Does anyone have experience of hypernumeracy?

[Vallderama]

I was googling about kids with innate maths abilities and autistic traits this evening and came across this observed pattern which matches ds14 exactly. He's always had a huge facility with maths and since yr 1 at school physics also, classed as gifted, put forward for extra programmes, doing the GCSE early etc. However he struggled a lot socially when younger and had a couple of physical markers typical of autism too, but never enough to quite add up to a diagnosis. He's still a quirky individualistic thinker but now is happy with himself being like that. the autistic traits have calmed down a lot and are not problematic but the fascination with numbers and physics remains. He just sees numbers in a different way to how other people do.

I was ofc aware of all the rainman type clichés but actually it appears that other parents have observed similar patterns in their children, and it is a legitimate "thing", but there doesn't appear to be a lot of information about it on the internet.

So I thought I'd ask if anyone on Mumsnet has experience of this. Honestly when I read about it, it was like a lightbulb going off in my head. That this is absolutely ds.

The books by physicist Richard Feynman talk about him seeing numbers and equations this way (synesthesia). He said the figures would have colour and size and position in 3D space.

I have not read the entire thread but read most of the first page. I really really really thought my son had autism until I had him tested and they said he didn’t. Which shortly after he was tested, the autism signs did start to fade.

His math skills are off the charts though. He will be five on Sunday and he can add, subtract, multiple, divide and tell you all the square numbers from one to one hundred. He is just in general obsessed with numbers.

I’m having a hard time getting a diagnosis, mainly because of the lack of child psychologists in my area. But he is having problems on school (socially/emotionally/behavioral) which I knew would happen. He is bored academically, but not where he needs to be in the other category’s.

I meant to reply to you but think I just added onto the thread at the end 🤦🏼‍♀️

Is anyone else still active on this ?

I suspect my 4 year old has this. He’s completely obsessed with numbers and has an almost photographic memory. He’s really into the very big numbers, past a trillion etc.