3/3: Happy Dyscalculia Day!

Before I start giving a personal perspective, I wanted to acknowledge the holiday! Today is a day to spread awareness, since this condition is not known and honestly, kind of shoved aside.

According to Nick Jones from dyscalculiaforum.com, these are the following symptoms; Please note that I do not take credit for the following.
http://www.dyscalculiaforum.com/viewpage.php?page_id=1

• Normal to accelerated language skills in verbal comprehension, reading, writing, and poetic ability. Visual memory for the printed word. Decent in science until a level of math is required.
• Tend to accelerate in the creative arts.
• Poor name recollection.
• Extreme difficulty with abstract time and directions. Usually have difficulty with sequence of events and keeping track of time. May be chronically late or extraordinarily early.
• Extreme difficulty with mathematics. Numbers tend to flip or become unrecognizable shapes, unable to comprehend symbols at times, inability to grasp mathematical concepts.
• Inability to grasp and remember math concepts, rules, formulas, sequence (order of operations), and basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. Also have poor long term memory, especially with retention & retrieval and concept mastery- may be able to perform math operations one day, but will draw a complete blank the next! May be able to do book work but fails all tests and quizzes, especially if extra time is not allowed.
• May be unable to comprehend or "picture" mechanical processes. Tend to lack "big picture/ whole picture" thinking. Poor ability to "visualize or picture" the location of the numbers on the face of a clock, the geographical locations of states, countries, oceans, streets, etc.
• Poor memory for the "layout" of things, such as buildings, directions, etc. Gets lost or disoriented easily. Tends to have a very poor sense of direction, loose things all the time, and seem absent minded. 
• May have difficulty grasping concepts of formal music education. Difficulty sight-reading music, learning fingering to play an instrument, etc. However, this is not always true.
• May have poor athletic coordination, difficulty keeping up with rapidly changing physical directions. Difficulty remembering rules for playing sports.
• Difficulty keeping score during games, or difficulty remembering how to keep score in games, like bowling, etc. Often looses track of whose turn it is during games. Limited strategic planning ability for games, like chess, and limited ability to grasp the concept or process of the game.

This professor in London has a really amazing grasp on part of the testing process and different symptoms for Dyscalculics. Please check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p_Hqdqe84Uc

I will share my own story following this post, however, it may be broken up into chapters. This, like dyslexia, doesn't just effect people during their school years; it effects them for the rest of their lives. One thing to keep in mind for all; We are not stupid. We are not lazy. We do apply ourselves, in fact, we probably apply ourselves 50% more than other students in math classes just to get a C or D.
To top it all off, most of us have average to above average IQ's.

Raise the awareness and speak up.

Happy Dyscalculia Day!