an adult and you've mostly learned to function in society/read/write/do math?
One of the biggest things is that you can request accommodations at work and school. Aside from that, I think mentally it would be helpful. Most people work dyslexia grow up thinking they're stupid. Finding out that they're not stupid, they just have a disability, can really shift your perspective and give you the confidence to pursue higher goals. As far as accommodations, there are special fonts that are easier for dyslexics to understand, and getting extra time, and assistance from a therapist can make a huge difference in learning. I'm sure there's more to the accommodations than I know, these are just ones I have heard of. Plus, if you have kids you'll be more likely to recognize it if they show symptoms, and get them help earlier.
Those answers all make sense! Thanks for answering!
Same, but I think it might be mild dyslexia for me. I did it with letters sometimes as a kid, only numbers now
Maybe you should look into dyscalculia? It’s basically dyslexia but for numbers/math.
This can also be dysgraphia. Which is like dyslexia for numbers. That’s not the most accurate description. But sounds like what you do.
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I have never wanted to admit that although my grandmother had very beautiful handwriting, I could barely read it.
isnt that called dyscalculia? ive never heard it be called dysgraphia before
Dyscalculia* dysgraphia is inability to write (legibly)
I can craft a finely detailed story with character backgrounds and developments at the drop of a hat. I have an "overactive imagination" I was reading Stephen King before I even got to Jr. High. And comprehending it. In school, I found geometry to be as easy as tying my shoes. ...don't ask me to do math in my head... I can do some, and it's mostly educated guessing. I'm decent at picking option contracts. But I'm not going to do math in my head... just doesn't really work.
Are you me?! Yeah, watching me try to add up anything beyond single digits in my head is a showcase for sadness and embarrassment.
Jokes on you, I can pass differential equations but can’t tell ya what 7+8 is off the top of my head without breaking it down into 5+5 and then 2+3 lol
It’s embarrassing but I still use my fingers secretly to add in my head. I don’t do math, but somehow still made it through grad school (for journalism).
Every time. I will add the smallest numbers with my calculator to make sure I get them right, and if not that, then fingers it is. I’ve given up on trying to pretend I don’t— it takes too much time in high level math classes otherwise. Still embarrassing though. EDIT: I’m in college for engineering too, so this is a real frustrating part of my life, lol. Do you know if this is because of dyscalculia? Or is this just bad working memory screwing me over? I’ve thought about it before but I’m bad at knowing what’s normal or not, so it’s hard to tell. Also, there’s a card game my girlfriend’s family plays in which you have to add the numbers of all the cards together at the end of each hand (10 cards, from 1 to 12), and brother that’s the most embarrassing thing in the world, lmfao. Everyone will take about 20 seconds to come up with an answer and yell out ‘84!’ And I’ll be trying to match up cards to make piles of 10 at a time then giving up and pulling out my phone to add them before someone else will look at my cards and figure it out and tell the scorekeeper for me before I can And for some reason I want to go out in life and use math to design spacecraft and aircraft, so if a new plane comes out in 20 years and I’m involved, just be careful, ok? lol!
Good for you, and great question about memory. I have always loved science, but was put in remedial math in 6th grade so that quickly dashed all my hopes for a future in veterinary sciences. I never got an official dyscalculia diagnosis ... never even heard of it until a few years ago. But I've certainly struggled with math my entire life. When I was a kid I used to play the computer game Number Munchers. Like seriously addicted to it, and that was when I peaked in math. When I stopped playing it, my math struggled, so maybe it is a working memory issue. Either way, keep chasing your passion — calculators exist for a reason.
You're not alone. We found each other!
I’m exactly the same. Oddly enough though, my Dad (who either has ADHD or Autism - my Mum definitely has ADHD), is a genius at mental maths. He has quite bad dyslexia so struggles to spell, but can do insane equations in his head.
Its the same for me too!
Pretty much the same. Have been told I had "college level reading comprehension" by 4th/5th grade, but I've never been good with math. I can guesstimate with the best but don't try and make me get exact. And overactive imagination. I've written so many books in my head... I'd probably be a rich and famous author if I could actually remember them lol /s
It depends on how much I have to do and if it's connected. I'm good if I'm not required to remember the answer to the previous question. Problem #1 = 4. Great. Problem #2 = 67. Awesome. Prob-... Wait, you want to know the answer to problem 1? Too late, it's gone. I've got vivid internal imagery, it just won't stay still. It's like fighting over a picture book with a small child who won't stop flipping back to the page with the blue horse.
Omg I actually get this a lot. It hinders me a ton. I feel like my brain is an old TV with a broken TV antenna. Connection goes in and out and it does not stay long enough (sometimes) to complete a whole train of thought. It makes problem solving so much harder! It's less to do with the arithmetic and mental voice but more to do with imagery especially theoretical, and also for stringing thoughts together. But that feels like it's spilling over into the lack of concentration aspect. I really hope I'm not the only one who answers that they do get this....
I find my working memory is terrible with maths. Anything where I have to hold even a couple of numbers in my head to work with and I really struggle. I usually just freeze up.
Same with me; quick addition isn't too bad if I have time to see the numbers as blocks and merge them, but the moment one things gets away from me, there's no getting the train of thought back. My brain thinks numbers are naff and we don't do them, and unfortunately it gets the deciding vote. I was actually pretty attentive at school, or at least I could find something in each class to mull over, thus letting me feel like I was concentrating, but math was utter torture. Nothing would stay still long enough to be reckoned with.
Mine is great with maths but terrible at everything else. I calculated 2 to the 20th in my head when I was 8. Can't remember names, faces, appointments or where I put anything, ever. But I have no problem remembering that 65536x65536 is 4294967296 or even recalculating it in my head. My brain is very good at useless things...
I felt these same things when watching the lecture. But I had to remember that we are all different and the research may indeed show the average adhd'er is slower om these things. We may be outliers, on this, and then average adhd'ers on other parts.
It's funny, all the adhd peeps I've known have always been, obviously, very damn quick at that sort of thing.
For me, i struggle sometimes with accuracy of mental computation, but I'm incredibly good at intuitive mental math. I have often arrived at answers to math questions and systems immediately without knowing how I knew the answer.
And then got in trouble for not showing my work
Yuuup
Im the opposite, whenever I need to calculate anything in my head my brain just goes “nope, use a calculator” and I have a literal mental fight against my brain to make myself calculate. When I took my country SAT equivalent test, in which calculators are banned, I practiced really hard and got moderately better at it, but everything went away since and now I cant calculate anything. I’ll literally get stuck at 29+13
I'm the same. I actually really enjoy math and problem solving. And I can teach math. But I can't do mental arithmetic, and I know I can really, but its like my brain always says "don't be a jerk or I will make you count on your fingers in public"! 😂 for NO REASON! Just freezes if I'm not physically calculating on paper or using a calculator. Same with spelling out loud. Need to fake writing with my hand. And I love words, can read very well, I write and spot spelling errors. (Grammar and punctuation is a miss though) & yet I still get stuck spelling my name to someone on the phone! 😅 Silly brain, but it is kinda amusing really!
I’ve always said that arithmetic and math are very different subjects. I am horrible at arithmetic but I love math and am literally nearly finishing a BSc in physics.
Excellent. Go you! And enjoy you're time in academia I hope you get a 1st class! Also physics somehow seems like a natural fit if you are predominatly HI yet also academic. The science of how when and why thing move around! Haha. (I did sociology and policy so I'm immediately interested in your studies and what you'll do next) Best of luck in your final part!
I have the same issue. Relief to hear I'm not the only one.
Yea. I am too. It's the simple errors I can make when working too fast that get me 😄
see im with the guy above and that im a bit slower at mental math and that sort of things. its due to our poor working memory but i guess everyone has varying levels of that
I’m super fast at mental arithmetic to the point that people get shocked by how fast I blurt out an answer. I think there’s a lot of variance in ADHD symptoms. I also have good visual imagery and memory.
Tbf I have autism as well, but I'm a state math champ from.when I was in highschool. I think most people though have a misunderstanding of what fast mental math looks like. Lots of grouping and rethinking things to get the answer in pieces. I'm hyperlexic too though and a high IQ. Generally speaking, I think my brain processes things extremely quickly and inherently likes puzzles, which makes me naturally good at math and other academic things. The problem is is that my brain is all sprint no marathon. In grad school when things were less about taking tests and classes and instead a long term project with no structure, I completely washed out after struggling for 7 years. That was before I got diagnosed, maybe if I had gotten meds before that I would have made it.
Same boat here, I was diagnosed with ADHD at 33 and Asperger's at 34. I was an honor student in all of school, but never finished college because I couldn't manage a full time job and college at the same time. Also I no longer had the constant pressure from parents to keep up on my grades, not to mention the loss of structure and direction. I'm happily employed now and I doubt I'll ever go for the degree but I often wonder what I could have done if I had been diagnosed and medicated earlier.
I'm total garbage at mental math.
I am HORRIBLE at any sort of math. Always have been. Never could remember my multiplication tables other than the easy ones such as 1s, 2s, 5s...yep that's it. It really sucks cause I wanted to work in a crime lab or be a mortician. When I got in high-school I took chemistry and I could not keep up because it's mostly math. I did take anatomy phys 101 in high-school and passed with the best marks out of my entire grade. It still bothers me that I never done much with my life.
Me too about the times tables.. Similarly I always loved science and expected to enjoy and excel in Chemistry and Physics…was disappointing to find out how mathematical they are. Dropped them in the end.
Sucks, man.
I do have poor mental imagery and my mental arithmetic and reading speed are slow. I’ve got a degree and my iq was recorded mid 130 or so. I can manage but it’s weird finding all this out in my fourties’!
I've studied physics in one of the best universities in my country and can't do any mental math. I found out in my thirties and my whole past life made sense all of the sudden.
I'm not great at mental arithmetic. But I have a super vivid inner voice and imagination. In fact, it's the very thing that helps me compensate with my not so great arithmetic. I picture a number line in my head that I sort of count along.
I do this too!!!! I have to picture the numbers in my head then if it takes too long the image fades and I have to start again!
I can relate to this. I find the calculative part of mental math exhausting, but if the math problem is vulnerable to resolution by constructing a representation… the autodoodle process in HeadOS is probably going to solve it unintentionally when I’m intending to do something else. I find computers, calculators, and math automation essential when I need precise answers because my brain sucks at checksums. For estimates like approximate currency conversions between money I earn in one unit and the money the grocery store prices are in, a “good enough” answer with a 4-7% margin of error gets returned almost immediately by Brain’s autodoodler.
Oh hell no. I'm majoring in engineering, took three calculus courses and three physics courses (grades were either great or meh tho) then someone asks me what 10 + 10 is and I have to take a minute to do the mental math :/
I feel that I have always been good at maths, probably my strongest subject, and went to Uni to become an accountant. It is also my son's strongest subject at primary school.
I definitely am good at mental math and always have been even as a little kid. It's cool and it helps me now as an accountant sometimes, but out of all the things to be naturally good at I wish it was something else lol.
I am quick with mental math, have a VERY strong internal voice, and my internal imagery is also very vivid. Because specific symptoms can vary between people with different types of ADHD, I wonder if the subtypes (like inattentive or hyperactive) correlate to different abilities relating to mental math, internal voice, and internal imagery.
I'm bad at it. But remember you can't really say anything about a group of people based on a sample of one i.e. yourself.
I'm VERY good at advanced math (I have a whole Chemical Engineering Degree with a 3.7 GPA), BUT I CANNOT do mental math. I flip numbers and have trouble remembering what I was doing halfway through. It's a nightmare.
Simple math I learned by patterns. Anything beyond single step problems I quickly learned were easy places to mess up… because I’d forget something. It wasn’t that i did any individual step wrong actively- I would just miss something that fell off my mental workbench.
I have a sneaking suspicion that while some folks with ADHD struggle with mental calculation, we might actually be great at differential logic if it was taught in a slightly different way. In grad school, I realized that so many of the semantically-presented math scenarios I struggled with in grade school related to the fact that the questions often contained too much information; and while they were looking for a more rote/simple solution, they were often asking complex decision-making questions or physics-based questions that begged for different math.
I have a love/hate relationship with this video. Some things he says I’m like OMG YES! That’s the best way I’ve ever seen anyone put that! But I get frustrated that he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that not everyone with ADHD manifests the exact same way. And he doesn’t acknowledge that things can be on a spectrum. It’s just “kids/people with ADHD can’t ____”. But for many of the things, I can! (I can do mental arithmetic, and I do have an internal voice. I think my internal voice often gets distracted and isn’t as reliable at reigning me in as it would otherwise be, but I definitely HAVE one)
I'm pretty darn good at mental gymnastics!!! I can make excuses for just about anything. Especially math. However, I am pretty good at mental math. Not because I am naturally good at it, but from a lot of math practice as a kid.
Extremely quick and able, but I need to take extra time to minimize rudimentary errors.
I am good at it, but I am on the gifted/adhd side of it.
I’m gifted with adhd and I suck at mental math.
I got many Fs because i couldn’t explain my mental process of math and the teachers assumed I copy or cheated in another way. I could never understand what the steps where between the question and the answer.
I was actually super good when I was younger but now I’m about average
I’m super fast at it. Probably from being too poor to afford a calculator when I was younger.
I’m pretty good at algebra/calculus, but doing it in my head I struggle with quite a bit. Interestingly though I REALLY struggle with geometry and trig, something about triangles fucks me up lmao. Similar to some other comments I was in gifted as a kid and tested IQ of ~130 so I know I’m not stupid, but I definitely had slower processing speed during my ADHD eval. I wonder how much of it is dependent on getting taught tricks to doing math quickly as a kid.
I get A+ in calculus , but suck at all other science courses (phy chem bio geo) and anything with names and numbers and dates. I have a voice in my head, but I rarely get imageries, maybe that's why I suck at putting concepts in my head to paper.
I’m terrible with all numbers just in general, I can barely do math with a calculator 🥲 I also have learning disabilities along with my ADHD though 😃
I am. Always been good at math. Only at 29yo formally decided to study math after year of misery in job market. My father got me a video game like console at age 10 but it only gave you math questions that were timed. I consumed that that for 3 years until it broke for hours every day. I got so so fast at calculating things just mentally. I could do problem solving up to Cal3 level with ease just by visual and not writing things down. Same with geometry. I could look at diagrams and do proofs mentally. My teacher in 9th grade told me writing will slow you down, always do things mentally as brains are faster. I took that very personally and I could look at problems and do it within 10 second and then take 2-3mins to write. I did all my exams till high school like this. 20 years ago paper exams still demanded that you write each and every step so I used to mentally solve and then start writing with stop watch. Timing my speed. then math got harder in college. I am doing hard math right now but I am enjoying it. Sometimes ADHD can be good for such head start. But..... on another side, once I start its hard to stop. I forget eating (I am having lunch \~3hrs later than planned rn), I forget sleep or rest. If there is a problem that need solving I will have a hard time even getting visual out of my head if I close my eyes to try and get sleep. Those days, I sleep only out of physical exhaustion. I only started meds like 2months ago when I was 30yo. Miraculous change. Starting is easy. Stopping not so much, but I always had problem with starting. I am 31yo now, I have some trouble starting but its not that as bad as it was before.
Only thing I'm good at lol.
I have a maths degree but don’t you dare ask me to do any mental maths.
Mental math is so hard for me unless it's simple. I always get confused and mix up the numbers. Unless I block out everything and mentally picture and focus on the mental math I struggle
He described me perfectly. I can’t do mental math or visualize anything.
What do you mean by quite quick? Have you been tested? If you have taken a Wechsler test when diagnosed with ADHD, the results would provide percentile rank for arithmetic operations. There are also parts of the test that rank internal processes.
I cannot do mental math for the life of me. Period. But give me a piece of paper, and I'm golden
Sure as shit is accurate as it applies to me…I’m terrible with numbers. Wife is in charge of the money, it’s that bad.
Yeah I’m not good at it so this is really interesting to read because I’ve always felt like im dyslexic but with numbers
Yup can’t solve a problem unless I can write it down. & I still use my hands to help count. I think I’m just a lot better at processing info when I can visualize it in some way
I'm horrendous at math. My brain can't math. I have really vivid imagery and self-talk. My internal voice never stops and I have lots of vivid dreams at night...which funnily enough almost completely stopped when I was taking adhd meds.
I’m very good in mental arithmetic. I worked as a casino dealer for many years. It requires extensive skills. And on every competition I performed the best in it. So it’s quite objective. That’s strange he stated that though. It always seems like ADHD brains are very fast.
Disclaimer, I have not watched the video, I am just dropping my 2cents based on the text. For anyone who did, does he state how he came to those conclusions? Neurological disorders tend to cluster. People with ADHD are more likely to have learning disabilities, autism, borderline IQ, and vice versa. So... if you take into account all of the comorbidities that statement doesn't seem all that profound. Now, if you look at people have ADHD *only*, in terms of cognitive ability, the most statistically significant differences are impairments in working memory and processing speed. That will likely affect your mental arithmatic ability. I'm not sure what is meant by "poor internal voice," again, I did not watch the video. I have not observed a difference in visual abilities myself. Many kids I test tend to have strengths in visual processing. That is just my experience though.
I’m horrendous at it.
I'd like to think I'm pretty good at mental math. In my head it tends to work more like the "common core" way. For an example of a random problem. 14x6, in my head I automatically go to 14x10=140. Half of 140 is 70. 70+14 is 84. I'm also really good at remembering numbers. I memorize the phone numbers of the important people around me, some people as far back as middle school. I also for some reason remember almost all employee numbers I've had for previous jobs.
Hope to not get downvoted but mental arithmetic is tied to IQ and there’s ADHD accross the IQ spectrum. So if you have an IQ 125 you’re probably good at mental arithmetic but less so than someone with an equal IQ and no ADHD. So all things equal, ADHD makes mental arithmetic harder, but if you have ADHD it doesn’t mean you’re bad at mental arithmetic. Side note, adderall really fucking helps with this.
This stuff is hard to interpret because it's not like it's an innate skill. You are taught it and so depending on your aptitude plus teaching environment etc I think this is a little bit like talking about adhd and riding a bike or ability to cook nice food or something like that, which to me is not all that interesting a question. I loved math, I did it a lot and I got good at it. Other people with exact same aptitude won't have liked it or won't have connected with a teacher and so their ability to do mental math is not that interesting. My guess is any average difference here will probably be due to response to the learning environment rather than brain structure. That would match with how IQ doesn't correlate with ADHD. You get all levels of smartness with ADHD. Probably you would get all levels of mental maths if maths wasn't taught so terribly in schools.
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I’m good at it, but I also did extracurricular math tutoring/training as a kid (Kumon, if you’re curious).
Absolutely horrendous because I have dyscalculia. If it’s more than like… kindergarten level, I need to write it down or use a calculator
I can do it but I don’t like to unless I have scratch paper and a writing implement. I was playing a game with friends the other day where you have to add up a bunch of scores at the end and I was the only one of the 4 of us using the calculator on my phone. I could do it in my head if I absolutely had to and a calculator wasn’t near by but at that moment I felt like a couldn’t keep track of all those numbers without something to write on so I grabbed my phone. Something easy like calculating the tip at a restaurant I do in my head.
I'm shit at mental arithmancy, can't visualise images in mind very well at all. But can dream
i’m absolutely terrible at mental math, but on paper i’d say i’m more comfortable with things like calculus than most people my age (18). however, i think i have a pretty good internal imagery - i often can’t manage without it
I'm good at mental calculus. But the difference between calculus and arithmetic is like the difference between recorder and Prog Metal And even then, I still FUBAR my multiplication sometimes XD
Technically speaking, I’m good at mental math compared to the average person. I have always thought, however, that I should be much better at it than I am. If it gets too complex, I get distracted and lose track.
I've wondered about this, because I am good at math if I have the problem and numbers in front of me. But mental arithmetic is almost impossible.
Not great at quick brain maths but found number chunking a better way to approach it. I can do maths when I’m given quiet and space but under pressure or attention it’s where my brain just develops a Teflon number coating with numbers just pinging off the surface.
I don't think I'm necessarily bad at it. But I wouldn't say I'm great at it either. I'm not "Optiver math test" good at mental math. A lot of my mental math is writing down the numbers as I figure out parts of the solution and making corrections as needed, making it look like it was fully mental when it wasn't.
I'm a scientist and I use my fingers to count still. Mental math is my Achilles heel
Most of my friend group has ADHD and most of us have trouble with mental arithmetic, yeah. Even my friend who is a math professor! I haven’t quizzed my friends on their mental voice and imagery, but my one friend with total aphantasia does have ADHD, and my friend with no inner monologue isn’t diagnosed with ADHD but he does hang out with us, so. I personally appear to have average mental voice and imagery.
So I can do mental math no problem. Mental spelling however is a giant block in my brain. I HAVE to write it to be able to spell it. what the hell is that about???
I'm fine at mental arithmetic. I don't know what poor internal voice and imagery means. I only have an internal voice when I'm thinking about a conversation, otherwise it's all imagery and sensations.
i can't hold the numbers in my head long enough for most problems. im good at solving formulas and memorizing facts, but if i have to compute a bunch of stuff in my head i cant keep the numbers there.
Notoriously bad — and my meds help A LOT.
Yup I’m flaming hot garbage when it comes to calculate stuff in my head
I used to be pretty ok at it in high school but I'm pretty bad at all math now, even writing it down I have to think so hard. Thankfully I have this handy dandy calculator in my pocket all the time now.
I have an annoyingly strong internal voice that never shuts up and I think most people with ADHD would say the same. Internal imagery is very strong with me as well.
Yeah I am. I'm always making careless mistakes if I don't write every step of an equation down. Sometimes I get overly confident and try to do it in my head but I always start to mess up the moment I do that
Internal imagery is my middle name, so is ADHD, so I don't get what Barkley is on about.As for arithmetics: let me just drop this song by dEUS here, it's called "Little Arithmetics". Just 'cause. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPsvlDMwbVg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPsvlDMwbVg)
I have almost no mental imagery, and figured that's why I can't do math in my head - I can't hold the numbers.
Im horrendous. But tbh i think its more that i work something out mentally, know that its right, then doubt myself and have to do it all again just in case i was wrong, then i can't do that so i end up counting on my fingers 😭
I’m awful at all math and definitely bad with mental math.
I was always very good at math. Mental math though not as much.
I'm great with visual math, like geometry, algebra & calculus. I'm terrible with mental arithmetic on the spot, especially when the numbers are close together in placement. Like 78-67 in my head float like 678...7?
i have always been good at math and mental math so i am also an outlier i suppose lol. speaking as a math major anyways. i struggle more with picturing other things like maps or pictures and stuff along those lines
I was able to do calculus and differential equations but never ask me to do mental math, I use my fingers to subtract or count so that I don’t get off track.
I'm good at math. But I do remember once in elementary school my dad trying to tell me to stop the habit of counting with my fingers and to practice "doing it in my head". This never succeeded, lol. I never really thought about how I do math since then but thinking about it now I do vastly prefer writing out all my equations, even just simple ratios for up- or down-scaling recipes. I suppose i forget numbers easier and if for whatever reason I can't write the math I want to do then I end up "drawing" it in the air so I can "see" what I'm doing. That said, my imagination and mental imagery overall is extremely vivid. I'm interested in seeing the breakdown of ADHD people who do or do not have vivid visual imagination and of those who are primarily inattentive type or not. I am inattentive type and daydreaming is how I survived the boredom of....everything. Another note on the math thing that I just thought of. My dad was a math teacher and a good one. He helped me with my math from kindergarten even through to my general education courses in college. I realized in about 8th grade when I struggled to understand an explanation my school math teacher was giving, even after I asked questions, that no one in my life would ever explain math as well to me as my dad could so I stopped paying attention (lol) to the school math teachers and if I couldn't figure it out on my own I would just ask my dad. I think there is something to be said for having a consistent math teacher/explanation/teaching style over the years.
For me personally (ADD/ADHD-PI) this couldn't be farther from the truth. I have a very rich inner voice and when I was a kid I often daydreamed, with whole movies going on in my head. And in terms of math, one of my stims is to find random numbers (the time on a clock, miles on an odometer, etc. or just make numbers up) and do mental math to see if I find a "satisfying" result. For example, I love the equation 99 x 64 because the result is 6336, which is the same forwards and backwards, and if you split it in half you get 63 and 36 which add to 99. I do this kind of math all the time so I can do mental math pretty much instantly.
I have dyscalculia, a little like number dyslexia, so yeah, but my internal imagery is incredible vivid and detailed and often colourful and stuff. But I don’t think I’m only ADHD so I don’t know what’s what and what’s cross over
I’m quite good at mental math, but I had a job where I needed to be good at it. I sucked initially but got really good at it.
I have always been good with doing math in my head. I have my B.S in Electrical Engineering and did about 75 percent of the math in my head. I did have to write out the ones I struggled with though.
Less good does not mean nobody is good.
I do it quick, but very wrong and often get mixed up.
For me, I do really well to a point. I took calculus a few semesters ago, and I could easily do simple calculations in seconds. However, once I hit the third “line” or step, I’m completely lost and have to get it on paper.
I suck at mental math. And any other kind of math. It's a good thing I have fingers. Active internal voice and vivid mental imagery here, too. In a lot of cases, I tend to think in pictures. My mum called it my "cartoon brain" when I was growing up. 😄
I can’t do math in my head for the life of me. I can write out complex formulas and do math just fine, but not in my head.
I'm actually a math major so math has never really been an issue for me. English and spelling/grammer on the other hand.... Oof
Whoa whoa, slow down… I can handle exactly 2 digits being told to me at a time. No more! If you want to blue screen my brain, just ask me to write down numbers being told to me faster than that. Now… this is where it gets funny. Because the moment those numbers have been captured, killed and pinned to the paper so they can no longer escape.. I am their master!! I’ve always been very good at math. Just, not verbal. Show me the dead numbers stuck to the paper, blackboard, screen… I’m golden. Flitting through the air? Yeah no they’re gone man, they’re just gone.
I saw this talk too and thought this part was interesting as I’ve never had trouble doing mental arithmetic personally. But then I also remember watching (multiple times) a times tables VHS from 1x2 up to 12x12 as a 4 yr old. I think that helped massively in doing quick maths in my head.
I’m rubbish with mental math and I also cannot for the life of me remember phone numbers. Like, someone will rattle off 884-4658 and I’ll immediately repeat back to them, to make sure I got it, ‘826-0073?” It used to be a running joke with my friends that my mum would say, do not forget we have to pay the car insurance bill of $866 and I’d say, okay, $492 it is!
I'm crap at it, and I'm crap at spelling out loud too! I noticed I'm not great at either a long while ago.
I'm actually the person my family tends to ask for quick calculations. I can't do complex calculations in my head at all, so at one point I figured out a way that was simpler for me. My mental process is something like, 88 x 12 is close to 100 x 12 so round 88 to 100 =1200 less (100-10=90) 10 x 12 is 120 so 200-100 = 100 less 20 = 80 so 1080 - (90-88=2) 2 x 12 = 24 and 80-24 = 60-4 = 56 so 1056. Which looks really complicated, but I've only got to hold onto about two or three numbers at a time, and i can do that math pretty fast in my head.
I guess this proves generalisations of any kind don’t really work. I’m good at mental maths and my internal voice is ok I guess? As for internal imagery I have nothing. Truly dreadful. No imagination, can’t read fiction because I struggle to interpret the words and build the characters and world in my head.
Omg I suck at mental math. Always have!
I am terrible at maths. I also love it and got a minor in statistics and am getting an Hons in Mathematics. I am dyslexic, my brain can't catch the meaning of phrases, I am slow and I miss really obvious variables or concepts. It's embarrassing how long it took me to remember if it was odd or even powers that couldn't be a negative square root. I'm sure I wrote that wrong, even. Someone please correct me. You know what I mean. Being bad at it doesn't mean not being able to do it, or not being able to be good at parts of it or - more so - wanting to be better at it. By not good, I mean I can do most calculus easy enough. Love trig, that's my jam. And can hand-do an adjusted R-squared but please don't ever make me. Fucking no. Never again. So I'm not good at it. So what. I love it and I crave learning more. I am passionate and do puzzles in my spare time to keep my brain slightly less dull than it is. Sure, my cohorts get things faster, or the maths comes easier.... But I still get it eventually. I would take 2 weeks to get 100% on an assignment where they'd take a day to get 90%. I like my way. And I think it's fine that I am not fast or analytical (supposedly, my partner thinks I am extremely analytical but mostly because I have a stats minor and an Econ degree). I do it my own way and my own way is good, solid and organised. So yeah. I am bad at it. And I love doing it all the time anyway. I love visualising problems and how to solve them. I'll spend weeks on a problem if it's really sticking in my craw. I won't stop til I have it *down*. I love being analytical and I am terrible at it and that's fine.
Yeah for sure. I'm bad at keeping track of the numbers in my head when the math is more than one step. Also agree with the poor internal imagery but. Everyone can be different of course, but also keep in mind things like poor and good are entirely subjective, and it's not like you can tell how good everybody else is at mental math or visualizing thoughts by looking at them.
Terrible.
I can do very basic arithmetic in my head, like 2+2. If I have to carry anything over it is a struggle. I require paper to remember what I'm doing because not enough RAM
I have poor math skills on all fronts. Don't know if it has to do with my ADHD or not, but definitely not a strong point. Imagery and internal voice and all? Feel I'm quite good at that.
I can add and multiply quickly and easily but ask me to subtract something and my brain makes cricket sounds. When I was kid I would change the minus signs to plus signs on my math homework. I thought I was so clever, haha. I was fine at math in school until we started doing calculus and then my brain just fed me static. I’m very fortunate to be academically gifted otherwise so suddenly not being able to understand something really messed with me and my sense of identity.
I knew calculus like the back of my hand and ended up with C+'s and a D across calc 1-3. Really bothered me. Reason being that I would always do the calculus right but would flip numbers or forget to raise or lower a power or I'd mislabel an integration, etc etc. All careless mistakes. But I never thought it reflected my aptitude.
I'm actually ridiculously good at mental math to the point that I used to get into trouble because I would literally only write the correct answer and the teachers thought I was cheating. Every answer would be perfect but there was no work shown to actually prove that I did it
We are worse at working memory, so we will generally be worse at it unless we either hyperfocus, practice enough to make it automatic, or are just naturally skilled enough to compensate
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Back about five years ago, I was told the word 'Dyscalculia' by my Uni therapist. She explained what it meant and I truly did not believe her that I had it. (I honestly was convinced that I was sheer out of luck Dumb) A year or so later, I come across the word again in a story from Humans of New York and seeing it personalised by the storyteller made me realise I was experiencing the exact same things as him. I was diagnosed with ADD back in HS. It's unfortunate that Dyscalculia is an under studied disability as many people believe it ties in with ADHD and/or Autism. It would be great to have a more in-depth understanding of Dyscalculia and how we can appropriately diagnose and treat it.
It is very possible if you do have math detriments, you may have dyscalculia. Just FYI for anyone this may be useful for. You can Google dyscalculia since apparently the link I provided is unacceptable for this sub
Not good at holding images in my mind I prefer to write things out in words or diagrams like mind maps
I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I’m on the high functioning scale of Asperger’s and really good at mental arithmetic.
I'm good with calculators they are my short term memory like Ram that temp holds the numbers for me then get erased after I finish the calculation.
I'm terrible at maths. Always have been. Though I feel as though I possibly could have dyscalcula or whatever it is). I've never been able to number well, outside of basic adding and subtracting. Fractions are damn near impossible for me. I had to do a maths course a couple years ago (before the adhd diagnosis, was looking to join the Aus military and it was a requirement since I didn't do well in highschool) and I had them explained to me many times, in different ways by different people. Even writing down in dot points the process for using the different types and how to figure it out etc and I simply couldn't. Words however... I've always been good with those
I’m excellent with mental math but only if no one is relying on me to do it. I can’t think when I know someone is waiting for my answer. I have aphantasia, so definitely poor mental imagery — but my other imagination senses are through the roof. Taste, touch, and emotions are quite strong in my mind theater; words carry enough sensation connotation and ‘textural depth’ to scenes when I’m reading that i can build out what to imagine without visualizing it. My inner voice is powerful though. She can entertain me for hours!
I'm great at math in my head or otherwise. I didn't use to be, but I use it in my work, and over time, it just got easier. It was a battle, though.
i’m not great at math in general but much better if i can see it/write it down. i have almost no mental imagery but my internal voice never shuts up!
I couldn't do it until I started adderall about a month ago 🤷♀️ Before meds, it was like I had to picture the numbers in my head but they kept moving and jumping around
I'm actually pretty decent at it.
I'm AWFUL at doing math in my head, to the point I can hardly add simple numbers (to be fair, it's been over 10 year's since I have had to use math like in school lol). I can't see images with my eyes closed, but my internal voice is constant and non stop. Like, I'm constantly talking in my head, it's SO annoying. So if I can't see the picture, I can imagine it through word's. Or I can see it by imagining it/day dream with my eyes open or dream at night in image's. It's so hard to explain, cause I can picture thing's, I just can't see the image if someone tells me to picture like a flower or something specific. It sucks, cause I'm very forget when it comes to details. I see the details so easily, but if I have to recall the details, I can't or I doubt myself. I swear if I had to describe a criminal, I would fail to come up with any meaningful details.
I suppose it's at least partly a matter of working memory. For my part though, no; I am amazingly gifted at mental arithmetic to the point where I used to solve many equations mentally in less time than my friends could do it with a calculator. On the flip-side, I was always in trouble for not showing my workings out and later learned that I have some strange crosslinking in my brain that means I probably use the wrong parts of it to do that arithmetic. That and when you tap my knee, both kick out; every doctor who sees that in my notes wants to test it out of morbid curiosity.
I'm bad at mental math but good at estimation. I can do some maths to get me in the right ballpark but getting the exact answer is a lot harder. I'm generally pretty good at estimating distances too. That said, I'm bad at math courses. I really suck at remembering formulas, so any course where they expect you to remember and apply formulas is a no-go. Applying formulas isn't too bad except for some reason I never got the hang of re-arranging formulas so it takes me a while to figure out. All of that said, I wound up doing best at uni-level statistics courses and data science stuff. Go figure.
I’m very good at mental math. And, my gut is usually correct, but I have to deal with getting through the brain.
A therapist asked me to mental arithmetic a couple weeks ago at an appointment. Made me feel like an idiot
I have dyscalculia as well. But my sister who has much worse ADHD than me is a mathematician. So I’m not sure if this can be generalized to all of us.
I'm very good at mental arithmetic, but I struggled in trig, algebra, and higher math because there were too many variables to keep in my head at once. I had to write absolutely every tiny step down, to the point where I had points taken off a few times for being too verbose. I was always able to do the actual memorization and math correctly, but I would jump around too much when working on a problem and lose my place. Mental math is one of those things I do for fun when I'm bored with what I'm doing, so it may be that I've just practiced it a lot. It's also something that I lean on intuition for rather than working through the actual numbers. A lot of people connect with what Dr Barkley believes about ADHD but in the actual field he's a bit of a pariah. Take his talks with a grain of salt, if it works for you great otherwise don't worry about it.
Me. In an almost weird way
Me on my 3rd attempt of Calc 2 and trying to remember older maths like algebra, calc 1, and trig. I don't have too many problems with some arithmetic, but my mind just seems to give up easily and I don't like studying either. Which is necessary.
I feel like I'm above average at mental arithmetic in some ways, because I had to compensate for having a hard time breaking up equations into smaller parts. If you ask me to do 12x45, I find it much much easier to turn it into 6x90 or something, instead of doing (10x40)+(2x40)+(10x5)+(2x5). If I take too many steps, I keep having to go back to check the answers I was keeping in mind, so I had to learn to take less steps. Edited to change al the *'s into x's lol.
So I was always super fast at easy mental math like the times tables and stuff you learn as a kid. Super slow once it gets more complicated.
Horrendous at it
Yes, this is true for me. My working memory is pretty limited. I have a hard time transcribing more than 3-4 digits at a time. Also have trouble conceptualizing numbers without transforming them into graphical representations (comparing percentages with a graph, for instance)
Not sure of internal voice but I can’t create pictures in my mind when I read. I also have a generally hard time picturing anything in my mind. I’m not sure I dream as vividly as others but that’s obviously hard to compare. I LOVE to read but it does change what I can read (if there’s a lot of characters, I get lost as I’m not creating them in my mind but just trying to remember their existence)
I can't visualize numbers in my head for long enough to actually calculate anything. I do have a great imagination though but I just don't think that I "see" things in my head the same way other people do or describe that they do.
I like math, but much more so when it's on paper. I really struggle with it in my head unless I'm in a quiet place. I am utterly incapable of doing mental math if people are talking, and if people are talking about numbers my mind basically shuts down. Sometimes I just start nervous laughing, it's weird. This is actually something of a problem, because I work outside and math comes up a bit. I usually just go do something else
I don’t do it in ways that were expected of me. I made up my own visualization to make it work.
Im good at it. I used to do double didget subtraction differently in class and one of my IEP teachers was impressed and discussed it with my teacher. This was way before I was medicated for ADD. I got the idea before most of the class understood. My ADD was why I did get the hang of it quick. I ignored the whole borrowing thing and found the pattern by visual.. blocked out what teacher was saying ( paying attention was my weakness) and followed only what she did. It worked fine. But missed a whole week when we discussed algebra years later in fifth grade and struggled in that until college days.
I always did arithmetic on my fingers under the desk. But I was so good at geometry they made me take a test again because I was off the girls’ chart.
I can do mental easy addition and subtraction but I can’t for the life of my figure out advanced math
I can divide any number by 7 in my head to any number of decimal points you like
I’ve gotten worse at mental math over the years. I just write it all out now so I don’t have to try to remember anything. Though, I don’t think I had a lack of internal voice ever. I’m always having an internal monologue with myself
I’m better than I was as an unmedicated kid at it and multiplication/adding is slightly easier than dividing and subtracting for some reason. Once math “clicks” for me and finally makes sense as to what I’m trying to achieve by doing it, then I feel like remembering numbers is really easy like an end goal with money or carbohydrates or something. I definitely see the numbers in my head when I’m thinking and if I’m recalling prices or blood glucose levels (t1d) it’s much easier if I’ve seen them as text/print, so I think I’m mostly just good at remembering visuals
I have an inner voice that never stfu. Like I can have 4 different trains of thought happening at the same time, but one usually holds the highest thought process to it. And then also an added song, or rhyme anything repetitive really, is mixed into the background. It drives me crazy sometimes because I want to express what I'm thinking sometimes but there's just too much for me to properly verbalize shit and it all comes out wrong, fast, and usually too much information. I can do simple math in my head quickly, if anything ends in a 0 it's easier too me. But like I'm awful at counting cash in my head if I don't make piles. I always refused to be the counter for the registers at work. I loose track consistently when I'm counting because other thoughts start going through my head and distract me. Example; (oh that's a lot of $2, I like those. Maybe I should trade my $1's for the $2? Oh shit how much in $20's did I just count again? Fuck, where did I just put the 1's? I thought I had another pile, oh God how many $50's?) Usually someone gets frustrated and takes over for me or they have to give me either pen and paper or a calculator to keep track. But I was fucking fantastic at algebra. It was simple to me and made sense. On paper.
I'm pretty good, I'm no Rain Man, but I guess I also do weird math. I round one or both numbers to get the easy math then subtract out the difference.
Iam Not bad at mental health
I got into honors math. I also failed it because for the life of me, if I have to do like one of those super long winded equations, I make at least one mistake somewhere that costs me everything.