#uneven abilities

[neurodiversitysci]

Twice-Exceptional Problems

When things that are hard for most people come easily to you, but you struggle with things most people find second nature:

People make a fuss over you when you do things that come relatively naturally to you.  That makes it hard to take compliments.

People take it for granted when you put forth monumental effort to do things you find almost impossible--and heap scorn on you if you do badly. So you become afraid to do badly and be "found out."

And then they wonder why you have impostor syndrome and a skewed sense of self.

[neurodiversitysci]

An Autistic Kitten meme that explains my entire life. Meme text: “Competent at things that people think you can’t do. Can’t do basic life things that people expect you to know.”

[neurodiversitysci]

Well, that explains a lot...

I recently discovered, mixed in with a bunch of drawings and writing from my childhood, a standardized test I took when I was eight years old. I didn’t even know I had taken any tests at that age, but there it was, a copy of the Weschler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT-I)--the test of academic skills that complements the better-known Wechsler IQ test.

One small detail at the end of the report blew my mind...and explained a lot about my life.

Not only was there a significant difference between my reading and math composite scores, but only one half of one percent of the reference population had at least that great a gap. Now, keep in mind that math isn’t even my weakest skill. If anything, it’s one of my strongest weaknesses. So it’s no surprise people don’t know what to make of the giant gaps in my skill set, because they’ve probably never met anyone as lopsided. They’ve never had reason to learn that such unevenness is even possible. 

5/14/17

[nonneurotypicalnonconformist]

reasons I am not neurotypical #37:

Because I am -- I say this after having been told it repeatedly, it doesn’t seem special to me -- brilliant with language, but completely abysmal with math; on a daily basis, with concrete applications, I function by counting/measuring/visualizing the numbers involved.