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I tried to explain ADHD math to someone and they didn't understand at all (lemmy.zip)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Edit: it appears that this is not exclusive to ADHD.

Posting this meme stemmed from my own efforts to explain my thought process when doing math and how it is similar to other people with ADHD doing math, while being different from every neurotypical person I'd talked to on the same subject.

While I didn't make the meme itself, instead finding it in my saves and wanting to share, I did accidentally spread misinformation that I had only backed up with personal anecdotal evidence.

I'll leave this up just so people can see the explanation below but this appears to not be ADHD related and just due to different people doing math in their heads differently...

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[-] [email protected] 58 points 5 days ago

This has absolutely nothing to do with ADHD

[-] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

I have no attention span and this is not how I do math.

[-] [email protected] 134 points 6 days ago

uhhhh that's not how everyone does it?

[-] [email protected] 31 points 6 days ago

7+6

You need 3 to get to 10. 3 left over. 10+3=13.

I'd split up the 6 into (3,3) in my head

Same thing as 7+3+3

[-] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago

Common core math calls that “friendly numbers”.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It is. Some people find more common numbers easier to add, then just figure out the difference. People in this community love to call totally normal stuff “adhd logic.”

[-] [email protected] 112 points 6 days ago

This has nothing to do with ADHD... mixing up stuff is just confusing people

[-] [email protected] 46 points 6 days ago

I try not to be all "that's not ADHD that's just normal" here but yeah this one has nothing to do with ADHD.

[-] [email protected] 30 points 6 days ago

A Therapist told me that there is a lot of nonsense on the web, especially in the AuDHD space, and yeah it tends to go in a "you are a scorpio, you do X" way

[-] midnight_puker 10 points 6 days ago

I'm a scorpio and I do X all the time

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[-] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

One of the worst parts of the latest ADHD wave

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[-] [email protected] 53 points 5 days ago

I'm sorry, but this is a silly statement. This is by no means an ADHD thing. It's a pattern understanding or logic

I'm trying to teach my kid this. Not to use this specific method for addition, but recognize and understand patterns in math.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

What most people misunderstand about mental illness diagnoses is that most people have most of these symptoms. It's only when these symptoms overlap and disrupt your ability to *healthily function as an individual that they require a diagnosis and medication/therapy.

Edit: Added healthily as that's the real distinction.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago

i was gonna say, this is ADHD math? I just thought this was mental math in short lmao.

[-] [email protected] 46 points 6 days ago

That's the smart way to do math. I mean not with such small numbers but you'd do the same thing adding up large numbers, you break down the numbers and rearrange them in a way that's easier to compute.

Algebra probably feels intuitive to you.

They're also trying to teach that in math classes (it gets called "new" math) but the boomers are freaking out because "why can't they just do normal additions like we used to, this is so complicated". And the answer to that is, 99% of the time you'll be doing algebra because we literally all carry a calculator in our pockets and sometimes on our wrists at all times and we never need to just do a long division. And that kind of thinking really makes it easy to break down formulas because your brain thinks in terms of moving stuff around in an equation.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

I think the reason "new math" gets flack, is because it's a new way of teaching math, and alot of teachers aren't as good at teaching in that way yet. Still, kids should be taught that it can be a way one does calculations. Another thing I think should be incorporated into early childhood education is the use of an abacus, the Japanese do this and it supposedly helps greatly with mental math.

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

They're also trying to teach that in math classes (it gets called "new" math) but the boomers are freaking out because "why can't they just do normal additions like we used to, this is so complicated".

So, as a childless Xennial, I have to ask... is today's "new math" the same "new math" that people complained about in the 60s?

https://youtu.be/W6OaYPVueW4

If so, that's an awfully long time for something to be shunned as "new."

we never need to just do a long division.

Truth. I recently got a neuropsych evaluation and part of it was an unexpected (to me) IQ test. And staring me in the face, for the first time in ~30 years, was a few pages of arithmetic problems. Took me a minute to recall how to do decimal multiplication but it did come back to me. Long division? Nope. Had no freaking clue. Given that it was timed I just left blank anything I couldn't work out in my head. Maybe if I had time for trial and error I could have eventually figured it out. But one thing is for sure... the odds of me ever needing that skill again are fairly low.

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[-] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago

7 + how much is ten? 3
How much is left? 3
Ten plus however much is left = 13

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[-] [email protected] 32 points 6 days ago

This is how it is supposed to be taught. Common core has this exact quality of numbers explicitly shield or in primary school curriculum. Numbers are not static objects but the composite of infinite functions that can be used to determine the value in whatever base number system you want. Next time someone says school didn't teach math remind them that the US is something like 30th in the world at math and when the department of education tried to do something about it parents said it was too hard to understand and we just kept falling backwards.

Source : I have a BA and masters in math with a focus on education

[-] Murdoc 6 points 6 days ago

I agree that this is how it should be taught. I wasn't taught it until high school. And even then it was by a university student who came to our physics class to talk to us about the kinds of things we could expect in university. :p

I'm in Canada btw.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago

That's how our math teacher taught us to take shortcuts in elementary school.

[-] [email protected] 27 points 6 days ago

No, since 6+6=12, then because 7 is one more than 6, 6+7=13

[-] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

The meme has nothing to to with ADHD, however your explication of how it happened does.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago

7 is closer to 10 than 6 so we consider that 7 is really just a 10 with a size-3 hole in it and we fill that hole with 3 from the 6 giving a 10 with 3 left over which make 13.

Also not an ADHD thing.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

That's my strat too. Also confused what this has to do with adhd

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[-] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago

wait, no, this is how everyone does math. right? ...right?

[-] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

I think so, but I'm so deep on the autism spectrum that I'm probably SCUBA-certified, so...

sans-shrug

[-] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago

That's just called using heuristics, friend, though if ADHD impeded their progress in math, maybe ADHD people rely more on heuristics than neurotypicals do.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

Yeah this is just math.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

6=3+3, 7+3=10, 10+3=13

PS I had to edit this post because of typos.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago

Interesting, I make sets of 10. When I see 7 and 6, half of the 6 moves over to make 10 + 3. I say "moves over" because it feels like dividing tokens into sets in my head.

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

I calculate percentage like this. If 100% is the value, then I know what 10% is, then1%, so I do increments of both until I get to the correct value.

It may sound stupid,but it does help me get a % fast enough.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Thank you! That's pretty neat. I tried 27% of 65

I added two 10% increments (6.5+6.5)... but instead of adding 0.65 (1%) seven more times, I added a 5% increment (6.5/2 = 3.25) and then 2 increments of 1%

So 6.5+6.5+3.25+0.65+0.65 = 17.55

I still had to use a calculator to add those weird numbers (and also check my work), but it does seem really practical for easier numbers. I usually need percentages for pricing (i.e. discounts/tipping), and the percentages are normally in increments of 5%, so that's pretty useful for figuring out a 15% or 75% of something real quick... or at least get me really close (when talking about something like $X.99)

Regardless, I appreciate the head trick!

Edit: I guess I could've done 30% and then subtracted 1% twice; but it's the same issue (of adding weird numbers) with the same outcome anyway. So thanks again!

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

7+6=? 7+3+3=? 10+3=? 13=13 (Not ADHD)

[-] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

How I calculate percentages and settle for close enough.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

get to 10, add what's left.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

14 & 6 = 6

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Wait, let me check the math...

6+6=12 and 7 is one more than 6, so 6+7=13

Cool. Checks out.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

I don't think I have ADHD but I do it exactly this way.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

I definitely don't have ADHD and I do it exactly this way

[-] WolfLink 5 points 5 days ago

This is a good approach, but for this example I break it up as:

7+6=7+3+3=10+3=13

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[-] Classy 6 points 5 days ago

My brain actually computes it first as 7 + 5 = 12 + 1 = 13.

I add 5s together a lot at my work (14, 19, 24... 63, 68, 73....) hard to explain why, but my brain jumps to 5s very easily for addition because of it.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Same! I don't have ADHD, but I do 7 + 3 = 10, then 10 + 3 = 13

For some reason, 7 and 6 aren't addable to me.

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[-] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

6-3=3, 7+3=10, 10+3=13

[-] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

I always tell my children that Maths is finding the best way to cheat at a problem. Don't solve the hard problem. Solve the easy one that's kind of like the hard problem and then find the difference.

And judging by the school material that's how they're supposed to do it. But either the teachers aren't explaining it that way or the kids aren't listening.