Autistic people may be dealing with many other issues, dubbed comorbidities by the medical community. I've listed some of them in the mind map below. Many can’t be seen by others.
Dyscalculia is insidious. Most people find it difficult to do mental arithmetic, especially when they are out of practice so I think it feels like one of those “everyone has that” problems.
I’m pretty sure I have it because even though I can understand the theory behind many advanced mathematical methods used in science and engineering, applying the calculations causes great anguish for me. Doing a simple calculation takes more concentration and energy from me than explaining how and why the method works. Despite the difficulty I have applying my understanding of math, I find it equally difficult to convince people I have a brain function issue with regards to calculations BECAUSE I can understand the theory behind them.
@CynAq@autism101@actuallyautistic Yeah, it's pretty awful having it. It's impacted my career greatly as I am always having to avoid anything at all connected to accounting or budgeting (as a Project Manager, this can be challenging). Even with most basic math, I need a calculator.
@aproposnix@CynAq@autism101@actuallyautistic I’m still using my fingers to make basic additions and I’m not anymore ashamed by it (but it took me decades for not feeling anymore guilty).
@aproposnix@CynAq@autism101@actuallyautistic I imagine that you must have been able to accept it & not beat yourself up over it to get this far? (I’m cringing about the times I’ve felt critical of people using a calculator for basic calculations. I didn’t know this was a thing.)
@Susan60@CynAq@autism101@actuallyautistic I think the worst part is that when I was growing up, people automatically thought I was dumb because I was so bad at math. In my career, I just learned to avoid the need to use it. Without a doubt though, I'm far behind my peers in terms of opportunities and advancement.
@Susan60@aproposnix@autism101@actuallyautistic in my case, nobody thought I was dumb because I was constantly reading and learning things, which I promptly infodumped on family and the few friends I had.
They just thought I was bad at maths because I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered with the effort of learning it.
Their logic was explained to me like this: “you are very smart and learn things extremely quickly, except for math, so the only thing you need to “apply yourself” is this one thing, and since you can’t seem to do it year after year, you must be avoiding it on purpose, which means you’re a lazy fuck.”
@aproposnix@CynAq@autism101@actuallyautistic Since starting programming as a professional, I found out, that the most work goes into logic and testing said logic. Even CSS Specifity is more of a challenge than your daily programming tasks.
You next to NEVER use anything beyond basic math (except if you do graphic-intense stuff). And well, Speedcrunch (or Calculatur++ on Android) is a very good helper :D
@robinsyl@CynAq@aproposnix@autism101@actuallyautistic i get this a lot because I did mathematics at uni. People diminish my qualifications by saying "oh well it's easy for you" and some have even gone as far as saying it's cheating.
I'm no savant. I just have mathematics as one of my special interests. Because it's my S.I. I was interested and engaged.
I know people who deep dive into other subjects. Mine just happened to be mathematics. I still had to study hard.
@CynAq@aproposnix@autism101@actuallyautistic school forced me to ignore the inner voice that calculated sums in a snap. had to do their way, the hardest ways imagineable, and always show your work to prove you didn't "cheat". apparently you're cheating if you can do it in your head.
It’s not about cheating. It’s about showing that you’ve used & understood the method that’s been taught by the teacher, because that’s what’s on the curriculum, & is what the teacher is required to report on, not on whether the student is able to get the right answer. 😩
This is fine & actually helpful for NT students who struggle with Maths & need to follow a slow, baby steps set of directions, but confusing & distracting for students whose brains skip over unnecessarily basic steps. And an NT teacher who doesn’t “get” autism (or recognise an undiagnosed student), probably won’t realise that this is happening.
I remember loving Maths as a primary student, but getting confused by all of these steps, & losing interest in high school. By year 12, I could learn something one day & have forgotten it the next. I scraped through the exam, but found it very frustrating.
I didn’t start teaching until I was in my 40s (English & Humanities at high school), but watched a colleague teaching my mentor group one day & was fascinated by how things had changed, how kids were encouraged to explore different ways of working things out & coming up with the same answer. But for formal assessment purposes, they still had to “show their work”.
i understand this now but as a kid i was always told i was doing it wrong and that i was cheating. only once did they define cheating as including doing calculations mentally. their way seemed nonsensical and unnecessarily, absurdly difficult. any proofs of work were rejected because they weren't done their way and only their way. they were never good at showing "their way".
i really think i had some of the worst teachers ever.
@aproposnix
I know someone with dyscalculia and the everyday life doesn't look easy. The person has especially difficulties with dates and relies on the agenda for mostly everything related to date and time. For simple things like planning something for the end of the week, it's hard and the person needs the agenda to count the number of days for a quick exemple.
You can spot strategies to conform to the majority. The person will always be the first to ask for a date. The person takes its agenda and ask when it will take place ahead of the others.
@Autistrain@autism101@actuallyautistic Yeah, I must have things in my calendar or on my Kanban (or both). The funny thing is, that until I started working in corporate IT Environments, I didn't have many coping strategies. This is the only compliment of the corporate world you will ever hear from me, but it did make more more organized
@autism101@actuallyautistic IBS & other digestive issues, making us more vulnerable to related cancers, & muscular issues, all related to tension & anxiety.
@autism101@actuallyautistic i have at least 7 of those (still figuring things out after learning to believe myself, and still need to remind myself to believe myself regularly
I disdain the label comorbidity for many of them. Specifically, the ones where the social disability model applies. For instance, are sensory issues or NVL really a disability or are they primarily a problem because society won't give up a millimeter of comfort for the peak of the bell curve?
@ILikeYarnALot@autism101@actuallyautistic glad you find it useful. For anyone interested, the font is "glacial indifference" It's very legible for me so I use it all of the time.
While some of these are genetic and I can understand the comorbid designation, so many of them are the result of stress that it doesn't seem fair. Are they saying intellectual impairment? Is something that happens to everyone? Or are they saying it's a comorbid condition among the neurodivergent and it's different in the neurotypical?
@brainpilgrim@ILikeYarnALot@autism101@actuallyautistic these are just other issues that people with ASD often have in addition to the ASD. It's doesn't mean that everyone with ASD has all of these. My comorbities are mostly the neurodevelopmental issues with Anxiety (likely as a result of the others issues).
@aproposnix@autism101@actuallyautistic i suppose that, given the popular meaning of "disorder", "immune disorders" also refers to a better-than-normal, or above-average immune system?
I have at least five, and I know there are other things missing from this list like Alexithymia (which I think I might have) or Prosopagnosia/Face Blindness (which I don't but I know a lot of autistic people do).
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