Are you good at maths?

I was rubbish at maths at school, but became very good at deconstructing contrapuntal music, which isinherently  mathmatical. I have had some of my happiest times picking out the different voices in Bach fugues, marking them in differennt colours on the score( then practising each part separately before putting it all together).. So very absorbing. I also so did a great deal of harmony for a diploma, which is basic maths, in one sense. I tried maths GCSE in my thirties and the only element I could consistently do well was algebra!

I find it hard to conceive of very big numbers, so I have to try to create a context.  So I constantly do things like this...

Similarly, my language skills are very high in English.  But I've never been able to successfully learn other languages, despite years of trying, and my knowledge of grammar is limited.  I play the piano, but by rote.  After many, many years of learning pieces and being able to play them by heart, I'm still unable to relate chords to keys, etc.  I can't improvise or anything.  I have no real instinct or talent for it.  I definitely think that those skills are something innate more than something learned.  My niece's son (she of the non-diagnosed Aspie computer geek husband) seems to have some of his father's traits.  He's 14 and he picked up a guitar for the first time just before Christmas.  He's already - with no knowledge of music theory - able to pick out riffs, play chord inversions, and do complex runs.  It just comes to him naturally.  After over 50 years of trying with the guitar, I can still only play two chords!

Absolutely.  'Simply arithmetic' is my limit, though, which is why I voted 'No'.  I can't do any of that other stuff.  I've tried to get my head around it, but it simply won't sink in.  I remember on my IQ test having some questions which would have been easier to answer with more than my rudimentary knowledge of maths - which made me question the supposed neutrality of the test.  The kind of questions where you have to figure out distances apart of two trains traveling at different speeds, or the distance between two points when they're separated by zig-zagging lines of varying length.  They always leave me stumped because I have no knowledge of that kind of maths - angles, relativity, etc.

I rarely reach for a calculator, too.  I can add up shopping as I go along.  As you say, plenty of non-autistic people can do this.  There's nothing very special about it.  I rarely need to check my bank statement.  I have the same amount going in each month and the same direct debits coming out.  I then know roughly what's left and deduct from that as I spend on other things, so the running total is in my head.  Partly, this comes from having a low income and having to budget.  But also I have a pathological fear of debt.  If I went as much as fiver overdrawn, I'd be in a major panic.

I just process it along the lines of the above comment.  It usually takes a few seconds.

I always thought I was a duffer until I took the Mensa test and got an IQ of 148, and they allowed me in!  That's when I thought that maybe I had a brain after all.  So, why didn't it feel like it?  Looking back on it, I guess my brain just wasn't wired for school.  Later, when I went to uni, I found my way to learn.  Alone, at my own pace, following my instincts rather than a curriculum.  But a fat lot of good any of that's done me, too!  Seriously, I don't down-play it.  I didn't go through all that to maximise my earnings potential or anything.  It was more about self-realisation.  And I'm still not really 'educated'.  My head is a scrapbook.  I know lots about a little, and little about lots.  I get by.  I've learned to blag it.  I suppose at least I know that I know nothing.  Too many people know nothing, but think they know everything.

There is more to maths than simply arithmetic.  If you can manipulate formulae, or work out odds and statistics, if you can do allgebra, or trigonometry, or expand binomals, or do differential and integral calculus, you could be good at Maths without being good at working out sums in your head.

I can work out many sums in my head, but it is more of a party trick these days.  Most young 'uns (those below about 60) automatically reach for the callcullator and as often as not get it wrong.  I very rarely reacch for a calculator, add up my shopping bill as I am doing the shopping and get it right.  But all autistic people do not have to do this!

Haha!  Round up £3.89 to £4 to make it easier.  33p is the 3x11p rounding up.  3 times £4 is £12, less 33p = £11.67.  10% of £11.67 is 116.7.  Round that up to £1.17.  £11.67 minus £1.17....

It looks harder explained that way.  I just do it in my head.  It gets easier with practice. 

I just read the question and the answer is there, it's like walking I don't think of how to do it it just happens. Totally opposite to my relationship with words, to write a word i have to spell it as I write one letter at a time. Dyslexia i hate it.

Me too, any more than three numbers and Complete mind fog.I kind of goninto a trance if allowed to, I just shut it down.

it could be due to dyslexia as my memory suffers badly. It has held me back as well as autism. 

I struve to learn, analyse everything in minute detail only to have much of it vanish when needed! It literally turns me into an incoherent mess.

I just read it and my mind starts shutting down 

Do you literally think that sum through, or does it kind of slide through your head and you know the answer?

Yeah, but it's our wonderful IQ's that bestow upon us a deep understanding of that internal language we use around the majority of NT's:  "Seriously?",  "Pffft!",  "WTF?" etc. 

Thank you both, yes I am more focused on the other things that interest me more. I think that's the same for everyone right enough, we're good at the things we spend the most time on and we spend the most time on the things that interest us. 

I had a pre diagnostic appointment today.  Started discussing my IQ which is VIQ gifted.  All sounds wonderful all that gifted stuff doesn't it?  Except due to sensory issues I can't leave the house on my own :O So fat lot of good it's done me . . . :O lol x

I just think '3 times £4, minus 33p equals £11.67.  10% of £11.67 is £1.17.  Easy

Totally lost.com 

I was rubbish at everything at school - except reading and writing.  I gave up on maths whilst still at primary school.  Geometry, trig, algebra - they all passed me by.  Nowadays, I know what pi is, and the stuff about the square of the hypotenuse... but that's as far as it goes.

Mental arithmetic, though, is something I'm good at.  I can add up numbers and work out percentages pretty quickly - often to the surprise of others.  I used to work in a shop where we gave 10% discount if people bought 3 of the same item.  So someone would come to the till with 3 things priced at £3.89 each, and I'd ask them for £10.50... and they'd say 'Don't forget to take off my 10%', and would look at me aghast when I told them I already had!  I just think '3 times £4, minus 33p equals £11.67.  10% of £11.67 is £1.17.  Easy!'  Mind you  - 10% is a simple one to figure out.

My dad had a calculator brain.  He didn't have much education, but he used to play darts and could work out scores in his head whilst the scorer was still thinking about it!

I suppose I ought to try boning up on some of this stuff, but I don't really have a logical brain that way.  I'm good with using computers (though I've forgotten a lot of Excel), but I could never do something like coding.  My niece's husband, on the other hand - an undiagnosed Aspie - ought to be earning a fortune in Silicon Valley.  He just absorbs that stuff.

This has been really interesting so far!  I was really expecting a high spike on people being great at maths and actually it seems that so far the majority are weaker numerically than I guess I'd imagined (me included).  It will be interesting to watch this and see where it ends up! 

There are lots of 'assumptions' that I had about Autism, before I spoke with other adults with Autism on here that have blown apart since I joined this forum. I think that some of these assumptions have stopped me from seeking diagnosis.  I went for my pre diagnostic screening today which was very interesting.  I was so nervous about it.  My husband was with me.  When it was over, I was so busy thinking about the next thing, that I didn't thank the Doctor and just left the room.  My husband said I hardly looked her in the eye at all.  He just did this neurotypical shrug with her at the end like "see this is what I'm working with Doctor".  In any other circumstance it would have really annoyed me but in the context of an ASD diagnostic session, I suppose it wasn't so bad - eek :O 

He said I do it all the time but most of the time he doesn't have the heart to pull me up on it.  He said he thought it was fair game in an ASD diagnostic interview! 

i was crap at maths at school - was in the lowest set.  But when I left school I really got into calculating planetary positions and navigation. I took my Ocean Yacht Master certificate many years ago (so I could sail alone :-)) and excelled at plotting vectors and navigating by the stars.  Who'd have thought!  I'm a bit surprised by your poll though.

Computer Geek but also into literature, philosophy and psychology, nature... so passable as human as well as machine!