How autistic children learn maths

[januarysnowdrop]

I'm interested in finding out more about people's experiences of how autistic children learn maths. I'm wondering whether, for some of them, the dominant model of maths learning in mainstream schools (keep it real, very hands-on, practical maths, number lines, chunking etc) just doesn't work, and they might be better off with a more old-fashioned, abstract, numbers on the page sort of maths teaching.

I don't have any real evidence for this hunch, other than knowing one autistic 11 year old who has found old fashioned column addition much more logical than number lines etc, as well as the sense that all of those university mathematicians who are on the spectrum must have learnt maths the old fashioned way.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

And DS2 notices details, as well. When he's telling me about the numbers on the checkouts in the small Sainsburys, he remembers that the 9 is underlined, so does that with a minus tile!

My two are very different to each other with maths.

Ds1 finds it fairly easy but it's not his favourite subject. His main issue is with remembering to write down how he worked out the answer. This is entirely illogical to him as he's already given the answer.

Ds2 struggles, to the extent that we wondered if he had dyscalculia. Things improved when he did lots of repetition of the basics. Somewhere along the way he missed them, probably due to processing and working memory issues. He's now almost caught up to where he should be for his age.

This is a boy who still loves In The Night Garden (much to his brother's disgust). There is very little that is a lot too young for him.

Ouryve don't I bought dd2 a in the night garden comic and she's most vexed the pontipines hat doesn't fit
Her

I wish more teachers would try to understand ASD! In general my children need structure, it gives them a sort of "anchor", so announcing the plan of the lessons and if possible in a very visual way is really good ( and leave the plan up for the duration, so they know where they are.also announce what you will do next time at the end. I also think that because sometimes they have trouble recognising facial expression or tone of voice they might not pick up on oral praise so written praise and hard rewards are very important and will help their self-estim. I agree with making the classroom sensory friendly. Specifically to maths, I think that my DS might struggle when he has to learn a new method to do something that he already know how to do in another way if that makes sense, because he doesn't see the point. Other children might struggle with mental arithmetic because they might have a very poor short term memory.Also trust the parents, and meeting them to know a child specific needs will be really helpful as they are as many different people on the spectrum than off the spectrum.i think sometimes we may come across as over protective but I don't think we are it's just that our children needs are such that our request to support them might come across as futile when they are extremely important.

Yes, his speech is still emerging.

And he's making all the pronounciation gaffs of any toddler, bless him. He was staring at the clock in assembly, yesterday and his 1:1 was really hoping he didn't shout out "cock!" because all the other kids would have completely lost it.