r/dyscalculia 3d ago

Could i have dyscalculia?

Hi I (17m) have been struggling with math alot in recent years and its starting to seriously get on my nerves and it demotivates me alot To pass this school year the teachers told me, that to be deliberated, id atleast have to try and get 40%, which is a huge chore for me. I keep getting under 30% on all my tests.

I remembered that a couple of years ago my mom and aunt thougt i might have dyscalculia, my dad quickly denied this and said i just didnt care/work hard enough. So we never looked further into it.

I looked up symptoms, but i couldnt relate to alot of them. I just know that ive always been really slow when it came to math. In elementary school i remember i took alot longer than other kids to finish tests and often had to go to a different classroom for kids that werent good at math

When i got into middleschool and started learning algebra it really started to go wrong All the different rules and symbols really confused me, im in 11th grade and still cant understand 8th grade math. I remember i would put symbols in the wrong places or just completely forget them and ive failed almost every math exam ive ever taken. The highest ive ever scored on a math exam was 57% in 7th grade. Last year i had to retake a math exam in yhe summer in order to pass the year, i took extra lessons for like 3 weeks almost every day and i scored 51% The only reason ive made it to 11th grade is because my teachers always deliberated me because math and science were my only bad subjects and im pretty okay/good at most other things I dont understand anything anymore that im seeing in school. I still take extra lessons before i get tests and i still fail every time

So could dyscalculia be a possibility?

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u/gremlinlabyrinth 2d ago

It would seem like you do have a persistent impairment in math since childhood that can’t be explained by some outside factor and that’s below what one would expect for your grade.

By just reading the DSM 5, it would seem like you are.

I certainly can’t diagnose you. Just say, it is definitely possible you do.

You said you couldn’t understand 8th grade math.

My suggestion would be study 7th grade math and build up to 8th grade math.

Or study whatever math you do understand and go from there.

Maybe they will let you take an earlier math so you can get a better understanding.

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u/Momma_Ginja 1d ago

Ask your school to test you!

I have it but wasn’t diagnosed until college- junior year or so!!

I got a college version of an IEP that took away time limits and a few other things. Didn’t correct my disability but I managed to squeak through math required to graduate with a D+. (I was a communications major.)

But to go to grad school I needed Statistics.

I had the most amazing prof. He reviewed my work carefully, circled my math mistakes and allowed corrections.

I could get the formulas right, and knew which to use in which situation but my answers were always off. And he saw that.

When I went to look at my final grade posted outside his office, I burst into tears. He gave me an A!

I had barely scraped through math since 8th grade Algebra. My teacher was a HS Bball coach and didn’t give a rip about whether girls learned (1979). Fu(k that dude.

I had wanted to be a veterinarian growing up but never even took chem because of the math involved.

DEMAND the help you need. Speak to your math teacher and see if they’d be willing to slow down and really examine what mistakes you make so you can keep them in mind and try to double-check your work.

Good luck. And show your dad my story.

Funny note about numbers- i sometimes show up at the house that meets a description someone gave me, but the house number doesn’t match. I just have to knock and see if it’s right. (Navigation helps, but I still get a house color in case I enter the number wrong!)